91: How to Win Back Authority. What to Think About When You Don't Feel Like Getting After It. Being a Renegade Leader. What to do When You Can't Get Through to Someone. Balancing Decisiveness w/ Carefulness.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:00:20 - How to Be an Effective Renegade Leader. 0:11:03 - How to Train Jiu Jitsu when Deployed. 0:25:54 - Being Decisive VS. Carefulness. 0:45:14 - What to do with a Star team member who slacks off. 1:00:14 - What to do if you can't get through to a person. 1:08:40 - How to re-gain respect/authority after you've lost it. 1:19:43 - No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders - Explained. 1:41:29 - What to think about when you don't feel like GETTING AFTER IT. 1:45:33 - Support, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, Origin Brand Apparel http://www.originmaine.com, 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 Extreme Ownership Muster 004 http://www.extremeownership.com in San Diego. 2:25:15 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 91 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  And we are rolling straight into Q and A today. So questions from the interwebs. Echo Charles, go.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Go. Okay. First question. Jocko, I've just finished About Face, the book. Amazing book. Interested how you modeled your style on Hackworth though. Hack was a renegade and always bending the rules to break to the breaking point. But in Extreme Ownership, you talk about, for example, not pushing back on higher command when it came to Iraqi troops. Have listened to Podcast 2, but was hoping you could go into it a bit more.

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So I guess that's a good question. Hack, he was kind of considered a renegade, but, but also he was also a total company man. You gotta realize that there's that dichotomy there. There's a guy that Hack loved the army. He loved the army. He wanted his uniform would look super squared away. He followed all the rules and regulations that, and he supported the leadership all the time. When the leadership was right. And that's what makes him a good renegade, in my opinion. And I was very much the same way. I was all about the Navy, you know, I was all about the teams. As a matter of fact, Tony, you know what Tony used to say? It was a little thing we got going in TU Bruiser that spread around.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  But of course it came from Tony first, which was all Navy, all the time. We'd just be joking about, you know, I think, I don't know what originally caused it, but like guys would make fun of me because I would wear like jungle boots or Dan or boots out to on Liberty with a pair of like old jeans. Yeah. Cause when you're, when you're like that kind of old, just raised in the teams, you don't even know any different. And you're like, oh, well, I'm going out and I need to wear shoes. Cool. Where's my jungle boots? That's what you end up like and, and you're into it. You're not like, you think it's good. You think it's normal. Like this is the way things are. And, and so I supported the teams and Hack supported the army, of course.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  But this is the thing, if the leadership was wrong, or there was something being passed down that was wrong. And it was a big wrong. Like if it was little, I wouldn't be like, oh man, this is crap. They're making us wear a different pair of shorts now. Cause like that would happen. Like some new commanding officer would come in and change some thing, right? And some guys would go, oh man, why are we gonna do that weird? It's like, dude, be quiet. You know, just be quiet. You know, they're giving you new shorts. Wear the new shorts. You know, oh, they're telling us we can't wear baseball hats anymore. Cool. Don't wear baseball hats. And some guys would go, man, they're, who cares? It's like, I don't care what I'm wearing on my head, you know? Like, oh, you want to issue us different ball caps? Fine, whatever.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  But then if it was a larger issue, then, or, or obviously if it was something that was like actually wrong, like criminally wrong or morally wrong or something like that, then yeah, I'd be like, no, we can't do that. So the reason that I didn't push back on Iraqi troops and working with Iraqi troops when we got to Ramadi, was because as I looked at it, I realized that it was the right thing to do. And yes, it was going to be more dangerous. And yes, it definitely took us out of our comfort zone. But as I explained, in extreme ownership, if we didn't train those people up, if we didn't train the Iraqi soldiers and take them out and get them fighting and get them squared away on the battlefield,

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  then Americans would have been doing it forever. So it was the correct call was to do that. Now, I've, I've talked about the same, same thing when they told us a ratio. They gave us a ratio of how many Iraqis we had to have for every one Iraqi we had to have. I don't know what the, I forget what the number was, seven, or, or for every one SEAL, we had to have seven Iraqi soldiers. They, they said that, something like that. I forget what the numbers were. And I said, that doesn't make sense to us. Cause sometimes we only have 10 guys to go out and I'm, there's no way I'm sending only one SEAL with 10 Iraqi soldiers. Not doing it.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  Need a corpsman, need a radioman, need a machine gunner, need a leader. Like that, that's what I need. So, and when I pushed back, because I didn't push back against ball caps and because I didn't push back against some stupid uniform change, ah, they were like, oh yeah, well that actually makes sense, Jocko. We don't want you to go in the field with only one SEAL. So. I would clearly push back if it was something that makes the same thing with like the martial arts training that they had us doing in the in the late 90s and early 2000s. It was not good. And I was told everyone, hey, this is not smart. This is not good. This training is dumb. We need to do other training that's better.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  And and same thing, you know, things go, oh, like, here's another like stupid example. They wouldn't want to issue a platoon, the the radios you were going to take on deployment. Because they didn't want you to break them or whatever. And so they'd issue not enough radios for everyone. And so now everyone doesn't know how to operate the radios. And you're basically operationally testing the radios while you're going through your workup. So I said, hey, this is garbage. Issue everyone radios. If that's how we operate, that's how we need to train.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Gotcha. So in the training, they wouldn't issue the radios?

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there was like a time period where we were low on radios. And they said, we're going to keep these radios for deployment. And it's that doesn't make sense. I got a good idea. Buy more radios. Uh, so you know, those are things I'd I'd push back on. And you were always pushing back on the type of training that was going to happen and who is going to be, how you're going to run the training. So when something, when it made sense to push back, I pushed back, just like Hackworth did. Now Hackworth did it on a massive scale because he eventually pushed back on the way the war in Vietnam was being run. And had I been smart enough? And the war didn't take the shift that it took, and we didn't move towards counter insurgency. And we didn't make those adjustments that the that Colonel McFarland implemented in Ramadi.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  Maybe, maybe, I doubt it. Maybe I would have been smart enough to say, hey, we're not running this war right. We need to do something different and run up the chain of command. But but at the time, you know, Colonel McFarland made great decisions. He led, he had a great plan, a great strategy. So I was 100% on board. But if, you know, Hackworth, that didn't happen. They were not fighting correctly against the Vietnamese. And and they were taking massive casualties for a hill that two days later they give back. And so he was saying, what are you doing? And and the other thing, you know, when he took over the hardcore battalion,

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  they were fighting for months. And they had, they had literally killed. Of almost no enemy, I think it was zero. I think it was actually zero enemy. And yet they had taken all kinds of casualties themselves. And so he's saying, wait, this is wrong. This is wrong. So I, I think that's, that's what being a leader is. You support the stuff. You support the command. Yes, of course you support the command. When it makes sense and as long as it makes sense and normally it's gonna make sense. You know what I mean? Normally it's gonna make sense. Not like the, the admirals and the generals are saying, hey, how can we lose this war? Let's come up with a stupid strategy. No, they're doing the best they can. So it's not like it's a regular occurrence. I mean, like I said, when I was working for Colonel McFarland. He was a smart guy. He was a brilliant guy that had a great strategy of, I'm like, okay, awesome.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm here to support. Um, and, and I'll tell you, when I did, and this is, I think this is important. Is that even though I was kind of a renegade and I was more rebellious when I was a kid, obviously I, I was a, I was young when I got to SEAL teams. And so, you know, we would push all those things that I said, oh, we gotta do this. That was me when I was a E4 in the SEAL teams, you know? Why do we gotta do that? We should just be able to do whatever we want, you know? We were just stupid. But as I got older, I realized that you need to, you know, come across as a renegade quote unquote, to come across as a big rebel that doesn't, well, immediately when you go and push back on something, everyone just dismisses you. Oh yeah, Jocko, he's just a loud mouth. He just, he just pushes back against everything. He doesn't want, he just want to do everything his way.

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  No, you want them to say, oh, wow. Hold on a second. If Jocko's pushing back against this. Yeah. Then this, this must be something wrong here because he doesn't push back against stuff. He toes the line all the time. So we should listen to him. That's what you want to build. That's what I did my best to build. And that's how I think it would be comparable to the way Hackworth led and the way that I tried to. Obviously I ain't no Hackworth, but I stole as much as I could from him. And the weird thing is, I'll tell you this. I always say I stole from him, but it wasn't like I was sitting there reading the book and going, I'm gonna do what he did here. I think it was just absorbed and even, even the naming of Task Unit Bruiser.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  Like when I did it, I wasn't thinking this is what Hackworth did. But it was real obvious that that's where I got it from. Like I didn't think, I'm gonna rename this and we're gonna turn this thing around based or not turn it around, but we're gonna build this based on. No, I was like, you know what? We're not gonna be Task Unit Bravo, because that sounds lame. We're gonna be Task Unit Bruiser, because that sounds awesome.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and then later, you know, I was like, back, I'm like, oh God, that's what, that's exactly what Hackworth did. I obviously stole it from him.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:38Jocko Willink?

  So appreciated Hack, but that's what I'd say. Be a renegade, but that should be, that should be in the background. That should be in the back of your mind. In the front of your mind should be, hey, I'm a, I'm a supporter of what's happening.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Kinda like the willingness to be a renegade.

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  If you have to.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  If you have to, and believe me, I've known all kinds of good SEALs that were too renegade.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's just like, I'm a renegade.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're just straight up, hey, I'm a renegade and, and you know, that just, it, the only guys that could get away with that were guys that were so ultimately operationally squared away.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:16Jocko Willink?

  That people go, yeah, you know, he's kind of a maniac, but dude, he's really, really good and really tactically sound and all that and they could, they, they make that happen. Now, as you get more and more senior, homie, don't play like that anymore. After a certain point, it's done and you gotta get, you gotta play the game. That's what you gotta do. As you get more senior, you gotta play the game and from like your subordinate's viewpoint, if, if they look to me and go, oh, Jock was just playing the game. He's just doing, yes, I am. Yes, I am, because this way gives me more ability to control everything that's gonna impact you, people that work for me. So yes, I'm gonna play the game so you don't have to.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  You're welcome.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, check.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Makes sense.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Jiu Jitsu, BJJ Jiu Jitsu during your time in Iraq. If you like, please paint me a picture. How to imagine a BJJ class from you as an active soldier. Did you have a gi, mats? And how would it differ from a quote unquote, "normal" class?

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  Um, so, yeah, I always brought mats with me, starting with 1998. I think is when I started bringing mats with me.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  How do you bring mats? Do you just be like, "Hey..."

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  In military transport, you build something called a pallet. So you get a big pallet and they're, they're like eight feet by eight feet. They're pretty big. And you put, stack all kinds of stuff on them. And, you know, you've got your weapons.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Just whatever you like.

• 11:51Jocko Willink?

  You've got your engines, you've got your motors, you've got your, or motors, you've got your boats, your Zodiac boats, you've got paddles, you've got all this, I mean, all the equipment. Everyone's personal gear is on there, their op gear, their body armor. It's all on these big pallets. And when you go on deployment, you'll have eight pallets, eight of these giant pallets. And so on some of those pallets, there would be mats.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  So who is it up to though? You know, you're talking about weapons and Zodiacs and so, and then mats? Like, who's it up to?

• 12:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, whoever's in charge, which, which a lot of times was me. So then it made it real easy. And, and even if it wasn't me, I mean, everybody, you know, if people are bringing something to help everyone get better, you know, people, "Ah, yeah, that's cool." So.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Is it like an approval process?

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  No, man. You just like, this is what we're doing. Guys bringing all kinds of crazy things on pallets, man. I remember guys, well, you know, you guys bring surfboards. I mean, they'd pack their surfboards on pallets, they'd pack, uh, weights and squat racks and anything that you want. If you're going on a six-month deployment to a remote location, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna load out a squat rack and a bunch of bumper plates. And if that remote location has waves, you're packing surfboards. If it has, if it has, you know, rock climbing, you're gonna pack rock climbing gear.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:05Jocko Willink?

  That's, I'm telling you, this is one of the things that it's really hard to, the SEAL teams, it's really hard to have that. I think we, I think we in the SEAL teams have that better than most people. It's just this, this autonomy to kinda make things happen and do kinda cool stuff.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not saying no, no one ever gets to do that, but, you know, I, I, I don't think a regular army unit or regular Marine Corps unit would be putting, you know, seven surfboards on their paddles.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  So where's the, where's the limit though? Like, so what, can I, let's say me, we're going, can I get a, like a TV? Can I get a TV?

• 13:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, guys are bringing TVs.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Like big screen?

• 13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just, it also depends on where you're deploying, what you're doing, what the mission is. Cause you know, my first time to Iraq, we didn't have much of any of this stuff, obviously, right? We just had our op gear, basically. And, but the second time, the second time I went to Iraq, we brought more, but we actually had to weld a squat rack. It's pretty awesome. There's a, there's a Marine, that, there was a great Marine that was with us and he ran, he manned the radios. And he was just a, just an awesome guy. And he was, he was a Marine, but he was, there was Marines across the river. And so he was supposed to keep continuity and he got assigned to us anyways. Awesome guy.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  And he knew how to weld. He was from a farm up in Montana or something. So he knew how to weld.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And he had the gear.

• 14:31Jocko Willink?

  And we didn't have a squat rack. And so our CBs, cause there's a bunch of CBs with us too. They got, they were able to like just come up with stuff. They, they'd make anything happen. My, my, my head CB was just could, CB, that's, CBs build things and they also acquire things.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  CB is combat builder?

• 14:50Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's a combat engineer battalion. It's a construction battalion. That's what it is. So it's CB for short, but it's the CBs. And. So yeah, they they build things and they also are very good at acquiring things. Yeah. You know, things just show up at your at your base and my guys were awesome at acquiring things. And we didn't have a squat rack, which is which is crazy to me to be have no squat rack, right? Why? Why don't you have a squat rack? Yeah, that's ridiculous. So this this marine welded a squat rack. Now, here's the interesting part. The squat rack, he was he was tall. He was like maybe six, four, six, five, maybe not that tall. He was a marine guy. The marine welder. So on this squat rack, there was, you know, there's adjustable things to to to put the bar on. Mm hmm. Well, this didn't have adjustable things.

• 15:35Jocko Willink?

  It just had two hooks and there was one hook at his height or one set of hooks at his height and one set of hooks at my height. Everyone just had to figure it out from there. Oh, God. Yeah, but uh, but yeah, so yeah, you could bring you could bring that if you wanted to. And so so, yes, we brought mats. I brought mats on that deployment and both actually both my deployments to Iraq brought mats. And then one of the class like, well, generally you're training with people that don't know anything. And I would have trained with them in the workup, you know, so they're starting to learn and they're like, you know, low level white belts or mid level white belts or even high level white belts. I don't think I even had one blue belt on either one of my deployments. And the good thing is they're team guys, they're athletic, they're strong, they're in good shape. They want to learn, so they learn fast. They're tough.

• 16:20Jocko Willink?

  They're, like I said, strong and athletic, so you're going to get good roles. Yeah. I mean, what the more you teach them, the better the roles get. Talking about gi or no gi, we never I never traveled with a gi for the military, I don't think. And so what what I started wearing almost all time was cami pants and a T shirt. And what's cool is I did that when as soon as I started jujitsu, I was training with other SEALs that were in cami pants and and a T shirt because it didn't make sense to wear like a cami top. Yeah. And so what's cool is without even knowing it, when no one was training no gi, I was actually training no gi because I did was just training with guys with T shirts on. Now they were wearing pants, but but anyway, so yeah, that's what we'd wear. Cami pants and a T shirt. Would we occasionally put on hop gear?

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  Occasionally, but but not not very often.

• 17:12Jocko Willink?

  The other thing you gotta watch out for with with my former organization in the SEAL Teams is there's guys that would go nuts like they didn't want to tap because you get major egos and so guys could occasionally go psycho. Uh, sometimes when I'd when I'd pit certain people against each other, sometimes I'd have to basically officiate slash be a safety officer to make sure that no one actually got killed. Uh, because they'd be trying to kill each other and no one wants to tap and you have to be like, hey, man, you can't, you know, you're about to, your arm's about to get broken. Stop.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  So you had to do some of that. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I am a bit of an instigator.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  When it, I mean, you see it now. I still do it on the mats today. You know, I mean, if, if there's two guys that are going hard against each other, but maybe they're not going super hard.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they could go harder.

• 18:00Jocko Willink?

  It's real easy to escalate that.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  And so, and so I would escalate matches between guys as well. And, and then, you know, I'd, I'd just roll with everyone. So, yeah, what would the class be like? We'd teach some moves, just like a regular jujitsu class, teach some moves, go over some stuff and then roll. And that's it. Pretty simple. Good times.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I found that if you can do little drills with yourself, if you go, if you're a high level guy and you're going with a white belt, especially if they're athletic, what you do is you, you know how like when you roll with a guy who's maybe one level, give or take from you, you, um, or let's say they're one level lower, you'll kind of slowly put yourself into better or worse situations. You won't go all out or nothing like that.

• 18:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  But this is kind of counterintuitive. If you go with like a, like a beginner, beginner, but they're athletic, what you do is you try to, you think of a, a finish.

• 18:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, make yourself do that.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, as fast as you possibly can. So if you're like, okay, I'm gonna start on the bottom.

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna force it on them?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  No, no, well, depends on what you mean.

• 19:05Jocko Willink?

  If you're gonna go as fast as you can, you're gonna have to force it.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:07Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have to force an arm lock. If you say, "I'm gonna finish this with an arm lock," you're gonna have to force him into that position somewhat.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:12Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you can set it up, sure.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That's what, that's really the drill, is you gotta set it up. Given what he does, and he could be retreating the whole time. Sure, it's, so it's gonna take longer. It's just, that's just how jiu-jitsu is, but that's the drill in your head. Rather than, you know, let's say, an intuitive method to roll with a white belt is, let's just go light, let's see what he does. Let him even get a good position on you, and then it'll work out or whatever. But no, don't do that. Be like, "Okay, I'm gonna treat this person like a person that I have to, in real life, subdue with," and you choose whatever way.

• 19:43Jocko Willink?

  That's a good game to play, actually. That is a good game to play.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  And then you get real good at that, like, going from one thing, and then...

• 19:49Jocko Willink?

  It's also, I don't play that game very often. I, I don't know what, there's something that snaps in my head sometimes where I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna just smash this person." But, you know, sometimes I'll be watching the clock, and when there's 40 seconds left, I'll be like, "All right, I'm gonna try and submit this dude in the next 40 seconds." Or, this is when I'm going against someone that's good, you know what I mean? I, that's, honestly, I do that with you sometimes, where you can feel me chilling, and I'm all of a sudden, I'm like, "Oh, wait, there's only 30 seconds left," and I have to go super hard to try and get you, and sometimes I don't give myself enough time. And so then I have to learn to get better.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, yeah, me saying that, uh, agreed. I don't do that in training.

• 20:26Jocko Willink?

  Cause what I normally, my lazy instinct is I always go just enough better than the person I'm going against to, to maintain and eventually finish them.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  See, and that's good, because you give the other guy good training. And, and that's kind of the point with not, you don't want, if you go in regular jiu-jitsu class, and you're like, you know, upper belt, mean, like, purple, brown, black belt, and you go against a white belt, you get paired up with a white belt. I'm not saying necessarily to do that all the time, because it's kinda, you kinda, it's a relationship you have with your training partners. So, if I'm like, "Okay, every white belt I go against, or, or any beginner, I'm just gonna go as hard as I can." It's like, "Bro, what are you doing to the guy?" Sure, good, sharp in your thing.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  That's why, that's why, for what you're saying, for blue belts to do that is not good. For a blue belt, see that white belt, they don't have the skill yet.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:11Jocko Willink?

  To really do what you're doing. It should be like purple belt, brown belt, black belt.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:14Jocko Willink?

  That's gonna be, that's gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna test my efficiency on making this happen really quickly.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:20Jocko Willink?

  Blue belt against an athletic white belt is gonna be, is gonna be World War VII.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, true.

• 21:26Jocko Willink?

  And there's injuries that are waiting to happen.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause a purple belt generally is not gonna get injured, not gonna generally injure someone from being in a bad position. Blue belt, white belt?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 21:36Jocko Willink?

  It could be, that's in bad scenarios.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and so really the point in doing that is like in a scenario like your situation where you don't have anyone to train with except for beginners that are all athletic and hungry. So it's like, okay, what do I do, you know?

• 21:50Jocko Willink?

  You know what's cool? I would come home from deployment better at jujitsu than when I left, for sure. That happened on every deployment. When I came home, I was better at jujitsu than when I left. But not only better than I was, but I was in keeping with the standards of the guys I was training with.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:06Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, I'm rolling with Dean before I leave. And I, I come back and I am now doing better than I was against Dean before I left. Where he's been here training the whole time. So that, that says to me, that is an effective way to train. You know, you just, you just and that, so that's why there's really no excuse. A lot of people ask, you know, what should I do? I live four hours away from the closest gym and get some friends, put some mats on the ground, watch YouTube and start training with each other. And occasionally when you get the chance, go somewhere to a school once a month, once every two weeks, so you can learn.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, yeah, and I think in your situation is, is kind of a, not necessarily unique, but kind of a specific type of situation where you have all the fundamentals essentially down.

• 22:51Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  So, you know, like habitual stuff, stuff that you, you just automatically do with certain techniques, which is the, the correct technique, you know? So you could, I think that you'll benefit more in that way where you can train with beginners and train in a certain way and get better.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  When I was a blue belt, myself.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:08Jocko Willink?

  I still got a lot better when I would be on deployment.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  And when I was a purple belt, when I was a brown belt.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, still, still, it's just like a little, just a smaller, um, version of that idea. Where if you're a beginner and you're like, okay, I've never taken jujitsu, I'm gonna start on YouTube or whatever, I don't think you can benefit from those situations.

• 23:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh no, you can definitely benefit from that. Not as much. You can't, yeah, definitely not as much. But you can benefit. You can definitely benefit. You can definitely benefit. It's better, it's a thousand times better than not doing anything and not training.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  And if you got one person that has that gift of being able to like, understand what's happening. Maybe you got a wrestler in there, bro, that's gonna help you so much. Or maybe you got someone that did judo, maybe that's gonna help you so much.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:48Jocko Willink?

  But even if you don't, you just start looking at it and saying, okay, what's happening in this, what's happening right there? Okay, try that armlock on me. And you get some of those good YouTube videos that really break things down well.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Jocko Willink?

  You can learn a lot. I think you can. Cause I didn't have to learn that way, luckily.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Luckily, you got to train with the best guys in the whole entire world. So, you know, hey, you know, to each their own.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Kinda nice.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Actually, yeah. Um, actually, Hodger, Gracie, who's, you know.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  We.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Not even arguably, top three all time, ever. He, and he was actually telling me, he's like, I don't have, like, a team of world-class guys to train with. He's like, sometimes I train with Brawley, sometimes. Cause he's in England.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  He's in England.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he has like, he's like, I only train with my students and who are good and they give awesome training, but they're not, I don't have world-class training partners like my opponents do, kinda thing. And.

• 24:39Jocko Willink?

  The results speak for themselves, kind of. Pretty amazing.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, man, to kinda to each their own, but all these things, yeah, can be beneficial even, even if they don't necessarily seem like it.

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know what I think, actually, this is leading to, is like, you get what you make out of it, right?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  And there's, there's people in the UFC that have done the same thing. They came from some random camp and they're training hard and they go and win.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:02Jocko Willink?

  The Conor McGregor, he didn't come from, he didn't come from Greg Jackson.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:07Jocko Willink?

  He didn't come from American top team. He came from a, you know, their school with, with Kavanaugh. And obviously they're doing something right, but same thing. He didn't have the, the highest level guys to train against.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:20Jocko Willink?

  He trained, I'm not saying slagging off their, their training partners, but it's not, it wasn't a known camp when he came around.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  He, he's, so he's a guy like that. Uh, Max Holloway, he's out in Hawaii, right? He's training hard, but he's coming out here, winning the UFC championship.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:36Jocko Willink?

  Based on, you know, his training partners. So, I think guys that, that actually understand what they need to do.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:45Jocko Willink?

  They do it. They get it done. They don't make any excuses.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Nope, at the end of the day.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  Any excuses.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yep. At the end of the day, that's it, right?

• 25:54Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Next question. With life decisions, is it better to be decisive and take actions to move forward? Even if sometimes those decisions are wrong, as opposed to being paralyzed by indecision and fear, thus getting maneuvered on by life? I ask this because I struggle with life decisions and have trouble committing to one path due to eclectic interests. After listening to your podcast, I'm thinking it's better to be aggressive and maneuver on the battlefield of life, as long as I'm prepared to adapt, rather than sitting around and letting circumstance dictate my actions.

• 26:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, it sounds like he kind of answered his own question there, which is good. Yes, it is better to be aggressive, it's better to be decisive. This does not mean burning bridges, and I think we've talked about this before. It doesn't mean that you just, you just say, "I'm quitting my job right now, because I'm going to go start a new life as a..." whatever your new job is going to be, right? "I'm going to start a business selling widgets, and I'm just going to go all in, because I'm committed."

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 27:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, how long does it take to produce those widgets? And where, you know, so there's a lot of issues with that. You know, it's, there's a way, though, to mitigate risk on your decisions. And actually, at the, at the camp we were in up in Maine, there was a lot of guys that were, you know, listening to the podcast, and one of them, really good, really good guy, he was talking to me about his business. And the business, which I'm not going to go into any details, but he's basically saying, "Look, I got this business, it's going well, I want it to do better, and I'm kind of weighing this decision between bringing on..." He says, "No, I want to bring on like six people to really help expand and grow and all that stuff."

• 27:43Jocko Willink?

  He said, "But if I do that, and we have a couple rough, you know, if we hit some bad luck, I might be upside down and not be able to handle it. And, and what I really am scared of is like, that's not just me, but it's now it's my family. I got a wife and I got kids, and now I'm hedging the, the comfort and safety of my family. So I don't know what to do." And I said, okay, well, do you have to go all in, right? Do you have to turn around tomorrow and go, you know what? We're going all in, I'm gonna hire these six people, we're gonna expand and hopefully if everything goes right, we'll do really well. You don't have to do that. You don't have to put that much on the table. Instead, I said, I said, well, how many people do you actually really need right now?

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  And he said, probably one or two. And I was like, okay. Why don't you bring on one? And, and start to see where that goes and be prepared to look for another person to bring on two. And then as those two people work out and you're starting to fill their labor every day and they're, they have work to do because you're expanding, cool, bring on three. And, and guess what? If you hit a hiccup and things start going sideways for whatever reason, that's cool. You don't have those additional four people or three people on board that you're paying payroll to every month, which is normally what kills businesses. Or one of the common things that kills businesses. So. It's the same, so, so that's, that's a good example, right? And he was, he thought to himself and he looked at me and said, absolutely, I'm gonna go do that.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  And so he's probably back at his job right now, running his business and probably hiring a person to start expanding. Not hiring six people and putting all of his chips on the table. Where it's a cool gamble, let's say the percentage of winning, winning is 70%. You're like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it. There's a 30% chance you lose, lose and now your, now your family has no house and no food. So that's not what we want to do. So why not just put some of your chips on the table? And you can still win and make a little bit. You still, you still improve your position. So we gotta do that with life too. Like I said, you don't quit your job to start building widgets when you don't know what you're doing. You gotta, why not just build the widgets in your spare time?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, see what happens.

• 29:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, start putting those things on the internet, start seeing how they sell, start getting a little income from them. Let them grow and then finally, when you feel like the balance start to tip, maybe there'll be a last minute jump where you'll be like, okay, now I'm gonna go for it. But what you're committing to is something solid, something tangible and something that's making money. Right? We're not jumping in and committing to something that's an unknown, we're gonna commit some, to something that's known. And, and I think it's important to note that that right there. is not a lack of commitment and this is you hear these like you know people on the interwebs they'll be like you know why you haven't made it yet cuz you haven't committed a hundred percent that's why you if you want to do it you gotta commit with everything you've got well and so

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  what people think is okay well I'm just gonna quit my job cuz I'm gonna go for it and commit and then I'll be successful cuz this guy over here told me if I committed I'd be successful it's actually not true you can be a thousand percent committed to something and you can still fail I got bad news for you that's the reality you know that's the reality of do you think the people at BlackBerry weren't committed to their game you know what I mean you know but what happened to BlackBerry it's it's they were they were committed but they made some bad decisions and guess what now BlackBerry is not really in the game anymore well I think they changed games I'm not a hundred percent sure but people think that that because you didn't quit your job and put go all in and put all your chips on the table that you're not committed and I actually

• 31:14Jocko Willink?

  don't agree with that and I'll and I'll get here's my example if okay I think that commitment is actually harder to do when it's a long term commitment that you're going okay you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna stay at my job but I'm gonna work three hours a day on this other thing I'm gonna be manufacturing maybe making my widgets three hours a day when I get home at 10 o'clock at night I'm gonna go until 1 o'clock in the morning making my widgets that's commitment it's actually smart commitment it actually in some ways takes more commitment to do that than it does just to quit your job and say I'm all in cuz now you're holding you're balancing all these different things you're carrying you're shouldering more of a burden so that actually takes more

• 31:56Jocko Willink?

  commitment the problem is that people they they get weak and after the fourth night of making widgets at 10 o'clock at night they go yeah I am not I'm good it's cool I have a job I have a job and so that's weak I you know an example would be what if you could get in

• 32:15Jocko Willink?

  excellent physical condition in three hours but it was just like the hardest three hours that you could imagine think about that how and and your body would transform from whatever crap condition you're in right now into a specimen and it's gonna take three hours of just hell

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  how many more people would be in amazing condition

• 32:45Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 32:46Jocko Willink?

  I think a ton more because committing for three hours to something, even if it was gonna be super bad, people would be able to do it. What takes more commitment? And the reason everyone's not walking around like a perfect specimen is because it doesn't take three hours. It doesn't take three weeks. It doesn't take three months. It takes a daily grind that goes on for years that you have to hold the line on, on the way you eat, on the way you exercise, on your life. And that takes real commitment.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  So it isn't a lack of commitment, it's planning. It isn't a lack of commitment, it is mitigating risk. And don't confuse, again, I, I think that the person that commits to something and still maintains this other income stream, for example, that person is at least as committed, if not more committed than the person says, you know what, screwed, I'm going all in over here. I'm forgetting about, you know, quitting my job. That's not a smart move.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Jocko Willink?

  And it takes more, that's actually an easier, well, that's my point. It's easier in many ways to go, you know what, I'm quitting this day job, I'm quitting my nine to five, I'm sick of that cubicle, I'm sick of that construction site, I'm just going all in over here. That is an easier move that takes less commitment than saying, I'm gonna shoulder the burden of working fifteen, eighteen, twenty hours a day for the next two years until I can get this thing stood up enough to, to where I can execute it.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes, it sounds like people are conflating the commitment, you know, it's like they, they almost people wanna, wanna, wanna do a big show of commitment by quitting their job, but it's more of just a show of commitment.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  It's a show, exactly.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  It's either you're committed or you're not, kinda thing.

• 34:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  And then, so a lot of times with these big shows of commitment comes just an immense amount of stupidity, you know?

• 34:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  When meanwhile, you can either commit or don't commit.

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  You know, yeah, sure, if you don't quit your job and you make widgets and you don't commit, sure, it's like, alright, you got, you can facilitate your non-commitment.

• 34:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  I dig it.

• 34:47Jocko Willink?

  Your, your real job, your nine to five job is an enabler to you not committing.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:52Jocko Willink?

  Fully.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. But by no means is that, you know, proof.

• 34:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, and it's important to note that don't confuse.

• 35:02Jocko Willink?

  And this is another mistake. So people make mistakes on either ends of the spectrum. The other one is don't confuse planning and mitigating risk with not taking action. Cause that can happen too. You have to make things happen every single day. That's what you have to do. If you don't take action, if you don't move, which is what this guy's asking about, then yeah, you're paralyzed and you're never gonna get anywhere. But all you have to do is chip away at that thing. You gotta make a little bit of movement every day. You wanna write a book and this is something I'm familiar with now, cause I'm writing books. I'm writing another book right now.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  And you know what I gotta do? I gotta chip away at that thing every day. Every day. Every day.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  There's your commitment.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  Thousand words a day. Forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour. That's what it takes. And guess what? If I can't get that hour, for whatever reason, guess what I'm gonna get?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Two.

• 35:50Jocko Willink?

  Twenty minutes. I'm gonna get thirty minutes. I'm gonna get something to get in there. I'm gonna do work. Cause I'm gonna be close to my goal than I was.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it is.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. And I think.

• 36:01Jocko Willink?

  You got to see that live, didn't you?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yes. You know, honor, like it was my honor.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  That's, um.

• 36:09Jocko Willink?

  But that's where it happens. Where else is it gonna happen? Right?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  We were flying back from Maine. I was, you know, Echo's cruising, good.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think I fell asleep a couple times.

• 36:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, you were kinda in and out. But I was, I was hammering. I was, I was doing what I have to do. Because if I don't do it then, when's that? When am I gonna get that hour? That was, that was four hours I had right there. Flight.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Technically five.

• 36:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Couldn't get my computer out for the first little bit.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, they didn't let you?

• 36:35Jocko Willink?

  So whatever.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Oh, good, bro. Yeah, I was kinda, at times I was peeking over your shoulder, like reading, oh, what's Jocko writing over here? And then I see, uh, what was it? I saw the name Kenny Williamson in there.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I know what Jocko's writing right now. Yeah, yeah.

• 36:51Jocko Willink?

  Book two.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  That's good, man.

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  Being composed.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, all that sounds like kinda obvious, you know? When you're saying it, I'm like, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Or, you know, or at least the part where it's like, it's a daily thing. Like you gotta, you gotta have a progress, you know, like you gotta take that step, you know?

• 37:08Jocko Willink?

  Do it.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Um, sounds obvious, but man, how many times I know this, like my friends and, you know, whatever. Uh, you go on, I don't know, online or whatever, and you see people complaining about, you know, "Stuff never happens for me," you know? FML, you know what FML means?

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Stuff never happens to you, that's right. And stuff never happens for you, that's right.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:31Jocko Willink?

  That is life.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  Stuff doesn't happen for you in life.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:34Jocko Willink?

  You gotta go and make it. You know, I've explained to my kids. You wanna make money, you have to take that money from someone else. You have to take it from them. The, the, people aren't just gonna walk up and give you money.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:44Jocko Willink?

  Right? That doesn't happen. That's never happened to me in my life. No one has ever walked up and given me money.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, me neither.

• 37:49Jocko Willink?

  You gotta take that money. They gotta give it to you. You gotta make them. You gotta take it from them.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:56Jocko Willink?

  They want that money too.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:57Jocko Willink?

  So what are you gonna give them that's gonna make, allow you to take it from them?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  That, that, so yeah, guess what? Nothing's, nothing happens for you. That's right. Nothing does happen for you. You have to make it happen.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:08Jocko Willink?

  That's the default aggressive mindset. That you are gonna make things happen. Not gonna sit around and wait for things to happen. It's not gonna happen.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  It's not gonna happen. Oh, well, guess what? I read a story about this such and such a person and they just walked into this, you know, agency and they, they thought they looked, did a really good job and now they're famous. Okay, that's great. Base your life on that percentage chance of happening. It's not happening.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:34Jocko Willink?

  I actually, I actually look at that and just think the much, the chances of anything like that happen to me are zero. Nothing good is gonna happen to me like that, that I'm just gonna get a good deal like that. It's not happening. Zero.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:44Jocko Willink?

  So if, if, if you're gonna get it, you're gonna have to make it happen.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:48Jocko Willink?

  Next quest. You know what I'm saying?

• 38:50Speaker 01

  That should be the red flag right there then, right? Basically for the, for someone who's like, you know, when am I gonna get my big break or, or, you know, nothing happens for me kinda thing. That should be the red flag, right? When it's like.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon, as soon as you're, you're talking about the fact that you're not, that things aren't coming to you.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that should be a real big red flag. Nothing is gonna come to you. Not happening. It's not happening. You gotta go and make things happen. And once you have that attitude, I'll tell you what, it's a game changer.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  It's a game changer. Once you realize that that book that's so good that's in your head is not gonna write itself.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Jocko Willink?

  Once you realize that widget that you have this plan for isn't gonna build itself.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  Then you'll realize like, okay, I'm gonna have to make these things happen.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:36Jocko Willink?

  And even then, guess what? You can make a widget that no one wants to buy and you can write a book that no one wants to, no one wants to read. And if you're not okay with that, which is another thing that happens. People say, well, you know, no one will like it. Okay. Well, if that's what you think, well, then don't even write it unless you want to write it for yourself. Then write it for yourself and cool, be, be proud, be stoked, be happy.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting to let's say a book, right? For example. This kind of reminds me of where you know how, let's say, I don't know me, I'm a, let's say, oh, I'm a, I'm a pretty good writer. In fact, I even wrote a book before, whatever. And then my friend on Instagram, Facebook, whatever, someone, my neighbor, whatever. They write a book and they, they release it. And then they write another one and let's say it's not even really that good, but it's out there. They're like, look at my new book and you know, they got people support. Oh, that's awesome. You wrote a book. And I'm meanwhile, I'm like kind of sour grapes a little bit. I'm like, I'm a better writer than, than that person. Meanwhile, I didn't write any more books. I'm over here.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Or you wrote one, yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wrote back in the day, a long time ago, you know?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  But you know, I'm, and I'm saying I'm in that arena, you know, and I'm kind of in my mind, hating on this person.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  There's people that hate on them that never even wrote a book in the first place. Oh man, I'm a better writer. I'm a better film guy. I'm a better carpenter. I'm a better fighter, whatever. There are all kinds of people doing that, all kinds of people that, that will just be saying, I, I, I was a better whatever fighter, jujitsu player, carpenter, whatever. You name it.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Meanwhile, taking no action.

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  Software engineer. I could have done that. Why didn't you?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right.

• 41:18Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you why, because you weren't committed. And the commitment that we're talking about is at night, late at night. That's what it is.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Or early in the morning. Or in the middle of the day, whatever, you know, it, how you said, like you're, you're not doing these enormous shows of commitment, like either you're committed or you're not. If you're committed, it's going to show itself by your action, you know? A lot of people, again, back to the guy who's like hating on his neighbor doing quote unquote mediocre work. Like, oh, that's John, that's not that good.

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  You know what? This just made me think of this. Sometimes you'd meet a guy that was a. I'm going to SEAL training.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  And, and they'd kind of be brag about it. And you could see in their eyes that that right there was good enough for them.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 42:09Jocko Willink?

  Like, I'm going to SEAL SEAL Team training.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, no one calls it SEAL Team training, but that's the kind of person because they just want to.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 42:16Jocko Willink?

  And you'd, I'd, I'd hear guy, you know, guys saying that, yeah, I'm going to SEAL training. The guys that generally have a better chance are guys that, you know, you say, oh, what are you doing in the Navy? And they say, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, just got done with a school and I'm starting, uh, hoping to go to SEAL training. You know, they, they, you have to pry it out of them.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  That guy's a better chance. The guy that's already bragging.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  Basically indirectly bragging because he's implying that he's going to make it. Those guys are going to have a little bit more of a rough time now. This doesn't mean they're not, this doesn't mean don't be confident.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:50Jocko Willink?

  But that's what, what I'm saying is some people that are like, I'm going for it. They're happy with just saying, I'm committed, I quit my job and this is what I'm going to do. They're happy to, to let everyone know that.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  But what they're not happy to do is grind.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:04Jocko Willink?

  That's what they're not happy to do. And that's where, that's where you, that's where you make your money.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  Right? Or where you make your goods or where you become successful.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is, oh, who was it? It's listening, so it doesn't matter. But I was listening to somebody and they were talking about, um, like commit. Like people have goals. I want to be a singer or whatever. I want to be a CEO. I was wondering, I want to be a CEO.

• 43:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you can form up an LLC today and you can be, become the CEO.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So that's kind of part of the, that's part of the point right there. It's like, okay, you, you want to be CEO because you see all this cool stuff on wherever about being a CEO. But really what you're pursuing isn't necessarily being this, it is. But what you're pursuing, where you're going to end up and where you're going to find success as a CEO. If you're pursuing the day to day of being a CEO. It's like, oh, I said this before and it's, it's, on the surface, it's lame, but it's, it's actually really accurate.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Like if you want to be a gangster, you have to do gangster stuff every day. It's not just like posing with your guns. It's like you gotta kinda, you gotta put in that work kinda thing, you know? So if you're gonna be, like, you can't just be Jocko and start a podcast and just, in, in, you know, put out a book and that's it and start collecting money. It's not like that. You gotta, you gotta go through, you know, however old you are, that many years.

• 44:31Jocko Willink?

  There's other steps involved.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly right.

• 44:33Jocko Willink?

  Lef and I used to joke about, uh, you know, cause when we started Echelon Front, obviously, which is me and him, and we'd see some other guy out there and be like, CEO of something. And, and we'd be saying, well, that guy's the CEO. And you look at their company and the company has them. The only one person or three people.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  Bro, you're, that's kinda weird.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm the CEO. Hey, I'm the CEO of Jocko Podcast.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:00Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? No, it's just you and me. There's no CEO going on here.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:04Jocko Willink?

  We're cruising too hard.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that, um, yeah, that deal. You gotta focus on the right things as opposed to the wrong things.

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Jocko, I coach high school football. What should I do with the star athlete who segregates himself and won't participate in hard drills? Or won't participate hard in drills?

• 45:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Now, this one I actually thankfully remembered that I said I would do this. Because when I got, this, this is a Twitter question. And I responded to this Twitter question in one word. So, you know, he says, I got this guy, star athlete, won't participate in drills. What should I do with him? I responded in one word, bench.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Saw that.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  So, so of course.

• 45:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, then people start saying, well, you know, and I was like, yeah, I know we're on Twitter. Right? We're on Twitter. Uh, there's more to it than what's happening. I just answered 798 questions. And this was 799. So I'm not going to go into full detail, but then as people were kind of chiming in, I was like, okay, I'll, I'll answer this on the podcast. So we can go into it a little bit more. Because yes, you're a coach, you're a leader and obviously I talk about this all the time. Leadership is a nuanced thing. It takes balance. It takes maneuvering. It takes chess playing. It takes mental jujitsu. It takes all those things, right? So the obvious answer of just like bench.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  Right. That's my meathead answer. And fundamentally, we'll get to it.

• 46:44Jocko Willink?

  But and fundamentally, that may be the result, but let's dive into it a little bit. But who's the kid? What's his deal? What's his background? What's his attitude? Where's he coming from? What's his family like life? Or what's his family life like? What is?

• 47:03Jocko Willink?

  What's his past performance? What's his record? What year is he in school? I mean, there's all kinds of things we need to know. Right? So now, once we've sort of figured out what he like now that any one of those things, any one of those variables is gonna, is gonna change our course of action a little bit because being a leader doesn't mean you get to follow cookie cutter results or quick cookie cutter solutions to things, right? You're dealing with human beings and every single human being is different. And every single human being has a little craziness to him that you cannot predict. So we're dealing with a kid. Guess what? A 16 year old boy? That kid is even more unpredictable and even more crazy than most, right? Cause he's got testosterone flowing through his system. He's chasing girls. He's, he's just going crazy.

• 47:44Jocko Willink?

  He's not secure with himself yet. He's got zits on his face. He's, you know, he's got things going on. He's got issues. And so this kid's crazy and we're trying to deal with him. Now, most kids can get, you know, they get through that and they're still participating with the team. This kid's not. So one of the first things I always say this, you've got somebody that's not stepping up into leadership position or they're not wanting to, you put them in charge of it. You know, you say, hey, echo. I want you to run this drill. I think the way I'm watching you perform on the field, I think you could really lead this drill well. I want you to lead this drill and show these guys what's up. Right? Oh, so you know what I mean? Like you got a little fired up face on your look just there. Yeah. So that might take his attitude. And now instead of me saying, hey, Echo, you gotta do this drill like everyone else. I already know that you don't want to do that. So I'm elevating you a little bit.

• 48:29Jocko Willink?

  Giving your ego a little push, a little massage, and maybe you feel good about that now. And I say, hey, you know, you can run this drill faster than anyone else. I want you to lead it. I want you to show them how to do it. I want you to make our team better. Boom. All of a sudden, you're getting a little fired up. So that's, that's one solution type, right? I'm just giving kind of a broad solution types. Another solution type is, is, and this is real easy, real easy, is when you're talking to someone that you want to improve their performance, you don't go to them and say, hey, ah, ah, you need to get better because you're just, right now, you're letting the whole team down. Right. And you're just, you think you're all good. You think you're so good that you don't need to coach, you don't need to run drills with the team. You need to run drills with the team.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  Now, your attitude is, what are you talking about? So instead of saying that, I, again, I'm going to ego you up a little bit and be saying, hey,

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  man, I'm going to talk to you. I gotta talk to you because I see so much potential with you, with your game. I see your athletic ability and I see the way that the other guys on the team look at you. You might not sense it. They look up to you. You're a leader, whether you want to be a leader or not. And the potential that you have as an athlete is not going to come to fruition unless you at least get some of your potential as a leader in line. So the reason I want you to run these drills isn't to make you better. I already know you're good. I already know you're good at the drills. The reason I want you to run these drills is because I want you to be even better. I want you to reach your potential. And by the way, you helping run these drills is going to make the team better. And the better the team does, the better you're going to do.

• 50:08Jocko Willink?

  The more scouts we're going to hear looking at you.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  So there's that. And obviously, I'm going to explain to him why the drills are important for him and for the team and for him and the team together for everyone to reach their potential. So those are, those are good too.

• 50:28Jocko Willink?

  And I guess overall broadly what I'd be doing this whole time is talking to the person, talking to the individual, trying to figure out what his reasons were for not wanting to participate in the drills. And then countering those reasons with logical answers. And, you know, saying, hey, here's why it's important and explaining it to him. And then eventually you're going to get to a point where my coaching, my explaining, my maneuvering, my mental jujitsu, none of it's worked and he's still telling me, I'm not running the drills, I don't need to. Cool. Benched. Next question, you know what I mean? Well, you played ball. What do you think?

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause I didn't play football.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I would, I would think, and I'm trying to put myself in the mindset back when I was in high school. Um, I remember going into my senior year. So you have, uh, we had some kind of summer training. So it was really like high school summer training.

• 51:23Jocko Willink?

  Two days.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  No, no, no, that was, that was for fall.

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Um, and that was like a camp situation, but no, summer training, which was like after spring and stuff. And, and what they call it, they call it technique sessions. And all it was, was like, you know, I played, uh, in high school, it was kind of like a slapback, which is a hybrid running back wide receiver type. And, um, so the technique sessions were just kind of passing drills and, you know, just hand stuff and maybe even some footwork, but it's, it was kind of fun. It was just, you know, the quarterback was there and the receivers and the running backs and you'd catch passes, run routes and stuff. And, you know, for like, I don't know, 45 minutes, hour. And, um, so I remember going into my senior year and they're talking about, yeah, technique sessions this year, whatever, whatever. And I remember I was just talking to Jade, my brother.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  And I was like, yeah, technique sessions. It's the kind where if you don't go, you don't get in big trouble or nothing. It's just strongly encouraged, you know, that kind of thing. And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to those kind of, cause I was real. I had done

• 52:20Jocko Willink?

  You were the man.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  I had done well as a junior and I knew that now as a senior, I'm really gonna do well, whatever, whatever. That's, that was my little thought, brother. I don't need to go to those. So I was like, I was like, yeah, I'm not going into those with this kinda tone that like, that's for people who are trying to, trying to get better. Me, I'm already dope kinda thing, you know? And Jay goes, he goes, oh yeah, like we're super sarcastic, like almost offended. He was like, oh yeah, cuz you don't need that, huh? And he's, and then he said, yeah, cuz you're just so much better than everyone else. Actually, I think he said both of those. And I was like, bro, it hit me really hard. I was like, dang, that's, he's right, man. I was like, even if, even if, like even if I really believe, which it's dumb to believe that I won't benefit from that training, even if,

• 53:04Speaker 01

  it's like, I'm just like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm better than you. My whole team, by the way, the team sport, we all work together to win this stuff. You guys, I'm better than all you guys. Yeah. That's, that's the feeling. It hit me real hard. I was like, I didn't miss any of them. No, man, I'm committed to it. So there was that. Um, so in that, in that mindset, right, going in, cuz that's probably what it is.

• 53:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it might be just that.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  And it makes sense, like we're in your mind, if you don't get it brought to your attention, like that's really what it is. I don't need to do these drills. I'm scoring touchdowns every single game. Why am I doing these drills that all these non-touchdown scoring people are doing, you know? Um, just put me in when it's time to score touch, kind of an attitude, you know? That's probably what it is. Or making tackles or whatever the position is, I don't know. Um, so just like how you said,

• 53:52Speaker 01

  make him kinda in charge of it. Kinda like this guy, I don't know, let's say his name's Jim, I don't know. Um, Jim, you know, take these guys and show them how it's done kinda thing in practice, cuz practice is.

• 54:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, imagine, imagine if you say, I'm not gonna go to this thing, and the coach came up and he said, hey, Echo, are you, you know, you missed two practices. And you're like, yeah, you know, and he was like, hey, man, I need you to set the example and really show these guys how it's done. And you're not even showing up.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Even in me, me back in those days, if, if you would've left out the, like, you didn't show up part, leave that part out, that would've compelled me way more. Like, if you're like, you, man, you're, you're over here as a junior killing it, and now it's about to be your senior year, you show these guys how it's done. I'd be like, hell yeah, I will. You know, cuz it's like feeding the ego kinda thing. And boom, I would, oh yeah, big time, take, take charge. In, um, Pop Warner football, which is, you know, younger guys in, I played for the Kalua Rams.

• 54:50Jocko Willink?

  Dang, they sound ruthless.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  They are, still are, by the way.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  And so, my coach, his name is Coach Scoville. And he had this kind of, it's kind of like a policy, kind of the thing where when you do jumping jacks, when you do, you know, drills, like, they call them grass drills. It's just like, oh, you do this stuff, you roll, you do these things. And while you do this, in practice, and even before the game, when you're warming up, you yell as loud as you can. That's it. You yell, little kids just yelling, getting that stuff for his reasons, and it worked, man, we were good. And, um, so, what I would do is I would try to be the, like, yell as loud as I possibly can to be the loudest guy.

• 55:30Jocko Willink?

  During the entire, whatever you're doing? You're just yelling the entire time?

• 55:34Speaker 01

  The drills, yeah, when it's your turn, not, not if you're standing, you know, you stand up in line.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  And then the front three guys go. Yeah, so, the coach stands in front of three guys, three lines, and the guys in the front are doing the drills. So, he, he holds the ball, and you go, ah, and you just basically shuffle your feet, and he goes like that, then you turn, then you come back, and he goes this way, turn, and then he goes down, then you basically sprawl, you know? Boom, stand back up, and ah, you know? And then he goes, okay, like that, and then the three guys run, now it's the next guys.

• 55:59Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  You see what I'm saying? So, and when you're running, you gotta yell too, so, I.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  That's actually good cardiovascular work.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:07Jocko Willink?

  To be yelling, because you can't breathe as much?

• 56:09Speaker 01

  What it does is gets you in the habit of just going hard, hard, every play, you know? And when you're done, you don't have to yell, you're cruising, you're resting, getting ready. And when, when it's go time, it's go time, and habitually, that's how it was, man, it was, it really worked. And, um, so, anyway, when I would yell, and the coach would do this to a lot of kids, when you'd yell super loud, you know, you could just see, hear that guy yelling above everybody? He would give that guy attention. He'd be like, look at this guy, he's getting nuts, yeah, look at this, look at this guy. And now the next guy, he's gonna try to out yell that guy, go harder, go harder. So it's that same idea, you know, you give that guy props for working hard, or showing everybody how it's done, kind of thing. And it's like, man, he's gonna keep that shit up, and everyone's gonna want it. In fact, Jeff did me like that this week in training.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  So I go in, and Jeff's like, okay, after training, he's like, everybody, you know?

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  Jeff Glover?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Glover, yeah. He um, you know, you do some pushups or he'll make you do some pushups or whatever. And um, he's like, okay, do the triangle drill. You know, when you're on your back, you rock back, you do a triangle. You rock back again, go to the other side. So, all levels are in there, beginners as well. And um, so I'm doing it and he goes, oh, everybody in the middle of you goes, stop, watch how Echo does it. And I'm like, if I didn't see what was going on here, I would feel really empowered to like show everyone how and you know. So he successfully pulled that off. As far as the feeling in my head to a grown adult.

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause you, were you doing them?

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was doing it with everybody. And he paused the whole class and said, watch how he does it, you know, so it's this exact same concept.

• 57:38Jocko Willink?

  You stepped up your game a little bit.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, technique, showed everybody, you know? Yeah, no, it's good, man. That works then like and the point there is even if you you know that that's what they're doing to you, it still kinda works.

• 57:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Hey, if you were the type of coach that had already had this happen before and like you just benched guy? And the and the coach had the reputation that you don't play around, this wouldn't have happened in the first place, really wouldn't.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  I I agree. I think so.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  So you you may have to set the example at some point.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, the only drawback of that potentially is um, you could. Cause in high school, a lot of the times, like you can have one or two guys on the team, sometimes even one guy on the team that'll dictate the outcome of the game. Where if this guy's playing, you'll you'll probably win. If he's not, you'll probably lose and you you have those dynamics in high school. Um, so if you run that risk where, I mean, unless you, if you're looking at a bigger picture, like.

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess this is a bad example. If the guy, if you if you as a coach, run things in a certain way.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  Where you have, where you don't allow any slack.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Jocko Willink?

  Then the probability of this occurring is gonna be less.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be done for sure.

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, like, you know, it's it's a funny story Leif tells sometimes is we were doing desert training and long story short. There's an opportunity to have guys take a break and go to town and have some beer and get a good meal. Before the field training exercises start and that's normal, what everyone does, but.

• 59:08Jocko Willink?

  We didn't do that. We didn't take a break, didn't go get food, didn't go get beers and nothing. We just got after it more. And I didn't really think much of it, but Leif was like, yeah, of course we wanted to go, but no one, no one wanted to ask you.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause it was just like, yeah, no slack. We're not, obviously we're not, we're out here to train and get some, we're not here to, you know, go into town and drink a beer. No. And it's kind of funny looking back, but I think that, that you can establish yourself as a type of leader that's just not going to allow, like, what are you talking about? You don't want to do the drills? Oh, but it starts with the little things. Like who knows what this, this kid, you know, maybe he didn't want to put on his practice jersey and he wanted to wear this, you know what I mean? Just like little things, little things build up and eventually he's seen it, just like a normal kid, just like a five-year-old that pushes the envelope with everything.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh man, can't get away with that? Well, what can I get away with? Can't get away with that? What can I get away with? People like to push the envelope.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Story of my life, man.

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No slack.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Jocko Willink?

  But you can go too far with no slack, of course.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  And you now, now everyone hates you as a coach.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause you just don't understand, you don't listen and you're a jerk.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Jocko Willink?

  You've, you've gone too far in one direction or you've gone too far in the other direction. Balanced dichotomy of leadership. Get some.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's true.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Next question. Jocko, have you ever had a person you couldn't get through to? Something that you couldn't manipulate? Then what? What do you do when you can't get through?

• 1:00:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, of course. Um, I've had people that I could not get through to. And generally speaking, these people are like level 12 arrogance. That's they are giant ego. That's what causes this. There was quite a few SEAL leaders that I dealt with. I shouldn't say quite a few. There were several SEAL leaders that I dealt with that were like that and have several business leaders that I've dealt with that I were like that. In podcast number five, I read that counseling letter. Corrective measures to a guy that was really arrogant and despite that letter, he did not change. And he got fired. So what do you do when you got someone that you can't get through to?

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  You, you fire them. That's if they're, if, and here's what you gotta do is what, what makes that tricky? Is that some people.

• 1:01:26Jocko Willink?

  And this may, this, this will make people freak out. There's some people that they're such good performers that even though they're slightly negative on maybe their team participation, but they're so good that that it offsets their negativity, right? And that happens. It happens. You know what happens with salespeople? Salespeople are, are in order to be in a sales position, you gotta be confident, you gotta be aggressive. You gotta be somewhat arrogant, right? You gotta believe in yourself. And so some salespeople take that to the extreme where they're just like, I don't need to listen to what you're telling me the new procedures are. Screw that. I'm the one that's doing the big dollars over here. How about you follow my procedures, boys? Right? So, so that happens.

• 1:02:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, then what you gotta do is you gotta look, does, is this guy producing so well? Now that can create problems within the team. And you have to balance those things. Is this guy?

• 1:02:19Jocko Willink?

  Is the negativity he is creating offset by the awesome productivity that he's doing? And furthermore, if the guy's that good, hey, maybe we should be modeling some things after them. I got no problem with that. If you're the best performer, cool. I want to imitate you. I want to get my people to imitate you. So that happens. The other place where you might see it, a similar situation is a leader that does really good with their relationships down the chain of command. For instance, but really has bad relations up the chain of command. So again, you gotta ask yourself, okay, if I fire this leader, how many of these people that he has great relationships are now going to leave? And what kind of detriment is that to the team?

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  That can also happen with someone that's doesn't, that treats their people like crap. But up the chain of command, everyone thinks he's great. And, and he's getting the mission done, by the way. Right? He's a slave driver and he's creating total animosity between him and his team, but he's accomplishing the mission. So now what do you do? There's a risk. Everyone could quit. There's risk you could fire him and now you don't accomplish the mission anymore. This is why leadership is hard and this is why you have to balance everything. You have to balance those things. But talked about it a bunch of times. If you get someone, you coach them, you mentor them, you do everything you can, you flank them, you do jujitsu, mental jujitsu on them. You try and get them squared away. And eventually if you can't.

• 1:03:44Jocko Willink?

  You weigh against, you know, how it's gonna affect the situation and then in many cases, you gotta let them go. And we fired, you know, we fired, I saw plenty of SEALs get fired from leadership positions. And, and same thing with, you know, obviously we work with consulting businesses. We see all kinds of people getting fired because they're either not capable of doing their job, they're too arrogant, and they don't recognize that things are going sideways and they're just thinking that they're doing everything perfect. No, that's not gonna work out well for you.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, what did, I think it was Leif. He said, someone asked him, you know, when do you know? When's that line where it's like when it's time to fire someone?

• 1:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  And he was like, in a nutshell, there's a lot to it, but in a nutshell, which I thought was dope. He said, it's, you know, you're at that point where you, where you fire someone when, when you don't feel bad about it.

• 1:04:41Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  So it's like, yeah, you tried everything.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  Tried everything and, and there's also people, which there's some validity to this, that say, the first time you think you should fire someone, you should fire them. That's the other end of the spectrum, right? And what that means is when you're looking at someone and you're going, man, okay, I can save them, I can help them. That's the kind of advice you give to someone that's, that's a, that's got a maternal instinct, right? That you meet someone, hey, I know this guy's just a good guy and everyone on my team is great and everyone's gonna do a great job. You can't tell that person what Leif and I normally tell people, which is when you feel good about it, you should fire them. Because that person will never feel good about firing anybody, just about.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:05:25Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying? Cause he just, oh, this guy, I know he's gonna bake it, I know he's gonna come around. You know, I, and then they, then they start playing the, the extreme ownership game.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Which is, you know, if I would've given Echo a better direction, he would've been able to do this. It's my fault. I've given Echo 17 iterations of this and he still didn't complete it correctly, he's fired. That's the way it works, right? There's, there's a balance.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  So that spectrum of, of, you know, being within the confines of being justified firing somebody. A certain type of person, you gotta say when you don't feel bad about it.

• 1:05:57Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  I mean, that's like a fire-heavy type dude.

• 1:06:00Jocko Willink?

  Right, but there's also someone, the reason you shouldn't feel bad about it is because I've done everything I can do to help you.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Which takes work, it takes effort, it takes tact, it takes hard conversations, because it's hard for me to go and say, Echo, you know, I've been, I've been looking at your videos lately and they're, they're not really what we're looking for, right? And I don't want to say that to you, you know, it's uncomfortable and we're kind of like, you know, we, we, we want to get along, so instead I'm like, yeah, Echo, that, that video was good, man, yeah, it's good. But I'm not telling you the truth. And then over time, our videos aren't looking good enough, and eventually I say, you know what, you know, we're, no one's buying our videos anymore, and we haven't gotten any new contracts, so guess what? I'm gonna have to let you go, and you're like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? You said all the videos I made were good, now you're firing me? Maybe you need to be, become a better salesperson.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if I had the hard conversation early, and said, hey Echo, you know, I know you're creative, and I appreciate that, but we also need to get the message across for our clients. I'm obviously fabricating a business where we're making

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Videos for clients.

• 1:07:02Jocko Willink?

  Videos for clients, yeah. Which I know we don't really do a lot of anymore, occasionally you do. But, uh, but, yeah, you gotta, you got to, um, have the hard conversations earlier. If I'm the type of person that doesn't like to have the hard conversations, once again, I never feel good about it, because I never, I never gave you any advice, so it always feels bad for me to fire someone.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Jocko Willink?

  But if you're following good leadership tactics, then absolutely true. When you get to a point where you gotta fire somebody, you won't feel bad about it, because you know you've done everything you can, you know you've coached them, mentored them, and you know that if you keep them on board, you are negatively impacting your team.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Which is bad.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then go down to the other side of the spectrum, still within the confines of being justified in firing somebody, by the way. But on the other side of the spectrum, you get how you say that, what do you call the maternal instinct type of person? The person who can like, they're just super hard on themselves, maybe, or they're, you know, like, I, I, even if you did do everything you can, you're still like, I could have done more, you know, so it's my fault not to.

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  I feel like I let them down as a leader.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Jocko Willink?

  You gave them seventeen counseling chits.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, they don't belong here. They can't do their jobs. Stop.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, meanwhile, they're going home laughing at you or whatever.

• 1:08:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get that kind of personality. So it's kind of like how you say, you gotta balance it. You gotta be like, okay, you gotta recognize, okay, what kind of person am I? You know, or what kind of person is this other person kind of thing? And if they're those maternal instinctual, for lack of a better way of putting it, person, then, what was it, the first time you feel like you should fire them, you should fire them?

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  You, you hang out on that side of the spectrum. You gotta, yeah.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. How do you regain respect from your employees after you've come across as too nice? My husband and I are business owners with forty-five employees in a small software firm. Since adding more employees in the last eighteen months, the culture is changing. I blame our easygoing attitude. Increasingly, there is an attitude problem where negative pushback has become almost a daily occurrence. How do we lead our way out of this?

• 1:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, this is a rough one.

• 1:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Not, not by no means, I shouldn't have even said it's a rough one. It's, it's a challenge, right? You have to hit the reset button, for sure. And you gotta let people know that things are changing. Now, I would straight up have a meeting that you, you, you sit everyone down and say, hey, here's what's happening. We are growing, and as we grow, we are going to have to evolve, just like a person. As you get older, you have to evolve, you have to become more mature. And here's some of the things that we're gonna have to tighten up. Right? Is...

• 1:09:58Jocko Willink?

  Instead of, you know, everyone's just, "Hey, if you come in and you wanna go, you gotta, you know, it's your kid's birthday." "Oh yeah, no problem, day off." You say, "Look, that's not happening anymore." "We will do our best to let you out for your daughter's birthday." "We will do our best to let you go take care of family members when they're sick." "We will do our best to give you bonuses that you've become accustomed to." "We will do our best to give you raises annually." "We will do our best to continue to take care of you." "But none of those things are guaranteed at all."

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  "We are trying to be profitable." "In fact, we have to be profitable in order to continue as a business." "On top of being profitable, in order to grow, we have to reinvest in the company." "We have to take the money that we make and we have to put it back into this company in order to grow." "And we are going to grow, that is our goal." "And in order to grow, we are going to have to put procedures and standards in place." "Now, that will allow us to maintain some control and efficiency as we grow." "If we don't do that, we're gonna fall apart." "So that is what we need to do." "Now, why do we wanna grow?"

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  "The reason we wanna grow is because we wanna be bigger." "We wanna create more opportunity for everyone sitting in this room." "We're not trying to grow for us, we're trying to grow for everyone." "The more opportunity everyone has to advance in leadership, to make more money, that is what we are trying to do." "But we can only do that if we, as we grow, we evolve and become better and become more efficient and become more standardized in the next 18 to 24 months." "That is what we have to do as a company."

• 1:11:55Jocko Willink?

  "So I would have a meeting and say something like that, something along those lines." "Lay down the law a little bit." "Now, also then, you have to change your attitude." "You have to somewhat change your attitude." "Because you are Mr. Nice Guy, that's how you ended up in this position." "You know, the husband and wife team, Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy."

• 1:12:17Jocko Willink?

  You can and should be nice as a leader, I understand that, but at this point, the team needs to get tightened up.

• 1:12:25Jocko Willink?

  And so you're gonna have to impose some discipline on them.

• 1:12:29Jocko Willink?

  In order for there to be freedom in the future. Surprisingly, right? But we know that. Now, I had a friend who was a platoon commander. And he was, he worked with me and I knew him. And when he was a platoon commander, he was a real nice guy. Super nice guy. When he was a platoon commander, he was a nice guy. Super nice guy. Things didn't work out good for him. Because I don't know that, I don't, I don't specifically know what happened, but I know that things didn't go great. And when he talked to me about it. Because the thing is, when I worked with him, we were all bros. And I was a young enlisted guy. But we, we know we were all bros, but we all had that level of respect. Hey, you know what? We can go out and have a beer tonight, but tomorrow morning when we get to work.

• 1:13:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm in the game and I'm, you know, I'm. I'm toeing the line. And that's pretty much what we were all like, all of us enlisted guys working with this guy. And when he got to this new place, new command, all of a sudden, it wasn't like that anymore. And he was bro-ing out with people. And when he get back into work, they, they wanted to bro out at work. And it was like, well, we don't need to listen to you. We were having beers with you last night. And that's what he told me. He said, you know, I, I was too nice of a guy. And I didn't get the respect that I needed to be able to effectively run the platoon. And it was not good. And he said something to me too, which

• 1:13:57Jocko Willink?

  I, I guess I instinctively knew, or maybe I didn't, but it stuck with me, you know, it's real easy to give more slack to someone when you have them on a tight leash, right? It's real easy.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  It's hard to do the other thing. It's hard to, well, listen to this. When I have you on a tight leash and I give you a little bit of slack, you're happy. You're like, oh, look at Chaco, he, he trusts me, he's letting me go a little bit.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:20Jocko Willink?

  When I give you all kinds of, all kinds of slack, and all of a sudden I have to tighten it up, I start pulling on the leash. Well, guess what? It chokes your neck.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:27Jocko Willink?

  It chokes you. And I start bringing, and the, and the further I gotta pull you back on in, the longer you're choking for. And so by the time you get back to me, you're ready to bite. And so that's what you have to do. You don't walk in and put the dogs out and let them run wild to the end of the leash and let them run wherever they want. And then try and pull them back in. Cause when you let him go, by the way, you're thinking yourself, well, you know, this is a good dog. So when I let him run around, he's not going to do anything wrong. He's going to be a perfect saint. Well, there's a chance that that's going to happen. And there's a chance that that's a good dog and you let him run around and when you say come back, he comes back to you. There's also a chance that he's not a good dog. And when he gets out there, he starts running and started biting people or running in the road or doing whatever bad dogs do.

• 1:15:11Jocko Willink?

  And so what, what are you going to have to do that dog is you gotta pull him back to you. And it's, it's actually worse because we already know this is a bad dog. So now when you pull him back, he's pissed and he's going to bite you. Whereas a good dog wasn't doing anything bad in the first place. And when you pull him back in, he looks at you and goes, hey, I must've gone too out of control. I'm sorry. I'm back in line now. You see what I'm saying? There's a, the, the way the whole thing unfolds. Is bad because the bad dog, he's a bad dog and he's doing bad stuff. When you give him slack on the leash and when you pull him back, he's going to snap at you. The good dog, you give him all kinds of room on leash. He's not doing anything good. And when you pull him back, he goes, he goes, oh, sorry. I didn't realize I was doing something out of line, master.

• 1:15:53Jocko Willink?

  I'll, I'll keep it in check now and you can give me more slack if you want or not, doesn't matter. I want, I want you to trust me. Meanwhile, the bad dog, he's just like growling. He's pissed.

• 1:16:04Jocko Willink?

  So that's going to be a hard one. Um, like I said, it's not impossible, but the big thing you gotta do. I think in this situation, you gotta be clear. Here's what's going on. You could even potentially, I don't know how well you are of a speaker interacting with people. You could even say something along the lines of, you know, hey, look, we've been running this real loose. And I've been real, you know, we've been doing everything we could to, to run this as loose as possible. But we gotta tighten it up. I think that's, I think you could say that because you don't want to say, "Look, I've been being nice and I can't be nice anymore." That, that, that comes across wrong.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Jocko Willink?

  But to say, "Look, we've been running it real loose here." And we've been trying to give you guys as much freedom as we can. And we still want you guys to have freedom, but we gotta put some parameters in place that are gonna, that are gonna allow us to run this business efficiently as we grow and as we scale.

• 1:16:55Jocko Willink?

  You can quote me on that one, by the way.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense when you say, "Be clear and consistent." You know, like how, um, you know, some people, they'll implement rules and I'm speaking from an employee's standpoint. Where I'm looking at the boss when they're trying to put in new rules to tighten it up, so to speak. Because in the nightclub industry, that tends to happen. You know, managers bro-ing out with, I like to term "bro out," by the way.

• 1:17:21Jocko Willink?

  You've never heard that? Have you never heard that before?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  I don't think so, not that I can remember, but...

• 1:17:25Jocko Willink?

  That's interesting. I thought that was pretty common vernacular, especially amongst a bro like yourself.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Bro out, bro-ing out with them. Yeah, and the nightclub managers tend to bro out with people or, you know, bro out with girls or whatever, the waitress, whatever, whatever.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if you can bro out with girls.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:17:45Jocko Willink?

  You kind of caught yourself there, didn't you?

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  There's probably a different word for it, group of words, whatever. Um, but nonetheless, that tends to happen. So, you know, sometimes same situation. You know, you get nightclub in disarray as a business, you know? Then they gotta tighten it up and apply more rules and now you gotta, you know, whatever with the clock-ins. It's like just little rules that...

• 1:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  And I'm...

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  Look at you, negative attitude. Now, all these rules.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  All these damn rules, yeah. Bro, I'm a late person, so the whole clock-in thing. Anyway, long story, but, um...

• 1:18:17Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of an anti-Echo scenario.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  So... When the manager would implement the rules, but they don't follow the rules, you know?

• 1:18:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  It's, man, they just won't take. And people get more mad, but when you see there was this, man, and he died too, unfortunately. Joel, he was, um, he was, he was our boss for, for a while. And he, uh, he had to kind of do that, like implement the rules. But this was a guy, he would bro out with you, but like, it was weird. He did this weird kind of balance where he would break some rules, but then he'd follow rules. But the rules that he broke, he wouldn't care if you broke them, kind of thing. These are all small, teeny tiny rules, by the way. But he was a real consistent person, you know? Where if he wanted something done, we were all doing it, including him, you know? And I remember thinking, man, this, I really like this guy in that way as well, where he's telling us to do stuff,

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  but he won't like, because there was other managers, oh, man, I could go into it, man. Where there's other, other managers and they were straight up like, I'm the manager here at this nightclub and everyone worships me and it's a weird dynamic in nightclubs. Anyway, and they wouldn't follow the rules at all, you know? But you had to, because you're the employee, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, when you're a manager, and again, from employee standpoint, and, and I see my boss following the new rules

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  consistently.

• 1:19:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  It's so much easier to sign on. It's kind of like, okay, that's what we're doing. I dig it. And yeah, if you combine it with like what you said, being clear, oh, I'm down. I'm down for the change. I get it, man.

• 1:19:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  I get it. Yeah. Next question.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Jocko, no bad teams, only bad leaders and always the same relationship with each boss.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Yet you also staged a mutiny. How do you reconcile that?

• 1:20:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so what he's talking about, obviously, no bad teams, no bad leaders is from extreme ownership. And it's actually from before that. Napoleon said the same thing. Hackworth said the same thing. We, we changed the words a little bit, but, uh, so that's, and then the other thing he's talking about is that I always say, I have the same relationship with every boss I've ever had, whether they were stupid or smart, or whether they were aggressive or passive, whether they were big ego or humble. I always had the same relationship with all of them. That is, they trust me and they gave me what I need to do, to do my job. So. How do I reconcile, then, then he's talking about staged a mutiny because we had a kind of a mutiny in one of my platoons. When I was a young enlisted guy.

• 1:20:49Jocko Willink?

  And, so how can you do that, right? If I had all these great relationships with all my bosses, but I staged a mutiny. Interestingly, I actually had a decent relationship with a guy that I staged a mutiny with now that I think about it. So, to go back to the earlier question, we're talking about being a renegade and, you know, being a rebel. And, and like I said, you, you have to rebel when it is necessary. So, and also for the mutiny that is in question, I, I need to make it clear here, I didn't stage the mutiny. It wasn't me. It was kind of a group effort that was somewhat led by the leadership of our, the enlisted leadership of our platoon. And it was a movement that I certainly supported and was on board with. And we were kind of the E5 mafia in that platoon. Sure.

• 1:21:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so we were, kind of had the voice of the people, right? Me and a certain group of guys, actually from my bud's class, who were all kind of, yeah, kind of just fired up about things. And,

• 1:21:51Jocko Willink?

  you know, I, it wasn't like, the thing is, it wasn't like the platoon commander had a couple weaknesses, right? And maybe he wasn't the best at tactics, or maybe it wasn't that, you know, he wasn't the best shot or anything like, wasn't the best athlete. No, he was a good athlete. He, tactically, he was like marginal.

• 1:22:10Jocko Willink?

  But, what he didn't have, I've talked about this all the time, what he didn't have is he didn't have any humility at all. And so, he wasn't listening to anyone that was giving him any input. Including, he had very experienced senior enlisted advisors. So the platoon chief and the platoon LPO were awesome guys, very respected SEALs. One of them had been in the first Gulf War on the ground, getting after it as much as he could. So these guys were experienced and the senior chief was a really, really smart guy.

• 1:22:44Jocko Willink?

  And, this guy wasn't listening to him.

• 1:22:47Jocko Willink?

  And so you had somebody that in the situation was it would have been bad for the platoon to have this type of leader in there. And now think about this, if it's bad for the platoon, then it's bad for your mission. If you don't have a good platoon, you can't execute your mission well. And that's the bottom line to this question. That is how I reconcile this. How does this situation affect the mission? Affect our ability to accomplish the mission? How does it do it? If we have a bad leader and it makes us a bad platoon, then we're not going to be able to accomplish our mission. And therefore, I need to help get rid of this person.

• 1:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Because my number one thing that I'm trying to do is be good at my mission. And obviously, a more unified team is going to accomplish the mission more effectively and more efficiently, period. So that, you know, that is why it is so important for people to understand the mission and the goal and the commander's intent. Because all of your decisions are based on and guided by that understanding of understanding what the mission is. So you need to put the mission first all the time to make the right decision.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  Now, as soon as I say that, what pops in your head? Oh, Jocko, you care about the mission more than you care about your men. Not true. Because think about this. If you are executing your mission effectively, you are taking care of your men. That's in the business world and it's in the battlefield. Because in the business world, if I'm executing my, my mission effectively, guess what we're doing? We're making more money, we're being more profitable, we're gaining more clients, we're growing. And therefore, I'm taking care of my employees because I'm keeping them employed and making them more bonuses and making them more money and offering them more leadership opportunities. In combat, same thing.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  If we are good and I execute my mission effectively, guess what? We've mitigated risk.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  The, the, in the best possible way, the more we mitigate risk, the more people are alive, the less casualties we take. So if I'm doing everything geared towards the mission, then, then I am taking care of my men. Cause by the way, if I'm running a mission with heavy casualties, what about my next mission?

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Right? So if you're my boss and you tell me to charge this machine gun nest with my guys, and I say, "Boss, you know, we, we shouldn't do that right now." You, you, you carry out the mission. Okay. Well, who's going to do the next mission? Right? There's not unlimited guys here. So you can't do it. You can't run a mission after you've taken he- heavy casualties, just like you can't, if you, as a business person, if you expend all of your capital on one project, well, guess what? You can't do the next project. So good job. You accomplished the one mission, but you can't accomplish anymore. On the battlefield, if you incur a bunch of casualties for one mission, you can't accomplish anymore. So in both those cases, the more effectively you, you handle the mission, not just the one

• 1:26:13Jocko Willink?

  mission, but your broad mission, your strategic mission, the better you do that, the better you are taking care of your men. And the better you're taking care of your people in the business world. So

• 1:26:27Jocko Willink?

  and on top of that, on top of that, 99% of the time, your mission is aligned with the best thing for your people. That's what I'm saying. 99% of the time. If we make more money as a company, it helps all my people. If we, if we accomplish missions in the most effective and efficient and take the least casualties, that's the best thing for my people. So Back to the question. How do I reconcile these things? I look at how I can best accomplish the mission. And if it best accomplish the mission to rebel against what's happening. There's some cases where I might not, you might be my boss and I might not like you. But you've got a great relationship with the army commander and we're working in their battle space.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Would it make sense for me to, to throw a mutiny and get you fired? No, it'd make no sense whatsoever. It's going to be better for our mission if I say Echo sucks, but I'm going to listen to him and we're going to massage this thing. Or we're going to make things work because he has such a good relationship with this army commander that he's making things happen.

• 1:27:31Jocko Willink?

  So I might not do it. I might not stage a mutiny, not based on the fact that you, that your level of sucking. But based on the fact that what's more important to me is that we accomplish our mission. And if you have a good relationship with the army commander, I'm going to keep you around.

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  If you were, if you were in a business situation and you had, you were not doing a good job. And you're one of my subordinates, you're not doing a good job. But you have this great relationships with all these clients. And we're accomplishing our mission well because you've built these great relationships. Am I just going to fire you because I think you're doing, because I think you're a crappy leader of your men? No, actually I'm not. What is best for the mission? Now I might have secondary and tertiary plans to move you into position where you don't have to handle the operational things that you suck at. And I might put you in a position where you're just going to become, you know, a business dev, a biz dev guy where you're out there meeting and greeting people. Cause that's what you're good at. I might make that happen. But I'm not just going to go, Echo's a bad leader.

• 1:28:32Jocko Willink?

  Fire him, throw away the, the skill that you do have. And now we're not accomplishing our mission because I ruined all the relationships. Cause now you go to all these, all these other partners that we have and you're going to, yeah, Jocko fired me. He's pathetic. He doesn't realize what we're doing here. I'm going over to this company, come with me. Bring your business over here with me. So you reconcile it by looking at the mission and the mission is almost always aligned with taking care of your people. And taking care of your people in the sense of.

• 1:29:02Jocko Willink?

  imposing discipline or not imposing discipline is being disciplined and making them work and giving them training them hard pushing them that is generally what taking care of your people is taking care of your people isn't hey you know what I go oh you know uh don't worry about that video that you owe to the client I know you I know it's your daughter's birthday you go ahead and go home for the day am I taking care of you if I do that no sir am I taking care of you no I'm not I'm actually hurting you because now we got a bad reputation we delivered the video late the company passes word to the next company it says hey you know those guys are their video is okay but it doesn't matter because it was late

• 1:29:42Jocko Willink?

  now that's the reputation we have now fast forward six months we're downsizing I don't need you anymore I'm gonna make the you know I don't need four video makers I only need one and you're not the one you see what I'm saying so I'm not taking care of my people if I focus on the mission which is hey echo I apologize I know it's your daughter's birthday but guess what we owe this video we gotta get it done and you gotta get in here and make it happen am I taking care of you then yes I am I know it doesn't feel that way but yes I am

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  yeah yeah I'm an idiot

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  making sure they're equipped capable and treated fairly

• 1:30:25Jocko Willink?

  yeah yeah I said impose discipline on them yeah and like that doesn't work yeah

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  but what you have to do is you have to impose discipline

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  yeah make sure the discipline is imposed

• 1:30:40Jocko Willink?

  there's the dichotomy yeah cuz you don't wanna say echo you will come in and make this video I'm imposing this on you I'd be like echo we owe this video we said we're gonna turn it in let me tell you the ramifications if we don't do this here's what's gonna hurt it's gonna hurt this this this this and this gonna eventually could end up with you not having a job and me not having a business

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  yeah

• 1:30:59Jocko Willink?

  do you like the sounds of that no you don't

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  You might be the wrong guy to ask about this. Maybe you're not, I don't know, but what do you think? So you mentioned missing your, my daughter's birthday. I didn't miss my daughter's birthday, by the way.

• 1:31:15Jocko Willink?

  Did you say you did or did not?

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Did not, but my son just had a first birthday. I did miss that, but it's his first birthday. So I've always thought, this is before I had any kids with any birthdays, that the first birthday, that's for the parents. It's not for the kid, you know, he doesn't remember the first, his first birthday, he never will.

• 1:31:33Jocko Willink?

  I'm definitely gonna be the wrong person to answer this, but keep going.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  So, wait, so, missing birthdays, is that like a bell curve? Like, okay, one, first birthday, age one, you can sort of miss that. Age zero, you can't really miss that. Meaning when they're born.

• 1:31:50Jocko Willink?

  Go, go, go talk to the military people in the military.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  I know, bro, I know, I know, yeah. No, you're right, and I'm saying if you have the options, and you know, we're speaking in terms of.

• 1:31:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay, if you have the options, sure, go to the birthday.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  I mean, you sort of have, I like, in terms of, you know, we're at this company, you're my boss, I'm the video maker. Hey, Echo, you know, we gotta get this video done, whatever. I don't know, that may be even in an extreme case, but I'm saying in a general sense.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Which birthdays are more expendable? That's ultimately the question, and it doesn't necessarily mean in this specific company.

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna tell you right now, as a guy that was in the military for 20 years, the birthday, if you're there, it's a luxury. If you're there for Christmas, it's a luxury. If you're there for Thanksgiving, it's a luxury. I missed all kinds of that stuff, all over the place, just like a big joke. You, big, you know, you're just not gonna be there.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Okay, so, now, we're not in the military. No, just saying, and it's less about missing them or not missing them. Okay, so, at the end of the day, no matter what birthday, even right now, you're thinking, if you miss them, no huge deal?

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  No, I mean, and if I actually thought it was a huge de- deal, I would have to choose an entirely different lifestyle and life.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:33:05Jocko Willink?

  Right. And I'll tell you what, my kids know.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 1:33:10Jocko Willink?

  And they've always known.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  Well, okay, okay, so now.

• 1:33:11Jocko Willink?

  Guess what? Someone's out there getting after it. He's named, he's named my dad.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no, okay, okay.

• 1:33:17Jocko Willink?

  He missed another birthday, don't care.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  I get you, yeah, no, you're, I dig it, and, but that's kinda in a way, I mean, not to be too specific in split hairs, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I mean, not even necessarily you and your specific situation.

• 1:33:31Jocko Willink?

  You're saying which are the most important birthdays?

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Exactly, right, on the spectrum of valued birthdays.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Five through 11.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Five through 11 are, have the most weight?

• 1:33:40Jocko Willink?

  Most weight.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Okay, so, not zero, not when they're born.

• 1:33:44Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  So if you, if you missed the birth of your child because you had to work, and I'm not saying military, I'm saying because you were trying to finish some report or something.

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Or whatever, or some proposal.

• 1:33:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, don't do that. You try and be there.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Okay, so, but comparatively speaking, the, the birth of your child compared to the fifth birthday, you say fifth birthday is more important?

• 1:34:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because they don't remember anything from zero to four.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  That's just a big, "Boo."

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Dang, that's a good point, and, that's.

• 1:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Is this a big buzz like nothing happening?

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't know if it sounds like that, but.

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  All those, all those parents that you take your kids, and I did this too, actually, I didn't, I did it with my first kids, my wife's like, "We're gonna go to, take the girls to Disneyland."

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:25Jocko Willink?

  And I'd say, "Oh, okay." Walking around at Disneyland, which is pretty close to a living hell to me, actually.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:34:32Jocko Willink?

  Standing in lines in the Anaheim summertime, like, just baking. And, and yeah, you know, here's the deal, the girls are just so excited the whole time and so happy. Me, no. So now, I, I, I haven't been to any of those things in a long time.

• 1:34:51Jocko Willink?

  Actually, I went with a, a business group and walked around.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Where, Disneyland?

• 1:34:55Jocko Willink?

  Disney World. And I was like, "You've gotta be kidding me, kill me now."

• 1:35:01Jocko Willink?

  But this is the thing, the kids don't remember it. You can show them pictures and they go, oh, that's cool. You could stage those pictures like a moon landing. Just set them up and be like, oh yeah, there's Cinderella, whatever.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  You're saying be four or five, be four or five years old, okay. Actually, man, that's a good point because when I say.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  Now, I'm sure there's developmental things happening when they're, when you do things, when you participate in activities with your kids, obviously.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they're not here.

• 1:35:25Jocko Willink?

  Five, but you know, you could, you could probably, it'd probably be more developmentally helpful for you to spend a day with them. You know, coaching them in jujitsu or coaching them in boxing or coaching them in Muay Thai or coaching them in shooting or coaching them in archery. Or coaching them in hunting small animals or coaching them in how to do combat trauma care. Just like general things.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Four year old, yeah, you're right, you're right. Um, yeah, yeah, that's.

• 1:35:54Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to like, hey, go to Disneyland, look at.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not the question. The question is like the birthday thing. So, so only because you mentioned.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  Because by eleven, they don't care anymore. By eleven, they don't care.

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:05Jocko Willink?

  That's my birthday. Well, my kids were all like, oh, my birthday, don't care.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, man, that's a good point.

• 1:36:11Jocko Willink?

  We, we have a rule. You get to pick to where you go out for dinner on your birthday night. And in the last like five birthdays, we haven't even been able to pull that off successfully.

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So obviously it's gonna be what, what the group is used to, but as far as the kid, you missing the birthday for, you know, for the kids sake.

• 1:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Kid, you know what I used to pick? Cause that, that used to be in my family too. We get to like pick dinner. You know what I used to pick?

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  Chicken patties.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  Dang, chicken patties. From where? Oh, just from the store.

• 1:36:36Jocko Willink?

  Store. Just get some chicken patties. I used to love those things.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Dang, yeah. I remember in school, I went to Koloa Elementary School. I used to love the chicken patties there.

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  They're dope.

• 1:36:44Jocko Willink?

  The chicken patties.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  Kind of like chicken McNugget, like a big flat chicken McNuggets.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I didn't even like, I didn't like steak until I was in the days because, because we didn't have a lot of steak growing up because steak is expensive.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:56Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially that ribeye.

• 1:36:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, especially that ribeye. So we didn't have steak. We had chicken patties.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Tasted good to me.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Pretty dope.

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes, you know what else? Of course you want McDonald's when you're seven.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Once, go get some fries and a Shamrock shaky.

• 1:37:12Jocko Willink?

  We try, I, I, I had told, cause you know, I love mint chocolate chip, right? So I had told all my kids about the, the original mint chocolate chip milkshake was the Shamrock Shake at McDonald's. Back in the day.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Which they'd have around St. Patty's Day, which by the way, isn't around my birthday, but it just made, came to my mind.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:31Jocko Willink?

  So, so when I was a kid, we had Shamrock Shakes. St. Patty's Day, they're mint shakes. And when I was a kid, they were amazing. And I was so, and I hadn't had one in thirty years, maybe more, maybe forty years. Hadn't had a Shamrock Shake. And I saw a little advertisement, I said, oh, kids, guess what? These are like mint chocolate chip milkshakes, but there's no chocolate chip. So it's just smooth, mint, ice cream, milkshake.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Dang, from McDonald's?

• 1:38:02Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and I sent my daughter out to go get us all. Go get us all Shamrock Shakes. Brought them home, they were disgusting. They were nothing like what they used to be.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:14Jocko Willink?

  So McDonald's, I gave you a shot.

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Sorry, Ben.

• 1:38:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  I'm surprised you gave him a shot.

• 1:38:20Jocko Willink?

  I am too, but it's been forty something years be, since I had a Shamrock Shake, and I remembered them. So I figured we'll go with it. They were disgusting.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're probably going for.

• 1:38:28Jocko Willink?

  Not even my kids liked them. Not even my eight-year-old.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 1:38:31Jocko Willink?

  Who just, you know, is an eight-year-old that just looks at things and say, that's ice cream? I want it. She didn't even like it. None of them, no one, we all, they were disgusting. We threw them all away.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 1:38:41Jocko Willink?

  So don't waste your money.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't waste your money. Yeah, don't waste your money on McDonald's. That's my personal recommendation.

• 1:38:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, period.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  Shamrock Shake or otherwise. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not help, not help, not helping you in any way.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Did you know that they just, I mean, this is gonna sound obvious now that I'm saying it out loud. They add the green coloring to it? To the ice cream, to make it green?

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, yeah. When you get Breyer's, it's white.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Me and, uh, my wife and whatever fam, the family goes to, uh, or the Oregon coast. That's where the Tillamook Cheese Factory is. Wait, cheese, yeah, yeah, Tillamook Cheese. The actual big factory. And you can go on little tours and they give you ice cream. I'm like, okay, I want that mint, mint chip, of course. And they give it to me and they hand it to me. I'm like, the first time I see it, I was like, hey, that's not mine. That's obviously just the regular chocolate chip.

• 1:39:34Jocko Willink?

  Vanilla chocolate chip. Don't run over here.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  And I for real said that. I was like, oh, I ordered the mint. And he goes, oh, yeah, that's mint. And then it all kind of came to me like, oh, yeah, I'm pretty dumb for.

• 1:39:43Jocko Willink?

  If you get Breyer's, Breyer's is white.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:46Jocko Willink?

  Which is the preferred brand, to be quite honest with you.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  No, is it? Okay, alright.

• 1:39:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, at least of the ones that I've tried. At least the ones that I've tried.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so, back to the birthday thing. If you miss the birth of your child, technically, you're right, technically, for the question. Because I'm talking about like, how upset or how much is it gonna mean?

• 1:40:10Jocko Willink?

  The kid's not affected at all.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  At all, really? But here's the thing. It like as a cohesive family, that might be a thing. If you have the option, I'm saying, if you're overseas, come on, man, let's face it. That, that, that's a legit, you know, but if you have the choice, so you miss the birth of your child, that's more of like a family thing. Like, okay, but that's not what, that's not the question. Because so is the first birthday, the first year birthday, that's kind of, it's for the adults.

• 1:40:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  It's for the other people.

• 1:40:36Jocko Willink?

  Second, third, fourth and fifth.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  Oh, not the fourth, in my experience.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  Maybe they're in the game a little bit.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it depends on the kid, I guess.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Do is condition them that they don't expect anything good.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess, you know, yeah, life sucks, man. Life sucks. Nothing special about your stupid birthday. There's a bunch of people born that day, a bunch of people born tomorrow, a bunch of people born yesterday.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Get over yourself, kid.

• 1:41:00Jocko Willink?

  Concur.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  Four years old. I know a bunch of people who turn four.

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  Anyway, uh, agree, I think that age two, all the way to twenty-one, that's my opinion. Those are ones that if they want you there, you, you, you make that happen if you can.

• 1:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Gonna watch you round at her twenty-first birthday.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  She better.

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  Down in Cabo.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Why you gotta say that, man? She's not allowed in Cabo, Cabo, she's not allowed.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  Check. We got time for one more?

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, one more. Jocko, what do you think about when you don't feel like getting after it?

• 1:41:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, I put this out the other day and.

• 1:41:49Jocko Willink?

  I think it's important. All right, so Rome wasn't built in a day. We all know that. Everyone hears that. But Rome also didn't fall apart overnight either. It took hundreds of years for Rome to reach its peak. But it also took time, hundreds of years, for Rome to decay and fall apart. And that is representative of life.

• 1:42:30Jocko Willink?

  Because you don't achieve worthwhile goals quickly or easily. They take time. They take struggle. They take relentless pursuit, day in and day out. That's what it takes. But also, things don't usually fall apart quickly either. At least at first, it's a slow process. A little slip here. A little setback over there.

• 1:43:09Jocko Willink?

  A little wearing down of discipline and will over time. That's the thing. Success and failure are generally slow processes. Either slowly building things up, or gradually tearing them down. And that's why I say you've got to pay attention. You have to watch.

• 1:43:49Jocko Willink?

  You have to watch every single second. Because those seconds, they turn into minutes. And minutes turn into hours. And hours turn into days. And days turn into years.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  And so, that second, that second that just went by, that counted.

• 1:44:26Jocko Willink?

  And so did that second. And so did that one. And in those precious seconds, you were either building, or you were decaying. You were either gaining ground,

• 1:44:45Jocko Willink?

  or you were losing ground. In that second. And in every second.

• 1:44:57Jocko Willink?

  Every second counts.

• 1:45:03Jocko Willink?

  So, make every second count.

• 1:45:15Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight.

• 1:45:24Jocko Willink?

  So, Echo, if people want to make it count for this podcast,

• 1:45:33Jocko Willink?

  maybe you could tell them how they can go ahead and do that if they want to.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  Sure. Be happy to. Actually, we're talking about origin.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Why did Pete choose origin as the name? He told the story, right? Must be slacking on the listening on that one. Nonetheless, it makes sense because the origin of all these, all the gear is here in the US. It just happens to be. But that's a big thing, the origin. So, what do we make ghee's out of?

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Say cotton, you know, okay, we'll just take the cotton, grow the cotton in the US. What do they do with the cotton?

• 1:46:20Jocko Willink?

  Turn it into yarn.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  They do, yeah, yeah, stuff.

• 1:46:22Jocko Willink?

  Dye it.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Jocko Willink?

  Turn it into a fabric.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Various forms, yeah. And they do all of that. They don't import it, you know, from wherever, you know, some undisclosed.

• 1:46:34Jocko Willink?

  American hands.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anyway, so maybe that's why it's called Origin, because the origin is a significant thing, right? Anyway, alright, cool. So, Origin, what is Origin? Origin is the best gear in the world, straight up, objectively, not subjectively, objectively. I got proof, boom. So, I got a gi, we went to this Origin immersion camp for jiu-jitsu. Origin, jiu-jitsu immersion camp.

• 1:46:58Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Good fun, by the way.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  That was your first time in the Origin gi, wasn't it?

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  On check.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I saw you with yours.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  It was cool. Um, yeah, so, cool, camp, got the gi.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  Then I come home, got two, by the way. Actually, I got two gi tops. One pair of pants.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Come home. Made me want to train more in the gi, by the way. I don't know if it was the gi or the camp, or both.

• 1:47:29Jocko Willink?

  Probably the both.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Probably both, yeah. Anyway, so this whole week I trained gi. And every single time I went in, someone mentioned the gi. And it's not like it's pink or something like that when they're like, hey, see Echo put on his gi. Yeah, it's normal, you can get the blue, I had the, I have the white one. And everyone's like, oh, what's that? Jeff Glover was one of them, and this is a person who's like, you know, if he says it, it's something. It's not like some, you know, fashion person is, I don't like that logo, or that's a cool, you know, anyway, it was someone who knows gi. Anyway, everyone asking, like, what up with this gi? So I go into the spiel made here. I might have lost somebody because I took real long saying it, but nonetheless, it's dope. And then another one was Jeff Higgs, we know who that is.

• 1:48:14Jocko Willink?

  Higsey.

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  Do you know who that is?

• 1:48:16Jocko Willink?

  I sure do.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The person that Jocko talks about when he first started to get introduced to jujitsu? The guy who-

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  Reintroduced to jujitsu.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:25Jocko Willink?

  He and I got introduced to jujitsu together. Then he went out and trained hard.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:31Jocko Willink?

  I think it was the day he got his purple belt. His purple, I was the white belt. I mean, we trained with Master Chief Bailey overseas. That, for like three months.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  And then we came back. We were in different platoons, but he started training for real with Fabio Santos.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:47Jocko Willink?

  And the day he got his purple belt, I'm pretty sure it was the day he got his purple belt, he came to my house.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  And was like, "Let's go train." And I said, "Oh, yeah." So think about purple belt versus a white belt. He just annihilated me.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Jocko Willink?

  And he, you know, triangle, arm lock.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, everything. Rear naked choke.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  And he's kinda tall, too.

• 1:49:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's tall, strong.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Putting beat down.

• 1:49:08Jocko Willink?

  Bony. Bony? Like, in terms of when he's impacting you with his elbows?

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:16Jocko Willink?

  Real bony.

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  He's hitting you.

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's got the bones.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:19Jocko Willink?

  Cutting.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like a-

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  I guess triangle feels like it's gonna cut your head off. Cause he's bony.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He knows some good judo, too, huh?

• 1:49:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:30Jocko Willink?

  And he, and he's got a real, he's got a real, um... He's always in touch with the whole idea of using this to effectively defend yourself in a street scenario.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:44Jocko Willink?

  He's always in touch with that.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:45Jocko Willink?

  He always adds in a little, "And if you're in the street, you could do this right here."

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's did that. I went up to Studio 540.

• 1:49:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  Uh, for very sure. I had to train at 10 a.m. I had some stuff I had to do, and then they were only doing no gi at the V. So, Studio 540. Higgs is teaching the class. Rob Zep, he's the owner, whatever, even he mentioned the gi. He was like, he's like, what gi is this?

• 1:50:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, it's because it's a different material, specially, not only specially made, specially woven, specially designed for jujitsu.

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:18Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, yeah, that's that origin stuff, don't worry about that. And he's like, oh, he's like, I think I might have one, you know, he's the kind of with like, one thousand, yeah, I think I have one of these or whatever. And I was like, you don't have this one, bro. And I just kept walking, you know? Anyway, then afterwards, it was afterwards when Higgs was like, he's like, this is the, I think he even said, this is the most interesting gi, and he was like rubbing it in his fingers, you know, when he grabbed my sleeve. This is the most interesting gi I've ever seen, something like that, you know? Went into my.

• 1:50:46Jocko Willink?

  That's the Axiom gi.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:48Jocko Willink?

  With the gorilla weave.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  Because they have a normal pearl weave, which looks like little tiny pearls, right?

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  American pearl, but the Axiom, that gorilla weave is, is, or is it the dragon weave? They both look very similar.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  But they're both.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Cool. Yeah, one of them looks like, um, like it's like, I'm not going to say velvet, I'm not going to do that, but it looks like that, you know?

• 1:51:13Jocko Willink?

  No, it looks like diamonds.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Which one was the one, remember, we were looking at them and we were, and they were saying like, like, I was like, dang, this looks super luxurious. That's not the one I have, by the way. It was like this, the other one, I don't know which one was which, but nonetheless, people seem to like the gi. And the pants are dope, it has the, it's like, you can choose drawstring, but it has the, um, like, you know, like surf shorts.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Um, where they have the Velcro, boom, and it's like fitted, they go in sizes like of your waist, it's not just like, err, uh, which actually, I'm not against the whole A1, A2, A3, you know, I'm not against that, it's actually, it's fine, it's cool, super simple, um, but this is good, it's like when you get it, you can order your pants size.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Boom. So you know, when you put it on, it's gonna be dope. Anyway, and it is dope, and you know, the public responded. In that way as well. So, oh, also-

• 1:52:04Jocko Willink?

  And rash guards, t-shirts.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna make a bunch of other stuff.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there's some cool stuff on there. And the point is really sure, I'm talking about the gi why, because I was all up in that gi this week, and it's fresh on my mind, and it's, you know, one of those things that sticks in there. Also, at the camp, you know how like when you give your laundry? I only had the one.

• 1:52:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  So you give your laundry, you, you're out of gi, you can't go to the next session, unless you get another gi, which is kinda, I wasn't really about that, but... So, I would use them twice in a row, and they dry surprisingly fast.

• 1:52:36Jocko Willink?

  It's not even a surprise. They dry fast. They're not 100% cotton. They got polyester, I think, in there with silver coated... They, no, I'm not kidding. It's antimicrobial silver coating on it.

• 1:52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Not like silver you can see it.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:51Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, that's why.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  Silver, that's the thing.

• 1:52:53Jocko Willink?

  That's the same thing with mine. When I pulled mine, when I pull mine out of the washing machine after the spin cycle, it's almost dry.

• 1:52:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:59Jocko Willink?

  Like a pair of sheriff shorts, basically.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:02Jocko Willink?

  But dang, it feels comfortable.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  It's nice, yeah. So, yeah, man. Anyway, so, yeah, Origin Maine, like the state Maine. Not M-A-I-N, M-A-I-N-E. So, originmaine.com, go on there, there's a lot of cool stuff on there, man. A lot of it. So yeah, check that one out. That's the best gear in America, all made in America. Best gear in the world, all made in America. Also, Jocko has some supplements. So, still on originmaine.com, right? There's a part, and I was, because I was looking for them, you go on the top.

• 1:53:33Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  And it says Labs.

• 1:53:35Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:53:35Speaker 01

  You click on there, boom, that's where all the supplements. Super Krill. Because normal krill-

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  You mean Jocko's Super Krill?

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  Jocko's Super Krill. You couldn't just do the krill oil, huh? You couldn't?

• 1:53:46Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  No, no, no, impossible.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  I got Super Krill.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, Super Krill. Why, why get krill when you can get Super Krill? One of those deals?

• 1:53:52Jocko Willink?

  Super Krill's got the capes on.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Alright, cool. There you go. And, you know...

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  Joint warfare, which is, you know, a blend of joint.

• 1:54:07Jocko Willink?

  Supplements.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  Refurbishing.

• 1:54:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  Furbishing, is furbishing a word?

• 1:54:12Jocko Willink?

  Refurbishing.

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  Refurbishing, right, but the refurbishing is just doing it again, right? Furbishing?

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's got the things that I always take.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  Leucosamine, curcumin, um, chondroitin, and the chondroitin is in the form of C cucumber.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 1:54:30Jocko Willink?

  That's where it comes from.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Well, the

• 1:54:34Jocko Willink?

  It's legit.

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  The int- not interesting, I guess you could call it layers, is this is exactly what you were taking for years.

• 1:54:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  And you were like, hey, guess what? Origin in the house, let's just make that.

• 1:54:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, sometimes I'd have to combine different things before.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:49Jocko Willink?

  But now I don't have to combine anything anymore.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  Oh, they're already combined.

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna combine it, yeah.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  Joint warfare.

• 1:54:53Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna combine it into one pill.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, one deal, yeah. Boom, there you go.

• 1:54:57Jocko Willink?

  Warfare.

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  Joint warfare.

• 1:54:59Jocko Willink?

  Against, against joint weakness.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  Yep. It's a good idea too, by the way, because now I got two kids. Remember when I, I told the story like, you know, when you wake up?

• 1:55:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:08Speaker 01

  And my daughter, she was

• 1:55:09Jocko Willink?

  You told that story many times.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna tell it again. So she used to jump on my back when I get up. You know, when you're right, when you wake up, that's your least warm. That's when you're trying to warm up and get, do physical stuff. The least warm you'll ever be, just in everyday life, is when you wake up.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those first 12 burpees are, are hard when you get out of bed.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, or before you do the burpees. That moment, so this is the exact moment when my daughter, mm, you know, 40 pounds or so, jumped on my back. My shoulders. My back or my shoulders, whatever she chose. And, you know, after I took Krill for, I think it was like five, six days, boom, I could easily do it. I didn't have to like focus on my form, nothing like that. Now, I got two kids. And my daughter, who's older, is heavier.

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:50Speaker 01

  So, not this morning, yesterday morning. I go, I wake her up for school or whatever. I already have my son, he weighs, I don't know how much he weighs, but he's one.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  I have him. She still wants to jump on my shoulder. I have him because he's like, oh, oh. And then he sees her jump on his leg. So basically, I'm the, what do you call it? The vehicle that they're riding on. Early in the morning, by the way. Still no problem. Still going strong. So yeah, man, that's it. That's a joint warfare situation right there. And krill, super krill. Get on it. You'll be glad you did. Also, check out onit.com/jaco. This is where I get my kettlebells. And I meant, I mentioned this. I got the gorilla ones, 72 pounds. So I'm cruising, right? Not lifting, cruising. And Jade comes, my brother comes. And I was like, I was like, "Yeah, go check out those new kettlebells I got." And he goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah, those are cool." I was like, "Go ahead, pick them up." He goes, "Pick them up."

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  It's like, kind of heavy, you know? But I've been doing kettlebells. So I was like, "No, let me show you." Not even warmed up, nothing.

• 1:56:54Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of krill oil.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was actually really the krill oil springing into action, really. Boom, I do it. And, um, you know, had to show them what up. Nonetheless, I was done with those kettlebells, which are dope, by the way.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say get the designer ones. I'm not gonna say that. I think you should. But I'm not gonna say to do that. I say, go on there, onit.com/jaco. Check it out. You like something, get something. They got cool battle ropes and any kind of exercise stuff, like the new stuff. Functional, training, equipment. Keep your workout interesting. If you care about your workout to being interesting, unlike Jaco. Jaco doesn't care about that stuff. Don't get addicted to the interesting information like I did. I think I'm past that addiction now. But, um, you know, you do run that risk. Onit.com/jaco, that's a good one. Also,

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  good way to support is, when you're buying these books at Jaco Reviews, we didn't review one today, but, you know, in the future, Jaco might, and has in the past. Um, I, we organize these books by episode on jacopodcast.com. Go on the top, click on Books from Podcasts. Boom, all in order.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  To support the podcast, click through there to get them. Boom, it takes you to Amazon. Supports the podcast that way. Also, if you're doing any other shopping, hey, feel free. If you're gonna buy a new video camera in the event of your video camera breaking on the plane, when you check your luggage and the video camera's in there, you wanna get another one? Boom, get it through there. All good. Big, uh... Big support on that one.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:58:49Jocko Willink?

  It seems like an opportune time to talk about your other video camera.

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  Sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:58:56Jocko Willink?

  Or maybe not.

• 1:58:57Speaker 01

  Actually, it's a good story, though.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  It's not like a tragic story, which it kinda felt like when you mentioned it. I was like, "Oh, that brought me back." Okay, so...

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Here's a story.

• 1:59:10Speaker 01

  We go to Maine, right? Technically, we go to Boston, then drive to Maine.

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  Right, so, you know, to drive to... We rent a car, you know, the car rental place. And I have three bags. Well, you have what, one, two?

• 1:59:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, two bags.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Two bags, so five bags total.

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  My computer bag and my suitcase.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so five bags total. I have a big bag with equipment in it.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  Suitcase with, you know, all your jujitsu stuff and clothes and whatnot. And then the third bag, which was a carry-on, bit pretty big, you know?

• 1:59:41Jocko Willink?

  Most important.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Most important. Has a, um, it has an important camera in there that I use. My, my favorite camera I have ever had, really good camera. Uh, has some value to it, we'll say, and...

• 1:59:54Jocko Willink?

  It's a red camera.

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's...

• 1:59:56Jocko Willink?

  Red Epic.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Epic W, technically.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  Red Epic W.

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:00Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's a awesome camera. Is it the best you can buy, or is there one more?

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  It depends on what you mean by best, but it's, it, yeah, there's one sort of level up.

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, I'll tell you this, it ain't cheap.

• 2:00:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:00:11Jocko Willink?

  It ain't cheap at all. In some places in the country, you could buy a house for the cost of this camera.

• 2:00:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  So it's an expensive camera.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and.

• 2:00:19Jocko Willink?

  And you'd think like, okay, Echo is gonna take really good care of this thing.

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I do. Really, that's why I carry it on.

• 2:00:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  Boom, boom, you know.

• 2:00:26Jocko Willink?

  He doesn't even trust anyone touching it because he's gonna carry it with him.

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay, continue.

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  So boom, we get in the rental car. We got, apparently got five bags to account for. Uh, was there, there was, no, there was some kind of confusion. You know what happened? Yes, there was. Yes, remember? Because remember when you were getting in, what was it, like an expedition? Or something like that. And now those new ones have that automatic tail door that goes up.

• 2:00:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:46Speaker 01

  And you know what it was? I think there's like a sensor under the bumper that if you like put your foot under there, it closes. Like if, you know, like a hands-free closing the door situation.

• 2:00:56Jocko Willink?

  So the thing started closing on me.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  On Jocko, yeah.

• 2:00:58Jocko Willink?

  And the girl, the rental girl, was trying to save me.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  And she couldn't.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:04Jocko Willink?

  It was too strong for her, which was kind of funny because I didn't even care. And I just kind of like put my back into it and it stopped. But I was watching her kind of chuckling because she's trying to stop it and it wasn't stopping. It was, she was looking, she had a look on her face like I was about to die.

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Jocko Willink?

  Like Indiana Jones, I was gonna get my head cut off by the door slamming shut. And I was just kind of like laughing at the whole situation.

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  But that caused some confusion, apparently.

• 2:01:28Speaker 01

  It was like, it was like a little micro emergency that happened. And so I was like, boom, flustered, but wait, what, all the bags are in or not? And we were trying to fit, remember? Because you were trying to get the seats down. Anyway, there's like maybe three quasi-major things going on.

• 2:01:43Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no major things going on.

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  And, you know.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  For the sake of the story, I'm just gonna continue. So boom, we get it all, all, all loaded.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  I apologize to everyone for asking.

• 2:01:53Speaker 01

  We get it all loaded. And at one point, like, we were like halfway up. This is a three-hour drive, by the way, if we don't stop. And we did stop. So it was like five hours or something like that. So we stop and I remember, hey.

• 2:02:04Jocko Willink?

  We stopped and got fried chicken, by the way. It was good. It was really good. I love, I loved it. Yeah, I was stoked.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, I had a thought and it was literally lasted three seconds. Like, I don't really remember putting my camera bag in the car. But what am I gonna do? Not put it in the car? It's like the most important bag. So whatever. So we just continue. We get up there and right as we pull into like park.

• 2:02:29Jocko Willink?

  Now, we're talking like four hours later. We're in the back country of Maine.

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like not even knowing, first time there, by the way, which I don't know what that even means. But either way, we're there.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  And I'm all pumped up.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Even though I couldn't roll because my rib, I was stoked to go in and see everybody and hang out.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can see everyone rolling.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  Everyone's inside the light of the gym.

• 2:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  So they can't see that we're outside.

• 2:02:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:52Jocko Willink?

  So I'm all, but I'm stoked.

• 2:02:53Speaker 01

  So it's, yeah, the beginning of the, the deal.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  The whole thing.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  Adventure, if you will. And, um, right as we kind of rolled to a stop, I'm thinking, man, did I? You know, you kind of count, we're here and now you start to account for it. And I don't remember that stuff. So the first thing I do, I look in the backseat because that's where it would have went. Not there. And I look in the back, not there. And you know, you get that cold feeling that just rushes over your body like, oh my God. So I'm like, man, so whatever I tell you and you're like, oh, you know, get on the phone, you know, call the airport. And bro, you ever tried calling the airport for something?

• 2:03:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay. I told you this afterwards. My opinion was at that point, I was like, that thing's gone a hundred percent. Ninety nine, gone.

• 2:03:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:33Jocko Willink?

  Ninety nine point nine nine nine percent. You're never going to see that thing again. I had already cut it away emotionally and detached from it. And I, and I was kind of throwing you bones like, oh yeah, call the airport. Maybe they can help you.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  That was actually nice of you. Like, because you really, you seem like you care, not necessarily about the camera necessarily, but you cared about me.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  You know, like I really.

• 2:03:51Jocko Willink?

  I thought that thing was gone. There's no chance of getting it back. Get over it.

• 2:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:54Jocko Willink?

  And I was a little bit, well, I said, you know, is there podcast recorded that you don't have copies of on there? And you said, no, they're all uploaded. I was like, good thing. Awesome.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Because we're never going to see that thing again.

• 2:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was thinking, I'll see it again in three months, maybe when they finally recover it from Austin found, from the Boston airport, by the way.

• 2:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Or I get my insurance money for it down the line and then I gotta go read, go through the purchase process, which is the thing.

• 2:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Big gut check.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  And but we don't have it for this trip for sure. And later on I, I found out or realized that we have the podcast like SD cards in there. So, well, we, I guess we could have just bought some. Anyway, nonetheless, we get there and I'm calling the airport and right when the airport recording picks up, I just get this feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm just completely going through the motions right now. No one's going to pick up and be like, sure, I'll look for it. Yeah, I got it. No, that's not going to happen. But I keep calling. I'm like, I'm not gonna be the guy who didn't do everything I can. So I'm calling or whatever. Meanwhile, we gotta go talk to Pete. We gotta, you know, all this stuff.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  And actually, you released me. You go, hey, man, go ahead. I'll make these calls. And I was like, okay, cool. You hang out and just make this totally worthless effort, because you're never seeing that thing again. I'll go hang out with people.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So after like a few minutes, I go in, I'm like, you know what, let me, whatever, let me kind of cut it away. As you're saying, let me at least embrace the, you know, what we're doing. Go in and you kind of casually in a way mentioned like, hey, there's some guys from the police department.

• 2:05:21Jocko Willink?

  If that came across casually, casually, I shouldn't have made it come up because I met a bunch of guys. You know, everyone saying hi and a couple of guys, you know, yeah, we're cops in Revia down in Massachusetts. And, you know, right by Boston.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, right next to it.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  And, and I met them and then you strolled back in and you met a couple of people. And then I said, you talked to anybody? Well, yeah, I talked to this and they're gonna look, whatever. I'm thinking, yeah, that thing's gone. And I said, you know, if there's anyone in the world that could like make something happen right now, it's cops.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 2:05:55Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's Boston cops, Revia cops. And, and I just said, I said, bro, and I was a little, this is my ego. I was embarrassed for you. I, I felt bad that you had to go and tell somebody that you lost this

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:11Jocko Willink?

  sick camera. And so I just said, hey, man, those guys over there, they're cops. And if there's anyone that is gonna get this thing back, it's them.

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm thinking, you know, the whole story where like.

• 2:06:24Jocko Willink?

  Did you see this? So did you not think that they were gonna be able to help?

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  I, I thought that they'd be like, oh, you lost your bag, like everyone does every single day at that airport. Oh, we're cops, bro. We have crimes to solve.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna go get your stupid bag.

• 2:06:39Jocko Willink?

  My attitude of that thing being gone actually changed as soon as I connected it. I said to myself, oh, they're cops. We're gonna, we're gonna turn this over to them and they can make things happen.

• 2:06:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's good. And you, and even me, when I was like, okay, I'm gonna mention it to these cops. And these cops are gonna be like, diva, like, what, what do you think our job is, you know? To go recover your lost luggage, like, three hours away, by the way? No. So I'm like, you know what? Jocko said to do it. I'm just gonna do it. This is another go through the motions thing. So I kind of timidly go, Dennis and Nate, they were there. They just rolled or whatever and. I was like, yeah, I lost the bet. And they were like, like, what did it look like? Like, they kind of were into it. I was like, oh, this is promising, you know, like, they actually care? Because I was thinking they'd be like, man, that's a sad story, bro. I'm gonna go talk to Jocko again, you know, kind of thing. I thought that was gonna happen. And they're like, no, bro, they get on the phone.

• 2:07:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  And they're like, what did it look like? Boom. One more question, like, oh, where, where'd you leave it? Okay, boom, back on the phone, back on the phone, these two guys. I'm like, oh, this is, it's starting to kind of look up. And he's like, okay. So they hang up the phone, he's like, just a waiting game now, just a matter of time. I got this, I got this guy. I'm like, for real? They're like, yeah, man, just waiting in.

• 2:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Bro, they said, they called, they called all their bros out there. And there was like a force of troopers went down there to get in there. Had that thing recovered in what?

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  Twenty minutes.

• 2:07:55Jocko Willink?

  Twenty minutes.

• 2:07:56Speaker 01

  So they hang up and they're like, just a matter of time, bro. And then we just start talking about other stuff.

• 2:08:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  You know, kind of teasing me a little bit, whatever, I deserve it, probably even 10 times that, but. And then we, we're talking about other stuff. Boom, his phone rings, he's on it, he's like, is it a mind shift bag? And all this describing it, I don't even know. That's how out of, I'm like, yeah, I think so. Go inside and he's, and he, and he bust out my laptop or whatever, it's matching the description. And in my mind, I'm like, there's no way he found it. Like, a cop's not gonna just roll into the Logan Airport.

• 2:08:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  And find my bag. No way that's gonna happen.

• 2:08:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it happened.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  Sure enough, he's like, oh, yeah, Fragmop, because it has a Fragmop sticker on my, on my laptop. He's like, Fragmop, I was like, that cold feeling turned into just warmth. And love and rainbows on this guy. I was like, that's the one. They're like, and you know, they're kind of, they didn't actually high five, but they're kind of like, almost like, you know, this was this little task, they kind of bonded together, and just like that, man.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  Twenty minutes, man.

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  It, it took them.

• 2:08:52Jocko Willink?

  And then one, who drove it up?

• 2:08:54Speaker 01

  Um, Robbie.

• 2:08:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  I'm pretty, that's his name, right? Robbie?

• 2:08:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  I owe him a roll. Um, actually, there was another guy, Callahan, who was the guy who went and grabbed, so it was like a coordinated deal, man.

• 2:09:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:08Speaker 01

  And, um, man, that was like the, one of the more heroic things that has happened to me in, in the recent past.

• 2:09:14Jocko Willink?

  So, you got the camera back.

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  Got the camera back.

• 2:09:16Jocko Willink?

  And the computer.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  And we're good.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  So, in the event, so the point is, in the event of you shopping for cameras, can't get a red camera on Amazon, but if you want to get like a Sony HD Handycam, you know, or whatever you're using, because it broke in the luggage. I'm not saying that happened to me, I'm just saying if that ever happens, you want to get another one, boom, you can go through there, jockostore.com, click through.

• 2:09:36Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to everyone that got that camera back.

• 2:09:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Much appreciated. And the laptop with all kinds of videos and important stuff on it.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, there's nothing on the laptop, but yeah, man. Dennis and Nate, the primary guys. Mr. Callahan, I didn't meet him, but. He's down for the cause, you recovered that. And then Robbie, I owe you a roll. I owe you two rolls. I owe you a lot, man. You're the man. He's the one who delivered it. So, big up to all of them, big time. So, also, back to support of Jocko Podcast. Subscribe to the podcast. iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. It's a good way to support. Kind of, kind of, kind of obvious, like, oh, yeah, you subscribed already, but some people, maybe they didn't. Maybe they're just kind of, maybe wish, not wish, wish, but, you know, kind of still on the fence. But yeah, man, do it. You can unsubscribe if we're not delivering value.

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  I don't like to use that expression, adding value, because everyone uses it, thinks it's cool. I thought it was cool. Nonetheless, if we're not adding value, you can unsubscribe if you want. Also, subscribe on YouTube. What's the recent development? Oh, your book?

• 2:10:47Jocko Willink?

  Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  Field Manual, which we'll talk about later. Yeah, we put a video on there, kind of a little summary.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  I was real excited to see that video come out.

• 2:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:59Jocko Willink?

  And I was, you know, we were texting back and forth. And you said, well, how about, you know, I'll put it out tomorrow, but it's ready. And I said, just put it out now.

• 2:11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, later.

• 2:11:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you said, launching in three, two. And then there was, and I went to my YouTube on my phone and I was refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. And I wanted to catch it, like, the first person to catch it, I'm refreshing, refreshing. And this happened. I got a ping from my mail on my phone. And I switched to mail and it said, Jocko Podcast has uploaded a new video. So, that's one of the benefits of subscribing to the YouTube channel. If something comes out, you can have it email you if you want it to. You can have it email you when something new comes out. And otherwise, there's no way you'd know.

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you, if you care about that kind of stuff. Uh, which, you know, it's one of those deals where, yeah, sure, you get the video version of the podcast. If you care what we look like. Just fine. Actually, people play it on their TV, like in their little home gym or something like that. Which is cool. It's kind of like we're all there together, you know? Um, and then, yeah, some excerpts in there.

• 2:12:08Jocko Willink?

  The video that you made for the book?

• 2:12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:11Jocko Willink?

  I think it might be your best video ever. It might be. I think it's up there, man.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  I was, yeah, I was talking-

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  It's real good.

• 2:12:19Speaker 01

  I was talking to somebody on Facebook and they're like, "Oh, hey, that video's cool." And I thought about saying, "Oh, yeah, man, thanks for that." But I thought about, I was like, "Wait, Jocko kind of did all the work, really." You know, you're the one working out your words, you saying the words. I said, "All I did was put some cool music and some words on there."

• 2:12:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, but you made all that other stuff happen and there are the words and the way it's all coordinated together and all that stuff, so.

• 2:12:42Speaker 01

  Put some lights on there. Nonetheless, you know what? To be honest, I like how it came out, too.

• 2:12:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  It was good. It's very, very indicative-

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  You think it might be the best one?

• 2:12:50Speaker 01

  Uh, hey, man, you know, it depends on what you mean by best, you know? I don't know.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Impactful?

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  Impactful. Sure.

• 2:12:57Jocko Willink?

  It's a good one.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  I liked it. Yeah, it was, uh-

• 2:12:59Jocko Willink?

  But if someone wasn't subscribed to the YouTube channel?

• 2:13:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:02Jocko Willink?

  They might not never know that that video exists.

• 2:13:04Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  And that, that, that hurts.

• 2:13:06Speaker 01

  Or no Facebook, or no Twitter, or no nothing, so, yeah. So choose your, your, your battles or whatever.

• 2:13:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, I tweeted that one out, but I don't always tweet out when something comes out.

• 2:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 2:13:18Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:19Jocko Willink?

  I don't always do that.

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:13:20Jocko Willink?

  So if you subscribe, you'll know, regardless of what my actions are.

• 2:13:23Speaker 01

  That's true. And, you know, choose whether or not you want an alert. You know, sometimes you don't want that alert every single time, but sometimes you do, you know? I'll put some deleted scenes on there as well. Anyway, nonetheless, yeah, YouTube channel, we have one and it's cool. I think it's cool. Jocko thinks it's cool. Hmm, I just got a little thing. Youtube kinda changed their look on Youtube. I don't know if you noticed that?

• 2:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's hard for me to judge cuz I have Youtube red now.

• 2:13:47Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 2:13:48Jocko Willink?

  No ads.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  The red, so dope. Nonetheless, I like the ads. Ads. Actually, they did a good thing with the ads now. Now you can click like, "I don't like this ad," or you can give that. So, you can kinda narrow down the ads you see. I like the movie trailer ads, you know?

• 2:14:06Jocko Willink?

  I don't like any ads. I wanna watch what I wanna watch. Everyone else get away from me.

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I dig it, man. I dig it fully. Nonetheless, point there is subscribe to the Youtube channel is a good way of supporting the podcast, if you want to. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store.

• 2:14:25Speaker 01

  jockostore.com, of course.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  Very creative name, by the way. I guess technically, I came up with the name.

• 2:14:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you did.

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Store. It's your store, Jocko's store.

• 2:14:35Jocko Willink?

  I concurred with the name.

• 2:14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, what do we have on the store, if you don't know already? We've got shirts on there. Rash guards, travel mugs, some bumper stickers, patches,

• 2:14:49Speaker 01

  hats, ball cap hats, not like-

• 2:14:51Jocko Willink?

  Did you bring mine today?

• 2:14:52Speaker 01

  Top hats, no.

• 2:14:53Jocko Willink?

  You don't look like you did.

• 2:14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I didn't. Bring yours. Sorry, bro.

• 2:14:57Jocko Willink?

  You owe me nine, dude.

• 2:14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nonetheless, they're on there. jockostore.com. I guess technically, you could go to your own store and get a hat or nine hats, as a case maybe-

• 2:15:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'll do that today. Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 2:15:10Speaker 01

  If you want, if you want to. Some women's stuff on there, some hoodies. We wanna get a thicker hoodie, that's what we're doing, right?

• 2:15:15Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  I know you said it a bunch of times. But, yeah, we'll work on that. So, there it is. Boom, hoodies.

• 2:15:27Speaker 01

  I think...

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  What? What's the next move? What's the next thing?

• 2:15:34Jocko Willink?

  Winner hoodie.

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  Winner hoodie.

• 2:15:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:36Jocko Willink?

  I think it should be.

• 2:15:38Speaker 01

  I think I'm gonna put a Warrior Kid rash guard on there too, for Warrior Kids doing no gi jujitsu. Or even gi, you know, you wear the rash guard on to the gi sometimes?

• 2:15:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that'd be dope. All that stuff. Nonetheless, Jocko Store, that's where you get Jocko stuff.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  It's pretty cool. So, I'm not saying to buy something, I'm saying go on there, check it out. If you like something, get something. Good way to support. Also, psychological warfare. If you don't know what that is, it is an album with tracks. Jocko tracks. It's Jocko saying stuff to you. So if you listen to it, it's not like a story. Right? Like, you know, a lot of times, it's not music, obviously. It's not Jocko singing hardcore, which you do from time to time, by the way. You ever ride, and here's a kind of a rhetorical question. Okay, have you ever ridden, not you Jocko, but the people out there, have you ever ridden with Jocko for five hours, three to five hours in a car? No? Okay, let me tell you what it's like, part of what it's like.

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  It's Jocko drumming, even in the airplane, by the way, drumming on, what do you call that? The handle in the door, like you're doing like drums, boom, boom, boom, and then singing under his breath, hardcore stuff. Um, what else were you singing?

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know.

• 2:16:53Speaker 01

  It was like Tom Petty or something. It wasn't Tom Petty, it was something. Anyway.

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea.

• 2:16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was songs.

• 2:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Alls I know is occasionally I'd look at you and you'd be looking like, can you please stop?

• 2:17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  Which I gotta kick out of, maybe do it more.

• 2:17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, or, or stop the car and like, get out, or something.

• 2:17:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you get out and walk.

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm playing drums.

• 2:17:12Speaker 01

  That was the look, for sure. Yeah. Wait, no. You get out. Stop playing drums and get out. That was the look. Nonetheless, these tracks are not that. They're him, him, Jocko, talking to you, telling you pragmatic ways to get over your current weakness. What weakness? Okay, so let's say you're trying to stick to a good diet, right? Trying to wake up early, or all of the above.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Right, at this moment, actually.

• 2:17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, currently.

• 2:17:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm coming up on 48 hours, right now.

• 2:17:42Speaker 01

  Currently.

• 2:17:43Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Feeling good, too.

• 2:17:44Speaker 01

  I guess technically I'm fasting too, because I ate a salad at...

• 2:17:48Jocko Willink?

  Hardcore workouts yesterday and today rolled last night seventy percent ribs a little tweaked still but Andy Dean light rolls a little bit with Nam I think that was it but yeah no

• 2:18:03Speaker 01

  Fasting the whole time.

• 2:18:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 2:18:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:18:06Speaker 01

  So technically am I fasting if I ate a salad at like eleven forty-five last night?

• 2:18:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:18:12Speaker 01

  And that was it? I drank some coffee.

• 2:18:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  Fasting, right?

• 2:18:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fast. Twenty-four hour fast.

• 2:18:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:18:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, twelve hour fast. No, you're not fasting. No credit. Credit removed.

• 2:18:21Speaker 01

  Is there such thing as an eight hour fast?

• 2:18:24Jocko Willink?

  I think that's just life, dude.

• 2:18:25Speaker 01

  When's the cut? No, I think it's like four and a half hours.

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  If you're not doing, if you're not doing at least twelve hours.

• 2:18:31Speaker 01

  Okay, twelve hours is the cutoff for technical.

• 2:18:34Jocko Willink?

  Intermittent. I don't know what the cutoff is, dude. I'm not a doctor.

• 2:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  Or even a nutrition guy.

• 2:18:38Speaker 01

  Well, you're fasting right now currently.

• 2:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:40Speaker 01

  What if like you just didn't eat yet? And whatever.

• 2:18:43Jocko Willink?

  Then I just didn't eat yet. There's a difference.

• 2:18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so what's the difference? That's the question.

• 2:18:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  All right, hey, you're you're a man of humility. You say you don't know and you don't know. I like that. Nonetheless, back to psychological warfare. If you're trying to stay on the fast or wake up early every morning, you know, or stick to the diet,

• 2:19:03Speaker 01

  stay on the program, whatever, in whatever way, ways that you have opportunities to slip. This is an album with tracks that tell you why you shouldn't slip on your waking up early, your diet, your working out, my whole thing, you know, like I've said before, if I don't feel like working out, I kind of tend to be like, oh, maybe I'll rest today. Maybe I'll do it later. You know, that whole thing.

• 2:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Not good.

• 2:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, this helps with that. It'll just tell you like why. It'll how in a nutshell tells you the benefits of not slipping and the repercussions of slipping.

• 2:19:37Jocko Willink?

  That's a good way.

• 2:19:37Speaker 01

  In a pragmatic way. But it's Jocko telling it to you. So it works hundred percent of the time, my experience.

• 2:19:42Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of fasting, people ask me this all the time. When you're fasting, do you eat anything?

• 2:19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:48Jocko Willink?

  I do, actually.

• 2:19:50Speaker 01

  Sunflower seeds.

• 2:19:50Jocko Willink?

  Sunflower seeds because it takes you like thirty-seven minutes to have one little tiny seed to get it chewed up and so it's but they're but they're good because they keep you occupied and you're chewing and they taste good and blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I'll grab a handful.

• 2:20:06Jocko Willink?

  Of nuts, just mixed nuts, just maybe one in the morning, maybe one at night. Yeah. One handful and Jocko White Tea. Boom. That's the, the things. Now, sometimes I won't eat the nuts, but I don't know. I, I, I, I'm.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful that you don't have 13 handfuls of nuts. Yeah, cuz that's. Like, I'm just talking like a handful of nuts, right? Um, but Jocko White Tea, I have that for sure. And you know what? If you call me now or you wanna put like, oh, you weren't really fasting cuz you have Jocko White Tea and you have a handful of nuts. I mean, if you think about the amount of calories that I burn on a daily basis, a handful of nuts is basically insignificant. But whatever, maybe I'm doing it wrong. That's okay. I'm just telling you what I'm doing. I'm not telling you to do it. I'm not telling you to copy what I'm doing. I'm just telling you what I'm doing right now. Don't imitate me. Go find a professional to talk about fasting. I'm just telling you what I'm doing. Jocko White Tea, let me tell you, tastes good, feels good.

• 2:21:08Jocko Willink?

  And increases your deadlift about 12-fold.

• 2:21:14Jocko Willink?

  Or so. Yeah. So that's real good for you. You can get it on Amazon. Also on Amazon, you can get some books, Extreme Ownership, Combat Leadership. I appreciate everyone that gets it for themselves and then gets it for their teams and sends pictures of 47 Extreme Ownership copies stacked up. I got something else for you. That's awesome. Get it for your business associates. People that you work with, but they're not in your company. You get it for them and that's gonna improve everything in your world too, because then they start taking ownership of problems and everything gets better. So, no, and I've had a lot of people that have said, hey, I gave this to this person. I gave this to this, you know, partner that I used to have and now he's got his own business, but we're working together and I gave him the book and now we're working together even more.

• 2:21:58Jocko Willink?

  So there's a good idea for you. Way of the Warrior Kid. This is awesome. At the Origin Camp, a bunch of people from all over the Northeast brought their kids up to, to meet, hang out, get a signature and, and all that. And what's cool, this is what's cool. Kids tell the truth. You know what I mean? They don't even, they're not aware of, they don't care about your feelings at all. Yeah, no. And it's awesome to, you know, say, I always say to kiddo, did you read that book? And they go, yes. I go, how'd you like it? And they all say, oh, I love it. It's awesome. And we know you're Jocko. And thank you for writing it.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  And those kids are getting stronger and smarter and tougher and better.

• 2:22:41Jocko Willink?

  So you want to help out kids that you know, get them this book right here. Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. That's what it is. It's a field manual. For those of you that don't know what a field manual is in the military, a field manual is the instructions on how to do something in the field. Whether it's attack a strong objective, or whether it's do a reconnaissance, or how to conduct a patrol, the field manual gives you the instructions on how to do that. And that's what this is. The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual is a field manual on how to implement discipline into your life. There is zero amount of fluff in here. There's zero. There's nothing in there that you're going to say to yourself, well, I think Jocko might have just

• 2:23:24Jocko Willink?

  thrown this in here for, you know, kind of take up some space in the pages. Didn't happen. Rather not do it. Rather burn the whole book. Don't care about that. Book's not long enough? Cool. Read less. So that's what it is. Get it from your local bookstore. So go down to the neighborhood bookstore and tell them you want this book.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Or you can get it from Barnes Noble. You can get it from Amazon. Let them know what's up.

• 2:23:54Jocko Willink?

  It's in the get after it section of your local bookstore.

• 2:23:58Jocko Willink?

  If they have one. If they don't have that section, they need it so they can put this one book by itself in there. Getting after it.

• 2:24:06Jocko Willink?

  Your video is awesome, by the way.

• 2:24:07Speaker 01

  Thanks, Jocko.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  For your business, if you need help aligning your leadership and improving the way that your whole team leads together, check out our leadership and management consulting company. It's called Echelon Front. Me, Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke. You can email [email protected]. Finally, the muster, September 14th and 15th. I'm pretty sure it's sold out by the time this podcast comes out.

• 2:24:35Jocko Willink?

  We've been able to squeeze a couple more people in at each of these. Even when we were sold out, we got in like four more people, three more people, seven more people.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  Check, might be completely sold out, but Extreme ownership.com and if you want to, we're going to pretty soon get the dates for the 2018 musters going. So start looking to that and get registered as early as you can. And until the muster, if you happen to want to keep cruising with us, kind of hard, we are on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and the fishy boha, Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  And finally, to the military members out there, sitting on some forgotten barricade, holding the line to protect us, thank you to the vets that stood on the wall and did their time. Thank you to the police, law enforcement, firefighters, EMTs, other first responders, thank you for what you do day in and day out. And to the rest of you with

• 2:26:06Jocko Willink?

  goals and dreams and aspiration, make sure you remember that seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into days, and days turn into years. So make those seconds count, all of them. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.