82: Struggles Lift You Up. UFOs, PEDs and HGH. Fitness Advice & Tips. Martial Arts. Motivation to Have Discipline.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:08:25 - "And We Go On", by Will R. Bird. http://amzn.to/2uIGo7e 0:22:27 - "A Rumor of War", by Philip Caputo http://amzn.to/2tovLqY 0:38:07 - "China Marine", by E. B. Sledge http://amzn.to/2sEs4QA 1:0117 - Lessons learned from these books. 1:20:45 - Quick Questions from Interwebs. 1:25:08 - Swimming and/or running for Jiu Jitsu conditioning? 1:33:42 - Advice for shoulder and/or Pec injury recovery regarding bench press. 1:41:16 - Meal Prep? Or Wing it? 1:42:32 - Best Striking Training? 1:50:36 - Do you take Creatine? 1:52:05 - Have you ever surfed in Europe? 1:52:37 - Getting in Shape with a BAD back. 2:00:34 - Thoughts on PEDs or HGH. 2:02:35 - Thoughts on UFO/Aliens? 2:08:31 - How to encourage a sense of urgency. 2:12:02 - Best Martial Arts training if Jiu Jitsu is not local (70+ miles away) 2:19:01 - How to get "The Desire" to have Discipline. 223:52 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, 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, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. http://amzn.to/2szgaEj 2:44:24 - 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.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 82 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  I was walking down the street.

• 0:17Jocko Willink?

  And I was pretty sure I would die.

• 0:21Jocko Willink?

  And I did not mind. In fact, a large part of me looked forward to it. To that release, to go to heaven, to meet Christ.

• 0:34Jocko Willink?

  For it all to be over.

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  I courted death like a sailor courts a twirling Spanish barmaid.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  I was not afraid even as we trod across broken streets with asphalt and makeshift concrete piled like sloppy cake icing hiding the surprises below.

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  Large IEDs and screams and blood and burning flesh and burning vehicle tires. All superficially hidden. All obviously present. All a joke.

• 1:15Jocko Willink?

  Death had been at the forefront of my mind and part of my decision to become a soldier at all.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I considered myself, a soldier, a grunt, an infantryman. A ground pounder.

• 1:32Jocko Willink?

  A soldier.

• 1:36Jocko Willink?

  What else is there?

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  We all turned into soldiers on patrol.

• 1:44Jocko Willink?

  We competed with each other and the men in other units and other services to see who could patrol in the most disciplined way.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  We would see who we could catch staring at his feet or not watching his field of fire or not scanning for threats or not keeping his shooting hand on his gun.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  And when the shooting did start, we would watch to see who would panic.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  And who would cower.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  These were seemingly fun games and recesses breaking up the fear which was so overpowering it put a deep ache in our stomachs and in our bowels.

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  It was chaos that brought me to this point.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  Wild music as a young boy Slayer Metallica in their prime Venom Motorhead.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  Heavy alcohol use by age ten. Drug use by age eleven. Late night punk concerts and mosh pits where I nearly lost my front tooth at age twelve as it dug deeply into a punk's shaved head.

• 3:07Jocko Willink?

  I was tall for my age and people treated me like an adult.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  They tried to bring me into their filth. Junkies, perverts, degenerates.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  An evil world.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Burning.

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  So much so that war was a dream come true.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  It seemed as if now I could fight back against the depravity and evil that tried to engulf me.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  And I held that quiet hope.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  That unspoken hope that maybe I could die in war doing something heroic like they trained us to do.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  Maybe this godforsaken and worthless life could be over.

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  This gauntlet.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  And so, the IED-laden roads, attempting to scare me and us, were a joke.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  And I did not care about it.

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  About the setup, about the punchline, I just wanted enemy contact and I wanted to smell the blood of particles

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  floating through the afternoon air.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  And the screams of the dying, that is what I wanted.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  It seemed so beautiful, my mind had romanticized it all.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  But what we got wasn't so romantic as and wasn't so beautiful.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  Most of the screams I heard were the screams of my countrymen as they bled.

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  Or the screams of innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  I watched the funerals of men we shot going right past us.

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  The children crying.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  The wives glaring as they damned us with ancient Babylonian curses that would try to follow me back to my home in satanic nightmares where I could not escape them.

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  All those things made death so true and so beautiful.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  And so acceptable.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  Now, those words were written by

• 6:08Jocko Willink?

  someone that I served with

• 6:11Jocko Willink?

  in Ramadi in 2006 and he sent them to me the other day after we talked and I asked him to write down what he thought about. And he was walking down the street in Ramadi and

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, what he wrote about,

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  it revealed so much of the

• 6:40Jocko Willink?

  the incredible spectrum of emotions and thoughts

• 6:46Jocko Willink?

  that run through our heads.

• 6:51Jocko Willink?

  And, and obviously, war

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  magnifies those.

• 6:58Jocko Willink?

  But these are thoughts of a human being, and these are the kind of thoughts that people have, not just in war, but in life.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  The struggles.

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  And as I was sitting thinking about, you know, that word and that, the fact that struggle, it absolutely shapes us. And I was talking about this when I was with Joe Rogan. And Chris Cornell from Soundgarden had just killed himself, and we were talking about the struggles and Joe was saying that the, you know, you, you gotta kind of like struggle, and you need struggle. People need struggle. And some of the feedback

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  that I saw on social media was, you know, there's a difference between struggle and challenge, and that a challenge is good, but struggle is bad. And, and, you know, I don't know, and I'm not wishing struggles upon anyone.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  I'm no guru, but I do know

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  that struggle and strife shapes us.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  It, it shapes us. There's no doubt.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  And as I was... Thinking about this, I started thinking about a bunch of different books that I've read in the past.

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  And one of them is a book called And We Go On.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  And it was written by a guy named Will R. Byrd, who's from Nova Scotia, Canada. And he was a soldier in the Canadian Army in World War I. And he'd enlisted in the army to replace his brother. So his brother had been killed in battle and he said, okay, I need to, I need to enlist now. And at first he couldn't enlist because he had bad teeth. And then as more and more guys got killed, they loosened the standards and they allowed him in even with his bad teeth. And the book is very different. And we're not going to go through the whole book today, but what makes the book different is he, he talks about

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  like the supernatural. And he, he wrote another book, as a matter of fact, which is called Ghosts Have Warm Hands. And so this kind of supernatural world is something that he, he spends some pretty decent amount of time on.

• 9:39Jocko Willink?

  And in the beginning of the book, one of the things that he says is the trench at zero hour was a crucible that dissolved all insincerity and the superficial.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  And you can clearly imagine that these guys getting ready to go over the top. I mean, what else matters at that point? Everything that's not true is, everything that is not sincere just means nothing at that point.

• 10:10Jocko Willink?

  And I'm going to go to the book here for, for a minute.

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  And here's one of the things he said about sort of, again, I'm, I've just started thinking about the psychological side.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  Of what people are going through. So here we go to the book. This story is an effort to reveal a side of war that has not been given much attention. The psychic effect it had on its participants.

• 10:36Jocko Willink?

  There existed before all battles and even in the calms of the trench routine. A condition before which all natural explanations failed and no supernatural explanations were established.

• 10:51Jocko Willink?

  Every human emotion ran its full gamut. In that land of topsy-turvy and prolonged intensity of feeling wrought. Feeling wrought strange psychological changes which warped the soul itself.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  Never on earth was there a place. Where a man's support, often his soul support, was his faith in some mighty power.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  All intervening thoughts were swept aside unconsciously. There were born faiths that men carried through critical moments and tortured minds grasped fantasies. That served in place of more solid creeds.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  I think it's interesting that he says warped the soul. And I don't actually think, and again, I'm no literary expert. But I don't think he means that with the the negative connotation of warped being negative and bad. But I think he means like a departure from the normal, a departure from the straight line.

• 12:04Jocko Willink?

  Moving away from the natural direction and so it leaves. It leaves men changed.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  And like I said, I'm not going to cover this this whole book. We'll probably do it at some point in the future. But I think when he gets to the end of the book.

• 12:25Jocko Willink?

  And he makes some statements that are pretty powerful.

• 12:30Jocko Willink?

  And of course, this is now after he's gone through the war and he's on a ship sailing back to Canada.

• 12:40Jocko Willink?

  And I'm going to read this section. Here we go back to the book.

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  Darkness.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  The rush of the ship.

• 12:52Jocko Willink?

  I felt my way again into a stifling dugout, into an atmosphere rancid with stale sweat and breathing, earth mold and the hot grease of candles. I saw faces, cheeks resting on tunics, mud streaked, unshaven dirty faces, with, some with teeth clenched in sudden hate, some livid with pulse-stopping fear.

• 13:17Jocko Willink?

  I saw men turning on their wire bunks, quivering as if some red-hot grill. I heard them gasp and sob and cry out in agony and mutter as they tossed again.

• 13:32Jocko Willink?

  Then a machine-gun's note, louder, higher, sharper, "Crack, crack, crack!", as it sweeps over you in a shell hole where you hug the earth.

• 13:42Jocko Willink?

  The growl of guttural voices, heavy steps in an unseen trench, just the other side of the black mass of tangled, barbed barricade beside which you cower.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  The long-drawn whine of a shell, its heart-gripping explosion, the terrible oppressive silence that follows. Then the first low wail of the man who is down with a gaping, blood-spurting wound.

• 14:13Jocko Willink?

  I moved about, shook myself, sniffed the salt air, and tried to rid myself of my dreams.

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  And as I stood there, there came a sudden chill.

• 14:26Jocko Willink?

  I grew cold, as if I had entered a clammy cavern.

• 14:31Jocko Willink?

  I could not understand, but went and got my great coat. A dim figure passed me as I returned to the deck, and a voice said, "We're getting nearer home." I can feel the change.

• 14:46Jocko Willink?

  Ah, I knew. We had left the warm current and were into the icy waters nearer home. We had left behind the comradeship of long hours on the trench post and patrols, long days under blazing suns and cruel marches on cobbled roads. The Brotherhood of the Line.

• 15:09Jocko Willink?

  And we were entering a cold sea, facing the dark, the unknown. We could not escape.

• 15:19Jocko Willink?

  Dark figures came and stood beside me. I had not thought that anyone, save myself, would come on deck, and here they were, ten, a dozen, still more, all hunched in greatcoats, silent, staring.

• 15:36Jocko Willink?

  I looked at my watch. It was three o'clock in the morning.

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  These men could not sleep. They were come to see the first lights of Halifax.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  I moved quietly among them, scanning each blurred face.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  It was as I thought.

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  They were all old timers, the men of the trenches.

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  We went on and on and on, and no one spoke, though we touched shoulders.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  I tried to think of a comparison.

• 16:18Jocko Willink?

  Ah. We were like prisoners.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  I had seen them standing like that, without speaking, staring, thinking.

• 16:31Jocko Willink?

  Prisoners.

• 16:34Jocko Willink?

  We were prisoners, prisoners who could never escape.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  I had been trying to imagine how I would express my feelings when I got home.

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  And now I knew I never could, none of us could.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  We could no more make ourselves articulate than could those who would not return.

• 16:59Jocko Willink?

  We were in a world apart. Prisoners. In chains that would never loosen till death freed us.

• 17:14Jocko Willink?

  And I knew those at home would never understand.

• 17:19Jocko Willink?

  They would be impatient, wondering why we were so dumb, unable to put our experiences into words.

• 17:27Jocko Willink?

  And there would be many of the boys who would be surly, taciturn, moody, resenting good intentions, perhaps taking to hard liquor and aimless drifting.

• 17:40Jocko Willink?

  We of the Brotherhood could understand the soldier, but never explain him.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  All of us would remain a separate, definite people, as if branded by some monstrous despotism.

• 18:04Jocko Willink?

  But I warmed as I thought of all that the Brotherhood had meant. The sharing of blankets, and bread, and hardships, the binding of each other's wounds, the talks we had, had of intimate things. Of the dogged, simple faith that men had showed, flashes of their inner selves that strengthened one's own soul.

• 18:30Jocko Willink?

  Perhaps, when my bitterness passed, when I had got back to normal self, to loved ones tried hard by years of waiting, I would find that despite that horror which I could never forget,

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  I had equalizing treasure in memories I could use, like Jacob's ladder, to get high enough to see that even war itself could never be the whole of life.

• 19:04Jocko Willink?

  The Watchers stirred.

• 19:08Jocko Willink?

  I tingled.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  My throat tightened.

• 19:13Jocko Willink?

  Waves of emotion seized me, held me. I grew hot and cold, had queer sensations.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  Every man had tensed, craned forward, yet no one spoke.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  It was the moment for which we had lived, which we had dreamed, visioned, pictured a thousand times. It held us now, so enthralled, so full of feeling, that we could not find utterance.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  A million thrills ran through me.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  Far ahead, faint, but growing brighter.

• 19:59Jocko Willink?

  We had glimpsed the first lights of home.

• 20:14Jocko Willink?

  And that line,

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  when he says, "Perhaps when my bitterness is past and I could use my memories," and he's saying he could use his memories like Jacob's ladder to get high enough to see that even war itself could never be the whole of life.

• 20:40Jocko Willink?

  And those are the struggles he's talking about, those are the hardships.

• 20:47Jocko Willink?

  And this, this change in his mindset to not let those drag him down, but, but to use those to climb up.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  And I think, I think we, we lose track of that sometimes.

• 21:10Jocko Willink?

  And all we see is the trench, and we get stuck in the trench. And I think it's interesting that these men,

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  literally, and metaphorically speaking, these men were in trenches, but they were able to rise out of these trenches, these trenches of unimaginable suffering.

• 21:39Jocko Willink?

  And I, I think to myself, if they are able to rise out of those hellish trenches,

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  then that means we can too.

• 21:57Jocko Willink?

  We can too.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  And again, this, this thing that my, this thing that my buddy had sent me, it just got me thinking about that psychological turmoil of war.

• 22:14Jocko Willink?

  And that sent me into thoughts of another book, again, another book that

• 22:21Jocko Willink?

  I, I read a while back. I don't even remember when I read it, but I just started thinking about it. And this one was about Vietnam and it's, it's a classic. It's, it's called A Rumor of War. And, and again, we'll, we'll absolutely cover this book on the podcast in detail at some point, but I'm kind of just was on this literary tour mode.

• 22:44Jocko Willink?

  And the psyche, I think it's just a good view of the psyche that people have in war, which again reflects

• 23:00Jocko Willink?

  life.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  And there's a, a section in this book where

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  Phil Caputo is assigned to a rear echelon unit. He's in the rear and you know, he's a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He's in the rear and I think he's in a regimental command post or something, but he's not fighting. And here's what he thinks of that going to the book.

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  "In the middle of November, at my own request, I was transferred to a line company in First Battalion.

• 23:37Jocko Willink?

  My convictions about the war had eroded almost to nothing. I had no illusions, but I had volunteered for a line company anyway.

• 23:47Jocko Willink?

  There were a number of reasons, of which the paramount was boredom.

• 23:52Jocko Willink?

  There was nothing for me to do but count casualties.

• 23:57Jocko Willink?

  I felt useless and a little guilty about living in relative safety while other men risked their lives."

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  I cannot deny that the front still held fascination for me. The rights or wrongs of the war aside, there was a magnetism about combat.

• 24:17Jocko Willink?

  You seemed to live more intensely under fire. Every sense was sharper, the mind worked clearer and faster.

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  Perhaps it was the tension of opposites that made it so, an attraction balanced by revulsion.

• 24:35Jocko Willink?

  Hope that warred with dread.

• 24:39Jocko Willink?

  You found yourself on a precarious emotional edge experience, experiencing a headiness that no drink or drug could match.

• 24:52Jocko Willink?

  The fear of madness was another motive. The hallucination I had had in that day in the mess of seeing Mora and Harrison prefigured in death had become a constant waking nightmare.

• 25:06Jocko Willink?

  I'd begun to see almost everyone as they would look in death, including myself.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  Shaving in the mirror in the morning, I could see myself dead.

• 25:18Jocko Willink?

  And there were moments when I not only saw my own corpse, but other people looking at it.

• 25:25Jocko Willink?

  I saw life going on without me. The sensation of not being anymore came over me at night, just before falling asleep.

• 25:36Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it made me laugh inside. I could not take myself seriously when I could already see my own death, nor seeing their deaths as well could I take others seriously. We were all the victims of a great practical joke played on us by God or nature.

• 25:57Jocko Willink?

  Maybe that was why corpses always grinned. They saw the joke at the last moment.

• 26:06Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it made me laugh, but most of the time it was not at all humorous. And I was sure that another few months of identifying bodies would land me in a psychiatric ward.

• 26:19Jocko Willink?

  On staff, there was too much time to brood over those corpses. There would be very little time to think in a line company.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  That is the secret to emotional survival in war: not thinking.

• 26:35Jocko Willink?

  Finally, there was hatred.

• 26:40Jocko Willink?

  A hatred buried so deep that I could not then admit its existence. I can now, though it is still painful.

• 26:51Jocko Willink?

  I burned with a hatred for the Viet Cong and with an emotion that dwells in most of us, one closer to the surface than we care to admit: a desire for retribution.

• 27:04Jocko Willink?

  I did not hate the enemy for their politics, but for murdering Simpson, for executing that boy whose body had been found in the river, for blasting the life out of Walt Levy.

• 27:18Jocko Willink?

  Revenge was one of the reasons I volunteered for a line company.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  I wanted a chance to kill somebody.

• 27:30Jocko Willink?

  And you could see even in that, the... You know, comparing that with the first piece, of things being a joke, and how you just hard, you just get to this point where things just become a joke. How can you take anything seriously?

• 27:48Jocko Willink?

  When you don't even know what's gonna happen? And if you're gonna live? How much meaning does life have if you're not gonna live it?

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  He gets back out to a line company and now he's on patrol. Talking about not only what that's like externally, but what it's like mentally, psychologically, going back to the book. "I tightened the shoulder straps of my pack, heavily loaded with signal flares, smoke grenades, dry socks, a poncho, and three days' rations. An entrenching tool and machete were lashed to its side. In my pockets, I carried a map, compass, hand grenades, more flares, halazone tablets, malaria pills, and a spare magazine for my carbine.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  A pistol, two clips of ammunition, knife, first aid kit, and two full canteens hung from my belt. My steel helmet and flak jacket added twenty pounds to the load. The gear probably weighed over forty pounds altogether, but I felt a wonderful soaring lightness in my limbs. I felt good all over, better than I had felt in months. Even Neil, who was not inclined to hand out compliments, had praised my gung-ho enthusiasm before the platoon left base camp. A sudden and mysterious recovery from the virus of fear had caused the change in mood. I don't know why. I only knew I had ceased to be afraid of dying.

• 29:28Jocko Willink?

  It was not a feeling of invincibility, indifference, rather. I had ceased to fear death because I had ceased to care about it. Certainly, I had no illusions that my death, if it came, would be a sacrifice. It would merely be a death, and not a good one either. A good death involved a certain amount of choice, ritual, and style."

• 30:00Jocko Willink?

  There were no good deaths in the war.

• 30:05Jocko Willink?

  But the manner of dying no longer mattered. I didn't care how death came, so long as it came quickly and painlessly. I would die as casually as a beetle is crushed under a boot heel. And perhaps it was this recognition of my insect-like pettiness that had made me stop caring.

• 30:26Jocko Willink?

  I was a beetle.

• 30:29Jocko Willink?

  We were all beetles, scratching for survival in the wilderness.

• 30:35Jocko Willink?

  Those who had lost the struggle had not changed anything by dying.

• 30:42Jocko Willink?

  The deaths of Levi, Simpson, Sullivan, and the others had not made any difference.

• 30:51Jocko Willink?

  Thousands of people died each week in the war, and the sum of all their deaths did not make any difference.

• 31:00Jocko Willink?

  The war went on without them. And as it went on without them, so would it go on without me.

• 31:08Jocko Willink?

  My death would not alter a thing.

• 31:12Jocko Willink?

  Walking down the trail, I could not remember having felt an emotion more sublime or liberating than that indifference toward my own death.

• 31:31Jocko Willink?

  Again, a

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  a common thought pattern is this, this feeling of, hey, I'm in hell, and one thing that's gonna set me free is death. And once I overcome that, that, that just allows me to go and do what I'm supposed to do.

• 31:56Jocko Willink?

  And I'm just gonna fast forward once again, kinda like with the Will Byrd going to the end where Caputo kinda wraps up his, what he's gonna bring home from the war. And at this point, he's, you know, he's obviously survived the enemy. He's survived, actually at this point, he'd survived a court martial because he'd gotten in some trouble. There was some bad things that happened while he was in charge. There was, you know, cases against him. And he kind of got out of that situation and now he is heading home. Going back to the book. "We stood waiting in the sun at the edge of the runway. There were

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  about 150 of us, and we watched as a replacement draft filed off the big transport plane. They fell into formation and tried to ignore the dusty, tanned, ragged-looking men who jeered them. The replacements looked strangely young, far younger than we, and awkward and bewildered by this scorched land to which an indifferent government had sent them. I did not join in the mockery. I felt sorry for those children, knowing that they would all grow old in this

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  land of endless dying. I pitied them, knowing that out of every ten, one would die. Two more would be maimed for life, another two would be less seriously wounded and sent out to fight again, and all the rest would be wounded in other, more hidden ways."

• 33:45Jocko Willink?

  The replacements were marched off toward the convoy that awaited to carry them to their assigned units and their assigned fates. None of them looked at us. They marched away. Shouldering our sea bags, we climbed up the ramp into the plane, the plane we had all dreamed about, the grand mythological freedom bird. A joyous shout went up as the transport lurched off the runway and climbed into the placid sky. Below lay the rice paddies and the green folded hills where we had all lost our friends and our youth.

• 34:30Jocko Willink?

  The plane banked and headed out over the China Sea towards Okinawa, toward freedom from death's embrace. None of us was a hero. We would not return to cheering crowds, parades, and the peeling of great cathedral bells. We had done nothing more than endure. We had survived, and that was our only victory.

• 35:12Jocko Willink?

  And I think that is important for us to remember, that in some cases, some of the things that we go through, some of the things, some of the challenges and tribulations and trials that people get put through, sometimes survival is victory. And all you can do is survive and make it through a situation that you're in. And I think sometimes when people survive something horrible, instead of being happy or elated that they made it through, instead they focus on the fact that they got put through it.

• 35:50Jocko Willink?

  And again, I don't, I'm no professional at all. And there was, you know, there was, there was, you know, even when I was on Joe Rogan's podcast and, and we were talking about Chris Cornell committing suicide.

• 36:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, someone said, you know, because we kind of devolved into a conversation of, hey, you know, get outside and Tim Ferriss, when Tim Ferriss was on this podcast, you know, he was saying, you know, get move and get physical. And so, you know, Joe and I were just kind of talking about that. And, and, and someone came on and said, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. It's, it's, it's, you're lucky to survive something like this. It's horrible. And, and, you know, I kind of said, man, I, I know, I'm, I'm not saying that. And, and literally I re-listened to Joe and I talking and both of us, what we were saying was, over and over again, I don't understand this. I don't comprehend it, you know? So I don't think that was the intention was saying,

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  oh, all you have to do is go get out of Kettlebell and you'll be good to go. That's not the intention at all. And that's not what either one of us, not only was it not what we were trying to say, we didn't actually say that. We, we were saying, hey, I don't understand it. I haven't been in that position before. That's why we brought, that's why I brought Tim on here. Because Tim had lived through that and, and knew how bad it was and planned to kill himself. And so that to me is someone that can give their opinion. Joe and I were literally saying, I don't comprehend.

• 37:21Jocko Willink?

  But I think when you get a guy like the author of this book, A Rumor of War, who's, who's talking about their, their victory, or his victory and the people on the plane, their victory in Vietnam was survival, was just getting through it.

• 37:38Jocko Willink?

  And I know that's nothing you're going to be joyous about, but I think at least recognizing, okay, I made it through. Now let me move on. Is important.

• 37:53Jocko Willink?

  Now, again, I, I, I went on this kind of literary tour that I was launched into after reading what, what my buddy wrote because it reminded me of so many other things that I've heard and so many other things that I've read.

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  And so another great, you know, viewpoint comes from Eugene Sledge and he wrote the book with the old breed, which is a classic. And we covered it podcast number 10. If you want to stop now, go back and listen to podcast 10 with Eugene Sledge, with Eugene Sledge with the old breed. It's just incredible account of what he went through in World War II in the, in the Pacific Theater with the Marine Corps. But he wrote another book after that and the next book that he wrote was called China Marine. And it, it talks about what they did when the war ended, you know, and the time he spent

• 38:56Jocko Willink?

  sort of pacifying and in country, spent some time in China. And then it talks about what it was like when he got back to America, back to Mobile, Alabama.

• 39:09Jocko Willink?

  And it's definitely impactful, definitely impactful. So here's what he came, came home to, and I'm going to pick up where his dad, he's talking to his dad and his dad was a physician during World War One. And that's one of the reasons his dad was, if you remember Eugene Sledge couldn't get in the Marine Corps at first because he had, I think he had a heart murmur or something like that. And so they didn't let him in and his dad was kind of okay with that. And the reason he was okay with that was because he had seen what the boys from World War One had come home like, not only physically, but also psychologically. Guys had.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Guys had the shell shock, which is horrible when you see it. Again, I've said this before, go on YouTube and look at videos of World War I's shell shock. It's horrifying to look at. And that's what Eugene Sledge's father had seen. And so when his son couldn't go in the Marine Corps, he was kind of like, "Oh, okay." You know, you can serve in other ways. And Eugene Sledge wanted to serve. And so Eugene Sledge, he actually got a waiver and I guess the heart murmur had faded enough, or they didn't notice it until he got in the Marine Corps. But when he comes back, his dad, his dad is talking to him, and I think it's a good place to pick up. His dad called him Fritz.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  That was Eugene Sledge's nickname at home. So here we go. Eugene Sledge's dad talking to him. Fritz, he said, "I know you've been through an awful experience. I know that nobody had it worse than the first Marine Division, except maybe those on Baton and those others who were imprisoned. I'm tremendously proud of both you and Edward. You did your duty under terrifying conditions, but you survived in one piece. Granted, with some terrible memories you'll have to learn to live with. But take my advice. First, never become embittered because many

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  other men had safe, comfortable war assignments, all too often obtained through political influence.

• 41:22Jocko Willink?

  That's the way of cowards in this world. Two, never feel sorry for yourself because of what you endured. On the contrary, feel fiercely proud that you served with the finest and fought against the fiercest enemy and lived to tell the tale. Three, if you ever drink alcohol, do it in moderation. Alcohol can be a wonderful escape from bad memories, but it is addictive, will make you act the fool, and ultimately ruin you." To the last remark, I replied, "I know, Father. I've seen that happen to good buddies," recalling some of the worst cases in China. He replied, "Yes,

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  and I've treated some of the nicest people who were ruined by the stuff. But I can't cure them. They must have willpower."

• 42:18Jocko Willink?

  So really straightforward warning about alcohol, check. About not feeling bitter towards people that didn't maybe do or go through what he went through and be proud of what you did. Now, this is again, just another piece that they actually in the HBO mini-series, The Pacific, they kind of portray this part of Eugene Sledge coming home. But it's worth reading his account of it. Back to the book. "As my life settled down somewhat, I began to think of my future.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  Rather hastily, I decided to go to Auburn, then called Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and major in business. I'll never forget my first day at Auburn. I was in the registrar's office in Sanford Hall. The big room was crowded with long lines of entering students, standing in front of tables behind which clerks were noticing or noting each student's college credits from service schools, determining which might transfer to Auburn. There was a loud hub hub of voices with about 100 people in the room. Some men, mostly Air Corps veterans, had been to various technical schools and Auburn gave them two years' credit. All veterans were excused from ROTC and physical education.

• 43:44Jocko Willink?

  When I stepped up to the table, at the head of the line, a pretty brunette about my age, probably a student's wife, asked pleasantly what schools I had attended in the Marine Corps. I recited all the weapons and tactics schools we had in training. She became more and more disconcerted as she looked in vain on her checklist for anything remotely resembling what I was saying. Finally, in desperation, she slammed her pencil on the table and said in a loud, exasperated voice, 'Didn't the Marine Corps teach you anything?'

• 44:18Jocko Willink?

  A gasp ran through the crowd and you could have heard a pin drop. I didn't lose my temper, but I realized that, like most civilians, war to this lady meant John Wayne or the sweet musical "South Pacific."

• 44:35Jocko Willink?

  Slowly placing my hands on the table, aware that all eyes were upon us, I said in a loud, calm voice, "Lady, there was a killing war.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  The Marine Corps taught me how to kill Japs and try to survive. Now if that don't fit into any academic course, I'm sorry, but some of us had to do the killing.

• 45:00Jocko Willink?

  And most of my buddies got killed or wounded."

• 45:06Jocko Willink?

  She was speechless. There were many red faces among the obvious non-combatants present.

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  I doubt if there were half a dozen infantrymen or tankers present.

• 45:21Jocko Willink?

  She recovered her composure, looked me in the eye, and said, "I'm so sorry, I apologize, I didn't understand." I told her, she was very kind and I did not mean to upset her, "You didn't," she said, "you made me think."

• 45:36Jocko Willink?

  So I got credit for ROTC and PE and the room returned to normal.

• 45:43Jocko Willink?

  The young lady wished me a long and happy life. I thanked her and left.

• 45:50Jocko Willink?

  I felt like some sort of an alien, and I realized that this sort of thing would confront me the rest of my days.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  The war had been so momentous to me, I couldn't imagine anyone not sharing that view or appreciating the hell I had suffered.

• 46:08Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I was totally unprepared for how rapidly most Americans who did not experience combat would forget about the war, the evils we faced, and how incredibly tough it had been for us to defeat the Japanese and the Nazis.

• 46:25Jocko Willink?

  I didn't realize how swiftly most Americans would once again take their freedom for granted.

• 46:39Jocko Willink?

  Clearly, that applies to veterans. And, and people that have been overseas fighting and you come back and it's like, no one even knows that you were gone. Yeah. It's like another thing, you know, you get that passage of time when you go away for two or three months and you go back to where you're from and it seems like, oh, how long you been gone for? Oh, three months. Oh, it seems like people think you were gone for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah, it happens at the gym. Yep. Like, I'll go into the gym and, and someone, oh, where you been? You know, I think I haven't seen him in a week. And he says, oh, I, I tore my ACL. I've been gone for eight months.

• 47:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's one of those moments and that happens with war too. Guys go away, they come back, every, you know, time just went by. And that can be frustrating because in those eight months or six months or 14 months that someone's deployed overseas fighting for their lives and they come home and, and that other person didn't even notice they were gone. Yeah. I mean, I feel bad when somebody had an ACL tear and I didn't know it, you know, I feel kind of bad. Yeah. And I haven't seen you for eight months. You know, I feel, feel like I feel bad about it.

• 47:47Jocko Willink?

  And I'm sure that person's saying, you know, Jocko, geez, we used to train all the time and you didn't even realize that I was gone. You thought I was gone for a week. Yeah. Right? Didn't mean anything to you? Kind of, yeah, exactly. Well, imagine how that feels to a, a veteran that's coming back from war. And that is, this isn't, this isn't like some odd case. This is the norm. That's actually the norm. Yeah. I mean, it's different for the direct family that's waiting for the individual to come home. Then those six month deployments or 14 months deployment seem like an eternity. Yeah. But for that casual person or that acquaintance that you don't know that well, they're thinking, oh, oh, did you, where you been? Yeah. Oh yeah, I was overseas fighting. Yeah.

• 48:31Jocko Willink?

  And he's got, the way he kind of wraps up this book in his epilogue, and again, you know, this is another book that we'll probably explore at some point in detail, but

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  going to the way, the topics that he brings up as he closes it out, and reflections on how the war impacted him psychologically.

• 48:54Jocko Willink?

  Here we go back to the book. Looking back over the momentous events of 50 years ago, when I was a Marine, evokes strong emotions.

• 49:05Jocko Willink?

  The years immediately after the war were the hardest. As Paul Fussell remarked, "The combat veteran not only has to survive his experience, he has to learn to live with it the rest of his life."

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  He was so right. For the first 20 odd years after my return, nightmares occurred frequently, waking me either crying or yelling, always sweating and with a pounding heart.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  Some nights, I delayed going to bed, dreading the inevitable nightmares. Old comrades wrote me that similar troubles drove many of them to drink and to the ensuing misery of alcoholism, which they beat with sheer self-discipline.

• 49:56Jocko Willink?

  Eventually,

• 49:59Jocko Willink?

  the war left me with a deep appreciation for the simple things in life.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  Putting on a clean pair of dry socks is one of the greatest luxuries I know.

• 50:16Jocko Willink?

  A shave, a warm shower, and sleeping in a sheeted bed are too.

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  When it is raining, especially on an autumn day, I look out the window at the falling drops and my thoughts sometimes drift back to those awful days on Okinawa. Snafu and I bailing out a muddy foxhole with an old helmet, shivering in a torrential cold rain. And both of us, cringing as each Japanese shell came screaming into the corpse strewn area to explode with a deafening crash. I quickly bring my mind, the focus of my mind, back to the present and thank God I did not have to suffer hardship and misery again.

• 51:02Jocko Willink?

  And oh, what a blessing to be relieved of constant terror. My love of the outdoors was strangely affected by the war. The way I looked at my surroundings was altered. My view of the outdoors had taken a more analytical perspective of its features as military terrain, likely areas for the placement of various foxholes, the company's 60mm mortars to cover defilades, the light machine guns so as to achieve crossfires along the company front, fields of fire, and possible avenues of enemy attack or ambush. This change in outlook was intense in the early years home, but I cleared my mind of

• 51:47Jocko Willink?

  it by concentrating on plant and animal species, present or probable. But the old combat view of things still creeps in sometimes after more than 50 years. And that's something that definitely, every guy I know that's been overseas, every guy, everything we look at, we see it as some kind of military terrain in the city. For me, especially it's in the city, because I did most of my combat was urban combat, and that's what I'm looking at all the time, not only on the highway, on the buildings, when you're sitting around, when you're sitting in a hotel room, looking out in the street, everything that you look at, you look at from a combat perspective.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, he, he, he was a outdoorsman. And he goes back, he gets back from the war and he's going hunting. And this is the first time that he's gone deer hunting after the war. And he's out hunting with a group of people, but he gets dropped off in one spot by himself. They have a boat by a river. They take a boat. They drop him off alone. And here we go back to the book. "Two beautiful does appeared, walking briskly through the water as they exited the woods and stopped at the far edge of the pond about thirty yards away.

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  They kept looking toward the area of the drive and moving their ears to capture every sound possible.

• 53:22Jocko Willink?

  More loud sloshing of water and two does and a large buck came up to the first does and stopped. They finally looked in my direction. I remained still and since the wind was blowing toward me, the deer could not pick up my scent. They stood motion, motionless, staring at me and standing up in the clump of cane. They seemed more concerned with the baying of the hounds than with me, though.

• 53:51Jocko Willink?

  Because of the way I held my rifle, I could see my wristwatch, so I timed the action or inaction of the deer. One of the does picked up an acorn at the edge of the pond and ate it.

• 54:03Jocko Willink?

  The buck was large and had a fine set of antlers, the eight points gleaming in the light. Slowly, I raised my rifle and sighted in on his chest.

• 54:15Jocko Willink?

  No, he was too fine a creature to kill.

• 54:20Jocko Willink?

  I had murdered one of his kind that morning, so I did not need the venison.

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  Slowly, I lowered my rifle.

• 54:30Jocko Willink?

  The buck remained motionless, motionless. His instincts probably told him no shape, such as he saw in the cane was natural. Deer, like most mammals, have very poor sight, except for detecting motion and are primarily colorblind."

• 54:50Jocko Willink?

  For fifteen minutes, we stared at each other.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  A shot in the air would send them springing away into the woods, but a shot would frighten them, which I had no desire to do.

• 55:02Jocko Willink?

  The deer seemed more curious than afraid. They kept sniffing the air, which apparently bore no scent of danger. I had on waterproof boots, but was beginning to get cold.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  Finally, I needed to move a little. I knew that as soon as I did, they would bolt.

• 55:21Jocko Willink?

  So I whistled softly. Every big ear turned quickly in my direction. I whistled softly again. All the deer slowly lowered their ears, turned, went sloshing onto higher ground, and ambled into the woods, looking back at me once or twice. The whole episode is one of my most cherished memories.

• 55:45Jocko Willink?

  When Jim picked me up on the boat, he asked if I had seen a deer. I said no, not wanting to tell him I had seen five.

• 55:54Jocko Willink?

  When we returned to camp, several people asked me what I had seen, and I reported a few squirrels and some wood ducks.

• 56:01Jocko Willink?

  If I had told those eager hunters what had really happened, they would have elected to throw me in the river.

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  Gus didn't allow any drinking during hunting hours, so after the guns were all unloaded and put in their cases, the bottled spirits were brought forth, and the partiers all had a ball. Each of the weary hounds went to the fenced yard, jumped up on the raised platforms, and went into the barrel for a nap.

• 56:28Jocko Willink?

  The platform was raised as protection against high water, as well as alligators, which have a special appetite for dog flesh.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  We recrossed the river after a while and scattered to our homes.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  So ended my last deer hunt, with the memory of that beautiful buck and his harem down the river.

• 56:53Jocko Willink?

  I have wondered how long he survived.

• 56:57Jocko Willink?

  I am not anti-hunting, as long as it is managed by wildlife experts. Most game animals outproduce their food supply, and since civilization has destroyed most of the natural predators, starvation results unless populations are controlled by game management overseeing proper hunting practices.

• 57:18Jocko Willink?

  But the terrified eyes of that spike buck I shot are something I'd like to forget.

• 57:27Jocko Willink?

  I have felt the same terror when being shot at, so hunting is not for me.

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  World War II gave me a convenient measuring stick for duty, courage, terror, friendship, patience, horror, endurance, compassion, discomfort, grief, and pain that has remained with me daily.

• 57:54Jocko Willink?

  The English poet Robert Graves said World War I affected him in much the same way.

• 58:01Jocko Willink?

  "Anyone who has not suffered the prolonged fear and limitless fatigue that was combat, that was the combat infantryman's lot, might find this difficult to comprehend."

• 58:15Jocko Willink?

  Over fifty years later, I look back on the war as though it were some giant killing machine into which we were thrown to endure fear to the brink of insanity.

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  Some fell over the brink, and physical fatigue to near collapse.

• 58:38Jocko Willink?

  Those who survived unhurt will never forget, and cannot forget, the many friends lost in their prime and the many articles of civilization they ruthlessly destroyed.

• 58:54Jocko Willink?

  As I look back, some facts are quite clear. Japan's sneak bombing of Pearl Harbor destroyed many American lives, ships, and planes. We had no choice but to destroy Imperial Japan.

• 59:11Jocko Willink?

  The A-bomb ended that war.

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  It saved millions of American lives by preventing a murderous invasion of Japan and the probable destruction of a suicidal Japanese population.

• 59:27Jocko Willink?

  The Japanese soldier was a bloodthirsty foe imbued with the code of Bushido.

• 59:35Jocko Willink?

  If we had not defeated an army that thought it was unbeatable, who knows how many American cities might have shared the horrid rape of Nanking.

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  In looking back, I'm still amazed I escaped the killing machine.

• 59:54Jocko Willink?

  Why I never fell killed or wounded in that storm of steel thrown at us countless times still astonishes me.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm proud of the number of the enemy I fired on and hit with my mortar, rifle, or tommy gun, and regret the ones I missed.

• 1:00:16Jocko Willink?

  There is no mellowing for me. That would be to forgive all the atrocities the Japanese committed against millions of Asians and thousands of Americans.

• 1:00:27Jocko Willink?

  To mellow is to forget.

• 1:00:32Jocko Willink?

  Each man who survived, I am certain, was plucked from the mire of death by the Almighty.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  And in this, I feel humble and grateful.

• 1:00:48Jocko Willink?

  Socrates said, "Know thyself."

• 1:00:56Jocko Willink?

  I do.

• 1:00:59Jocko Willink?

  The war taught me.

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  The War Taught Me is how he closes out that book and

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  the war taught me as well and the war

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  still teaches me.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's why I read about war.

• 1:01:37Jocko Willink?

  And why I talk about war and that's why so much of this podcast is about war. Because war

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  can teach us.

• 1:01:51Jocko Willink?

  But

• 1:01:54Jocko Willink?

  it's not only war that teaches us, life.

• 1:02:00Jocko Willink?

  Life teaches us.

• 1:02:05Jocko Willink?

  But that's, that's only if we are humble and open minded enough and attentive enough to watch and listen and learn from it.

• 1:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Not only from our own paths and the things we go through, but from what we see other people do.

• 1:02:31Jocko Willink?

  It's a teacher. Life is a teacher and yet, and you see this all the time. There are people that do not learn from life.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  And they make the same mistakes over and over and over again, just completely unaware of the lessons that are, that are smacking them in the face.

• 1:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Smacking them in the face. And I think that's where you have to flip the switch in your brain that that hardship

• 1:03:09Jocko Willink?

  that you're facing, that trial, that tribulation embedded in that misery.

• 1:03:22Jocko Willink?

  Is a lesson.

• 1:03:26Jocko Willink?

  To teacher.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  And it's only a lesson if you're willing to learn from it.

• 1:03:38Jocko Willink?

  And life is a hard teacher.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  But do your best to listen.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  And to learn from it.

• 1:03:57Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:04:00Jocko Willink?

  you know, speaking of learning.

• 1:04:04Jocko Willink?

  I last Facebook Live got some some good questions. And I know it's a little rough transition.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  No, man.

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  But, um. You know, it's just

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  kind of a

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  going through all those different different people's books and you can see what war did to them and you can see the similarities with all of them that human beings put in really stressful situations, human beings put in life that have similar outcomes, right? I mean, there's, there's commonalities in it. And I think the more we look for those commonalities and the more individual you, me, the more I look for these commonalities in, in different people's experiences, the better off I'm gonna be. Right? The, the more I'm gonna be able to understand what's happening to the world around me.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Or to the people around me. And that's the one thing that I think is really important is, is seeing, you know, when you start talking about the, the life lessons hitting you in the face. It's always, if you're the person that's getting hit.

• 1:05:12Jocko Willink?

  That's the, you're, even though you're the person that stands to gain the most from, from understanding what's going on around you, you're also the person that has the hardest time recognizing it. It's just like when you're sitting outside of an MMA match, or an MMA, MMA fight, and you as the coach, as the cornerman, you can see what's happening. And the guy that's getting punched in the face, a lot of times, they don't see what's hitting them. And they don't think of it as a lesson. They don't, they're not taking anything positive away from it. They're getting punched in the face.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Jocko Willink?

  And it's not until someone says, "Hey, the guy's hitting you with a left hook," you're, you know, you're, or you're dropping your hands, or whatever, so that the person can make a correction. They're not learning from it. They're getting hit. And that's what happens to a lot of us in life, is we're getting punched in the face, punched in the face, punched in the face, and we don't recognize, we, we can't step back, we can't detach from being in that situation, where we can actually assess what's going on and say, "Oh, okay, I see what's going on here."

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Jocko Willink?

  "I, I see what, I see what changes I gotta make." That's why, and then what happens is, this is what happens, what happens is, you say, "Oh, Echo, I see you're going through some hard times." So I go up to you and say, "Hey, Echo, this is what you're doing, this is what you should change." And what happens? Big ego flare up from Echo.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  You don't know how I feel.

• 1:06:25Jocko Willink?

  "You don't know how I feel, you don't know what's going on, you don't know what it's like, you don't know what it feels like getting punched in the face. Bro, I'm just trying to help you." You don't get it. So what we do, our, our instinct is to put up defenses, even when somebody's trying to help us out.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:37Jocko Willink?

  So that means you gotta get good at trying to help people out, too. Because we already know that everyone gets defensive, and that everyone's ego flares up. And that when you talk to your friend that's either a vet coming home, and he's facing problems, or someone that's having a hard time at work, or someone that's having a hard time in a relationship, or someone that's having a hard time with whatever addiction's gotten a hold of them, all those things, you gotta learn how to, how to talk to those people in a way that you're not being offensive to them.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  Which is hard to do, because we all take offense. Whenever somebody tells us that we're doing something wrong, we're all offended by it. We're all offended by it.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Jocko Willink?

  Even the most positive, helpful person, your own, your mom, right? Your mom comes to tell you something, you get offended. Right? Your, your best friend comes and says, "Hey, you know, you, you, you're doing this, you're going down the wrong path here." "You don't know nothing about my path."

• 1:07:32Jocko Willink?

  So having that detachment, so you can see yourself and then having an open mind when somebody tries to help you and then when you are trying to help someone, trying to do it in a way that you don't attack their ego, those are some good things to think about as you're going through life, trying to take lessons away from it.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Man, so crazy how it applies again, applies to everything, you know?

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's like when, you ever hear people say, if I knew then, what I know now? That of course, right? Of course, the jacked up thing is, there's all kinds of people that know now, that tried to tell you then. There's so much, there's so many places to get this information, you're saying, if I knew then, what I knew now, well then, guess what? All kinds of people were trying to help you.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  Were trying to help me, were trying to tell me what to do. I wasn't listening to any of them.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  My ego's too big, I know what I'm doing, I'm the smartest person in the world, you don't understand the situation, it's gonna be different for me, my life is special, my life is different, you don't get, all those things, all those things that we say.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  So true.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  If we just had an open mind to listen to what people were trying to tell us.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Jocko Willink?

  Or, or at a minimum, have an open mind to listen to what life was trying to tell us.

• 1:08:55Jocko Willink?

  It's hard.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  It's funny because it's so true, like how you, when you're, when you say, if I knew then what I know now, and you say it, well, back then, there was people yelling at you.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Screaming metaphor, you know, right there, giving you that knowledge, so you could have known then, what you know now, kind of thing. Then you gotta go one step deeper and go, dang, well, I should have known then, to listen to you guys, you know, I know to listen to you guys now, kind of thing. Man, it's like. It's almost like this borderline impossible scenario.

• 1:09:33Jocko Willink?

  It is a hard scenario. There's some things in life, and this is so unfortunate that you have to learn only from life. There's all these stupid things that people go through and you just, you just, you're watching them go through it.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Jocko Willink?

  And, and again, I, I talk about this story where you, you, you, you get, you get someone that's going down a downward spiral. You pick the downward spiral that they're on, whether it's their relationship that they're in is a disaster. Whether they're getting addicted to whatever you want to get addicted to.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Jocko Willink?

  You know, whether that's work, whether that's alcohol, whether that's drugs, whether that's gambling, whatever thing you want to be addicted to. You pick the downward spiral that you want to jump on. The person that's on that downward spiral. It, they don't see it and everybody that's outside of the spiral can absolutely identify it and tell them. And they don't want to get off. I mean, I, I know, hey, addictions are horrible, right? And that's why they're called addictions and that's why people ride that downward spiral until it destroys them. Like Eugene Sledge's dad talked about. It's like, hey, it'll ruin you.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  The only way out is willpower. The only way out, and then Eugene says, you gotta defeat it with pure self-discipline.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can, you can have fun little games with your mind and, and win. It's their little like chess matches, which with your mind with alcohol. I know that from experience and um.

• 1:11:03Jocko Willink?

  When, when we first started doing the podcast, I didn't realize that you drank as much as you drank at that time.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  I was like, cause we, we were recording.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  And you poured, you poured one out and I was like, what are you doing, bro? I'm, I'm like in here to, you know, get after it. And you're, you're gonna have a drink during this?

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, in my slight defense, one drink wouldn't really affect.

• 1:11:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  Anything. And I know this because other people tell me this and I feel this where even if I'll get hammered, this was back then. You couldn't really tell. People would be like, oh, you don't even seem at all. Meanwhile, on the inside, I'm like. But yeah, and here's another thing, and this can apply to a lot of people, I think. Not everybody, but maybe some people where you know how I was the kind where I would only drink at home when I did work. Here's the thing though.

• 1:11:55Jocko Willink?

  That's the most bizarre thing.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that like the textbook definition of an alcoholic?

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Drinking at home alone while you're working?

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  No, I'm sure it's one of the symptoms, potential symptoms, but.

• 1:12:05Jocko Willink?

  Straight up, not potential.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  When I went to like the bar or some like hang out, I didn't really go to the club. I mean, no, after I stopped working at the club, I hardly went, but. You know, to go hang out and stuff, I'd drink way less. I wouldn't even really want to drink that much, but at home working, that's when I would drink. But like I said, I work every single night and for a long time too. So it was like every night for like years and years and years. But the only problems that it would kind of create were these kind of covert problems, like the next day I wasn't as driven to do much. I'd work out, I'd go train, I'd do all the stuff that, you know, I've been doing for whatever years, but.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  You know, like how you learn something new to bring, you know, X, Y, Z element of your life to the next level kind of thing. It would really get in the way of that. So.

• 1:12:54Jocko Willink?

  So you were kind of staying at level like three.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'll, here's the thing though, in certain ways I was learning a lot because you learn a lot when, when I work and stuff, when I do, you know, all these programs and, and do video stuff. You learn a lot while you do it. So, man, I was, I was learning and getting better at my stuff. So in a way, the problems, like I said, weren't real obvious. And then after a while, like after time goes, you know what it was, what really brought the problems to light was fucking hanging with you. Because you'd be like, okay, we're here. Now we're going here to this week. We're on like a whole different thing. And I'm like, man, I can hardly keep up with Jocko. So at night I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm keeping up with Jocko, but the next day I'm thinking when you're doing stuff early in the morning, you're doing, doing stuff during the day.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  You're letting me know, okay, now we got this. And I'm like, dang, I just basically been recovering all day because I don't feel that good. I did a workout.

• 1:13:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, because we used to record the podcast at night, too, late at night.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Jocko Willink?

  And so we'd get done at one o'clock in the morning and yeah, I'd have to get after it in the morning and you'd not have to.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's weird. I'd, when you do that routine, you get this weird second, I think your body just gets ready to. Do work and stuff. You know how you do something over and over, your body just kind of just accommodates the schedule? So I was like, at night I'd do fine, but during the day I wouldn't want to do nothing. Meanwhile, you're, you know, doing all this stuff. And I was like, man. And not to mention all the things that we talked about. And I was like, oh, I got tricked by my brain.

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, at the expense of my whole life, aside from those, you know, four hours at night.

• 1:14:22Jocko Willink?

  The other thing that sucks for you is that because you were kind of, because the problems were covert, there wasn't any, I'm assuming that there wasn't any external people trying to help you and be like, hey, Echo, you shouldn't drink at night because you were still maintaining unacceptable standard of humanity. So, and you, you're taking care of your wife, you're taking care of your young daughter. And so you're doing what you're responsible to do, what your responsibilities are, or being handled. They're just being handled at level three and level three was okay. Maybe people thought that was where you were at, you know?

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  Actually, and this may sound better, but this is worse. They were being held at level, essentially level 10. Everything like I care, everything I cared about was being handled, everything, like to the really high level. Like hanging with the kids, talking with them. So my wife would go to bed earlier than me. So.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  Then you'd say like working.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Working, drinking, I could still wake up. I'd be messed, you know, not, not that like happy to be awake, but I would, that wouldn't never, that would never show dealing with other people. And then there'd be times where if I was just too, and really just, I just felt tired. That's what it was. I didn't feel hung over.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  You know, this is actually brings up a good point is that I think a lot of times people spend because they're, because they're achieving a minimum standard or maybe even a medium standard.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Or in, or a solid standard in your case, from your perspective.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  To me was, I was working.

• 1:15:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you were working, you were getting your job done.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, making, making good money.

• 1:15:56Jocko Willink?

  Taking care of your family.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  And doing workouts, like hard, good workouts during the day, but everything else I was like, oh my gosh, I can't do this.

• 1:16:05Jocko Willink?

  But I bet there's always. So basically, if you're not looking at yourself with a critical eye, you can get by with a lot as a person, as a human being. If you're not looking, if you're not looking at yourself with a critical eye, you are gonna get, you're not gonna reach your potential. Because you're not gonna push yourself as hard as you possibly can, which is, you know, the MMA fighters, when I was training a lot of MMA fighters, I would tell them, listen, you can train without a coach, and you can train to, let's, let's say you're super disciplined.

• 1:16:41Jocko Willink?

  You can get to like 84%. This is an interesting dichotomy. You can get to 84% of your max output of your pushing yourself. A coach is then gonna take you to the next level, and he's gonna get you to 98%. But this is what's interesting. The last 2% goes back on the individual. So, let's say I'm training you for Jiu-Jitsu tournament. If you just trained yourself for the Jiu-Jitsu tournament, you'd get to 80, 82% of your potential. If I, cuz that means, cuz you're, you know, you get to the last round and you look at you, you know what, I'm probably, I might get hurt this round, so I'm gonna take it off. Or I might, you know, you're gonna make all those excuses. You're not gonna hold, hold the line, right?

• 1:17:24Jocko Willink?

  Now, if I'm training you, now I go, okay, okay, Echo, you gotta be here. Yep, Echo, you're gonna do two more rounds. Hey, you're done with your rounds, gonna do some burpees. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you do that stuff. So that's what a coach does. But then you take that last, that's gonna get you to 98%, but the last 2% is back to you because I can't make you do the burpees as hard as you can. I can make you do them, but I can't make you do them as hard as you can. I can't, I can make you do another round on the mat, but I can't make you do it as hard as you can. I can't make you try moves that I, that you don't feel like trying.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:04Jocko Willink?

  So, it takes a little teamwork in those situations. And that's something I definitely saw with, with MMA fighters, is, yeah, without a coach, they're not gonna push themselves hard. With a coach, they'll push themselves harder, but if you're gonna be a champion, you gotta get that last 2% yourself.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what's crazy is you can, you can kinda make someone your coach even if they don't know it. You know how like, um,

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  Where, I mean, I think you'd kinda know that you're kinda the coach, you know, as far as, because you're a coach, probably anyone who interacts with you on a regular basis, they're gonna kinda, at the very least, look at you and know that you wake up early and get a lot done, for a reason, by the way, so they know that, so it's kinda like, okay, I can follow suit, you know, I can take cues from Jocko in this way and I can improve it. It doesn't have to be in the exact things that you're doing, but just in the stuff that they do. So I think if you actively do that, where, I mean, I'm speaking from a place of supreme luxury, by the way, in regards to this, where, you know, I'm like, you're talking about it directly to me every single week, and I'm like, yes, sir, and I go back and try, you know, try my best to apply it to my stuff,

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  so, of course, but you can do that even if you watch someone on, I don't know, online or something, or you read it, you know how people do like blogs and stuff like that? You know, if you're like a subscriber to a specific blog and you really like, you know, to the way they do things or whatever, you can, you can get that same effect in a smaller way, I think, but you can get that same effect.

• 1:19:43Jocko Willink?

  You can definitely.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  But you just, you gotta be like conscious of it, though, and how you say, like, you have to have your own self, like, it's self-discipline for sure, but, what did you say? You just said it.

• 1:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Self-awareness.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Look at yourself with a critical eye.

• 1:19:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  You gotta do that, and here's the opposite of that, in my opinion, and from what I've seen, the enemy of looking at yourself with a critical eye is being good at justifying stuff.

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Especially, you know, you know how they say smart people are dangerous in that way? Because they're really good at justifying. Because, yeah, rationalizing something and justifying something is exactly what it is, is exactly what that says, it's justifying it.

• 1:20:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  Are you justified in XYZ? And if you are, you are, so if you can justify something to yourself and you're good at it, it's okay, in your mind is literally okay.

• 1:20:31Jocko Willink?

  It's not a good situation to be in.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  It's very dangerous, yes.

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  It's very dangerous.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  Critical eye.

• 1:20:35Jocko Willink?

  Gotta use the critical eye.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  That's a good one, let me write that down.

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  Call yourself out.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  If you wanna reach your maximum potential and move from level three

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Jocko Willink?

  to at least level eight.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  So what I was saying is that got some pretty good little rapid fire questions. You know, I didn't want to take a bunch of time on them, but I just want to at least address some of the questions that came on the Facebook Live.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  I've got a stack of questions that have been coming in on Facebook and Twitter and those two primarily is where the big questions come into. And I got a stack of those that we'll get around to in a Q and A at some point.

• 1:21:18Jocko Willink?

  And also a lot of questions that get asked right now, heard them before. So if you have a question, if you haven't listened to the podcast at this point, you might want to just go back and listen to the other podcast because the question that you have about how many hours I sleep at night and what time I go to bed and you know, those kinds of things, they're, they're in the podcast and you don't, I'm not going to talk about them too much anymore.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  You could have like, um, you ever watch Jeopardy?

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  There would have been something cool about stopping the podcast at number 25 and said, that's it. That's all you get. And just, because we addressed a bunch of stuff and then just let it marinate for a while.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  Right. Like that would be season one. You know how they do that on shows?

• 1:22:07Jocko Willink?

  That would have been a good idea. Yeah, we should have done that. We should have done season one and then paused and let people really have marinated that first season and then season two comes and boom. See? I like that.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  No, no, you wouldn't, you wouldn't never let that happen. That's what I think.

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, it depends because strategically, it's a good idea. It's a strategically good idea.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:35Jocko Willink?

  I think it is because also you're going to let that stuff marinate and then you're going to get good feedback on a bulk of work that people can then say, hey, this was a good area of topics that you discussed. Please readdress and hit the following concerns.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:22:50Jocko Willink?

  And so we could attack those, those concerns in such a manner.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess that's one way. Here, I think this is.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  I'm speaking selfishly here.

• 1:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  But I think this is a big deal where even if you repeat yourself, even if you answer the same question, literally the same question.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Over and over again, it's like, you know, when you go to school or college or whatever.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  And you get a review every week.

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  It's that.

• 1:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is. And jujitsu is the best example for me is jujitsu. I never, I never absorb a move in the first try.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Jocko Willink?

  You gotta give, you gotta teach it to me 12 different times. I learn one 12th of it each time.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Jocko Willink?

  And then 12 times later, I know the whole move.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Perfect analogy. If you, if you, Jocko's telling Echo, yeah, hey, don't complain. Like, don't complain, problem solve. Don't, who cares about how you feel? Care about the objective kind of thing. If you told me that one time, even two times, I'd be like, cool, that sounds dope. Man, I, I need to do that.

• 1:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  And then next week, next month, six months later, do you think that's sticking with me? Maybe it resonated with me, maybe not, but no.

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Got to build on it.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you're saying it every week to the point where it's like, I don't even hear your words. I just know it as, as the concept is just in there. That's when like, when I hear people complaining, that's a big red flag violation. Just sticks out like a sore thumb. Or I see someone blaming someone, that's the reason it sticks out because.

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  So back to this idea of having different seasons. If it was season one, people would, the, the recommendation was to go back and listen to them all again. So you'd get reiterated on the exact points.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's good in theory, but it doesn't work like that.

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  I think, I don't know. That's a, I don't know.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  Maybe go to 100 and then we do, that's season one. Season one is two straight years of podcasts.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that could work. Cause you know how, cause this, the concept.

• 1:24:44Jocko Willink?

  And then we take one week off and then we start season two.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  One whole week. Dang. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, I like the way you've been doing it, to be honest. It's my input, one guy. It's my input.

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, you do have 50% of the vote here.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Apparently.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Boom. All right. Well, let's get to these questions.

• 1:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like I said, these are quick questions.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, these are like, yeah, yeah, I like them though.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  Okay, first question. I'm gonna read these just how they're listed and then we'll go through, you know.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Swimming and or running for BJJ conditioning? Question mark.

• 1:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Yes, swimming and running are good for conditioning. I would recommend that you use sprints slash interval training for both. And I think that's gonna get you where you wanna be. Also, it's good to have that good base cardio.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Jocko Willink?

  So that's good too.

• 1:25:41Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, they're both good. The best conditioning for jujitsu? Jujitsu. The shortfall of that is that you can sometimes push, you never mind, sometimes you can push yourself harder in with burpees or with some kind of metcon or swimming or running, you know, if you go do sprints, you should be breathing, you should be able to make yourself breathe harder doing sprints than you can doing rounds of jujitsu for conditioning.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, the rounds of conditioning in jujitsu are more important. But if you wanna push yourself extra hard, you gotta do something else. So swimming and running for Jitsu conditioning, yes, they're good.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Jocko Willink?

  Use sprints.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I agree, obviously, as far as jujitsu, I just learned this and I watched it, it was on a Marcelo Garcia video randomly, I don't know. Where he was like, okay, I don't do any other external exercise for conditioning, whatever, for jujitsu. I use jujitsu as conditioning, but I don't just do regular jujitsu. This is how I do it, and he demonstrated it. And he was going against, he's obviously a high, the highest level black belt. So he grabs a guy and the guy is a blue belt, I think. And he's like, okay, this is how you do it for conditioning. He's like, go, we're gonna fight, we're gonna go for whatever, however many minutes. They go and he's like boom, boom, boom, he's going one move, next move, boom. He's just going all, he's not even finishing moves, he's going to the next one, then he'll finish, then they start again.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  And he's going, you could tell he's going hard, he's essentially going as hard as he would if he had only 30 seconds, 45 seconds left on a high level competition. That's how hard and fast he's. Going and um he's like, okay, and he explains you just you're just your focus is going from move to move as fast and as hard as you can. And you're breathing and all this stuff. And he goes, that's how you get conditioning with jujitsu. And I was like, dang, man, that's that's good because think about it, just like how you said, when you hit, let's say you have uh six rounds to go in regular jujitsu training. It's so easy. You're just focusing on doing your jujitsu and with jujitsu is energy conservation, like all these things that are anti-conditioning.

• 1:27:46Jocko Willink?

  Yes, they are.

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  So you can, you know, get into good spots, use.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Let me take that one, one step even more granularly. If you take six rounds, the last thirty seconds of each round. It's and I I talked to Taylor and to Andy about this and I I said, hey, guys, when we get to the last thirty seconds, there should be no cruising allowed at all. You should be going for the finish and you should be going for the finish. Like, if you've got thirty seconds left, go for the finish. If you've got thirty seconds left and you're in a bad position, go for the escape as hard as you can. Burn yourself out. That's a huge difference between how you can just go into. I'm I'm guilty as charged because, like you said, part of jujitsu is energy conservation.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  So for me, I'm really good at conserving energy. Uh you can be cross side mounted on me and you're you're not gonna make and I know, I know. But I I'll be arrogant right now. If you mounted me or you got to cross the side on me. And and we had one minute left, you cannot submit me. You know what I mean? Like, you cannot submit me. I'm really good. I've had Dean Lister. You know, mounted and on side control for the last twenty two years.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:59Jocko Willink?

  Right? So I can defend myself well. So if you have one minute, now if I give you five minutes, that that story might be, well, you have one minute. That's how much time is left. So I can completely go into cruise mode and that's the wrong answer. If you're gonna try and get, and if you're if you're trying to survive for some reason, okay. Well, then, yeah, utilize the the conservation skills. But if you're trying to get some conditioning work and prepare yourself for for aggressive. Tournament style situations you best put out.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's why, kind of in a way, going back to what you said about having a coach is where the coach will be like, hey, Shark Tank, you know, something like this where they kind of avoid your capability, or they, they, yeah, they avoid your capability to treat jujitsu as just regular jujitsu and the energy conservation, efficiency, all this stuff.

• 1:29:44Jocko Willink?

  You know, that, that's when a lot of people ask me, what should I do for, my first tournament is in three days, what should I do? What, what should I look out for? And what I tell people is that, okay, the person that you go against in a jujitsu tournament is gonna go harder against you than anyone has gone against you in the gym, period, end of story. It is a whole nother level of competition that, you know, white belt versus white belt. The first time you go in a tournament as a white belt, the person you're going against is going harder than anyone has gone against you in the gym, period.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:21Jocko Willink?

  You can't, even when we would have MMA fighters fighting in the UFC, it's near impossible to get, to get the training partners to go as hard against that guy as, as their opponent is gonna go.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:38Jocko Willink?

  It just, it's just not there. There's no legitimate fire. Now occasionally, you know, you get guys that are really good training partners and they'll push you, but that's why we do Shark Tank.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  Because it's hard for me to get, you know, four guys lined up to roll with you and everybody's gonna go as hard as they possibly can.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Everyone's gonna match what you match a little bit. They're gonna use what they have to use and that's

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  So true, man.

• 1:31:00Jocko Willink?

  One thing you gotta watch out for.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  There's a bunch of those elements in there when, when you're in a training scenario, cuz you don't have the, you don't have that background hum of this means everything, like a competition, you know, so.

• 1:31:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 1:31:13Jocko Willink?

  And actually, you know who does go super hard is people that have never trained jujitsu before. First time in the gym, it's not a competition, but that, that's the person that feels like a competition to them.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  It's so true, so true. I mean, I've been on the

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it weird how crazy it is that you just take a guy that completely believes that they can kick everyone's ass and you bring them to the jujitsu gym and they just get destroyed?

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that crazy? It's crazy, jujitsu's a crazy thing.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  It's an, it's an ego checker.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  That's kind of what I was thinking and, and same thing with kind of MMA. I think jujitsu and MMA are, you know, kind of the same deal where it's kind of real, you know, um, where, you know, you're talking about.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  You know, veterans come home and they come to everyday life and you people have no idea really what extreme stuff is, you know, and these people are, you know, they're walking around just not knowing. Meanwhile, what they've been, what they've been through is, is just so extreme and they come back and they know, they have that basis for comparison.

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, you get this teacher who's like, you know, mouthing off to the guy, remember? And he goes, didn't, didn't war teach you anything?

• 1:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Kind of thing. And they don't know, they don't know nothing, you know? Give them one day, give that teacher one day with, you know, it's just a big eye opener. So that's kind of how I feel with like jujitsu and MMA and stuff. And when you go out and when you hear people talking, you know, like, oh, I just, no, I'd kick that guy's ass, you know, kind of thing. And you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Give you, go to the gym one day.

• 1:32:39Jocko Willink?

  Do two rounds.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  A normal day.

• 1:32:42Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do three rounds. Cause one round, people think you got lucky.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  I know, that's the crazy.

• 1:32:46Jocko Willink?

  Two rounds, they go, well, that might've been luck, but, and then after you submit someone three times, they're like, okay, there's something I don't understand here and I want to learn it.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Give them one 10 minute round.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, God.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  And watch them just be like this, I can't do this. I can't, like, it's to the point, especially early on, you get a 10 minute round and you know, cause when you're going against someone, there's that, you're locked into it.

• 1:33:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  You have to straight up give up.

• 1:33:08Jocko Willink?

  A normal person isn't gonna, they're gonna be destroyed after, because they're gonna be in a competition, white belt mode, going as hard as they can, against someone that's not using any strength or energy at all, who's destroying them and submitting them every 30 seconds.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Jocko Willink?

  That's the jujitsu.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Same deal.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  But yeah, the runner, what I did like about running, like, you know, three, four miles, um, it, what I found that that provided was, um, you know, when, you know, when we'll do, take, take down battles and no one's getting each other? Yeah. I felt that it really kept me going. Like just being on your feet, doing like low intensity pushing and just, I really, I felt that, that it helped that. Yeah, I agree.

• 1:33:47Jocko Willink?

  Check. Next question.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Next question. What advice can you give on pushups and bench press for shoulder and peck injuries slash recovery?

• 1:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay, real quick, for all injuries, what I say is do what you can. And do what you can without hurting yourself. So, for instance, if you can't do a full push-up because it hurts your shoulder, guess what? Do a quarter push-up and do a bunch of them. And just get that range of motion. You're not going to get a full workout, but get that range of motion, get it working, and then maybe in a week you can do a half push-up. And then you do half push-ups, and then in another three weeks, you can do a three-quarter push-up. And then eventually you can do a full push-up, and then you start doing your deep push-ups in between rings or whatever, and you get it back. That's what I do. I do that with every body part that I have that might be injured for whatever reason. I do what I can.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  I do what I can. And specifically, I'll tell you what, bench press, I would use dumbbells and not barbell, because a barbell locks your arm into position, and this is very similar to an Americana or a Kamura. Both of those submission moves in Jiu-Jitsu are based on the same kind of general range of motion as a bench press. There's definitely something different about it, and obviously it's, you can do bench press. I mean, people bench press, you know, hundreds and hundreds of pounds on a barbell, so it can be done, but essentially, it is a similar motion. If you're, like, with an Americana, which is a submission hold in Jiu-Jitsu,

• 1:35:24Jocko Willink?

  if you can move where your wrist is, it doesn't hurt at all. You know, if you put your wrist up by your head, it doesn't hurt at all. That person could do an Americana all day. Once you bring it down, now it submits you. And that's the way I look at a barbell, and that's why I haven't done barbell bench press in, I don't even know how long, especially like a going for max. I haven't done that. I don't even remember the last time I did it. But, yeah, for any of these injuries that you might have, do what you can. Use the range of motions you can. Don't re-injure yourself. You know, don't be stupid, but if it hurts your knee when you get to a half a squat, do a quarter squat. Or a little, you know, do a three-eighths squat.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:06Jocko Willink?

  So, that's what I recommend to get through those.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, that's kind of the thing, and I know this from, and I had knee surgery, and I had a quick recovery, quick recovery, and...

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  The reason that was, was because A, you gotta be smart, just like I was saying, you gotta be smart about, you don't, I had knee surgery, I'm not gonna go max squat, you know, four weeks later, you know, kinda thing. So, yeah, you take it slow, but at the same time, you go, you treat it like a workout.

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  You do serious, you be serious about it, yeah.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. So, some people, I forget when I said, I don't know if I said it on here, but, um, where people would get a shoulder injury, for example, and part of the rehab is, like, these stabilizations for your core, and then they'll be like, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna skip that day because, I don't feel anything, that's ab muscles, why would I do that? I have a shoulder injury, so I'm gonna skip that, and I'll, you know, the next day I'll do my little shoulder exercises, I'll go through the motions and that's it. But if you treat it like a for real workout, like where you stretch it, you kinda push yourself, not in weight, but, you know, you do them, you do them all, range of motion, all that stuff. Every element of your rehab has to be real important to you, including the consistency.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  And if you do it that way, that'll be how. Don't, to me, and I don't know, I don't know the, the history of the, this question or nothing, but, um, bench press for shoulder injuries and recovery.

• 1:37:37Jocko Willink?

  Not good.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  They, they're no, yeah, they don't, that's not a hand-in-hand thing, like, so if you, if you're concerned about, um, whether to, you know, whether or not to get your bench back up after you have a shoulder injury, okay, but, they, still, the bench has nothing to do with recovery from a shoulder injury. What you do is, all the little sta- stabilization muscles in there, like, these weird motions and stuff like that, 'cause a lot of times that's where it gets jacked.

• 1:37:59Jocko Willink?

  Another good, another good compliment to this is, I had a shoulder injury, and it, it hurt really bad to do regular push-ups, but I could do ring push-ups, 'cause it allows you to move away from those range of motions that hurt you. So, that's good, but yeah, bench press for shoulders, not good. I had a guy, a new guy officer in Ramadi, who had showed up during deployment, and he had a bad shoulder for something. He's like, "Hey, sir, I was, I was wondering if you could give me any good, you know, exercises I could do for, uh, for my shoulder, which I have, you know, a bad shoulder." And I was like, "Yeah, do muscle ups."

• 1:38:35Jocko Willink?

  And he kind of looked at me a little strange, and then later realized that, you know, I was having fun.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  That's a joke.

• 1:38:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a joke. Luckily, he didn't, like, heed my advice at the time.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink?

  He just thought, "Wow, this guy's, uh, insane."

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  Shoulder injuries, rotators, any rotator stuff like this, like, you know, like a throwing ball motion, just controlled in it, that's gonna get you back. Yeah.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  And you can recover them, you can recover from them.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  And that's the thing, and again, you have, just treat those rehab, because there's nothing glamorous about this, that throwing motion, actually like a rotator cuff exercises, there's nothing alpha, exactly, right? So people will be like, oh yeah, I'm not doing that, you know, when I go in the, I'm benching as, you know, I'm doing some, you know, military press, yeah, but if you do, but Sarge, like, demonstrating, so I had a kind of an injured shoulder, like, from the day before, and Sarge was like, dang, you know, Sarge demonstrates kind of heavy-handedly, and he rips my shoulder out, and it, I felt it pop out, I'm like, man, so now I can't lift anything above my head, so I, all I did was that rotator cuff, it's like a program, it's like, this way, front, back, and then down here, this way, anyway, did that, and it was only for like, two weeks,

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  and it was just back.

• 1:39:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, unfortunately Sarge moved to Connecticut, because he's one of my favorite training partners.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he gives you an accurate look, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:53Jocko Willink?

  And when he gets, uh, when he's, like, his go-to, because he wrestled and he's got a sick double, he would just get in this double leg mode, and he'd get up or something, like, we'd be scrambling, he'd get up, and I'd see the look on his face, and I'd be, here it comes, here it comes, and he'd blast that double.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 1:40:11Jocko Willink?

  Hit that so hard, launch me.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  I remember one time I rolled with him, and, and, um, I think you may have, like, seen part of it or something, and you were like, oh, how was it rolling with Sarge? I was like, yeah, you know how you kind of explain how the roll went, or whatever, and I was like, yeah, man, and then he, he got, he turned on this mode, you were like, oh yeah, he sarge'd out on you.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  The funniest, have you ever, did you ever see him do that, uh, slingshot? So he used to have this defense from, uh, from getting triangled, and he would just, I, I can't really explain it, but he would basically launch the other human being

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  across the mat, and it was awesome, whenever he'd, I'd see somebody lock up, and he didn't care, like, they'd put a triangle on him, and he'd just, he'd go into, he'd do the slingshot, and you'd just laugh at it, because you know he's getting ready to launch somebody.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Got a school in Connecticut, by the way. If you're in Connecticut, you can go train there.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  What is it? What's it called? I didn't know that.

• 1:41:07Jocko Willink?

  It's called Jiu-Jitsu Life. That's what it's called.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. One of my old teammates. And one of my longtime training partners to get some with.

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  Next.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Next question. Do you prep your own food daily or eat on the hoof? And grab what you can?

• 1:41:30Jocko Willink?

  I do both. If I, if, you know, I generally don't pack up something and make a little meal because my, my travels all weird and random. But.

• 1:41:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so when I can, and, and I'm at home, so I make something up, yeah.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink?

  But I eat out a decent amount. I got my go-tos. And I go eat there. Sometimes they make good food for me.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:55Jocko Willink?

  If you're on the program, like back in the teams, yeah, when I was in the teams, I'd bring lunch for sure. But it was never lunch because I never ate lunch. Never ate lunch. Never, never was like, okay, guys, I'm gonna go, leave me alone for next hour because I'm gonna go eat lunch. No, never ate lunch. Never, you never see me saying, hey, uh, guys, okay, let's call it for now and we'll go eat lunch and we'll meet you back here in an hour. No, not happening. No, don't eat lunch.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  So what do you do?

• 1:42:19Jocko Willink?

  Work through lunch and stay late.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  And then, so when do you eat then?

• 1:42:22Jocko Willink?

  Just eat, graze.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:24Jocko Willink?

  Like I can eat and be on the phone. I can eat and be at the computer. I can eat. And, you know, unless we're doing something physical. And even then, eat while you're doing something physical, as long as you're not, you know, like a MetCon.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  They can't really eat much.

• 1:42:38Jocko Willink?

  You missed this one. What would you recommend for striking training as an effective real application practice? Boxing, Muay Thai.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:45Jocko Willink?

  That's real easy. Start with boxing because it's easier to learn. You don't have to throw big kicks, but it's very effective martial art, boxing. And then, once you get decent at that, you, now you can go into Muay Thai and learn how to use your legs, your elbows, your knees, your head. So there you go.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Agree that boxing too, and this is strange, but it's absolutely true. Is if you, if you don't have experience throwing punches and landing punches, it's, it's surprisingly hard.

• 1:43:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  To punch someone's face and land it effectively.

• 1:43:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  You know how like, um.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Like on the movies, you know, you see. I used to watch MacGyver a lot.

• 1:43:24Jocko Willink?

  Not really.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  He used to punch people and then he'd always shake his hand like, oh.

• 1:43:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, oh, I hurt my hand. Every, that was kind of one of the funny things about.

• 1:43:32Jocko Willink?

  When you punch people.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  That's the thing. That's why I thought it was funny. I'm sure in MacGyver, they're trying to make like, oh, MacGyver's such a softie in that way.

• 1:43:39Jocko Willink?

  Is that what, I thought he was hardcore.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  He's hardcore, like, his brain, like, he's super smart.

• 1:43:44Jocko Willink?

  Smart guy.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  So, you know, he doesn't carry a gun, you know, he's not that guy.

• 1:43:47Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't need one, has a paperclip.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  He has a brain. Yeah, exactly right. Paperclip. Sorry. I mean, nonetheless, that's kind of what that was indicating, but I thought it taught kind of a good lesson where if you, you know, you watch on TV guys just punching guys in the face and the head, but you can, especially if you don't have experience punching, you can probably will break your hand.

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Or hurt your hand at the very least.

• 1:44:11Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  So if you, if you go train boxing, even just once a week, little, some boxing or whatever, you really get to learn like, okay, if I start throwing these punches.

• 1:44:19Jocko Willink?

  The difference between, it's just like jujitsu, like six months of jujitsu destroys someone with no jujitsu. Six months of boxing does pretty damn good against someone with no boxing, for sure.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. The only thing with boxing and like striking, you can kind of, not really, I mean, people are gonna get mad at even saying this, but I don't mean this like straight up, literally, but in the streets, you can have kind of some training. You know how like if you get in a bunch of street fights all the time?

• 1:44:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  And you punch people in the face. You learn, yeah, exactly right. You learn what it feels like.

• 1:44:50Jocko Willink?

  What you'll learn, actually mostly from being a legit street fighter, is you learn the mindset.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Jocko Willink?

  And I know as stupid as that sounds, but here's what you learn. If I punch this guy as fast as I can before he's expecting it and I'm gonna sucker punch him, you'll become a good street fighter. That's, that's what street fighting is. Street fighting, a lot is done on aggression, you know, and if, if you get in my face and I punch you in the face, you know, if you look at me and say, what's your problem? Boom, and I hit you.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:11Jocko Willink?

  That, that's what, like a good experienced street fighter that kicks a lot of people's asses, that's what they do. They are over aggressive. They don't care about getting in a fight. They're not thinking about it. They're fighting. And so when you say, hey, what's your crack?

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Or the guy says, hey, what do you look crack? That's a, that's what a, that's what a street fighter does. They're gonna take action very quickly. That's, so you can learn a lot from that. So when you take that and someone, you know, when someone shows up at the MMA gym and they says, well, you know, I got a lot of street fights.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:38Jocko Willink?

  And if they're, that's most of the time, that's bullshit. But if it's not, and they're actually a guy that's been in a lot of fights. And it's only so helpful because now they got someone that they're gonna shake hands with. And then engage in combat. So they've lost the, what, and I'm not saying it's a not a real thing. You know, some of my friends growing up were really good street fighters. And this is how I'm saying this with kind of a little bit of knowledge. Is my friends that were really good street fighters. What was, made them good street fighters, wasn't that they studied boxing, wasn't that they studied Jiu-Jitsu. It was because they had a very aggressive mindset. And so someone would say, hey, what's your crack? And they were going ballistic.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:46:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, or someone's, someone says, what do you look at crack? And that's it. And it wasn't actually, it wasn't crack, it was crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, run away. Or, or, you know, that's, so, yes, that's what a street fighter has. They have a mindset of they, they have been in fights before, but they know that the aggression will take them a long way.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of like a guy in, let's say, basketball, who, you know, he has a home court or something and he just shoots a lot of shots, you know?

• 1:46:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Like, he knows, he knows how to make those shots, but then now you put him on the basketball court, he has no technical training with dribbling or, or anything, you know?

• 1:46:50Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that is true. That is true. You, you can learn the mechanics.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Jocko Willink?

  And they won't, on your own, you can learn the mechanics, but the mechanics, and then you could, and the mechanics are gonna be almost less helpful.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I mean.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  Than actually, understanding the mindset of what's gonna happen in a fight. Now, the mechanics will be more helpful in basketball, but it's not, once you get in a real game. The first basketball game I ever played, I, I knew the mechanics and I got destroyed. Every pass I threw, for the first 10 passes I threw got picked off and the guy scored it down the other end of the court and scored. I'm not even kidding, that happened.

• 1:47:26Jocko Willink?

  My dad was like a Hoosiers kind of guy. Did you ever see the movie Hoosiers? It's like, hey, you're gonna work the mechanics, you're gonna work ball handling, you're gonna work passing, not shooting, no, no sparring or what is it called? Scrimmaging, right? You're just gonna learn the mechanics. And then, that would have been cool if I would have had a coach that had a different mindset, but the coach had the same Hoosier mindset as my dad. Which is, mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. So I worked on all these mechanics. I had really good ball handling, I had good passing. And then I got, it was, the first game I played in basketball, I had never actually, it was almost, maybe I'd done a couple live games. But I'd never played against anyone skilled dribbled down the court. I was a point guard dribbled down the court, held up my fingers about, okay, we're gonna run play number three.

• 1:48:09Jocko Willink?

  Went over the side, threw the ball and the dude just picked it off. And the kid that I was playing against was a really good player, the other guy that was guarding me, he just destroyed me. And the reason was, didn't have the experience of live games. Now, I actually brought that mentality when I was running training. I always, you know, you can sit there and learn mechanics in the kill house. You can sit there and learn the mechanics of doing immediate action drills out in the field. The mechanics are good. You have to know them, but you have to also be live. And that's why I loved when they, when the SEAL teams, when we went from just having live rounds and paper targets, which everyone was, that was like the highest form. Hey, we try and we train with live fire. That's the best thing.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I was raised to believe. As soon as I saw we had simunition. And then once I realized how effective simunition was, I was like, you don't even need simunition. You can go run around literally saying bang, bang at each other, but you've got people moving and it's gonna help you. So, that, that mindset came from trying to not be, just be Hoosiers. You know, Hoosiers, the, the movie Hoosiers, the basketball movie, it's an awesome movie. But the, the beginning is all just drilling. And, and my dad, cause I didn't play basketball. I said, Dad, I wanna play basketball. He said, okay. So he's teaching me how to play basketball, but he was like a Hoosier guy. You're gonna be good defense. You're gonna be good at ball handling. And, and then unfortunately, my coach was the same way. My first coach was the same way. Seventh grade or eighth grade, just like, hey, Hoosiers, we're gonna have good defense.

• 1:49:35Jocko Willink?

  And I dribbled down the court, got, well, anyways, so be careful with that. But someone that played street ball, someone that played street ball. Exactly, yeah. And, and, and didn't, no one ever taught him ball handling. No one ever taught him the theory behind a zone defense. Yeah. That guy would have done infinitely better than I did in my first basketball game. My dad must've been hanging his head in shame.

• 1:50:01Jocko Willink?

  He must have been what a loser. How did I raise this kid?

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah, that's yeah, true. It's the same same kind of thing. Yeah, those uh Street Fighters, they know how it feels to like land a punch. They know they have this kind of intuitive gauge on, you know, kind of distance in a way, you know, just because they've been there.

• 1:50:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so that's why when you train people for anything, even in the business world, like, don't just train the people, the mechanics of of a conversation that they're supposed to have. If they're a leader, just don't train them on the mechanics. Here's what you say. Read this script. No, put them live fire.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  I'm in there, yeah.

• 1:50:32Jocko Willink?

  Put them live fire. Role play with them. Have them sit with you while you're going through something. Have them go in there and talk to somebody that you told them how to act and act all crazy. Do that. Do that with them.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:41Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Check. Do you take creatine?

• 1:50:46Jocko Willink?

  I do not take creatine. I have taken creatine. I believe it is it is an effective supplement. When you remember phosphagen?

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, phosphagen.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  When that came out, that was the first creatine supplement. I was drinking so much of that. It was vanilla. It was disgusting. And I was on the I was on a ship at the time with a SEAL platoon and we were all trying to get as big as possible. We were all taking creatine. I was drinking so much phosphagen that I had to hold my nose and do it, you know, hold my nose and do it like a shot. It made me want to throw up.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  So that's like a weight gainer. The phosphagen and then the phosphagen.

• 1:51:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  The gainer.

• 1:51:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, whichever one. I was on phosphagen and it was only vanilla flavor, which I don't even like vanilla flavor.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  That there there is your mistake.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  No, it was only Alfredo at the time when it first came out because we were all in the game. But yeah, creatine is it is effective. I never really had any of the big uh side effects where people say you get dehydrated or whatever. I never really had that bloated. I never really felt much of that. But I don't take creatine right now. I haven't taken it for a long time.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Me neither. And I don't. Actually, I never did. Maybe. No, I took this thing called Betagen. I think there was creatine in that. It was like a long time ago.

• 1:51:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:58Speaker 01

  And it was good, I think. I mean, I don't know. But yeah, I don't know much about it um as far as what's true and what's not. I hear great things and I hear junk things.

• 1:52:08Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to the interwebs.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Jocko Willink?

  Next.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  Do you ever? It's you ever surf in Europe?

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  I have not surfed in Europe. I would like to surf in Europe. I know that you boys up in Ireland got some big slabs. So maybe at some point I'll get up and surf up there. It looks awesome. It's very inconsistent though and very crazy with the tidal differences. So at some point, yeah, would be cool.

• 1:52:35Speaker 01

  You ever surf in Hawaii?

• 1:52:36Jocko Willink?

  I have. I have, yes.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  You ever been to Kauai before?

• 1:52:40Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  December. Think about it. Next question.

• 1:52:45Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  I have a bad back and I need to lose a hundred pounds. Any advice on what exercises to start with to kickstart things?

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, you have a bad back and you need to take care of that and I have no idea what that means. That could mean so many different things. What you need to do is you need to probably, you know, start to figure out what you can do. You probably want to go to your doctor and say, hey, what can I cannot? What can I do and what can I not do? And then doctors sometimes are overly cautious. So maybe get a second opinion, see what you can get away with. But the bottom line is if you've got a hundred pounds to lose, here's what you need to do. Start moving. Some way, somehow, whether that starts off as walking, whether that starts off as doing some calisthenics, whether it starts off as riding an exercise bike, you need to start moving. That's what you need to do. And then you need to fix the diet. Cause that's where most of that weight loss is going to come from.

• 1:53:39Jocko Willink?

  And that's the best ways to kickstart things.

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  Agree, yes. And you know how?

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  Okay, the diet thing. Real quick, that, you know how like certain things you go into certain situations and you're hit with feelings or certain things that you weren't expecting.

• 1:53:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't get feelings.

• 1:54:01Jocko Willink?

  I reject feelings.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, then you'll fall into certain pitfalls because you're like dang, I didn't really expect it to be like this, you know? And maybe if you went in there expecting certain things or understanding that certain things are gonna come about, you'd have more will. So the diet thing, when you change your diet, if your diet, let's say your typical diet is poor, I mean typically that's gonna mean it tastes good in some way.

• 1:54:25Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 1:54:26Speaker 01

  You know, whether it be, you know, fast food or just whatever, it tastes good. Yeah, a lot of sugar. Yeah, exactly right. So it tastes good and foods that taste good have a certain chemical reaction in your brain and they play, um, they go hand in hand.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  Pleasure, we'll call it pleasure. So when you, um, when you refine your diet, typically that means it's gonna be less sugar, you know, sometimes less fat, it depends on what kind of diet, you know, you go on. But if it's, if it's a better diet compared to your junk food diet based on taste and pleasure.

• 1:54:57Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be less tasty.

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  Less tasty, exactly right. So it's one thing to be like, okay, it doesn't taste as good and I can handle that, that's cool, but the chemical reaction in your brain is basically gonna be telling you like, you need pleasure, you are being deprived of pleasure and you're gonna be like.

• 1:55:13Jocko Willink?

  No, they're telling you, your brain is telling you, it's not just pleasure, it's sustenance, it's survival. You need, not just you want, you need that donut.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the standard.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you need it.

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  That was the standard. And people call it cravings, that's your craving, but it's one thing to be like, okay, craving, I can overcome that for a lot of people, but it's, it's a weird feeling, it goes beyond just a.

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  You wanna know a good way to kick things off? Go on a fast, man. Go on a 24 hour fast, cuz I'll tell you what, the best thing about going on a fast, in my opinion, is how it recalibrates your, your, it recalibrates two things, your actual feeling of hunger and it recalibrates your taste buds too.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:53Jocko Willink?

  Because when you're eating this beautiful stuff all the time, that tastes so good and you just, you just need more of it.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:01Jocko Willink?

  Whereas, once you go on a fast, when you have a glass of water, it tastes good. Yeah, god, this tastes so good. When you, and then when you break the fast and you have whatever you're gonna have, whatever your first meal is, it tastes really good and it's very satisfying because.

• 1:56:20Jocko Willink?

  You haven't eaten anything.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, your needs have been.

• 1:56:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, your needs, so that's one of the best things I found about fasting is it recalibrates those, those two things, hunger and taste, and things start to taste better. It's like, have you ever, you drink Coca-Cola, right? So you're used to that sweet, sweet, sweet thing.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  Every once in a while.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  For me, because I don't drink it, if I taste it, it tastes over the top.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  Too much, yeah.

• 1:56:49Jocko Willink?

  Sweet, over the top. And that's because I've fasted from having Coca-Colas for so long that it just is a taste that I don't even like anymore.

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:59Jocko Willink?

  But there's a middle ground where, hey, you can have it, you go, wow, this tastes incredibly good, but I don't need a ton of it because I got the satisfaction of the taste.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:08Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, that's another good way to kick things off, is go on a fast, go on a 24-hour fast. You don't need food, like I told my, when my daughter was going through her last wrestling season. She was telling me, she says, you know, dad, I was, I was thinking, cause she's fasting, or not fasting, she's cutting weight, never mind fasting, she's gotten weight.

• 1:57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, water.

• 1:57:25Jocko Willink?

  And her thing was like, you know, if a person can live for 30 days without food, I can make it till post weigh-ins.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:32Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:34Jocko Willink?

  You're not starving.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  No, you're not, you're cutting weight.

• 1:57:38Jocko Willink?

  As Big Tony, BTF Tony, used to say, like, you're not gonna die.

• 1:57:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're gonna die? Oh, no. So dumb. I talked to Tony the other day on the phone, he was all fired up. We were, we were laughing really hard. I was telling, I was telling a story and he, he was laughing so hysterically that it was hard to understand him. So, yeah. Big Tony, yeah, that was his thing, well, you're not gonna, you're not gonna just die if you don't have anything right now.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Jocko Willink?

  Just stop.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  See, man, that's so, that says so much about what.

• 1:58:19Jocko Willink?

  When you feel like eating, just picture Tony.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:21Jocko Willink?

  Just picture BTF Tony, sitting there going, you're not gonna die if you don't have that, so dumb.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:29Jocko Willink?

  Just, just be tougher.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:31Jocko Willink?

  What's wrong with you?

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  Man, that's such a good, I mean, it's real funny when he says it, you know, it makes you feel like a real puss, but he's, he's kinda right, you know? It's like, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm just having this craving, you know?

• 1:58:43Jocko Willink?

  God, what are you doing? How embarrassing is that? Imagine this, imagine if you had to announce your stupid pathetic. Cravings and needs, wants to the world.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, imagine if I had to walk into a room, into a group of people and say, "I cannot live another second longer without a donut." Like, that would be so embarrassing as a human to say that. And yet, we think that way and we act that way. Or we don't say it, but our actions basically act that way. We know that the donut is not needed.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  We know that the donut is not needed.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  If you were, if you were starving for, for thirty-eight days, eat a donut. If you're on day thirty-seven, hold off, you might find a steak in the meantime.

• 1:59:31Speaker 01

  It's so bad, and man, you said, you mentioned, it made me think that it's so bad that this is an official, effective way to like, improve your diet. This right here, don't keep junk food in your house.

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's, that's one of the number one.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  If you keep junk food, junk food in your house, you can't control yourself.

• 1:59:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you can rationalize too. Oh, you know what, this is no big deal, I'm not gonna start that, I'm gonna fast in three weeks anyways, so I might as well just eat this whatever right now.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  That's how bad we are, we can't control ourselves.

• 2:00:03Jocko Willink?

  I like that idea I just thought of, of just having to announce your weak thoughts to the whole world.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  And how stupid they would, like, if you're gonna carry out an action that's weak, you should have to verbalize it first.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:14Jocko Willink?

  "I am about to eat this donut because I cannot survive without it." Announce your rationalization to the world.

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  "I'm going to skip this workout because my left pinky is sore from jiu-jitsu three weeks ago."

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:29Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's a better rationalization than a lot of ones that I've dealt with. Straight up, I don't feel like it, straight up.

• 2:00:39Jocko Willink?

  That's not good.

• 2:00:40Speaker 01

  Come on, no.

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  Next question. P D, PED or HGH? Question mark. That means, do you take these? Or?

• 2:00:51Jocko Willink?

  Or which one is better?

• 2:00:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, well PED is a general term. Performance.

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  Enhancing drugs and HGH is human growth hormones. I-

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  I think he's asking, or this person is asking, if you take them.

• 2:01:03Jocko Willink?

  I do not.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  Or your thoughts on them.

• 2:01:05Jocko Willink?

  The only performance enhancing drug that I take is Jocka White. I take Jocka White now. It was being run through the Olympic committee to see, it looks like it's gonna get banned in the Olympics. Jocka White.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. For many, many records.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so many, so many new records are being broken.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:01:23Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't take anything, never have.

• 2:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, the-

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  HGH and well PED is perfor- what's the performance?

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  Performance enhancing drugs, steroids, bro.

• 2:01:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but so let's say technically is caffeine a performance enhancing?

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  I, I think it actually, I don't know, I don't know if, I don't know. Well, it is, no, I do know that it is a performance enhancing drug. It is. And people take it and when they scientifically measure, it is a performance enhancing drug. But I think for some reason it's legal.

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:56Jocko Willink?

  Like even in the Olympics or whatever. I don't think, I think you do have a maximum that you could take. I don't think you could just bu- fill your blood with caffeine and, and go do, you know, your wrestling match. But, but-

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  Might be.

• 2:02:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  Kinda off. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, my, um, I have this friend called Kiko, Kiko Killcoin is his name. In college, he was like, I wanna say outside linebacker. Maybe inside, I don't know, he was a linebacker, some, so. And so he'd have a real good workout. And you know how when you work out, lifting, you'd have, you'd have a pump, right? You know, you walk around, so he'd take off his shirt sometimes and he'd be like, like, guys, guys, I think I'm on steroids.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  I always thought that was the funniest thing. Nonetheless, uh, yeah, no, no steroids or PED.

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  Jocko.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Next.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Do you believe in aliens? I'm assuming they mean extraterrestrial aliens.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I assume they do mean that. My opinion on aliens is that I'm sure in this vast, unknown world and universe, there is likely to be other life forms that have some level of intelligence.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Interesting. How sure, on a scale from 1 to 10, how sure you are? Obviously, you can't be 10.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Very.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  Over a 5?

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  But, well, actually, when you take the entire universe, which is so massive, we can barely even comprehend it, the chances are decent that there's some other somehow intelligent life form out there.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you almost, I mean, you kind of have to ask, wait, like, at this very time, but then when you think about it, there is really no time. In a way, like, that's kind of relative too. So, in the whole existence, would you say, what, 9? Are you level 9, sure? It's a matter of opinion.

• 2:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Don't know.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  I think 9, I think like 9.9.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're a believer?

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a believer. I would be vast, like, if some wizard guy was like, okay, you get to make a bet. Do you think there is or isn't? I know the answer. Do you think there is or isn't, you know?

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  Wouldn't the wizard be proof of concept right there, while you're talking to an alien?

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  What if he was a guy from the future?

• 2:04:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  And somehow figured it out? I don't know. They mapped the whole universe. I don't know, whatever.

• 2:04:16Speaker 01

  I would bet. And, oh, the cost is your life too, by the way. Like, you have to make a bet, you have to make a choice. And if you get it right, you live. You get it wrong, you die.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  I would.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  I would bet, yes.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  I would bet, yes. I would bet, yes. I would bet, yes. The thing is, is you would also, it'd be interesting to have a scientist, or talk to a scientist about the probability of human life, like, how incredibly...

• 2:04:46Jocko Willink?

  Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny miniscule, like all the little things that had to happen for us to end up here.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  And for them to happen again.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, to happen again, so.

• 2:04:54Jocko Willink?

  But then again, you, you, you compare that to the unknown, well, this universe that is so large, it's incomprehensible. The chances are it's happened somewhere.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:03Jocko Willink?

  Else.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  And even, and just, and that's in a way, a different point where it's like, you know, what would it take to, to make humans and wind up being humans?

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  If you look at it backwards, it seems really like, oh my gosh, this is this crazy, like, you know, almost impossible odds.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Super low percentage.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, miracle kind of thing, but you, I can, you can say that with everyday thing, if you look at it backwards. So like, let's say I had, um, like Legos, right? Okay, we had this big bucket of Legos. It was more of the, it was one of those big plastic tubs. It was just full of years and years and years of Lego sets and there's all in there. If I were to take that tub full Legos and fucking pour it out on the ground, on a marble surface, so they scatter everywhere and, and then it'll, you know, when they all settle, it'll be a little pattern, right?

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  Of Legos, various colors, shapes, sizes, all kinds, different places, spaces.

• 2:06:05Jocko Willink?

  I get it.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  And to take that exact pattern down to the nanometer, that exact pattern, and be like, this is the most special pattern in the entire world ever in existence. This one is. There is no way anyone ever, ever, ever could recreate this exact pattern down to the nanometer. It's impossible. That's why this pattern is so special, but it's just one of many potential eventualities, probably infinite, you know? And when you end up at something and then say, okay, that what we happen to end up as is special, that's looking at it backwards, like I said. So it's like the lottery winner, you know, the guy who wins the lottery.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  He's like, oh my gosh, I'm so special, I won the lot, no, freaking, if I took a ping pong ball and I saw, and I had a, a mosh pit of one million people, I won ping pong ball, I throw it in the mosh pit, and then somebody catches it, oh my gosh, I'm so special, bro, someone's gonna get it. Someone's gonna get the ping pong ball.

• 2:07:08Jocko Willink?

  That's affirmative.

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it doesn't make it necessarily special unless you look at it backwards, you know? If that guy's like, I'm gonna go into another.

• 2:07:16Jocko Willink?

  The other alien life form could be something that we could barely even imagine of what it's like.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  And that, that probability wise is what it is.

• 2:07:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:25Speaker 01

  Or it's gonna be something like so small.

• 2:07:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  And but if it's like more a superior intelligence, it's gonna be something we don't recognize. The same way like if you have a caterpillar on a leaf and I see it from 10 yards away. I see that little caterpillar right, right there. Hey caterpillar, yelling at it, you know, the vibrations from my voice are hitting it. Hey caterpillar, the caterpillar, the caterpillar has no idea that you even exist. Doesn't even know what a human is, doesn't know about your problems, doesn't know about your podcast, you know? Meanwhile, you know a lot about your podcast, you know?

• 2:07:54Jocko Willink?

  He doesn't listen to the podcast.

• 2:07:56Speaker 01

  I can say with a fair amount of certainty. Then again, I don't know, maybe he does, I don't know, he has big butterfly plans for his future.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  Jocko, next question.

• 2:08:08Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 2:08:10Speaker 01

  How can I encourage, bro, we can't talk more about aliens.

• 2:08:14Jocko Willink?

  More about aliens or Legos.

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  I'm telling you.

• 2:08:16Jocko Willink?

  Lego patterns.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  Cause you know when people see UFOs, they go straight to that's an alien, even though it's unidentified. Can't do that. Remember what I was telling you with that kid's book idea?

• 2:08:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you did tell me about that. You don't have to tell me again either.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  Goes deeper, I'm telling you, I'm telling you.

• 2:08:32Speaker 01

  Actually, it's more about the flaws of how people consider or regard aliens, potential aliens. Jocko, how can I encourage a sense of urgency?

• 2:08:43Jocko Willink?

  This is a hard one and.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  In others?

• 2:08:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, yeah, I think I'm assuming that this means with others, but for either yourself or others, what you have to realize is that time is going by very fast. And when you have projects that are due, the minute you look at them, you gotta say, this is gonna take longer than we think it's gonna take, let's start moving on it now. And then set yourself a really tight timelines to make things happen. And that, what that'll do is it'll make you realize how far behind the power curve you are. That was one of my rules when I was in the SEAL teams was I was always saying, let's be as far ahead of the power curve as power, as possible, as we possibly can. So is that a normal expression, power curve? Like that's the thing that you're trying to stay ahead of because it's gonna smash you. So I would always, you know, just, we didn't slow down. The power curve, if we got, we thought we were ahead, go ahead further.

• 2:09:32Jocko Willink?

  But I, I always had a really good sense that that power curve was coming to crush us. So that's what you have to do. Get as far ahead of it as you can. Tell everyone where it is. Set some small goals. Say, oh, you don't think this is gonna, this project's gonna take long? Okay, cool. Let's just finish this first 6%, which means this, this, and this. And let's have that done by tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon comes and they're not even close. Okay, guess what? We need to align. We need to get a sense of urgency going so we can get this done. That's it.

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  I know that to encourage a sense of urgency in yourself, what you can do, kinda works sometimes, is you think about the feeling you're gonna have after it's done, and then consider things that you already did get done. You have those things, well, you're different, but sometimes we, the people, have things that, man, we need to do, and it's just a small thing, you know? And you're like, I'll do it, I'll do it later. I'm doing something right now. Do it, you know, tomorrow. Yeah, sure, that's pretty intuitive to you. But, you know, sometimes you just feel like doing it later. I'm just gonna do it later because I'm thinking about something right now, or I'm doing something right now. And then-

• 2:10:44Jocko Willink?

  Do it now.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  Or-

• 2:10:46Jocko Willink?

  While you're thinking about doing it, just do it.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  I know, yes.

• 2:10:48Jocko Willink?

  That's the one thing you go out with your kids all the time. Hey, do the dishes. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You'd already be done.

• 2:10:55Speaker 01

  I know, that's the thing. That's the whole point right there. So when you do it, when you do the thing, let's say you gotta, I don't know, whatever. You gotta respond to an email, I don't know. And after you do it, that, just that feeling, right when it's done, you're like, dang, that, A, that didn't take much. A. That's not gonna be the case every time, but didn't take much. And B, I'm done. My dad used to have this saying, is what he'd say. Do it and it'll be done.

• 2:11:20Jocko Willink?

  It's a good saying.

• 2:11:21Speaker 01

  And as a kid, I was like, oh, Dad, you're so smart. That's like, it is what it is. Yeah, I know it is what it is. You said that. You don't have to say that, you know? But-

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  What's your dad's first name?

• 2:11:31Speaker 01

  Technically, it's William Charles Jr.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, I think we-

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  He goes by B.C.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  We have a new quote from B.C. B.C. Oh, for Bill Charles?

• 2:11:40Speaker 01

  Bill Charles, yeah.

• 2:11:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so B.C. is in the house.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:43Jocko Willink?

  Do it and it is done. I like that one.

• 2:11:45Speaker 01

  Do it and it'll be done.

• 2:11:46Jocko Willink?

  Do it and it will be done.

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:48Jocko Willink?

  I changed it a little bit. Do it and it's done.

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, same thing.

• 2:11:51Jocko Willink?

  Same idea.

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  But his thing was always, yeah, exactly the same thing, or the exact words.

• 2:11:55Jocko Willink?

  B.C.

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  Do it and it'll be done. Yeah. At me, as a grown adult- Arguably.

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, apparently the words didn't impact the way we wanted them to.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  Now I'm seeing the genius of it, you know, doing it'll be done. Like you don't have to.

• 2:12:09Jocko Willink?

  So good.

• 2:12:11Speaker 01

  Next question. If Jiu Jitsu is not locally available, what would be the next best martial arts choice or the next best thing? Or is the one-way 70-mile drive worth it? Thank you. Meaning it's not locally available, it's 70 miles away.

• 2:12:27Jocko Willink?

  That's a long haul. So yeah, there's a lot of other available martial arts. I would say you got Judo and Wrestling, and those exist in a lot of places that Jiu Jitsu doesn't exist. So Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, those are all good options, great options. You can find a catch wrestling school. There's so there's definitely some options. Find a good grappling, but a real grappling school. What you want to watch out for is a place that says it has karate, Kung Fu, and Jiu Jitsu. You want to watch out for that place because that means the guy just put that up there because Jiu Jitsu is getting popular.

• 2:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:01Jocko Willink?

  So watch out for that guy.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  And that one's pretty like across the board right there. I mean, I can't really imagine many exceptions where it's like, you know, like all the other ones and Jiu Jitsu and it's a legitimate Jiu Jitsu place.

• 2:13:14Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't happen very often. Now you might have a place that says boxing, wrestling, and Jiu Jitsu.

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Probably legit because you've got legit boxing, legit wrestling, legit Judo, and legit Jiu Jitsu. So you go, okay, that's cool. That's probably true. But when it's non-legit things and they throw Jiu Jitsu on the end of it, watch out. And whenever I'm talking about Jiu Jitsu, I'm talking about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I just got to make that clear. Talking about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, not other forms of Jiu Jitsu. So be careful of that.

• 2:13:45Speaker 01

  You know what though? I can't, in the spirit of fairness, there, there very well could be like, you know, because a lot of these guys, they'll, they'll have this vast background in like tempo karate.

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful.

• 2:13:57Speaker 01

  Some other stuff. And then they, you know, maybe 15 years ago, they got Jiu Jitsu.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  No, for sure.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, they're their traditionalists, but their Jiu Jitsu knowledge is legit.

• 2:14:05Jocko Willink?

  That's why I said, just be careful of it.

• 2:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Just be careful of it.

• 2:14:08Speaker 01

  My bad.

• 2:14:09Jocko Willink?

  And most people, if 15 years ago, they started taking Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and they got their black belt, their, their Tai Chi, Kwan.

• 2:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Whatever, whatever martial art is not at the, on the list of what they teach at their school. It's gone, actually. If they're a black belt in jiu jitsu, they're teaching Brazilian jiu jitsu. And they don't say Brazilian jiu jitsu plus Bo Kwan Kwan or whatever. They don't say that. They're not gonna do that. And if they do do it, I actually am gonna question.

• 2:14:44Speaker 01

  There are some questions.

• 2:14:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's questions. Again, can it be, can there be a legit person? Yes, there can. There are some legit dudes that are, you know, black belts in Brazilian jiu jitsu, and they're a black belt in some other traditional martial art that they took before that. That is, that does happen. Most of the time, when they realized that the white belt or blue belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu destroyed them and their martial art that they studied for 10 years, they don't put that on the list anymore.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  That's why I, that's what it does to most people. So that's why there's questions.

• 2:15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, questions.

• 2:15:19Jocko Willink?

  There's questions. So, yeah, wrestling, wrestling, well, I know I'm missing and I apologize, folks out there, if I'm missing, but wrestling, judo, sambo, catch wrestling. Those, now, if there's no kind of grappling, then you, boxing, Muay Thai, that's your next best option. So that you're still learning how to fight, you just aren't getting the groundwork, and you definitely want to get the groundwork at some point. So, and then the question on the 70 mile drive, I get this a lot, too. Some people, they have no martial art in their area, and they have martial, they have jiu jitsu 70 miles away. What should I do? My vote in that situation is get some mats at your house, get two or

• 2:16:02Jocko Willink?

  three of your friends that want to learn how to fight, start watching YouTube videos, and once a week, on the Saturday, go down to that jiu jitsu school. When we were training it back at Fabio's, there was, there was people like that. They lived in, they lived somewhere in, in the desert of Southern California. There was no jiu jitsu. They worked nine to five, and then on Saturday, they'd come out and train. And that's what they got. And they, they'd go home and work on their drills with their three guys that they were driving 80 miles to come and train on the weekends. So, yeah, that's, that's a method of doing it, too. You, you, you can train on your own, with your buddies, on the mats that you get, and watching YouTube, and, or whatever.

• 2:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Online mechanism you wanna use. And then, once a week, you come and you make the trek and you learn and you get to train with other people and you see where you're at.

• 2:16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, dang, that's good.

• 2:16:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:54Speaker 01

  Very good. Yeah, the, if the next best thing is a hard, I guess it's some total matter of opinion. But I feel like wrestling, like if you went, um. Like, well, wrestling is like a really good tool. It depends on what you're doing, like why, why you're doing it.

• 2:17:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, like for self, yeah.

• 2:17:15Jocko Willink?

  Wrestling is awesome.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know that, that's.

• 2:17:18Jocko Willink?

  Wrestling is awesome. Wrestling is, gives you such a massive advantage, not only in jujitsu, but in life.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:26Jocko Willink?

  It gives you an advantage. So, wrestling is awesome. That being said. Judo is awesome too. And if you train, but there's a more of a variation in judo schools, right? And a high-end judo school, those people are awesome. And that's a great martial art and you learn groundwork, you learn takedowns. It's a great martial art. Don't, no question about it.

• 2:17:54Jocko Willink?

  There are some weak judo schools, though. Judo has a little bit of a tendency to, sometimes judo people can adapt some of the traditional marts, traditional martial arts. Attitude, including the attitude of, of we're not actually training. And so that has happened, but that, that's less, that doesn't happen very often. So, yeah, if you can find a good judo, the way you find a good judo school, go and put on a gi and, and say, let's fight. Or let, let me train with you.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:23Jocko Willink?

  And they're gonna put you just, they're gonna, they're gonna take you down and be able to work you over. That's what judo is. Judo is very similar to jujitsu. Very similar to jujitsu.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  So judo's a great thing to have. Wrestling is a great thing to have. For sure. Sambo is awesome. Sambo is actually like judo and wrestling together. So, sambo's great. Same with catch wrestling. Again, there's catch wrestling is a little less. With catch wrestling, you're, you're, you're a little bit more apt to find somebody that doesn't actually know what they're doing. And so you have to be careful of that. There's some phenomenal catch wrestling schools, though, for sure.

• 2:19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Think we got time for like one more of these?

• 2:19:08Speaker 01

  Yes. Jocko, how do I get the desire to have discipline?

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  How do I get the desire to have discipline?

• 2:19:27Jocko Willink?

  I, I keep getting asked this type of question, how do I get disciplined? Or how do I want discipline? Or how do I maintain discipline? And the answer, it's, it's a simple answer, but obviously it's not easy. And there's all, all kinds of little tricks and methods that people talk about. And, you know, they have some merit, you know? Maybe they do work, these, these things, you know? Do the little things people say and, and wake up early. I say that and write things down and take cold showers. And tell everyone what you're going to do.

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  So broadcast it and make promises or, or make bets with, with your friends of something that you don't want to lose. And, and those things, those ideas, they're, they're cool. I'm sure they're going to have some impact. And if they work for you, that's, that's awesome.

• 2:20:27Jocko Willink?

  But, but the fact of the matter is that the reason discipline is hard to maintain is because it is hard to maintain.

• 2:20:38Jocko Willink?

  That's what makes discipline hard. It's hard.

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  And if you hear me claim that discipline is easy for me, then straight up, that's just my ego talking. That's what that is because I'm unfortunately, just as human as everyone else. And it is work to maintain the discipline. That's what it is, work. Holding the line, maintaining the standard,

• 2:21:19Jocko Willink?

  giving no slack, none. That's the discipline.

• 2:21:24Jocko Willink?

  That's the discipline and it is hard.

• 2:21:30Jocko Willink?

  And if there's one thing I would say that does make it easier,

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  it's to envision what it feels like when you're done.

• 2:21:42Jocko Willink?

  What it feels like after you've worked out or you've held the line on your food intake, or you've pushed through some monotonous project that you have to do and all those things.

• 2:21:59Jocko Willink?

  When they're done, they feel good.

• 2:22:03Jocko Willink?

  And contrary to that, envision what you will feel like later when you let the discipline slack. You know the feeling.

• 2:22:18Jocko Willink?

  Feeling weak and defeated and you know that you're falling behind.

• 2:22:28Jocko Willink?

  So get to know those two different types of feelings and ask yourself which one you want to feel in 10 minutes. Or in a half an hour.

• 2:22:42Jocko Willink?

  When, when the thing is done, when the discipline has been implemented.

• 2:22:51Jocko Willink?

  Remember what that feels like and then remember that those minutes and those hours, they turn into weeks and months and years and holding the line in those critical minutes will put you in an infinitely better place physically and mentally if you maintain the discipline.

• 2:23:17Jocko Willink?

  So work through the weakness, fight through the temptation, hold the line.

• 2:23:27Jocko Willink?

  Hold the line, maintain the discipline. It is not easy.

• 2:23:36Jocko Willink?

  But it is worth it.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Because, yes. Because discipline equals freedom.

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's

• 2:23:56Jocko Willink?

  all I've got for tonight. So Echo, speaking of discipline, perhaps in a disciplined manner, you could explain to us how we could support this podcast if we wanted to.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you wanted to, for sure. I feel like we should. Like we always do, in a disciplined way, talk about Onnit.

• 2:24:21Jocko Willink?

  By discipline, I mean concise, by the way.

• 2:24:23Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. I don't know about that.

• 2:24:26Jocko Willink?

  We're over two and a half hours or something like that.

• 2:24:30Speaker 01

  Something like this, sure. Okay.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't control, that doesn't, you're not, that doesn't play into your head, does it? You're in the game. You're here to get your job done. You care long it takes.

• 2:24:38Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah.

• 2:24:41Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, last time I mentioned that I ran out of krill oil, you even said, you should go to the store and buy some. Yeah.

• 2:24:49Jocko Willink?

  Did you?

• 2:24:50Speaker 01

  No. The good thing is when I went home from our session, it had come in.

• 2:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:24:55Speaker 01

  Along with the orangutan.

• 2:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you got a new kettlebell. Nice, nice. Two of them or just one?

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  One.

• 2:25:04Jocko Willink?

  What's the weight?

• 2:25:05Speaker 01

  Fifty-four pounds.

• 2:25:07Jocko Willink?

  You need another one.

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I want, I want the zombie one. For whatever, the orangutan one's cool, but the zombie one was really cool. So they're out of them. I think they're the same weight, fifty-four. So I want two fifty fours. They're out of them. So I was like, yeah, I'll just get one of these. Just, you know, as a one-off. And then when the zombie ones come in.

• 2:25:27Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:25:27Speaker 01

  I'll get the two zombie ones.

• 2:25:29Jocko Willink?

  So where is this? What is this store?

• 2:25:31Speaker 01

  Everything is at Onnit.com. But I'm explaining what it is, just in case people don't know, or they don't understand the importance.

• 2:25:40Speaker 01

  I think it's important. Nonetheless, krill oil came in. This is what you do. And I mentioned this before, and this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try to do. I should just do it and it'll be done. Stay on it. You know what that is, right? Stay on it.

• 2:25:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the automatic.

• 2:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, the re.

• 2:25:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  What do you even call it? The re?

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  Automatic automated.

• 2:26:02Speaker 01

  Auto ship.

• 2:26:02Jocko Willink?

  Automated shipment.

• 2:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just pay every month and it automatically comes. Yeah, yeah. I think you might even get a deal on that one. I don't know though, but that's what I'm doing. I'm a stay. It's called stay on it.

• 2:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  You know what, man? That's in a lot of people or companies do that, you know, like the, you know, like.

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can do it on Amazon.

• 2:26:19Speaker 01

  Other stuff. Yeah, Amazon, like toilet paper, you know, things that you just use all.

• 2:26:24Jocko Willink?

  Duct tape.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Duct.

• 2:26:25Jocko Willink?

  Constantly running out of that.

• 2:26:28Speaker 01

  That's, that's a good deal. I mean, that's a good um thing to do with basically everything.

• 2:26:36Speaker 01

  About one time when I was drinking. Bark in the dirt. I don't drink anymore. Hardly. Um, who was it? It was Rudy. He asked me to do something, a video or something. I don't know. And he was like, hey, can I pay you in vodka? And.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  The hell is that? What kind of a savage even says that?

• 2:26:54Speaker 01

  I know, bro, Rudy. Anyway, and he goes, can I pay you in vodka? I didn't tell him to get out of here. I was, I was considering. I was like, wait a second. It kind of is like currency when you drink every, every day, you know? It's kind of like, I'm gonna spend that money anyway. So I'm like, hey, you know what I could do? I'm just thinking in my, it lasted for like five seconds. Maybe 10, maybe 20, but I thought to myself, hmm, think of how much money I would have charged him. Like double it or triple it and get that much worth of vodka. Boom. I just saved 75, you know, 66%. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:27:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay, move on.

• 2:27:30Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, the point still stands.

• 2:27:35Speaker 01

  If it's, if you don't have to think about it, it just comes.

• 2:27:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 2:27:38Speaker 01

  You don't have to run into this thing like me where I'm out of krill oil for one week. Actually, it was a little less than a week. Doesn't matter. I won't be out of it at all. So yeah, stay on it. That's the one. Krill oil, strong bone. Didn't run out of that by the way. And that's good, man. That stuff is good. It's weird how. I told you, right? How my shoulder was jacked, like the tendon part, a weird spot. To you, healthy and I didn't even stop lifting. You know how you get tendonitis? You're like, I gotta stop lifting or lift lighter, you know? Lighter is for suckers. Strong bone, stay strong, get rid of the tendonitis and any bone issues. I think, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not sure. I gotta go back on the website. I get addicted to that website, it's like interesting stuff.

• 2:28:23Speaker 01

  I think it can delay or stop the onset of osteoporosis. I don't wanna make that claim, I'm not making that claim.

• 2:28:30Jocko Willink?

  I'm not, I'm not making it.

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  But I'm just saying that's what StrongTiam does nonetheless. Good kettlebells on there, workout stuff. Especially if you like, like, you know how, if you go and bench, I don't bench, but if you do a, you know, just repetitious shoulder press, I don't know. It can get boring. But if you're into like interesting type workouts, you know how like, you have a mace, right?

• 2:28:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I do.

• 2:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you have like, yeah.

• 2:28:58Jocko Willink?

  I've got Onnit Clubs, yeah, I got all kinds of stuff.

• 2:29:00Speaker 01

  See, yeah, see, that's why you work out so much and early in the morning, cuz you're all looking forward to it. It's all interesting and fun. If you're into those interesting workouts, and it's cool cuz you can like look up a bunch of workouts just for one kettlebell, you know? So maces and of course they got the, you know, traditional stuff, jump rope, whatnot, but um, like they have these metal things, I don't know what they are, but it's like, you know, these are for working out. So it's like, man, you can't even get bored working out anymore, really? When you go on there. Anyway, website's interesting too. Anyway, this stuff, the supplements are outstanding, they do have, um, yeah, I'm gonna say it, this nut butter blend. Also, I got some MCT oil.

• 2:29:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:44Speaker 01

  You know what MCT, what MCT stands for?

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I do.

• 2:29:48Speaker 01

  Medium chain triglycerides, it's good for you. Anyway, I cook with that one and I put it in, what? Didn't you make like a dessert with it or something?

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of stuff.

• 2:29:58Speaker 01

  Put it with something, heavy whipping cream, something. Anyway, go on there, get 10% off, if you want 10% off, go onnit.com/jaco. It's a good one, support yourself, support your joints, support your health. I don't think you should be in a situation anymore. Anymore, given the times we're in, to not support your health. There's really no room for not supporting your health right now.

• 2:30:26Speaker 01

  All your needs are met. You're not going out and like

• 2:30:29Jocko Willink?

  You're not hunting for elephants.

• 2:30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nonetheless, do that on it.com slash Jaco. Also, good way to support. Your brain is to read these books. Eugene Sledge, another one from him. China Marine, also, A Round of War, and

• 2:30:46Jocko Willink?

  A Rumor of War. And we go on.

• 2:30:48Speaker 01

  I'm reading it upside down, sorry.

• 2:30:51Speaker 01

  And we go on.

• 2:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Those are powerful books.

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  On the website, JacoPodcast.com, there's a page. It's called Books From the Episode. Top menu, click on it, boom. All the books from all the episodes with the link directly to Amazon. You get those books through there. That's a good way to support. Amazon, click through. Or if you're doing any other kind of shopping, just click through our website and get whatever you're gonna get, including but not limited to these books. Duck tapes. Duck tapes?

• 2:31:22Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you need multiple roles.

• 2:31:24Speaker 01

  Duck tapes. But even if there's multiple roles, I think it's still duck tapes.

• 2:31:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. You got different types of duck tapes.

• 2:31:33Speaker 01

  Still, no.

• 2:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:31:34Speaker 01

  Or paperclips.

• 2:31:35Jocko Willink?

  Singular.

• 2:31:36Speaker 01

  Or whichever MacGyver stuff that you're into getting. I've been getting more knives. I'm gonna bring them. And, bro, you ever go on Amazon? And be like, hey, this is cool. And then you know how they show you the little suggestions? And then you buy all the suggestions, too. You ever done that before?

• 2:31:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't actually buy all the suggestions, no, because I have discipline.

• 2:31:55Speaker 01

  I mean, uh, so I went on there and I got a flashlight. You know how nowadays flashlight technology is dope nowadays? Especially nowadays. Back in the day, remember the ones that had, like, it was like a suitcase flashlight? You know, big, but they're big. So those were dope. As a kid, like, if you had that one, you were like the man. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I'm kind of reliving it. So I'm like, let me get a flashlight. And you look at all the new flashlights out? Oh, my gosh, these are awesome. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna buy this one. I'm gonna buy a Maglite. Backlights are dope because you can hit people with it in the event of having to use it for a weapon. So I get one and then I click on it and there's various options on the length of it. I'm like, ooh. So I get the regular one camouflage from my daughter. She's four. She likes flashlights like all kids do.

• 2:32:41Speaker 01

  I get two from me. One for Sarah, two. It's a long one. It's called like a six cell, meaning it takes six batteries. So you can imagine how long that is. It's like a straight up baton. With a flashlight on it. So I got, I wind up getting nine flashlights. I don't need nine flashlights.

• 2:32:59Jocko Willink?

  This is an indication of a total lack of discipline while shopping on Amazon.

• 2:33:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:33:03Jocko Willink?

  I hope you did a click through though.

• 2:33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes, I did. And I got a book too, by the way.

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  So, yeah, sure. I lacked Amazon flashlight shopping discipline. But I got some cool flashlights. There's this technique here. I'll show you it. You might even know this, but I learned this in bouncer. It was security training. And this was a technique that you're, this is illegal to use. You can't use it as a security because it's offensive. It's not. In security, you use minimum force necessary to affect a whatever, to diffuse the situation, whatever. So this is what it is. Let's say this was a flashlight. And let's say this is the light part, right? Like, so usually as a layperson, you hold the flashlight like this, right? And you like in law enforcement and stuff like that, they hold it like this.

• 2:33:53Speaker 01

  It's kind of up above like that. So this is how you hold it. So you shine, you grip it right there by the head of it with the light. You shine it in the guy's face.

• 2:34:02Jocko Willink?

  Crack.

• 2:34:03Speaker 01

  And be like, calm down, calm down, calm down. They can't really see you. They're just blinded by the light kind of. And they're like, oh, and they hear your voice saying, calm down, calm down. And man, you can get, and you flip it around and hit them with it. And you get those long mag lights that, the six cell.

• 2:34:18Speaker 01

  Full batteries. Boom. They don't see it coming. They don't flinch. They don't blink.

• 2:34:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  They don't anything. It's just a complete, you see light one moment for a split second, the light kinda goes down.

• 2:34:30Jocko Willink?

  Then you see a flash.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  Then you see, yeah, you wake up. That's it. And man, the video I saw a guy doing it to somebody. I was like, dang, that guy, it's, it's like, you know, those eerie, you know, like when you see a person die whether it be on video or whatever.

• 2:34:44Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:34:44Speaker 01

  He gets like shot and his body just goes limp. He doesn't know it's coming, nothing, but it looked like that. He got hit with it so square and so hard and he didn't even flinch. And it's a real effective thing. Don't do it to people. Unless they're in your house or something like that. Anyway, I digress.

• 2:35:02Speaker 01

  Also, good way to support is subscribing to the podcast. iTunes, Google, Google Play, Google Play.

• 2:35:11Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:35:12Speaker 01

  Stitcher, all these podcasting providing platforms. Also YouTube technically is a podcast providing platform. So subscribe to that one. Here's the thing about YouTube. If you don't know already, it gives you the added benefit of being able to see the video version. Jocko's face. Talking about these things. So subscribe to that. We'll add some other excerpts on there. Some enhanced excerpts. Is that what we're calling them?

• 2:35:40Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:35:41Speaker 01

  The enhanced one. Put some music on there, right? Some B-roll. That's what it's called. B-roll. Anything that's not the actual thing. Anyway. Um, and also, what did I say I was gonna put on there last time? I was gonna put on something.

• 2:35:57Jocko Willink?

  On YouTube?

• 2:35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Some more videos.

• 2:35:59Jocko Willink?

  More videos. Haven't seen them yet, so whatever. Guess that was a big lie.

• 2:36:03Speaker 01

  It's just, it's just a theory at this point, but nonetheless, subscribe and boom, you can, you know, support that way. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko's Store. What's the website? It's an online store. jockostore.com. So what this has, if you don't know already, is t-shirts.

• 2:36:28Speaker 01

  Hoodies? I think I'm gonna put some light hoodies on there, summertime.

• 2:36:34Speaker 01

  You don't like that idea?

• 2:36:35Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:36:35Speaker 01

  Heavy or nothing?

• 2:36:36Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:36:36Speaker 01

  Heavy hoodie or no shirt?

• 2:36:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:36:40Speaker 01

  Do we wear tank tops? Not really, you know, you do?

• 2:36:43Jocko Willink?

  Yes, my wife threw a bunch of mine away about five or seven years ago.

• 2:36:48Speaker 01

  Cause she doesn't like you in the tank tops?

• 2:36:49Jocko Willink?

  No, they were just all old and ratty and she just threw them away randomly.

• 2:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:53Jocko Willink?

  Which was awesome.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  Just don't throw away things that belong to me. That's not cool.

• 2:36:58Speaker 01

  Hey, man.

• 2:36:59Jocko Willink?

  It's one of those, it's like one of the four things that I still bring up to her.

• 2:37:02Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 2:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh, she'd be like, oh, I can't believe how hot it is today. I'd be like, yeah, I'd be comfortable if I had a tank top. I don't have any, cause you threw them away.

• 2:37:10Jocko Willink?

  They were all ratty.

• 2:37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:37:12Jocko Willink?

  They were nice and light.

• 2:37:13Speaker 01

  She doesn't like the way you look in those tank tops. It's offensive to her sensibility.

• 2:37:18Jocko Willink?

  That's nuts. Cool.

• 2:37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I'm just saying, you know, stop pointing the finger, start pointing the thumb, right? That's the expression, right?

• 2:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you gotta watch out for that. Strangely, I don't wear-

• 2:37:30Jocko Willink?

  Watch out for your tank tops, apparently, in my house.

• 2:37:33Speaker 01

  You know, the point there is, someone did say, actually, not many people saying tank tops would be cool. I don't wear tank tops.

• 2:37:41Speaker 01

  You do, apparently?

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:42Speaker 01

  Still, that's obviously a sore subject.

• 2:37:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, let's make some tank tops. I'll do my whole wardrobe with tank tops.

• 2:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Bring them back in the game.

• 2:37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, ratty or not, tank tops, here we come.

• 2:37:53Jocko Willink?

  Can we make them pre-rattied?

• 2:37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh dang, yeah, you know, those kind? Put them on the sander or whatever. Nonetheless, shirts are cool, if you think they're cool. Check them out, jockostore.com, go on there, check out the shirts. There's rash guards on there. I think, I'm saying, obviously, just my opinion, the rash guards are cool. That's like, to me...

• 2:38:14Speaker 01

  Actually, there's a lot of good things on there, in my opinion, but nonetheless, shirts on there, they're cool. If you wanna support, do it that way. Go to the website, see if you like something. Get something. Hats are coming soon. Whatever that means. But they'll be here soon. Also- Psychological warfare? If you don't know what that is? I know you do, but let's say you didn't know what that was. Here, I'm gonna tell you. It is an album with tracks. Jocko tracks. Jocko saying what? Hey, these are the pragmatic, logical reasons why you shouldn't slip on your diet,

• 2:38:54Speaker 01

  or you're waking up early, or this is why you should not skip through the workout. This is why you shouldn't slack on the workout. Like, all these little things that you'll... The probability of you slacking on certain things in life are... They fluctuate, really, but in the event of you slacking on something and you need a spot, verbal, verbal and psychological.

• 2:39:19Speaker 01

  Get this, check this out. Search Psychological Warfare Jocko Willink on iTunes or Amazon Music or wherever they sell MP3s. Get that and get a little spot. Get a little spot for your points of weakness in your...

• 2:39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Journey. I said it. And that helps.

• 2:39:36Jocko Willink?

  Also, you can get Jocko White Tea on Amazon. By the way, we talked about it a little bit today. The person said that they drank a cup of Jocko White Tea this morning before I left for muster 002 and ended up at muster 001. Not saying that I've proven Jocko White Tea allows you to travel through time and space, but here we are. So again, this is a verified purchase review. So this is a person that actually experienced this, so we need to keep that in mind. Jocko White Tea, you can go on Amazon.com. Also, Way the Warrior Kid.

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Book for kids and possibly adults. I think we're starting to see that.

• 2:40:19Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 2:40:20Jocko Willink?

  Here is a review. "I wish I had read this book before. It gives you an excellent path to a successful, fulfilled life. It is very easy, but don't be fooled, it's incredibly deep, too. I think it is great for a 10-year-old or for an 80-year-old, as you are never too old or too young, to learn the basics of an honorable life worth living." Fantastic, 100 stars. So that's pretty cool.

• 2:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Pick up the book. It's about how to be better, how to overcome the obstacles that we all face. And it's told through the voice of a 10-year-old boy named Mark and his uncle,

• 2:41:00Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Jake, who comes into his life to help him overcome some of these obstacles. So there you go. That's Way of the Warrior Kid. Also, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Editing is complete at this time. So many of these questions that I get asked about all the time are laid out in this book. Food, workouts, martial arts, and my, my operating system. What that I've talked about on this podcast is in the book in a written form. This book is like the podcast that you can read and absorb and refer back to.

• 2:41:44Jocko Willink?

  So the book is like the podcast, but you're going to see it's not a normal book. It's not normal. My publishers says we've never published anything like this. I don't think there's anything else published like this ever. So it's a little different. It's not a regular book, just like this isn't a regular podcast. Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. You can preorder it right now. And of course, Extreme Ownership, Leadership Book, is based on what I learned during 20 years in the SEAL Teams about leadership and especially from the Battle of Ramadi, and how to take those lessons and apply them to the battlefield, to business, and to life.

• 2:42:28Jocko Willink?

  Wrote that with my brother Leif Babin, who was on the battlefield with me and Ramadi. Also, we have a leadership and management consulting company. Me, Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke, Leadership and Management Alignment for Your Team.

• 2:42:45Jocko Willink?

  If you want that, email [email protected]. And finally, the muster, Austin, Texas, July 13th and 14th. Too late, sold out. We're done with that one. Not done with it, it's still gonna happen, but you can't come because it's sold out. No more seats. We were able to bump it up a little bit. I think we got to like 320 or 330. But that's it. We were supposed to only have 300. And then we rearranged some seats or whatever. So we got it to 320, I think. But that's it. We can't, we cannot put anyone else in there. Sold out. So the next shot is back in San Diego, September 14th and 15th. Back at the Omni Hotel on the Bay in San Diego.

• 2:43:27Jocko Willink?

  Lot of people from the first muster in San Diego are coming back. And I think that will be awesome to hear from people. Okay, you went, you went to the first muster. You were, you learned some things, then you brought them back to apply them, real world. You hit some obstacles. What are the obstacles that you hit? Let's figure out how to get around them. That's muster 004, San Diego, California. After that, we're not gonna go again with a muster for a while. You know, at least until sometime in 2018. Probably once again in the springtime, but later in the spring. So beware of that. If you don't come to September, it's gonna be a while. And until the muster, if you do wanna communicate and hang out a little bit,

• 2:44:12Jocko Willink?

  you can find us getting af- well, you're not really getting after it on the internet. But you can find us typing letters into a keyboard on the interwebs. That's right. On Twitter, on Instagram, and in the Facebook people. Ha ha. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks for listening and subscribing and supporting and spreading the word. But more important, thanks for grabbing a hold of the challenges and the struggles in your life and learning from them. And then climbing up those challenges like a Jacob's ladder.

• 2:44:57Jocko Willink?

  And using them to elevate yourself instead of letting them drag you down. And when you get to the top.

• 2:45:05Jocko Willink?

  Look around and give someone else a hand. Pull them up, tell them what you learned. Try to do it in a tactful way, try and teach them. And look around and see who can help you and teach you and what you can learn from other people. And teach people to overcome challenges the same way that you did. The same way we all did by learning from our problems and our challenges and our struggles. And after we learn from them, we grab them by the throat. And get after it.

• 2:45:45Jocko Willink?

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