369: YOUR LIFE IS A GAME. Will You Win? Or Will You Lose?

Life is a game. And then there are games within the game. How are you playing? 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 369 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. There's a famous speech. I think Tim Ferriss, it might be the first person that I heard talk about this speech. The speech is called This is Water. It's by a guy named David Foster Wallace. And it's a graduation speech, you know, when people are graduating from college. I'm not going to go into David Foster Wallace's whole life. He was a professor. He was a writer.

• 0:34Jocko Willink?

  He was an author of books and he battled with depression his whole life and he eventually killed himself, which is awful. Horrible. But at some point, maybe we'll get into that. But I want to talk about his speech a little bit because it opens up an idea that I've been.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  I've been engaged with for a while now. So his speech starts off like this. Greetings, parents and congratulations to Kenyan's graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, morning, boys. How's the water? And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, what the hell is water?

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  And so the point of this story is that, you know, we're in water. And we're so used to the water, we're so encompassed in the water that we don't even know that we're not, we don't notice it.

• 1:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, what does this have to do with anything? Well.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  How does this apply? I mean, there's clearly, there's a, there's a topic that we can get into about appreciating life. And that's the water that you're in and you can just be not appreciative of it. But I was thinking about it from a different perspective.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  And we've talked about before on this podcast, and you've probably heard me say this before, the best way to beat someone.

• 2:13Jocko Willink?

  In a game is if they don't even know that they're playing the game. That's the best way to beat someone, right? They don't even know that it's happening. And you're outmaneuvering them because they don't know what's happening and then you beat them. I mean, it'd be like, imagine you're pre Jiu Jitsu. Like you didn't know anything about Jiu Jitsu and you got into a, a, a fight with someone. And they were doing things you don't even know what they're doing. I mean, they're getting the mount. You don't even know what that is. So it's not, you're just beating them. They don't even know what's happening. So the best way to win a competition is for the opponent to not know that there is a competition.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  Sun Tzu, we've had, we haven't had Sun Tzu on this podcast. He's been dead for a while. But, you know, he, he talked about the goal is to win without fighting. Right? To win without fighting. We don't even want to fight. This is also the indirect approach, right? I don't want to get, go head to head. So several months ago, I was talking to one of my friends and someone that I spend time with and, and talk to. Not all the time, but fairly regularly. And we were talking through some of his trials and tribulations. And I started talking about the game.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and maybe it was the way that I was referencing it or the way I said it. And I talked about it. Look, in leadership strategy and tactics, I talk about playing the game. Which is a very specific reference to playing the game in a work environment, interacting with other people. But when, when I was talking to this friend of mine. I, I was talking about the game, you know, he was going through some stuff. And I was talking about the game and as I'm watching his face, as I'm talking about the game. That he's engaged in, I realized he didn't know he was in a game.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  Just like the fish not realizing they're in the water. So there's things going on in his life. There's things going on with his work. There's things going on with his marriage. And there's maneuvers being made and I can see him. Cause he's telling me what they are. He's telling, but he doesn't realize that it's that those are moves.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  And I, I looked at him. I said, like, hey, you realize that this is a game, right?

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  And he just gave me that blank stare and I realized, no, he didn't. He didn't know this was a game.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  And over the last several months, I've had a bunch of conversations, not a bunch, but I've had several, we'll say, conversations like this. And I realized that a lot of people don't get this idea of the game that they're in. And I, and I, and I, so I wanted to spend some time talking about this because I think a lot of people don't realize. I think a lot of people don't realize that they're in a game. And that there is a game. In fact, there's multiple games going on.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  And they're in them. You're in them. I'm in them. So if you don't realize that you're in a game, you're not going to win. You, you, you, things are happening and, and you're not going to win. You have to recognize that you're, you're in a game and, and you actually have to recognize that you're in multiple games. Well, remember a long time ago, we had a conversation about ecosystems. Right? That there's different ecosystems in the world. I actually had this conversation with Andrew Huberman recently. You know, talking about the ecosystem. He's in the ecosystem of academia. He's a, he's a professor at Stanford. He's got a lab, like really impressive to some people.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  There's some people that literally do not know where Stanford is. There are some people that don't care what kind of schooling you went to. There's jujitsu ecosystem. Oh, I'm a purple belt. I'm a brown belt. I'm a, there's people that, there's people that don't understand that to them, a black belt in jujitsu is the same as a black belt in karate. They just like, whatever. Right? There's ecosystems at work. The SEAL teams is an ecosystem. Different guys in there to try to maneuver, trying to get to the, to the, to the, to the top of that pyramid of the ecosystem. And so there's all these ecosystems and, and in those, there's games, right? There's games that are being played. There's work games. There's relationships. There's financial games. You're in the financial game.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  There's fitness.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  There's a status game. There's a materialistic game. There's all these games are going in and all those are going on and all those are like subordinate games that are going on in your life. Possibly. You might not care about them. You know, you, you might not be playing one of those games. That's okay. You might not be playing the jujitsu game. You don't care about jujitsu. You might be, not be playing the financial game. That's okay.

• 7:18Jocko Willink?

  But you might be. You might be playing some of those subordinate games. And then there's the supreme game. That you are playing.

• 7:31Jocko Willink?

  Which is life. Which is life viewed as a game. Now. There's sort of a diminishing tone. Right? To say that something's a game, right? There's a diminishing tone. Cause guess what else is a game? Tic-tac-toe. Right? Tic-tac-toe is a game. Uh, shoots and ladders is a game. Right?

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  So, so sometimes I've said this before, this isn't a game, right? I've said that before. In certain contexts, okay, this isn't a game. So to, now I'm sitting here saying everything's a game, but what we're talking, I'm not trying to devalue, I'm not trying to diminish, I'm not trying to depreciate.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  Life and I'm not trying to devalue depreciate or diminish some of these like relationship games. Like, oh, it's a game to you. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. There's a negative connotation, but it depends on the definition that you're gonna use. And I actually looked around and see if there was another better word, but there actually isn't. Yeah. There's just multiple definitions. Yes, a game can be tic tac toe. Yes, game can be shoots and ladders. Yes, game can be football game and to compare, you know, people get mad, compare football to like combat. What are you doing? That's not combat and it's true. So you can't say, and I'm not, so I'm not trying to take everything and compare it to shoots and ladders. Or what's the candy game? Maybe that was shoots and ladders. Candy crush?

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  No Candyland. I forget. There's, there's another game in Candyland. That was like up there with shoots and ladders when I was a kid. Okay. So you could take that definition, this sort of frivolous game that you play for fun, but there's some definition of game that means you've got a competition based on rules where you're trying to score points or earn value in order to beat an opponent.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  That's a game, which again, that's what combat combat is the most serious of games. And that's what it is. It's a game. There's rules. We're trying to maneuver. We're trying to follow the rules while we beat the opponent. It's competition.

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  And if you think about life, similar, because in life, guess what? There's rules.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  And you can break some of the rules of life. There could be consequences. You can actually choose different, you can have different rules in your life that I have in my life. We could have different rules. So you actually have some say in the set of rules that you're gonna go by, right? You get somebody with no morals.

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  These uh people that rip off billions of dollars from other people. That guy's operating by a different set of rules than a normal person. And should be punished severely for those actions, but that's what he, he was following the rules that he thought, or maybe he was breaking them. Right.

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  But there's rules, that's what's happening in life. You've got rules that you're following. You are, you have goals that you're trying to achieve. So you're trying to score goals or earn points. That's happening.

• 10:41Jocko Willink?

  Most likely, you're gonna have to compete with others to achieve your goal. Most likely. Whether you're a caveman and we're trying to survive and you're trying to eat, you know, we just killed a a damn woolly mammoth. And now we gotta fight over who gets more meat. There's limited resources or where, you know, you're running a business, I'm running a business, you're making widgets, I'm making widgets, we gotta compete.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  So when when I'm talking about game, the game of life, or really these sub games, these subordinate games in life, don't think of the lowest definition. So if you're already mad, someone's mad at me, you're like, life isn't a game. They deleted the podcast, right? Life is not a game. Oh, but it is.

• 11:27Jocko Willink?

  But don't think of that low kind of base definition. Think of the straightforward definition. A competition executed according to rules where the goal is to achieve some kind of victory.

• 11:39Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, the victory is also defined by rules.

• 11:45Jocko Willink?

  Right? Cause for some reason they make a field goal worth this many points and a touchdown worth that many points. Those are just, they just made that up. So depending on what rules you put in your life, you, winning might look different for you and to me. And that's okay. That's the thing. We're not disparaging the set of rules you're playing, or the goals that you have, or the goals that I'm playing, or the rules that I'm playing, or the goals that I have, not disparaging those things. They might, just might be different. What we have to watch out for is you have to make sure that you do know the rules that you're gonna play by. You have to make sure you know what you're trying to achieve. What does victory look like for you?

• 12:26Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what's happening now.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  During this conversation that I had with this friend of mine, he eventually got that look on his face that he understood that, okay, I get it. I'm playing a game. I'm in a game. He understood it, but he don't, he just kind of like realized it. And then he started asking me questions like, what are the rules of the game?

• 12:55Jocko Willink?

  How do you win the game? Where do you focus?

• 13:00Jocko Willink?

  Do you ever walk away? Can you surrender? Is it a marathon? Is it sprint? Like, he started asking me detailed questions.

• 13:08Jocko Willink?

  About the game. And I've been thinking. For a while about these things, I want to spend some time addressing. These on maybe a podcast or two, maybe seven podcasts, maybe 12 podcasts, I don't know. But. Let's start with this.

• 13:28Jocko Willink?

  How do you know you're in a game?

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  How do you know? Well, the short answer is you are. You, you, you, you absolutely are in a game. And in order to see that, you have to take a step back. And look at this. And to get here. What I recommend, I recommend this often as a tool for detachment. And that is to take a step back and actually write things down.

• 13:51Jocko Willink?

  Actually, put pen to paper. If you don't know that you're in a game right now, take a step back, sit down. And, and write down, ask yourself some good questions. What?

• 14:05Jocko Willink?

  Are my objectives? Like, if you're looking at your life, or you're looking at your relationship, or you're looking at your job. You need to take a step back and say, wait a second, what are my objectives? Cause if you don't know what your objectives are, you definitely don't know you're in a game. I mean, imagine you're walking around a piece of grass. And all of a sudden, people go running by you and one of them's holding a ball. Like, you don't know what they're doing. Right? Maybe you should grab that dude and put him to the ground. But, but you don't even know what he's doing. You don't know what direction he's going. You, there's big, there's lines on the grass. There's numbers around them. 10, 20, 30, 40. Right? You don't know what they mean. So, write down, okay, what?

• 14:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I get it. I'm trying to get this ball into that area of grass that's painted red. Okay, think of, think of how your whole world improves. If you're standing on a piece of grass, you have no idea what's going on. People are running around, they're kicking things, they're throwing things, and you don't know what's happening. But as soon as you go, oh, I gotta, I'm trying to, these guys with the red shirts on are, are going against the guys with the white shirts on. And we're trying to get this ball into that red area. Okay, think of how much more productive you can be in that scenario. Yeah, just knowing. Just knowing that. So how many people are sitting there on the field of life?

• 15:32Jocko Willink?

  And they don't even know what, what direction they're going in. They don't know what the objective is. They don't know what their objective is. So the first step you take is you actually write down, okay. Here's what I'm trying, here's where I'm trying to go. Here's what I'm trying to do. This is my objective.

• 15:49Jocko Willink?

  And then you try and figure out, okay, what are the rules here? Like, what are some of the rules you have to obey? Because there's rules. There's societal rules. There's religious rules. There's family rules. There's rules that are in place.

• 16:02Jocko Willink?

  That you, you can't just, uh, if the goal is to get money, well, you can't just steal it. You can try, but you get caught. There's gonna be consequences. You can't, you know, you have relationships with your family. You need to protect those relationships with your family in most cases. Those are rules that you write down.

• 16:22Jocko Willink?

  Then you start figuring out, okay, what strategies can I use? What tactics can I use? Now that I know what my objective is, what should I actually be doing tactically? On a day-to-day, week-to-week basis to try and progress towards this goal that I just figured out I had.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  And then write those things down. And I think what you will see as you start to write down

• 16:50Jocko Willink?

  these objectives and these rules and these strategies and these tactics. I think what you'll start to realize is that you'll start to see, oh, there's a couple of different games going on here. There's a couple of different games going on here. Probably a real obvious one is work.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  It's also an obvious one because a lot of times you can see what your objective is. Oh, I wanna get paid. I wanna get promoted. I wanna move into a leadership position or I wanna grow this, you know, whatever, something like that. So that generally speaking, work is a little bit more identifiable. Not always, because you talk to some people, you know, we, we go into companies that's on front. Oh, what are your, you know, talk to a frontline manager. Oh, what, what, what are your goals here? Uh, make good money this quarter? They don't have any long-term goals. They don't have any strategic goals. Oh, what's the goal of the company? Oh, make money this quarter. So that means they're not thinking strategic. They're thinking tactical, but they at least will have some idea in most cases.

• 17:52Jocko Willink?

  I mean, imagine you were a bouncer.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  Right? Back in the day. Did you ever think to yourself, all right, what am I trying to do here?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there was a point where it hit me really hard and I started thinking that I was gone soon after that.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz you start thinking, wait a second, what? Like if I win this game.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Jocko Willink?

  What do I get?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:15Jocko Willink?

  What do I put into it and what do I get? That's another thing to think about is like, what is, not just what's the objective and what's the victory? But what do I get for that victory?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  Because a paycheck on Sunday and a wasted Friday, wasted Saturday. You know, the hanging around scene, you shouldn't really, it's not really progressing your life. You start realizing, no, this, what, what am I doing here? So you actually had that revelation?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:45Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to make the decision to bail?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Uh, well, actually it's funny because even right when you just said bouncer, it hit me so clearly. Remembering that experience. Said, I was like, damn, but it did hit me. So at first, yeah, you're like just floating. You're like the game. If you even recognize, which I didn't because I just needed a job. I had experience. So it's easy to get. So I got it. And then it was just good fun. So it was literally just moment to moment, day to day.

• 19:15Jocko Willink?

  Short term gratification, daily basis.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Like literally nightly, literally nightly.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  And that went on, you know, early twenties, who cares? You know, kind of a thing as far as how it went for me anyway. And then, yeah, once I hit mid twenties, that's when it started to hit me. Whoa, like I've been here like two years, years.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  And what do you have to show for it?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Nothing, same spot, but which was fine because it's still fun. I'm still young, all this stuff. But you know, when you hit 25ish, you're kind of like,

• 19:47Speaker 01

  you see older people in that scene and you're like, whoa, that person's like kind of older. Cool, fine. But I didn't feel that that's where I wanted to be kind of a thing. All that stuff started to creep in your, my mind or whatever. And then, yeah, you start to realize like, okay, I should, I should at least pay attention to the future. Like long, medium, whatever future. And then I, but I've been not paying attention for so long that I wasn't even looking outside of my like trajectory, you know? So I started making goals within that same trajectory. Maybe I'll be a manager. Maybe I'll gain some skills here. And bro, they were all about it. The all the, you know, my superiors, they're all about it. They're like, oh yeah, cool. And then, so I started to kind of pursue that a little bit. And then after a while.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  They meet with you about your career opportunity. They're like, hey, because they got you there. They think, oh yeah, we got him.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yep, it fully did. Like, oh yeah.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  And just the kind of guy we need.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah, essentially.

• 20:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, you know what that manager paycheck looks like?

• 20:44Jocko Willink?

  This is such a perfect, this is exactly what I'm talking about. This is exactly what I'm talking about. And you had a little moment, this happens to a lot of people, you know, you see, you see the person that's doing what you're doing. But they're 10 years older than you and you think, wait a second. And you have a moment of clarity where you go, wait a second. That some people have a moment of clarity, wait a second, that's gonna be me. Some people say, oh, no, that'll never happen to me. Yeah. But in order for it to not happen, you gotta get, you gotta, you gotta make some adjustments. Yes. So this is exactly what I'm talking about. Like, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. From the work perspective, you're in a work job, you're doing your job, and you're looking and you start realizing, okay,

• 21:27Jocko Willink?

  what is this game that I'm playing? Cause you're, you are on the field. Yeah. But there's plays happening, there's things going on, you don't even know what's, you don't know what's happening. Yep. So that's a good step to take. Now, here's another one. Here's another game that you're in, whether you want to be in it or not. And you should know you're in. Health. Yeah. Health is a game that you're in. And if you don't recognize that you're in this game, again, that's when you look at somebody that's 10 years older than you, and they're not in good physical condition, they're having health problems. They look terrible, they feel terrible. And did they, did they 10 years prior say, you know what I really want to do? I really want to put on 48 pounds of, you know, fat.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  I want, I want my heart rate to go catastrophic. I want to just look like crap and feel like crap. Yeah. There's zero people say that. Yeah. And yet there they are. Why? They didn't realize that they were in a game. Yeah. They didn't realize that there's rules to that game. Like, here's the rules. There's rules you gotta follow. If you don't follow them, you break those rules, you're gonna look up, and you won't be, you won't have achieved your objective.

• 22:37Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't know that there's an objective, you better start paying attention to this podcast right now, at this moment in time.

• 22:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, relationships, right? And this is another one. I was talking about this with my daughter. Because when you say, oh, it's a relationship, it's a game, total negative connotation, right? Yeah. But what if I said, hey, you know, I got a relationship with Echo Charles, he's a friend of mine. It's a game, here's what I'm trying to do. Trying to build a good relationship, trying to build trust, like, all those things are positive. Yeah. And yet, it's a game, because you're, you've got maneuvers you gotta make, you gotta follow certain rules in order to build that trust, in order to build that respect. So all those things are going on. And then you've got life and you've got, you know, legacy and whatnot. And, and, and I think, so, so we got these categories.

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  And what are your pillars? You got your pillars. What are your pillars?

• 23:31Speaker 01

  The eight pillars.

• 23:33Jocko Willink?

  There's eight of them? I thought there was five. What are your pillars?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Well, there's four that, and they're both.

• 23:36Jocko Willink?

  They have sub pillars? Okay.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  No, no, they're partners. They're like partners. Um, okay. Uh, health and physical capability are, are two.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  So, and then, so how physically, um, your income and what you do with your time. So they can, they're kind of partners as well.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  Interesting, interesting.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Oh, your spirituality and your worldview. That's another two.

• 23:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  And then your relationships, friendly and romantic.

• 24:02Jocko Willink?

  Okay. These are, you know, these are things that if you broke those down, health is a game, income is a game. Spirituality, I'm not sure how we pin that one down. I'm not sure what you mean by that.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Your place in the world.

• 24:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it's game.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Understanding your place in the world. Yeah.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And where you're going in the world.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  To me, more importantly, like, hey, where, where am I going in the world?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I've always thought of it in this way where, um, you know, cause a lot of time, spirituality, that's another, just, I mean, just you asking that really, that's really indicative of how I think a lot of people kind of regard spirituality. It has different meanings for different people. So I thought about that. And I think just understanding your place in the world. You know how like, if you look at the world, just all of existence that you understand as one big puzzle? Like where are you in that puzzle? You know, that little piece? Cause you fit to the pieces next to you somehow. And so how do you fit? And how does that puzzle kind of form as a, as a whole, you know, compared to where you are in it? So it's just like, like that, like your place in the world.

• 25:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes. But a lot, that's sort of like saying, I know what my place is on the field.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:09Jocko Willink?

  But you gotta know what's happening on the field. Like you gotta understand what's going on.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  What's the importance of it? And yeah, fully. You're right.

• 25:15Jocko Willink?

  So when I say, when I was talking about right, taking a moment to write these things down, to me, it's sort of like, uh, what happens when people say, I'm going to write down my new year's resolution, write down my goals. Like, oh, you know, you know, a lot of people, they'll say, oh, if you gotta write down your goals in order for them to come true, there's, that's, that's a good tactic.

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  And when you do that, you're actually writing down a goal, you're sort of, you're sort of clarifying the game. You're clarifying the objective of the game. So that's when you write down your new year's resolution, you're saying, okay, I'm entering this game. And for that alone can help you saying, oh, there's a game going on here. I eat junk food every night. And if I keep eating junk food, I'm going to lose this game of health. Yeah. So writing it down and saying, okay, I want to lose weight. I want to be more healthy. Here's the rules I got to follow. And then all of a sudden, you've defined the game. And now you can start to make progress. Whereas if you don't do that, you know what the hell is going on in your life. So what games are you are you in? Are we in?

• 26:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, as you mentioned, like job, work, income.

• 26:25Jocko Willink?

  What are the rules there? Well, you're gonna have, you gotta earn money, right? You want to get promoted, possibly. Not everyone wants to get promoted, get learn some kind of a skill. There's a, there's a positive benefit to learning some kind of a skill that gives you some kind of job security. And then what were the rules inside that game?

• 26:45Jocko Willink?

  You got some rules, like there's actual rules beyond time for work, right? These are actual rules, but there's a uniform you gotta wear. Um, there's a treatment of others. You can't use this word or whatever. The HR will come and get you. Yes. Right?

• 27:01Jocko Willink?

  And then you got the job itself, and the tasks that you got to complete, and the skills that you've got to learn, and the projects that you got to complete. And, and then you've got the game that's going on at work, because if you build good relationships with people, the right people, you can support each other. And if you're, hey, does that make you an ass kisser? If you build a good relationship with your boss, and you take care of your boss and make your boss look good? No, no, actually, you're doing a good job. And your boss will then most likely take care of you.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, your your relation and you brought that up really early where it's like um ask kisser, right, like brown noser or whatever like that, just that idea when you say forming a good relationship up the chain.

• 27:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  You put it. And I'm like, wait a second, like you gotta, there's a difference between being a brown noser and building a good relationship. So don't think of it as, and this is, this is my, what I'm saying in my head, right, to gain a better understanding of what you're saying. So building a relationship with someone is just, whether it's up the chain, down the chain, your neighbor, your wife, your kids, whatever, it's, it's all essentially the same, you do it in different ways, different, I mean, different people, different ways, but it's essentially the same approach where it's like you're, you want to build an actual relationship.

• 28:13Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  You're not trying to make them, you're not trying to please them at, at every moment necessarily. You're trying to build a two-way street good relationship, like anything. So yeah, no one, I don't even think brown nosing is building a good relationship.

• 28:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, well, there's some people that are, some people that are susceptible, they like to get brown nosed, right? But what's funny is, like, let's say you're a big brown noser with me and I was the big boss man. I actually know you're a brown noser and I go, yeah, he's just a brown noser, he's just trying to kiss my ass.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And actually you started to say that and I went kind of deep one, few days anyway, um, thinking about that. Cause I know some brown nosers and some of them are like, man, that guy's so nice, he's so nice to everybody. But at the same time, like the, you know, cause the purpose of building a relationship is to have.

• 28:58Jocko Willink?

  Has a smell.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Intent has a smell. So Brad, you don't trust them that much. You like them. And then, you know, you'd go into stuff where, um, what's the expression, a good neighbor or a good barbecue, I don't know, in SEAL teams.

• 29:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Like, it's like that, that, like, you like them, totally like them, you never do anything mean to this guy, he's so nice. But is that the relationship you want to build? You know, and that's what I felt about like brown noses, whatever, no matter how nice they are. So I don't think that's an effective way to build a relationship.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Jocko Willink?

  This one of the earlier, I think this was a couple of years ago now. But it's worth reiterating.

• 29:38Jocko Willink?

  Is this the game you want to play? When it comes to work, is this the game you want to play? Because you spend a lot of time with your job. And if you hate it, that's not healthy. That's not healthy.

• 29:53Jocko Willink?

  You should be playing a game when it comes to work that you like to play. Right? So if you like pouring concrete, then that's great. And you're and you pour pour concrete for, I mean, think of how awesome that is. If you like software engineering and you're a software engineer. I mean, it's hey, if you like being in the SEAL teams, I was in the SEAL teams. I love being in the SEAL teams. What a freaking great job. I didn't, I never went to work a day of my life.

• 30:20Jocko Willink?

  So do you want to actually play this game is something you should assess? And by the way, we're going to get this on all aspects of this, right? Because you're going to be in relationship games. Do you want to be in that relationship game? You're going to be in life games that do you want to be playing that particular field? But for work, is what you're doing gratifying? Is it gratifying to you? Do you get done with a day and say, damn, that was a good day? I really got a lot. I made progress. I made the world a little bit better today. I made my world a little bit better. I made my client's world a little bit better. I made the highway a little bit better pouring concrete. Like, what are you doing? Are you proud of it?

• 31:03Jocko Willink?

  And then, and this is the thing that came up a couple of years ago. Does this game?

• 31:10Jocko Willink?

  Score the way you want it to score? And what came up with, I had two friends that were both working, two extremely capable friends. Meaning extremely smart, charismatic, you know, just good, really good. Both of them were men, really good guys. Both extremely hard workers. These are 70, 80 hour a week people, 100 hour a week, whatever's needed. And they were both.

• 31:41Jocko Willink?

  capped out from a from a financial income perspective. Meaning they were making as much money as they could make. Playing that game.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  All right.

• 31:51Jocko Willink?

  And the way I explained it to both of them. Luckily, I had the two conversations within a couple of weeks of each other. But it's like. You could be the best soccer player in the world. And how many soccer goals could you score a game? Maybe one, maybe two, maybe. But if you're a basketball player. You might be scoring thirty, forty, fifty points a game. Well, there's some jobs. That you work. An eighty hour week. And you make sixty four thousand dollars a year. Those those jobs exist for real. There's jobs at work you work twenty hours a week and you make five hundred thousand dollars a year. So if you work a hundred hours a week, you're gonna make, you know, multiples more than that. So.

• 32:36Jocko Willink?

  Figure out if the game that you're in from a job perspective. Write it down. Is this the game I want to be in? What are the objectives? How many points can I score? Is it worth my time? Like Echo sitting around as a bouncer at twenty three years old. It's like. Okay, hey, this is fun. But as soon as you take a step back and say, wait, is this gratifying? Wait a second, how much money can I make? And part of the way we're keeping score is money. So if I can't make a ton of money and I can't really progress, what am I doing on the field right now? Why am I playing this game?

• 33:12Jocko Willink?

  So when it comes to work. Ask yourself that question. Ask yourself all these questions. Is this the game you want to play? From an employment, from a job, from entrepreneurial perspective, is this the game you want to play? Now we get, we're talking about health. Which is it? What's interesting about health is you you don't have to follow any of the rules. No one's gonna enforce the rules on you. I mean, you can get addicted to heroin and you can literally do heroin until you die.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:42Jocko Willink?

  That's that's you can do that.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:47Jocko Willink?

  But there are rules that we know you can follow. You know, you can follow good, healthy diet. You can follow exercise. You can do the proper amount of rest and recovery.

• 33:59Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't know that you're playing a game there, you're gonna have problems.

• 34:05Jocko Willink?

  Relationships. So at Echelon Front, last couple of years, I've been talking a lot about relationships and what a relationship is. And what a relationship is to me is trust, listen, respect, and influence. Meaning,

• 34:19Jocko Willink?

  if you and I don't trust each other, there's no relationship. If you and I don't listen to each other, there's no relationship. If you and I don't respect each other, there's no relationship. If you and I have no influence over each other, there's no relationship. But if we do trust each other, if we do listen to each other, if we do respect each other, if we do influence each other, then we got a relationship. And obviously, there's a whole bunch of shades of gray in there. Different gradients of how strong our relationship is. But that's what, that's what we're dealing with. So,

• 34:49Jocko Willink?

  you got friends.

• 34:53Jocko Willink?

  You wanna have, you wanna build friendships. You wanna build good relationship friendships. You know, there's a, I think the movie is called The Town, where the dude comes in, he's like, hey, we're gonna go somewhere, we're gonna hurt some people, and we can never talk about it again. And the dude looks back at him and says, whose car are we taking? You kinda want some friends like that, right? That's the kinda friends you want. You also wanna have a friend that's like, hey, bro, is this a good move that we're about to make? Is it worth the risk? What are we doing it for? Is this your ego? Are you just emotional right now? You see what I'm saying? You wanna have somebody that's gonna push back against your, your, your, what you consider to be your good ideas. You wanna make sure

• 35:36Jocko Willink?

  that your friends really want the best for you. They, they like it when you win. They love it when you win. They, they like it more when you win than when they win, right? That's always nice.

• 35:52Jocko Willink?

  It's always nice when you've got a friend that says, oh, you're winning and they're happy. It's so bizarre. That you can have friends that when you win, they don't like it.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Bro, it's spooky, actually. And it's not just friends too, like, you know, if you come across a family scenario where, you know, it's revealed to you that, you know, maybe they're not as supportive, you know? Yeah, it's, uh, it's bizarre for sure, but it's like kinda spooky. Cause you know, like someone's your friend and maybe, you know, in, under, under certain circumstance, like you've only been through so many things with them. A lot for sure, but let's say there's certain circumstances you haven't been in with them. Then they get revealed to be, you know, like an easy one, an easy one. Like if something good happens to you, like big major life thing, you know? And then you could tell they're not happy. Like damn, this whole fucking time you've been feeling that way? You know, like, bro.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  It's bad, man. Yeah, it can jam you up.

• 36:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that when, when I got my house and Stoner came over, like I had a couple of friends come over. When I first got my house and, uh, the house where I live now, and it's, it's, it's in an optimal spot, let's say, right?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  I would agree with that.

• 37:07Jocko Willink?

  It's an optimal position geographically on earth.

• 37:12Jocko Willink?

  And like the first guy that came over was like, oh, I forget what the little criticism he made, but it was some devastating in his mind, you know? Oh, this, oh, this salt water's gonna eat everything, you know? Like that was, like for him, bro, I'd be like, how could you even live here? The salt spray from the ocean's gonna really damage your-

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Your whole life?

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, your whole life. I'm like, bro, you know, I'll rotate some gear out. I think I'll be alright. But that, and I saw, I had several people hit me with that negativity. Stoner came over, like he showed up, he's like, bro, we are set. He's so, he's calling it we, right? As if we got this out, right? Which we kinda did, actually. But, but what a crazy thing to think about. So, when we talk about these relationships as being a game, well, if you've got a friend that doesn't want you to win, you're not winning the game.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:08Jocko Willink?

  If you've got friends that are supportive of you, are doing everything they can to help you, you got, you're winning the game.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  Same thing with your, uh, you know, your, your relationship, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a girlfriend, boyfriend type scenario. This is sort of your business partner in life, in, in, in a lot of aspects of your life.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:31Jocko Willink?

  So what kind of trust, what kind of, you know, respect do you have for each other? How much do you influence each other? How much do you listen to each other? Where are you at? Cause if you got a spouse that you don't respect, you're not winning the game. If they don't respect you, you're not winning. If they don't listen to you, they're not winning the game. If you don't listen to them, like those are all things. So if you don't understand that, if you don't understand that that's part of the game that you're playing, you're gonna lose the game. You're gonna lose the game. Um, we got kids, right? You start having kids. That's part of the scenario too. And so then there's, there's influences that you have on your kids. And what influences are you having on them? And are they negative or are they positive?

• 39:16Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't understand, if you're not paying attention to that, if you're not watching it, all of a sudden you look up and you've made some major mistakes. And you've got a kid running off the rails over here.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  So when it comes to this relational aspect thing of friends, of spouses, of girlfriends, of boyfriends, of kids, by the way, kids, same thing. You want them to listen to you? Listen to them. You want them to trust you? You have to trust them. You want them to treat you with respect? You better treat them with respect. To cast all this away by saying like, you know, the classic expression, I'm sure you've said it to a bunch of, uh, young ladies in your day. Stop playing games with me.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  No, whatever.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  But you know, you know, the, uh, that's a, that's like a common, uh, phrase, you know, like a really negative like, stop playing games with me.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  And if you view this idea of playing a game with relationships, just from the fact that you like playing a game and manipulating, of course, it's a negative connotation. But if you look at the game is to build bonds, if you look at the game is to build trust, if you look at the game to build a true partner in life, then it's a positive thing.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. You bring that up where the courting phase in a relationship, right? Dating and that part, the courting part of it, it's like there's that big game that you're talking about, but then there's a couple of maybe two levels of psychological game within the game. So, and there are rules, just and there are like ways to score and all this other stuff like, and it kinda is like an actual game in that way. But it is for the good, it's for the greater good.

• 41:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's what you have to look at. Is, is your end goal to manipulate some other person, then, then, then it's, then you're playing the wrong game.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I can say that, that ultimately you may get a short-term gratification, but ultimately you're playing the wrong game. If your goal is to manipulate someone, take advantage of them, listen, you might win a short-term game. Oh, I got this girl to do this for me.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:28Jocko Willink?

  Where are you gonna be long-term?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Jocko Willink?

  That's why you have to take a step back and write down what it is you're trying to achieve, because you go through a bunch of hollow relationships like that. You haven't progressed in life.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:38Jocko Willink?

  And you end up with a bunch of baggage.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:41Jocko Willink?

  That's not gonna help you. We're, we're, we're, we're playing a game, not of manipulation. That's not what we're talking about. Like, there's a, there's like a famous book that's called The Game, right?

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 41:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like a pickup artist book, and it's called The Game.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  And, um, it's like one of those things. It's like, oh, if you say this, you act this way. It's like giving pointers to guys so they can go and manipulate

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  uh, girls into basically, you know, sleeping with them.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  I'm pretty sure, I haven't read it, but I'm pretty sure that's like, that's what it is. So, that's a, not what we're talking about. And, and look, that could be a game that you're playing when you're 23 years old.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  Right? You could be playing that game. But if you're playing that game right now at 23 years old, take a step back and figure out where that's gonna put you in the long run.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:30Jocko Willink?

  That's what you need to figure out.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  Because there's a bigger, more superior game that you should be playing. And think about that.

• 42:42Jocko Willink?

  The other

• 42:45Jocko Willink?

  the other game that we're dealing with is is everyone's dealing with is your mental health.

• 42:54Jocko Willink?

  Which in my opinion, it's kind of rooted in everything we just talked about, like physical health. Right? If you have, if you're, if you're not physically healthy, it's going to be harder for you to keep your mental health on peak, right? On point. Your job gratification, right? If you're miserable at work, what does that do to you for mental health? If you're, if you're miserable all day long, that's not beneficial to your mental health. If you are in bad relationships, that's not beneficial for your mental health. So all these things are impacting your mental health.

• 43:32Jocko Willink?

  One thing that I've noticed

• 43:38Jocko Willink?

  is that a big part from what I've seen, a big part of mental health and being a good place from a mental health perspective

• 43:50Jocko Willink?

  is taking ownership. And I've found that people who take ownership of their actions have better mental health and obviously this falls into right in line with the book Extreme Ownership.

• 44:12Jocko Willink?

  But when I, well, look, how many people have I met over the last 10 years? Or I guess when did Extreme Ownership came out in 2015, it's 2022 right now. So the past seven years, how many people have I met? That have for lack of a better phrase, turned their lives around from a mental health perspective by taking ownership of what's going on in their world? By saying, oh, because guess what? How do you get bad physical health? You don't take ownership of your health.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  You blame the work, you blame the time, you blame the this, you blame, so you don't.

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  How do you take ownership of your, or how do you have bad satisfaction at work? Well, you blame other people and you don't get promoted because you don't think that anyone likes you because it's all their fault. How do you end up in a bad relationship? Well, you go, oh, I ended up here and now I can't get out. It's like, no, people that take ownership of what's going on. And by the way, when you say, oh yeah, you know, I got a DUI and I lost my license and that made me lose my job and my life sucks now. Okay. The person that goes, yep, you know what? I really screwed up. Here's what I did. I went, you know, I got a DUI and I lost my job. Here's what I'm doing now. That's my fault. Obviously I stopped drinking. I'm never drinking again. Here's my new job.

• 45:27Jocko Willink?

  It's low paying, but I know that there's a path for me to, you know, promote over time. Here's the way I'm getting around. I went and got an e-bike, you know? And now I can get to this new job I have. So people that take ownership of what's going on in their world are absolutely going to have, in my opinion, better mental health. And this is something that I've seen a lot of. And I've seen it help so many people.

• 45:57Jocko Willink?

  I've seen it help so many people to say, oh yeah, I had this, you know? My mom got sick, my dad got sick, my kid got sick, my job got lost, like all those problems. And going, okay, here's what I can do about it. Here's how I can fix it. Here's how I can move forward. And you know, that, that one about the mom getting sick, about the dad getting sick, about the kid getting sick. When you take that, oh, well, now there's, I'm, you know, woe is me. And believe me, look, I've talked to countless people that have been in that situation. My kid got sick. I mean, I'm talking like bad diseases, cancer, like serious diseases. The ones that say, oh yeah, this is what, this is what hit me. This is what hit my family. Here's how I went on offense.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  Here's what I did. And said, oh, I can't believe this happened to me. When people take ownership of how they respond to things, it helps their mental health so much, just like taking action. Being on offense instead of being on defense is so much better for your mindset.

• 46:57Jocko Willink?

  And if you go through life not taking ownership. Being a victim of what's happening to you, it's much harder on your mental health than saying, okay, got dealt a bad hand, here's what I'm gonna do.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Do you feel like it's like a control thing? Like, you know, and you say this where it's like, um, the, the, a big motivator, if not the biggest motivator for people is controlling their own destiny. So is on a, like, for lack of a better term, on a fundamental level, isn't that kind of what it comes down to, like, control? Like, if something, if life is happening to someone, they feel they're not in control, all these bad things, and they're not in control. If they were, they wouldn't happen, you know? But they're just essentially, like, missing the, the idea that you are in control of a bunch of things. You're kind of not in control of a bunch of things.

• 47:48Jocko Willink?

  For sure. There's things you can't control.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then using the things you can't control to control the situation, kind of thing? And usually they're, we're just blind. And I'm trying to think of any situation where I was like, unhappy or whatever. It's like, you're just more blind to it. It's not that they're not there, like, the elements you can control. You're just blind to the idea that, hey, you can control this whole thing. And then when you kind of go from there, and this is kind of what I'm kind of, hopefully, kind of figuring out, where that's where the ownership comes in.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Where it's like, hey, this mistake, because you start, if you start blaming other people, you automatically kind of relinquish control of everything.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Where it's like, hey, this thing messed up, it's not my fault. You know, like, it's too bad, it's, you know, out of my control, but now everything looking forward is not your control either. But if you look at it like the opposite way, you're kind of like, oh, wait, I can control the outcome, you know?

• 48:41Jocko Willink?

  Take ownership of how you respond to things, for sure. So you get horrible news, and you take ownership of how you respond to it. There are absolutely things in the world that you cannot control. There's absolutely things in the world that you cannot control. Absolutely. Of course. And then it's like, okay, how, what can I control? Let me focus on the things I can control, and then move forward to the best of my ability, and respond to whatever thing I can't control in the best possible way. And if you don't do that, then you're just on defense. And being on defense is like, you know, imagine you're a, imagine you're a mouse in a cage, in a, in a, let's say, in a room,

• 49:26Jocko Willink?

  and there's a cat in there. Well, let's say there's three of you mice and there's a cat in there. How do you feel like you're constantly scared? You're constantly reacting. You have no control. If you're the cat, you're kind of like good to go, right? He's walking around, you know, like looking for food, looking for dinner. And, and so what are you gonna do? You're gonna be the cat, you're gonna be the mouse. You're gonna be the predator, you're gonna be the prey. And if you're a mouse and you're in that room, instead of going, well, this is horrible. Why couldn't I be a big, you know, 12 pound animal with claws and teeth? Instead, you're like, hey, you know what? I can't be a big animal, but you know what I can do is dig a little hole through this part of the wall and I can have a place to hide and that way this guy can't get me.

• 50:11Jocko Willink?

  And then good, I got control now. And by the way, inside this wall, we got some insulation in there. We're gonna build some nice beds and we're gonna make a little life for us. You know what I'm saying? So there's a different attitude. When you take on, what can you control? Oh, I can burrow into this wall a little bit. And I can actually get control inside behind this thing and I won't let this cat in here and we're good to go.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Man, that's, uh, that hits me a lot when I get injured where, you know, when you first get injured, you're like, never did jujitsu again. It sucks, this whole thing, like I can't go train for a high. And you asked, how long? He's like, oh freaking, you know, it's six, eight months. So you're like, oh my gosh.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  It's the end of the world.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  It's six, eight months is a long time. Especially when it's not like you literally do not have the option to go train six, eight months.

• 50:52Jocko Willink?

  I've never been through that, actually.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, but I also think too lifting, like, bro, I can't lift. Like how, look, if I have a torn bicep, torn ACL, torn whatever, it's like, bro, I can never, I can't do squats anymore. Or bicep, I can, not only can I not do curls, end of the world, by the way. I can't do shoulder, I can't do bent. There's a lot that your biceps do, you know? So in your mind, you're like, I can't do any, like, I can't lift. Why even like, what am I gonna do? Do half jumping jacket? Like, it doesn't make sense. But if you for real think like, hey, no, anything regarding my bicep in any kind of intensity or whatever. Sure, we, we can't control that right now. It'll come back, but we can't control that right now. We're gonna do literally everything else as hard as we can. Bro, you'd be surprised how much good stuff you can get. In fact.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  You said you mentioned this. You probably don't know the impact it had on me. It made me feel real good. But remember last time I tore my bicep, the second one? I was like, I forget what exactly how I phrase it, but I was like, hey, can you even tell that this is, this has been torn? Cause the first one, the whole arm was like a noodle. Cause I kind of, I didn't approach it the same way I approached this last one. But I was like, can you even tell? You're like, you're like, oh yeah, I just figured you're, you know, whatever. Like you made a joke first, but then you're like, no, actually I can't really tell at all. Aside from the bandage that I wore for the first week, like you're like, oh, I can't

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you get surgery? This is after you had surgery?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  After I had surgery, yeah. Yeah.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  Did you think you, I could tell?

• 52:16Speaker 01

  I thought my arm was a noodle again, but then I, I would, you know, I'd see myself on video and stuff. And I'm, bro, I can't even tell. And when you can't use the bicep at all for like six months, bro, it does a lot of like, it shrinks a lot. But if you do like everything you can, genuinely, everything you can, bro, it's like minimal.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  Minimal.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? And that's like a good, like, what do you call metaphor, whatever for how it can be, you know, you'd just be surprised how much you can still control.

• 52:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's like the book, Super Squats, you know, otherwise known as the Bible of lifting. But the funny thing is like, oh, how do you get, how do you get big arms? Squats. How do you get a big neck? Squats. How do you get big forearms? Squats. Like, that's kind of the, the response in there.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Sure. Oh, yeah.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  But yes, it is a huge thing to think about how you're going to respond. And also, we do have, there are obviously things we can't control, but we can usually control a lot more than we, than we think.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:16Jocko Willink?

  You usually control a lot more that's going on in your world. You control a lot more than you think you can.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  And so, keeping that in mind, this is part of the game of mental health. And what's scariest about mental health, I think, of all these, is that I think it's the hardest one to track for yourself, right? It's the hardest one to go, oh, I don't feel good about myself. I don't feel like I'm in a good spot. I think it's hard for people to track that. So it's worth, once again, taking a step back and writing down like, okay, I got all these, I got my physical health, I got my job. How, how satisfying is my job? How satisfying are my relationships? Where am I at? How do I feel at the end of the day? What's my stress levels?

• 54:10Jocko Willink?

  So, these are things to think about. And when you start talking about, when you start taking all these things, when you start taking your job, and your work, and your health, and your fitness, and your relationships that you're in,

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  including friends, including family,

• 54:34Jocko Willink?

  then you add mental health and that. You take all those things together,

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  and you get life. You get life. And that's the supreme game, right? That's the big game. The big game that we're playing. And obviously, there are rules in life, and as I started off by saying, we have a lot of say over the rules of the game that we're gonna play. Where they come from? What set of rules are you gonna follow? What rules are going to bring you the most gratification? How, wait, how do you even pick those rules? And then, once we figured out game, the game that we are going to play,

• 55:23Jocko Willink?

  how do we win?

• 55:26Jocko Willink?

  And I think we'll talk about that on the next, the next podcast.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  So I realize you kinda were in this mode early on, and that's when it hit me, it dawned upon me, how there's this long-term and short-term game going on. And there's also, I don't know, maybe if this is more just a different take on the same thing, but there's like a small picture and big picture game going on as well.

• 55:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  So it's like, short-term, long-term, big picture, small picture. And, once you realize that's going on, then you can begin kind of the journey of discovery of how many of that, how many elements in life that applies to. It applies to everything, by the way, but you don't, you don't, it doesn't land on you till you really realize, okay, this is going on. And then, everything you do, everything you're interested in, everything you say, in a way, is like...

• 56:20Speaker 01

  That applies to it. Short term, long term, game, big picture, small picture, game.

• 56:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think it's, it's, I had a similar conversation with Dave Burke.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 56:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's about oodle loops, right? Observe, orient, decide, and act. And you've got one, you've got an oodle loop that you're running like on right now about a business decision that you're making with a client that you're gonna, you know, talk to later today.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:43Jocko Willink?

  You're running, but you're running a oodle loop about that whole division in the company. And you're running an oodle loop about the whole company. And you're running an oodle loop about your whole, it's the same thing. You're running an oodle loop on your life, like what observe, where I'm in life right now, it's a similar thing. Where I'm at life, observe what's going on, orient yourself where you sit in that big picture.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:05Jocko Willink?

  But you've got all these different oodle loops and you're running them at the same time.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:09Jocko Willink?

  So it's the same thing. That's what, that's why having this idea, recognizing, I was, I was actually explaining this to my daughter. And like, you could see, as I was explaining it to her, you could see the light bulb come on, right? Like, yes. That like, oh, this is a game. Oh, that's a game. Oh, this other thing's a game. And what she said to me is she said, oh, she said, that's why you're detached. That's why you're able to detach. That's why you don't get mad because this is just a game.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Jocko Willink?

  And you're observing what's happening in the game. And so you're not going to get emotional because like, oh, well,

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  when you lose a point, do you run off the field and break down? No, you're like, okay, lost a point, make some adjustments. Like, that's the way it is. And by the way, there's very, all these little subordinate games that are being played. Ultimately, compared to the supreme game, they don't really matter that much.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  So you can kind of shrug them off.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  Now, listen, we all know that there's people that get wrapped up in a game. Right? They get wrapped up, they're 17 years old, they got the girlfriend, they get wrapped up in that one relationship game. And when she dumps him, that guy's freaking done. Wants to kill himself or does kill himself. Right? Everybody that's watching that goes, hey, man, that was just one little game that you were playing. What are you doing? Don't, don't, don't give it up over one little game. That's like you're playing, you know, heist, Pop Warner football. You lose a game.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  End of the world. No, it's not the end of the world. It's one game. What? That's another thing my daughter pointed out. It's like, oh, she goes, oh, you learn from these games. And I, yes. Yes, you do. I do learn from the game. Part of the game is, oh, I made a mistake in the game. Cool. I just learned it. I won't make that mistake again.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:54Jocko Willink?

  So there's a detachment that comes from this view that's very powerful to utilize. Just to say, oh, didn't get the job. Oh, that's okay. That's part of the game and I didn't win in this particular game at that particular moment. I learned from it. Here's what we're gonna do. Relationship didn't work out? Oh, okay. What can I learn from that? No, not the end of the world. Not the last game I'm ever gonna play. No, there's gonna be actually a lot more games.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  And so crazy how if you put things into perspective, it's like, oh, man, things become so clear. You know what? We're freaking distracted. That's the thing. Cause like, you know, okay, you know, when you're young, you save money, right? Like, I don't know. You wanna buy a slingshot or something like this. And you're like, okay, I gotta save up $12 to buy that slingshot. Boom. You're already aware of the game that you're playing. Short term, long term, you know. Like, oh, the Jolly Rancher for sale over there? Bro, I'm not gonna buy that Jolly Rancher because I'm saving that $1 for this.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  But it is part of it. That's part of the game too, right? Discipline, just understanding the long term is more important than the short term and being able to follow through. So it is in a nutshell. So you kind of know, that's an example of like knowing the game, but you get distracted. Like the Jolly Rancher is like super delicious or someone, you know, something like this. That's part of the opponent kind of jamming you up. So like, you know how entertainment in general, social media, whatever. TV, Netflix, all this stuff. These are all like distractions, trying to distract you from your whatever, your goals, you're winning your game or whatever, in whatever capacity. But at the same time, it's part of someone else's game to win their game. See what I'm saying?

• 1:00:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I think the biggest, and this was kind of the opening discussion we had here, the, the worst thing to have happen.

• 1:00:44Jocko Willink?

  Is you're in the water and you don't know that you're in the water.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  You're in the game. You don't know that you're in the game. So this should be for some people. This will be hearing what we're talking about should be a perspective shift for their life. Realizing that they're in a game, that there's rules, that there's objectives, that you're going to have opponents. You're going to have allies. All these things are going on.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  They're all going on.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't recognize it, you're going to come up short.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  This is what entertainment is. Okay. In football, there's, um, there's a lot of, in boxing, there's feints, you know, and all this stuff. So in football, there's like, it's a bunch of different plays, obviously, but there's a play where the quarterback will fake to the fullback and then he'll kind of roll out and do some stuff. So social media, Netflix, all that stuff, what that is, is the fake. They make you like, pay attention to that thing while they, and they use you. They totally use you to pay attention to this one thing. Maybe your people on your team are going to pay attention to you a little bit. Plus that fake. So they're going to all do what I want them to do while we go do this other thing. Meanwhile, you're losing your game. We're winning our game. We're using you as a pawn. That's what, that's what social media is.

• 1:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. You're definitely getting played. You're definitely getting, they're playing a game. And if you're sitting there and it's eating up your brain, they're, they're winning the game. You don't even, you probably don't even know you're in the game. You don't realize that they're taking your information and selling it and all that stuff. That's what's going on.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. The whole game, like, yeah, all around, all around.

• 1:02:08Jocko Willink?

  So pay attention to it. We will continue this on the next podcast.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  In the meantime, you know what you're going to need? On the health side, you're going to need to be healthy. You need some healthy fuel. Get yourself some Jaco Fuel, Jaco Fuel.com, drinking some energy drinks right now.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Yep. I'm on the milk train right here. Ready.

• 1:02:29Jocko Willink?

  How's that banana?

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Banana all day. Banana cream. There's a difference. There's a difference. Yeah. Banana cream is always good, in my opinion, pretty much everything. I've, I've never tasted a banana cream, anything that wasn't good. This is no exception.

• 1:02:42Jocko Willink?

  So tasty.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Tasty.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  It's, you know what's nice about the milk? Like I got done training yesterday and I got done training the day before. And I got done training the day before.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  And every day when I got done training on the way out, I just went ahead and just grabbed the bulk. You're good, just, just on the road, on the drive home.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Seven minute drive home. Here's thirty grams of protein.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  Right? How good is that? And by the way, as you know, on the weekends, so Friday, Saturday, well, I guess Friday I happened to get some training in this Friday, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'm, I'm waking up, lifting.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 1:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Running. Coming to jujitsu, no food.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Oh damn, no food after the, okay.

• 1:03:24Jocko Willink?

  No, I might have, I might have some, I might have like a handful of nuts or whatever.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Jocko Willink?

  Like a handful, but I wanna go, I don't wanna go train with the big like gut full of food.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  How long between end of the running lifting scenario and the jujitsu? How long in between?

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  Hour and a half, two hours, something like this.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  That's why I have like a little, maybe a handful of nuts. Maybe I'll have, you know, I've been having a lot lately is uh, just mozzarella cheese with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar on it.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, bro, I love those.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, Sarah made these yesterday and the day before and she doesn't always make that.

• 1:03:59Jocko Willink?

  Did she put the basil on there?

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Tomatoes, but the.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  For a man.

• 1:04:05Jocko Willink?

  But, but even that, I don't really wanna have that. I wanna come to jujitsu and I wanna have like a pretty empty stomach. So you know what I will, on the way, I'll have a go.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Jocko Willink?

  And you know Wes, but first of all, Wes is just like already too strong and too flexible and too good at jujitsu. And he rolls in and he's pounding a go. Like he, he's doing it in my face or like trying to get it, trying to get in my head, right? He's like, oh, he's pounding that thing. I'm like, dude. So then I started getting after it.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, so I now I have a go on the, on the drive here and I have a, I have a go on the drive here. I have a milk on the way home.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Jocko Willink?

  This is a great combo. This is a great combo.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Jocko Willink?

  So jogglefield.com, go to vitamin shop, go to Wawa, go to the military commissaries, go to Hannaford. Go to HEB.

• 1:04:53Jocko Willink?

  By the way, everyone in Texas that's been going to HEB just getting it on will appreciate it. We're dominating in HEB, so Roland in there, Murphy's, Meyer up in the Midwest. Hey, and by the way, a lot of people hit me up like, hey, they don't have this in there. Tell the store. Say, hey, look, there's no go. There's no whatever. Whatever's that they're missing, just let them know you want it. And they'll hook it up. So we're making the best possible stuff you can make.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Jocko Willink?

  So get it. It'll help you in all aspects of your life.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, talk about that, that health and capability game. It was Peter, yeah, it was Peter Tia where he was like saying, he was, he was making a broader point, but he was like, hey, if you want to like kick ass at 80, you can't be like slacking at 70 or whatever the numbers were, they might've been different. But it's basically like, hey, this is a long-term play. You can't just jam yourself up and ignore it and whatever. And then once you start getting older, then try to jump on the train. It's like, right, doesn't, you can still be jammed up. See what I'm saying?

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know, and you gotta pay attention because it's a little bit, you lose a little bit at a time. You know, I was talking to Burt Soren.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  And we were just talking about lifting and you know, he's, he's, he's a beast. But basically I was saying, hey, if there's like an exercise, you know, when you get injured and you can't do a particular exercise? Like for instance, when my arm was hurt, I couldn't do overhead squats for like a long period of time. After Dean Lister freaking crashed, crushed my arm, showing a move, by the way, Dean Lister. Anyways, I couldn't like lock my arms out for an overhead squat. And for months I couldn't do an overhead squat. And so then when I eventually could do it, it was really humbling. It was like PVC pipe. You know, you're like thinking, God.

• 1:06:42Jocko Willink?

  But when we're talking to Burt, like, hey, don't, don't submit, don't surrender that movement. Cause it's real easy to just say, I, that's something I can no longer do.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  And it, and it happens a little bit at a time, right? It does not, it's like one day, I don't know if I can really do them today. And then the next time, maybe you can't really do them. So just pay attention to that, man. You gotta, that physical part that we're talking, this physical game that we're talking about. It's a, it's a, it's a long-term strategic game. That's, that's the death of a thousand cuts. And, and look, you know what? You're eventually gonna lose.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Like a hundred percent, you're gonna lose, right?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Like I'm gonna, at this point, it actually looks like I might get old and die. I used to think I wouldn't get old and die, but at this point, it kinda looks like I might get old and die. So you, you know, you're gonna go a death of a thousand cuts, but you can postpone one cut today.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Jocko Willink?

  Push one cut off today. That's another day you went. You know, it's another day without that little, that little razor cutting into your, your tendons and whatnot. So that's what we're doing. JacoFuel.com. Check it out.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Best supplements in the world, factually.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Actually, everyone knows it. Also, Origin USA, giz for jujitsu, rash guards, American, all American-made stuff. It's a big deal.

• 1:08:02Jocko Willink?

  Jeans, boots, t-shirts, just everything that you need, you can get. OriginUSA.com. And we're building it all in America. We have factories here. We got an awesome workforce. So that's what we're doing. We're not enslaving people. Like they are doing overseas, working a 13-year-old girl in a sweatshop for a dollar a month. That's what's going on. If you buy those other brands. I'm gonna go ahead and say, don't do that. I'm gonna say, support America, support freedom. So there you go. OriginUSA.com. Get some.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Also, Jaco, the store's called Jaco Stores, where you can represent while we're on this path. That's a thing too. Oh yeah. Discipline equals freedom. Good. This attitude of, uh, moving on, you know, in the face of adversity, knowing what you can, can control and what you can't. Guess what the good mantra kinda stands for? Nonetheless, you wanna represent, that's where you do it. Also, we have a shirt locker, which is a subscription scenario. You want a new shirt every month, different designs. Good though.

• 1:09:06Jocko Willink?

  Kind of like nice when you know other people are out there. We're all kind of wearing the same. Yes. Unique shirt. On the same team. So there you go. It's true. Uh, subscribe to the podcast. Don't forget about Jaco Underground, $8.18 a month. That's our, our, our own platform. You might be listening to it on it right now. We appreciate it. That's how we're going to stay alive if we ever get banned. Who knows? Some wild shit going on right now. So be careful. We got a YouTube channel. Origin USA has a YouTube channel. We got Psychological Warfare. We've got Flipside Canvas. Got a bunch of books. That I've written. So if you want to check those out. Also, we have Jaco Publishing. We got Holly, Holly McKay's book.

• 1:09:47Jocko Willink?

  Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com if you need help in any organization. If you want to come to our live events, check those out. We also have Extreme Ownership Academy. So you can take the lessons that we learned and you can apply them to your life. That's what that's about. You, you're not going to get good. At leadership. You're not going to understand decision making. You're not going to understand how to overcome adversity by going to the gym one time. You need that, that rep, those reps. So go to extremeownership.com. I'm on there answering questions live.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  Extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, you want to help active and retire. We just had Mama Lee on. You know her great organization, America's Mighty Warriors.org. She's continuing Mark Lee's legacy. Mark is still helping his teammates through that organization. And also don't forget about Heroes and Horses. Micah Fink up there in the wilderness. Right now, who knows what he's doing? He's probably on a freaking horse somewhere. Chasing a grizzly down with a, with a, with a stick. Getting ready to get some. So if you want to find yourself, he can help you out. Heroesandhorses.org. He's helping a lot of veterans up there. You can connect with us on the interwebs. Echoes@echocharles. He's back on Twitter, by the way, after he got.

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  It's a long He made mistakes. You know. Made mistakes. Yes. Dumb mistakes, honestly. It's hard. I'm normally not critical. Maybe I am a little bit. Oh, yeah. You're critical sometimes. So some dumb mistakes got made. Price was paid. Paid and we're moving forward. Moving forward. You and your 13

• 1:11:28Jocko Willink?

  Twitter followers now. Alright, there you go. And I am at Jocko Willink. Watch out for the algorithm, right? Yes. They're playing a game on you. Yeah. Don't be part of that game. Um, thanks to all the folks out there in uniform around the world, fighting to protect freedom. You allow us to be doing what we're doing right now. We humbly thank you for your service and also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all the first responders out there. You keep us safe here at home. We thank you for your service as well. And everyone else out there, pay attention to the water that you're in.

• 1:12:07Jocko Willink?

  There's games going on. You're in them. Some of them are important. Some of them are just for fun. And the big one. Life. This is not a frolicking game of amusement.

• 1:12:24Jocko Willink?

  But it's a game with rules and goals and winners and losers.

• 1:12:30Jocko Willink?

  So make sure you know what games you are playing. So you can win. And we will continue that conversation next time. And until then, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.