400: Humble Yourself, Work, Strive, and Do It Again. "Transformed", with Remi Adeleke.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Remi Adeleke is the author of the acclaimed memoir Transformed. He was born in western Africa. Following his father’s death, his mother, brother, and he relocated permanently to the Bronx in New York City. After years of making regrettable decisions, Remi joined the Navy in 2002 and later became a Navy SEAL 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 400 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. With high school out of the way, I was off to the races. I quit the sneaker store teamed up with a hustler I met along the way named Roderick, and we started selling drugs. My grandmother lived in Washington Heights and in our younger years, Bayo and I spent many days and nights at her apartment. Having spent a lot of time in her area, I knew it was where the Dominicans had control of the vast drug market. So that's where I built relationships and brought my work. But soon Rod and I realized that with the Dominicans controlling Washington Heights area down to the southernmost border of the Bronx,

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  gangs running the Bronx drug trade and the Queens and Brooklyn territories too risky and unfamiliar to impose upon, we had to find a less saturated and safer place to sell. We were just a two man operation. There was no way we were going to go to war with anyone over a corner. So we did the next best thing. We jumped on the Metro North and set up shop in upstate New York for a few days at a time. One week we'd be upstate, the next week we were back down in the city replenishing our inventory or tending to other hustles. After a while, we decided to expand our operation by bringing in an old friend from the hill Ricardo.

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  Seven years earlier Ricky and his family had moved to Poughkeepsie to escape the trappings of the inner city. By the time Rod and I had partnered with him, he knew the people and surrounding areas of Poughkeepsie like the back of his hand. Ricky's knowledge meant we spent less time trying to find unpoliced areas where we could sell, which in return meant less time on the streets. We were the three amigos, the rebellious three out to conquer Poughkeepsie like Bundy and Sin from the movie Belly. We watched Scarface on repeat during the day and hit the college town of New Paltz or Poughkeepsie, house parties at night. We did well and the money was good. But it wasn't good enough for what I was trying to do.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  I had big dreams of launching a record company that rivaled Rockefeller, Bad Boy, and Murder Inc. Not only did I want to make music, I wanted to produce and control music. So if I was going to be able to do that, I was going to need to generate a lot more money in a shorter amount of time. I needed a new hustle, and I would quickly find what I was looking for.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  So that right there.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  That's an excerpt from the book called Transformed, which is written by Remi Adeleke. And the title of the book is Transformed, and it's quite a transformation indeed, because Remi, in the book and in his life, transformed from being Nigerian royalty to a drug-dealing street hustler, to a partying Navy sailor, to becoming a SEAL, a Christian eventually, a writer, director, an author, and an actor. And it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to share his remarkable journey and his lessons learned along the way. Remi, thanks for joining us, man.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Hey, thank you, brother Jocko. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate you guys.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, this is the first time I've got to start the podcast with someone talking about selling drugs, so you broke the mold on that one.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  That's awesome. It's a first for everything.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a crazy story that you've been through, and, um, yeah, it's surprising that you made it.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I shouldn't have.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I shouldn't have, I know that.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  There's plenty of, there's plenty of those decision points in your life when you, when you read your story. It's if you if you think about it, if you just read the story and you go, oh yeah, well, that makes sense to do.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:03Jocko Willink?

  But at the time, when you're a kid and Echo and I were talking about this earlier today, like when you're a kid, you don't know.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:10Jocko Willink?

  You don't see this long term.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  Picture. You don't see, you don't have strategic vision.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you're just looking around the next corner to see what you can get and you'd make a decision that's going to put you in the best spot tonight.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  So, um, yeah, man, let's, uh, let's get to the book a little bit. And I'll just start from there, man.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  We'll, we'll hit this book. When did this book come out?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  That came out in two thousand and nineteen.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  Two thousand and nineteen.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  It's and it got picked up to be a movie, uh, right before the writer's strike. So right on major studios. So I turned in the first draft of the script before the strike and after the strike, I'm sure I'm gonna have to do a rewrite.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna finish it out?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  All right. Oh, man. Awesome. Um, so going to the book here.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  My father was chief. Adebeo. Am I saying that right?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Adebio.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  Adebio. And you're gonna have to correct me.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It's all good. It's all good.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  Adebio. Adeleke of the Yoruba tribe.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Yoruba.

• 5:07Jocko Willink?

  Yoruba tribe. I kinda said that.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Oh, Yoruba.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  Yoruba?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, it depends on like in Nigeria, you know, for example, like Adeleke in Nigeria, they say Adeleke, but in America's Adeleke. So Yoruba, uh, Yoruba, and then here's some people say Yoruba.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  This depends.

• 5:25Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you what, if I'm, if I'm close, can we just go with it?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I'm good. I'm good, brother.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  The Yoruba tribe.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Jocko Willink?

  He was the firstborn son to my grandfather, who devout in his Muslim faith.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  And customary to the time, had many wives. Being the firstborn son of a chief, my father was marked as special, but he lived up to his given status in early age, at an early age. Dad had an uncanny gift for memorization. Whatever was put in front of him, whether the Quran at his Islamic elementary school, or a language, or a common book, he would quickly memorize it. Before the age of 10, he spoke and read fluently in both English and his tribal language, Yoruba. He also spoke and wrote fluently in two other prominent Nigerian languages. The guy was a savant. My grandfather died when my father was 12. So he and my grandmother moved to the southwestern region of Nigeria to be close to her family. The move would change the trajectory of Chief's educational path.

• 6:22Jocko Willink?

  At the time, Christian missionaries permeated the southern region of Nigeria and provided free education. Muslim clerics and Islamic-centric studies were replaced with Christian missionaries, biblical studies, English literature, world history, math, and science. My father's intellectual gifts became evident as he easily recited chapters of the Bible with an encyclopedic memory and dazzled his teachers by excelling in all subjects, especially mathematics and science. In gratitude to the missionaries for the education they provided him, Dad legally adopted a new first name, John. After completing the US equivalent of high school, Dad received a full-ride scholarship to the University of London, where he obtained his degree in civil engineering. He also earned degrees in architecture and business.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  When he returned to Lagos, how do I say that? Lagos. Lagos. When he returned to Lagos after years completing his studies abroad and attaining great success in the West, he was endowed with the title of Chief, a hereditary title for the descendants of Yoruba royal lineage. As the 70s approached, my father had created a vast enterprise that operated out of the western house buildings in Lagos. Wait, did I screw that up again? No, no, it's good. Lagos. Lagos, yeah. Lagos. His businesses consisted of an insurance company, a civil engineering company called City Property Development Limited, and two car dealerships. His office also served as the headquarters for the World Trade Center of Nigeria, as well as the base of operations for one of his most passionate endeavors, the Lagoon Development Project.

• 7:52Jocko Willink?

  Chief wielded enormous power and wealth, not just nationally, but internationally. In the 1970s, he served on the board of the World Teleport Association in London. This feat was historic for a black man at that time. Equally, if not more historic, was the fact that he also served on the New York World Trade Center board for many years. A man from the bush on a board with the elite of the elite. As one family friend would put it, Chief was never restricted by where he came from. Yeah.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  So your dad, and look, I'm just gonna read highlights from the book today. You go into some of these details, but your dad was royalty.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. So my grandfather, I don't, I never knew the story of my great grandfather, but my grandfather, he was the firstborn son to his father. And so he inherited the title of chief, Adeleke. So Adde means crown in Yoruba, and lake means is supreme. And that's why we're talking offline about people trying to get that, get that, uh, that a dot com. Because it's, it's, it's not just a name, a name, but it's more of like, almost like a slang for like, elite of elite, almost in Yoruba and in Nigeria. Um, you know, kinda how here in the US will say, uh, something like, uh, he's, he's the don, or you know, he's the, he's the king, or you know, he's the man.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Like in Nigeria is like Adeleke, he's an Adeleke.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So it'd be like the king dot com.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the crown is supreme, so the elite of the elite. So, uh, my grandfather was that and, and then, you know, he had a lot of wives because of that. And then obviously there was some wealth that came along with that. Now also, there is what's called the Oluwolu. And I know I'm pronouncing it wrong, so forgive me my Nigerian brothers and sisters who are listening. But the Oluwolu is considered to be the king, the king of the Yorubas. And so all of the, the Adeleke's and the other royal titles kinda spread out from the Oluwolu. And that person, and, and Oluwolu passes down, and so there's an Oluwolu right now. Um, that, that's the king of the Yorubas, the supreme king. I don't know, I can't recall his full name, but he lives in Nigeria.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, my, my grandfather had a lot of wives and then he had my son, my, my dad, being the firstborn son, and my dad inherited the title of chief and Adeleke. And then, you know, just started. My grandfather just started kind of grooming him from there to prepare him to take over the family, so to speak. But unfortunately, when my grandfather was about, when my father was about eight or nine years old, my grandfather died. And, uh, and when he died, he still retained the title and he still retained some, uh, uh, some of the, the finances. Um, but for some reason, I, I, you know, I have to ask my older brother, cause he can probably explain this

• 10:49Speaker 01

  better, but all the wives dispersed to different parts of Nigeria. And, uh, but even though he came down to the south, he was still recognized as chief Adebio Adeleke, the son of, and I don't even know my grandfather's full name, but that's bad. And, uh, and yeah, so that's kind of how it all started, so to speak.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  And then you're, and again, you go into this, into the book, but your mom is a native New Yorker.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  And so how'd that link up occur?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I tell people all the time that my mom and dad's story is a real coming to America story. Cause my mom, she was always into the arts, just like my dad. My dad was an art collector as well. So when he started gaining some wealth, he would buy up a lot of Yoruba art and other art from around Africa, Benin art. We had sculpt, Benin sculptures in our house as well. And, uh, and so my mom, she was into art as well. So one day, my dad happened to be in New York doing business at the World Trade Center. And my mom, you know, recognized that there was a, an exhibit on, um, Yoruba art at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History. And so she, she tells me, I didn't want to go, but something just told me to just go. And so she went that day and she was staring at a piece of art

• 12:03Speaker 01

  and my dad, uh, happened to come alongside her and he's looking at the same piece of art. And, uh, he said something to her, kind of like hitting on her. And she was like, yeah, whatever. And then she walked away to another piece of art. And then about a half an hour later, my dad just happened to be there as well. And then. He started trying to mac on her some more. He had my dad, you know, as you read, he was a savant, but he also was a man of many tongues. He spoke Falani, which is another Yoruba tongue. He spoke Igbo, he spoke Yoruba, he spoke French, and he spoke English and a pigeon English, but he also spoke,

• 12:38Speaker 01

  like a chameleon, fluctuate into a British accent because he spent a lot of time in the UK. And he had like a good ear for picking up other languages and picking up other accents and so.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  This stuff is really good for business.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:51Jocko Willink?

  And for picking up girls.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So he came up, went up to my mom and he's speaking in his very suave, pretentious, but not too pretentious, but suave British accent. He's like,

• 13:07Speaker 01

  cheap John Adele, you know, and my mom's like, yeah, whatever. Cause my mom's a New Yorker. She grew up in Harlem. She was born and raised in New York.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  She's heard this bullshit a hundred times.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm African.

• 13:19Jocko Willink?

  You're kidding me.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  So my mom's like, get away from me. And, and so he did. And then she went to another piece of art. He followed her there and then, you know, he continued pursuing her. He was funny. He was very charming as well. So that kind of won, won her over and then they went on a date and long story short, they ended up getting married five months later. And my dad, you know, asked my mom, would you be willing to live with me in Nigeria? Because that's, that's where I'm doing my project, the lagoon development project. And my mom said, sure, I'll follow you anywhere.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  So this is a chunk of the book, this, this, and it's actually a big piece of history too. I was checking it out, doing some research about it. This whole lagoon.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:03Jocko Willink?

  Project that your dad started.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:05Jocko Willink?

  So there's basically a lagoon, what, in Lagos?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's right off the coast of Lagos, Ikoyi Lagos. So kind of like how we have San Diego and then you have Coronado. So Lagos is like the big, big city, like coastal city. And then within Lagos is Ikoyi. And so there was this lagoon that was off of the, off of the coast of, it was actually, it was a swamp.

• 14:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  It was more than, than, it was, it was less than a lagoon. It was like a swamp. And, and that's. You know, that's what he asked for, essentially backing up a bit. There was a military coup in the seventies. My, right before, right before the military coup, my dad bought a massive plot of land called Mariko. And essentially, what he was trying to do was he wanted to, um, build a, like, an African Wall Street. Because a lot of people don't realize this, but Nigeria is so, so rich in resources. We're talking oil in abundance. We're talking natural gas, we're talking gold, we're talking cocoa, you name it.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  There's so many minerals in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, um, there are politicians in Nigeria who are signing deals with the Chinese government so that they could buy up, uh, mines and, and, and, and, and mine the minerals and the resources from Africa. And from, not, not just Nigeria, but other parts of Africa, but Nigeria as well. And so, um, because of how rich and resources Nigeria is, my dad said, hey, we need to organize this a little bit more because there's a lot of corrupt, there's always been historically a lot of corruption in Nigeria. And my dad felt as though if we can organize our business sector a lot better,

• 15:50Speaker 01

  then we, we can be a beacon that, for the world, like, people from all around the world can come and do business and we could generate our economy, a, a better economy in Africa, and we could create so many more jobs. There was, there's no, there's, there was and there's still no reason why Nigeria shouldn't be like Saudi Arabia or America because of how rich they are in resources. And my dad recognized that, and that's what he wanted to do with America, where you have a lot of Nigerians, um, who want to get into power, you know, and gain wealth for self. My dad wanted to get in power and gain wealth so that he can make Nigeria a better place

• 16:33Speaker 01

  and really get it to where he saw it could be from a potential standpoint. And so that was Mariko. That's what, what was Mariko, that's what Mariko was supposed to be. And fast forward, the military coup happened, I think it was Abas, uh, Bassanjo, um, who led that, I might be wrong. He ended up dying of a, of a overdose on, um, on Viagra and some other crazy stuff, drugs. A few years later, he was having a, a crazy sex orgy and, and died. But he, uh, he carried out the military coup and Mariko was taken from my dad. And my dad bought it for eight million pounds. So, you know, just for inflation and, and, I mean, that's, that's a lot and pounds is, you know, a lot more than dollars.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  So, um, he bought it and it was just gone, just like that. And that's, you know, that's the difference between, you know, Nigeria and other countries and America. You know, we could buy property, we could buy a business, we have rights, ownerships and we, we're gonna have it. But in Nigeria, you could buy something, spend millions of dollars and then one day somebody could come along and say, well, that's not yours, it belongs to me. And, uh, and so that's what happened to my dad. And after the, uh, coup had subsided and democracy was reinst- reinstalled, um, my dad went back to court and, and fought them, fought the court system, fought the court system. And finally, because of how persistent he was, uh, they finally gave in and said, okay, what do you want? And, uh, we're not gonna give you Mariko back, that's not happening. So what is it that you want?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  And they, and my dad said, give me this swamp. Uh, and he laughed at him and said, swamp, what's, what are you going to do with a swamp? And my dad said, just give it to me, cause my dad was such a visionary that he felt as though if I can create something where there never was something, then no one could ever come along and say, that was mine and that belongs to me. And so, um, that was the swamp.

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and then as a, as a civil engineer.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  He knew that that swamp could be turned into.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Jocko Willink?

  Something awesome.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Into an island.

• 18:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's what he started, right? And they did, brought in the company to do the dredging and started dredging out the, the water and filling in the land and. Turned it into an island.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he hired Dutch engineers from the Netherlands and the Westminster Company. Um, specifically so funny, but not funny, but interesting because I did a July 4th, uh, post, uh, this past July 4th. And I kinda bullet pointed out my dad's story and, uh, it went like on Twitter and it got like four million views. And like so many Nigerians were commenting on that and the, the, the consistent comment that I got was one, it was a few. One was, we didn't know that you were, that you were chief son. We saw you in plane and, and we saw the name at a lake, Remy at a lake, when we didn't know put two and together that you were Chief John at a bio son. So I had that comment a lot. And then the other comment that I got was the current president lied.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Cause the current president said that he discovered, um, uh, banana, it's now known as Banana Island, but it was Lagoon City. And, and, and he lied. So many people like, well, they, a lot of people saying, we knew he was lying because, because we all knew the history behind your father. So we knew he was lying and that guy was the senator, the current president of Nigeria was the senator of Lego state. And I'm sure we'll get to it in a moment, what happened, but he was the center of Lego state when what happened to my dad, happened to my dad.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  You know?

• 19:58Jocko Willink?

  So your dad basically dumps all his money.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 20:03Jocko Willink?

  Into this project.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 20:05Jocko Willink?

  And you know, it'd be like your, your example of San Diego and Coronado, it would be like you are gonna own San Diego. I'm just sorry, you're gonna own Coronado Island, which you couldn't even put a value.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:16Jocko Willink?

  On Coronado Island. So your dad, and like you said, it's on, if you go to, if you're listening, you go to Google Maps right now and you look up Banana Island.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:24Jocko Willink?

  You can see it. It's there. You can see a bunch of houses on it. They actually don't have any pictures inside it. Cause it's like a closed property, which you talk about in the end of the book, but so your dad dumps all of his money in this.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Everything. I mean, not just his money. He leveraged his art. He leveraged our, our compound. I mean, everything because, um, he. He felt like it was gonna be successful. That was gonna be it. So, I mean, he would put so much money into it that my mom, being an American, would wisely tell him, BIOS, please, she would beg him, like, just put some money in the US. Just put two million dollars, two million dollars in the US. That way, if something happens, like, we have a cushion to fall back on.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  Which, by the way, already happened a few years ago when you lost the first property.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that was one of the things that my mom said, would say to him, I don't trust this system. And, you know, my, my mom and dad, from what I recall, they didn't argue much. I didn't see them argue much. But the, but the one time that they did argue or have disagreements, it was always about that. It was always about, I do not trust this system. And my mom, she's a New Yorker. So she, she knew when somebody was scamming or walking down the streets of New York. I mean, you kinda got to know what a hustler is in a hustler-type system when you grew up in New York City. So my mom would try to warn him over and over again. But he was so loyal to this vision and he was so loyal to the people of Nigeria. Because he was like, if I could just get here, if I could just cross that line,

• 21:50Speaker 01

  everything will be all right and everything will fall into place. And he told my mom, once, once we start, people, all the contracts are signed and we start building the buildings and people start renting out office spaces and the companies start operating there, then I'll put money in, in, in the, in the US. But until then, this is my priority.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, as you can see, by the way, we're both talking, it doesn't work out. And like, the, the term they use in legal, like, like someone else, in quotes, they say, acquired the, the, the island.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:27Jocko Willink?

  And it's just terrible.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:30Jocko Willink?

  Like, it's just terrible.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:32Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I was, as you're explaining this too, I'm, I'm sure your dad was like, you know, your, your mom was probably like, we lost that property before. And he's like, yeah, but we got this other thing now. Like, it almost seemed like it was proof. You, if you look at it in a positive light, you could be, it could be proof that, see, we did get what, you know, we did get something from them and we still have this. So this gets, like I said, air quotes, acquired slash stolen

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:57Jocko Willink?

  by another entity.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  Your dad's company, the, uh, the, what is it, Development Center or City Development Center?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  City Development, yep.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  Gets zero money for it. They get nothing.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so. The Lagos state government, after, they conveniently waited until all the work was done. I mean, for years, this is not something that happened overnight, for years, you know, the engineers were flying in, the equipment was being moved in, the foreshore was being dredged. It was a pride, I mean, it was six interlinks, it was six, um, best way to explain it, plots of land that were created individually and then linked together. That doesn't happen overnight. And so, the Lagos state government, and, you know, the federal government, I'm sure they were involved as well,

• 23:51Speaker 01

  they conveniently waited until everything was done. They saw that people were actually walking on the land and things were being built on the island. They was like, okay, it works. Now, let's go get it. And the Lagos state government came in and said that the federal government was never supposed to give him the lagoon for compensation. Because they tried to say that, um, use some type of measurement and say the distance from the, from the, uh, from Icoye's shore to the foreshore. It's like some mathematical equation. The answer to that came out to be it's, it's within the, uh, the Icoye's. It all belongs to the Lagos state government.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, it was, uh, and my dad didn't see it coming, and that's the thing, you know, and I, I say that that's my downfall sometimes now, you know, when I look back on, on mistakes that I've made. And, uh, is, my dad was so driven that he couldn't see what was going on, on his peripherals. He was so focused and driven to get the job done that, to him, nothing bad was gonna happen. And that, and I, and it's so crazy, because I had a situation happen a few months ago where I was just like, I was just so driven, and Brad could attest to this, because he was, you know, I was dealing with an issue with my publisher, and, and I just kept on pushing

• 25:14Speaker 01

  and pushing and pushing, and, and I didn't realize the conflict and the issues that that was causing, you know, for me to be pushing so hard, but I wanted. I had the best interest, my best interest was at heart and the project's best interest was at heart. It wasn't like out of something malice. It was like, I'm just so focused to get the job done and I couldn't see what was going on out here and how it was having a negative effect on the people around me. And that's what was, that's what my dad was dealing with. And I know that I inherited that from my dad is that, you know, the drive is good. It's important to be driven, but you also have to check out from time to time and take a look right and left.

• 25:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's also a thing that can happen that can be a bit of a blind spot is like you, or like this has happened to me. I couldn't comprehend that someone would do something like, whatever, like someone's like gonna steal your freaking, you know, you, you, you leave a something out on a counter. You're like, you couldn't comprehend that someone would blatantly steal this. And yet, there's people that are gonna blatantly steal it. So that could, that can be a bit of a blind spot too. Maybe that's your dad had something like your dad's a guy that's hardworking and straightforward. He couldn't imagine that he could dump millions and millions and millions of dollars into this project and that they would just take lawyers and take it all away from him. And it's like a little bit of a blind spot too, where you can get caught,

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  you don't expect people that can be, you don't think people can be freaking that evil.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  And yet they can be.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so is that, you know, you brought up a great point because when I got out of the military in 2016, like I, I went into the film and TV business and other, other businesses as well, under the pretense that everybody has the same level of integrity as the people that I, that I work with in the military. And, and I would get so upset when I was proven wrong because it was just like, but, but, but wait, like you're supposed to show up on time. You're supposed to keep your word.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you said you were gonna do this.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it just doesn't happen like that. So yeah, that was a great point.

• 27:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, as some of the legal documents I saw about this, the titles are still disputed. I don't know if you know that there's still like disputed titles on who owns Banana Island, quote Banana Island now, which is, which is kind of crazy. Like in America, if you buy a house and there's a disputed, or if you're buying a house and there's a disputed title, you're like, oh, I'm not buying, I'm gonna buy this thing. So that's very interesting that the title's still disputed.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's, well, there's a lot of, there's a lot to it.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  Back and stake your claim.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might have to go pull a black.

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  Flag on that bad boy.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  There's a lot. They offered my family eight million dollars. They offered my brother, my brother's a law, my half brother's a lawyer. He's been fighting the case since eighty seven and they offered him eight million dollars like five years ago and he turned it, four years ago and he turned it down. So, I mean, they know what's up. I mean, they, they know what's up. And then, I don't know if you remember the N SARS movement that happened, in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one in Nigeria. It was like a big movement where people were like protesting. I think the SARS was like a specialized police force that were, you know, that was taking advantage and shaking people down, which, you know, corruption is something that's normal when police come and shake you down. So,

• 28:27Speaker 01

  they, uh, they partnered, the protesters, apparently the story is, the protesters went into the courthouse, the same courthouse where my dad's case has been in for like the last forty years. And they go into the records room and they burn down the records room, but the only files that are destroyed are the case files for Lagoon City.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  I mean, this is in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty. So, you know, there's a lot, and, and before that, my, they offered my dad, my brother, eight million dollars to our family and he turned it down because he was like, no dude, like, my dad spent eight million pounds on,

• 29:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, in the seventies.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  In the seventies. So, yeah.

• 29:16Jocko Willink?

  So, um, at this point, it's like nineteen eighty seven, you and your, you and your brother and your mom,

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:24Jocko Willink?

  you, you guys decided to move to New York.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:26Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:27Jocko Willink?

  And that was just like getting out of, you know, the country at the time seemed a little bit more stable, I guess, in America. What was the big push behind that?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  There was just, it was a lot of going on and my dad started getting threats. I mean, I didn't catalog it all in the book, but my dad started getting threats. My mom had, started having crazy stuff happen to her, like the horse bit her, our, our horse bit her and then, like, something else happened where she almost got run over, uh, by somebody that, you know, she was walk, getting ready to cross the street and like a car just pulls up and just, speeds past her and she jumps back in the street. So, there were, there were a lot of things that were happening. My dad was getting more and more threats. Even before the Lego State Government came in and did what they did, he was getting threats from people, you know, in the government. People who were supposedly friends, they weren't threatening him directly, but they were passing a message for somebody.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  And so my mom, you know, me and my brother were her priorities, you know, and we were her only kids. And so for her, she was just like, I can't, I can't risk staying here, you know, at Ebyo. I need to, I need to get my kids out of here while all of this stuff settles. And it was in that time where, you know, my dad died as well.

• 30:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you and your brother and your mom moved to New York. Your dad's traveling back and forth. He's doing business, he's trying to make this thing happen. He gets bit by a freaking dog.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:53Jocko Willink?

  A rabid dog.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:55Jocko Willink?

  And then through some combination of that and the treatment that he got.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the autopsy, so my dad got bit, flew to Germany to go do some business. Well, got bit, went to the hospital, got medication, flew to Germany to go and do some type of business. Flew from Germany to New York, saw us for a beat, and then flew from New York back to Nigeria. He gets to, um, he gets back to Nigeria. My mom was pressing him, you gotta take your medicine, you gotta take your medicine. He's like, alright, I'll take it. Takes the medicine. Ultimately, the autopsy report showed that the medicine is ultimately what killed him.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Um, and that's essentially what happened. And from there, um, he was, he couldn't fight. I mean, he, cause he was fighting them and he was no longer there to fight them and nobody else was, so, okay, the title's now belong to us.

• 31:54Jocko Willink?

  And your mom, you, you know, you talk about this, again, I'm only reading small parts. Get the book, so you can read the details. But your mom flies back to Africa.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:02Jocko Willink?

  Meets with your brother.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  And she's like, alright, let's go through the finances. Let's see where we're at, let's see how much, you know, how much I'm gonna have.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And.

• 32:11Jocko Willink?

  And it's nothing.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Nothing, cause everything was wrapped up in the island. Everything. And so we went from rich, traveling the world, cars, nannies, hosting lavish parties.

• 32:27Jocko Willink?

  How much of that do you remember?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  A little bit. I remember my dad more so than I I remember events around my dad. Like, I remember, you know, playing with him in our in our in our big living quarters, living room area. I remember riding.

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  You remember that nice ass house, though?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I remember the house. I remember doing things in the house with him. I remember riding with him in the car because we had our driver Frederick, who would drive us. My dad would play uh Fulu Fulukuti, who was like a famous Nigerian singer. He was against the government at the time and singing. So I remember I remember those little things. I remember our private school that we went to. And I re I re I recall, this is one of my first memories. Um, I got into a fight with a kid because I kids would make it fun of me because my mom was American. And it was a knuckle dragging fist fight, you know, two small kids. And my dad came and my mom came to the school. And uh, my mom was just, she was upset at me, you know, she was like, why are you doing that?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  And my dad was just like, I'm proud of my son. My son, thank you. My mom's looking at him like, what do you, why are you, why are you doing that? Why celebrating him? And my dad was just like, ah, it's my boy, my hero, warrior. And so I have those memories and um, you know, it's so interesting because as a father now with four kids, certain things come to me, certain memories are triggered from my past when I do certain things with my kids or I say like certain events happen or even I find myself, and this is the craziest thing. If one of my, especially my oldest son, my oldest son does something that he's he's just nine year old, he's not supposed to do, like something out of the norm, I will go into a pigeon accent.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  And sounding like my dad, what do you, what are you doing? Like, see, and I catch myself, like, what did I just say? Where did that come from? It's like my dad, you know, jumped, jumped through me, but yeah, it was a, it was a good life.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  But I'm, I'm grateful for the way things turned out. Cause I wanna be who I am without that horrible transition.

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  So, there's no money left.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  Um, I'm gonna go back to the book here for a second.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:43Jocko Willink?

  And you say this, Africa is my birthplace, but the Bronx is my home. There's no place on the planet like the Bronx, the food, the people, the culture, the music. It's a melting pot of everything, chaotic, yet beautiful. On one block Italians are serving up thin crust pizzas while right outside a group of Dominicans play dominoes and talk Yankees. Salsa and merengue music blast from souped up civics, black Israeliites. Uh, stand on the corner, taking questions from critics, Haitians, Jamaicans, Vietnamese and Puerto Ricans. Hustlers and ballers, both literal and figurative, all locked together with a, with a few Eastern Europeans. It's the Bronx, not Bronx, it's the Bronx. You know, a person, place or thing is special when you have to put the before it.

• 35:27Jocko Willink?

  We fight hard, we love hard. As a matter of fact, doesn't the Bronx sound hard? That's because it is hard. You go on to say, the Bronx molded me, formed me and trained me in ways that no other place has. This was my environment. Africa is my birthplace, but the Bronx is my home. I can't tell you much about the land of my birth, but I can tell you all about the Bronx. I love the Bronx, both the good and the bad.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  So you're in the Bronx.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 35:59Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you're in a place called, uh, the Fordham Hill Oval.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:03Jocko Willink?

  Which is like, uh, it's. For the Bronx.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  It's a not, it's probably the nicest spot.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Well, now it is.

• 36:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, definitely now it is.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  It's very squared away now.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:16Jocko Willink?

  Um, but even back then, wasn't it still like a gated, like a, like a gated, kind of more squared away place?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  It was, it's a co-op. So it's like, yeah, it was, it was definitely better than right outside the gates.

• 36:28Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  It was, it was a co-op and middle class to, you know, about middle class area. And it was the only thing that my dad left us.

• 36:37Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Really? Because my dad, when he was, when he started doing his business in, in, in, at, in New York City, at the World Trade Center, he, uh, you know, he, he needed a place to bed down. He needed a place to operate and in this, and, and Fordham Hill actually was a predominantly white area in the six, I mean, the Bronx in and of itself, like in the, before white flight, I think took place like around the fifties or sixties or something like that, was a predominantly Irish, Italian, you know, white area. And Fordham Hill was that as well. So that's when my dad bought it. It was a completely different place. But then after, you know, that and the crack epidemic and all of those things brought, everything went downhill.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is the late eighties.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:19Jocko Willink?

  And late eighties, New York City was a totally different place.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  And these areas of the Bronx that you're talking about, like across, like across the street from Fordham Hill.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:30Jocko Willink?

  It's, I mean, it's like what, it's almost like a stereotypical rundown city.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's what it is. That's what the Bronx, that's what the Bronx is and looks like up there. Um, and that's where you're in.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  Man, that's what you're in. So, you know, again, hey, everybody, get the book, read the book. You got all kinds of crazy tales in there. What was, uh, tell us a little bit about life with, with Dante, Elijah, Charles Showtime, Deshawn, Erica Dennis, Kenny Monkey.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  Chris the Joker.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:02Jocko Willink?

  And Ricardo and Roberto, the Dominican duo.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 38:06Jocko Willink?

  What'd you guys have going on?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Oh, we had a lot going on, man. We, we. That was like my mini buds, brother. We would play kick the door and run. We would play manhunt. You know, where we split up in teams and then when you find members of the other team, you beat them up or rough them up. Um, I remember the older kids in the, in the, uh, in the park, they, they got chalk and they would, they drew like a squared, uh, boxing, uh, boxing ring and they would bet on, on us younger kids, you know, who was gonna win and we would slapbox. So we would have these slap, and you couldn't back out of it. It was just like, nope, you're going in. Hey, I don't care if you're crying, you're going in. So you, we fought, it was so crazy because all of us like, I had fights with Dante,

• 38:51Speaker 01

  but then we would be friends like the next day. I had, me and Elijah, every summer, we had like a brawl, like a bloody brawl, we fight. And then like the next day, we would be playing with each other. And even Erica, I remember Erica, she was the tomboy. She would hang out with all of us. She could scrap and her and Ricardo got into a fight and then her brother Scott came and beat up Ricardo, but then we were all buddy buddy again. And so it was a good crew, man. And, uh, those memories are so funny. We went to Fordham Hill yesterday. I went, I was in New York yesterday and, uh, saw one of the guards, Captain Robinson. He, he, he was a main guard while we were there and then he went to go work at Yankee Stadium and he came back recently and we saw each other,

• 39:32Speaker 01

  he's like, Remy, like you're not doing the crazy stuff anymore. And my mom told you like, nah, he was, he was a frog man and he's in California. He's like, what you? Like, and he was like, yeah, but it was, it was just, it was such a phenomenal, hard upbringing, but a phenomenal upbringing at the same time.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's something that I think, I don't know if this is because of social media, because we know more now. We know more like about the bad things that happen in the world, but you know, when I was a kid. Like you would just go out like kids just went out with no parental supervision at all. And it didn't really matter. Like you weren't expected. No one was worried about you. Like today, your kids go out, you know, and you're thinking like, oh gosh, there's freaking kidnappers and molesters and like all this bad stuff could happen. That stuff was happening. No, just no one knew about it. And so you just go out and do what you're gonna do and you know, that's what the book, you know, your mom's working. She's a teacher, right? She's a teacher in the South Bronx, yeah.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  So she's a teacher. So that means, you know, you're home alone a lot. You've got things going on. You've got your crew. And you're just rolling out and getting after it. Um, like you said, though, it's rough. It's rough, man. And I'll go to the book here. It says, "In the midst of our dreaming chaos, intruded. Pop, pop, pop. The shot started off, then erupted into a barrage. A car pulled up on the southbound side of the street directly to the left of us and started shooting up the building at 250, 2559 Sedgwick. The targets of the drive-by shoot, started shooting back in our direction. And before we knew it, we were in the middle of a shootout. I froze, not knowing what to do. It was like everything was happening in slow motion. I can't remember what Ba- you say Baio or Bio? Bio.

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  Bio. I can't remember what Bio was doing, but Rommel took charge. He looked at me and yelled, "Come on, Remy." Instead of moving, I slowly turned my head to look back in the direction of the hill. Rommel grabbed Cory and threw him over his left shoulder to shield Cory from the bullets. Then he pushed Bio, which prompted me to, which prompted my brother to start sprinting back to the hill. After receiving one last verbal lashing from Rommel, I snapped out of my frozen state and started sprinting to catch up. We all ran as fast as we could. I don't know how Rommel was able to do it, but he was way ahead of Bio and me the whole time, even while carrying Cory over his shoulder. Just when we thought we had made it out of the furnace,

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  the, the car started speeding in, south in our direction. I will never forget the thought that popped into my mind. "They have to kill us. We're the only witnesses. They're coming to kill us." Despite that thought, I kept running as hard as I could. As the car got closer, I thought, "This is it." Then, just like that, the car sped by, running the red light where Sedgwick and Bailey Avenues met. We sprinted back to the entrance of the hill, stopped to check each other for bullet holes, then made our way in. Let's just say that when we got back up to the apartment and told mom what happened, she didn't let us walk. Then let's walk the other way to Cory's apartment. Instead, Uncle Kirk made the drive over to pick up Cory. And my army vet uncle made sure to bring his gun.

• 42:37Jocko Willink?

  I'll never forget 2559 Cedric Avenue for two reasons. One, it was the first place I recall almost losing my life. Two, a few years later, it would be the same building where Deena Taylor, Bio's close friend and classmate, would be murdered. Just like us, Deena wasn't bothering anybody. We were all just kids who happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, that's the Bronx.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 43:03Jocko Willink?

  And in that time period, there was all kinds of crime.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  And you were just back there. How is it now?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Worse.

• 43:10Jocko Willink?

  It's worse?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  It's worse, man. The gangs are more out of control. And then with this, like, I don't even know, it's this new type of rap hip hop where you got these kids going on social media and and making and rapping these negative lyrics against another gang. So they rolling up and murdering people to high school that I went to. Teachers again murdered, a teacher got murdered recently. Like, two or three teachers got murdered recently. Kids are killing. It's, it's bad. I mean, Brad knows. He, we were driving through and he was like, we gotta get out of here. But it's, it's sad. And, and I, and I've tried, I've tried to go to my high school and talk to the students and, and I couldn't get in because I have to cut through, go through so much red tape to get in. But

• 43:55Speaker 01

  it's bad, man. It's, it's, it's disheartening to see that not, that not only has it not changed for the good, it's changed for the worse.

• 44:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's crazy. Cause you know, for a while, New York did change and it was definitely in a better situation.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Jocko Willink?

  In like the late 90s.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, Giuliani.

• 44:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Giuliani came in and cracked down on a lot of crime.

• 44:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, and it definitely, I mean, when I was a kid going to New York, it was like, it was freaking crazy in the late 80s.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:25Jocko Willink?

  Like, there was just drugs everywhere, hookers out on the street. It was cra- like you would go walk into the street and like around Hell's Kitchen or something. And there would be hookers. There'd be probably three to four hookers on every street corner.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Jocko Willink?

  And and we're talking like movie looking, you know hookers. And there was people offering you drugs, the every three steps you took, somebody offered you drugs.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:52Jocko Willink?

  It was bad.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  And um, and then, man, by the time I went to the I joined the Navy and by the time I would go back there when I was a little older and now it was like the nineties. The mid nineties, the late nineties, it was a to- Times Square is totally different, totally different. And now it's going back in the other direction again.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially in, I mean, the park that I grew that I um, grew up next to, so walk outside the Fordham Hill gates. Devote Park is right there. You have to walk through the park to get to any part of Fordham Hill. And I remember being a kid and you see crackheads strung out. You see people selling drugs right there in front of you. I'm playing basketball on the basketball court and people are selling and it's just normal. Hey, look the other way. Drug dealer looks your way. If you're playing and you're looking at them, you better turn your head really, really quick. You know, I remember going into the corner stores, you know, I was showing Brad the corner stores when we were there yesterday.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  And seeing the mafia guys come in with the big collar slicked back here and and and collecting their tax coming in and the and the store owner gives them an envelope with a bunch of cash and then he walk. So that that was the environment then. Uh, and to think like as a kid, I remember walking to school and I I must have been about, I was in middle school at this time, so I must have. No, I was just about to go to middle school, so I had to be about ten or eleven, maybe twelve. And seeing grown men beating up kids. You know, just, just, you know, slamming it because because the kid said something.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  And that's, that was one thing that happened to me. I ended up getting beat to a pulp once on a on on on a basketball court for having a disagreement or talking junk to a kid my age. And then that kid went and got his uncle who had just got released from prison and got his brother. His uncle was about thirty five years old. The brother was like nineteen. I was eight at the time I got slammed. And I remember being so scared walking to school because I would always say it's this, this, this one I'm gonna get jumped. Because the initiations at the time too was, you know, if you in order to get into the gang. You gotta beat up an innocent person. As a matter of fact, it was this big thing that was going on, going around, it was all over the news. In order to get into the gang, they had to give somebody a buck fifty. It costs a dollar fifty to ride the train.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And so what the gang, what the blood gangs would do is they would get on the train and the new, the new member would have to go up to somebody that the senior member picked out. An innocent person didn't do anything, pull out a blade and slash their face. And that was called a buck fifty. So my mom would always tell me, if you get on the train, keep your eyes open. You see any red, anybody with red? Get off the train, walk to the next car, but don't, don't play around because you don't want to get your face sliced. And you'd see people walking down Fordham Road, the street I grew up on, with big scars on it, and girls. Not just men, women as well.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  You know, so it was, it was rough, but it was, it really helped me learn the importance of being attentive and looking around and being, and reading people and not taking people for face value. Like really looking at the situation, trying to dive into what's this person's intent? You know, because of not, you know, of dead.

• 48:16Jocko Willink?

  You get to this point, um, you, I'm gonna highlight this conversation you had talking to your mom. You say, "Do you ever think we'll get the money back from the Nigerian government?" I asked. Mom gave me a response that I would hear a million times. I wouldn't hold your breath for it. All we have to work with is what God has given us. Don't count on anything else. Many like, many nights later, I sat on our trundle bed. I began to reflect on my life in the Bronx. Bio was out in the living room watching TV and I was in our room alone thinking about mom's financial struggles, the bad things I had experienced in my short life and the life I felt we should be living, the life that was stolen from us. We had one lamp in our bedroom that sat out on our only dresser and the lampshade had been thrown away probably because we broke it.

• 49:01Jocko Willink?

  Right below the lamp was a framed picture of Chief. I got up from the bed, walked over to the picture and picked it up with both hands. And for the first time, it finally hit me. Your father is dead. He's never coming back and this is your life. I was so young when my father died that I couldn't understand it. But it was in that moment of reflection that I finally grieved my father's absence for the first time. I broke down crying. My life wasn't structured for me to succeed and I was finally realizing it. Inner city life, a single mother, financial hardship, violence, a subpar school system and fatherlessness. My mom must have heard my cries from the living room because she quickly rushed in and asked what was wrong. It took me a while to get it out, but I finally told her.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  I miss my dad. I wish he was here so we could have a better life. Mom put her arms around me and she comforted me. She assured me that everything would be alright, we would make it. In her demeanor, if not in her words, she summarized the title of that Tupac song. "I know it looks like things will never change, but my son, you must keep your head up." Mom did the best job she could, but as I grew older and taller, my fear of her maternal presence began to wane and the absence of my father loomed large.

• 50:22Jocko Willink?

  The next part of the book that you go into, you start talking about filling that, filling that, uh, the, the void of not having a dad. Yeah. And you fill it, get some different components that fill it. Biggie, Rakim, KRS-One, right? So even some west coast Snoop Dogg starts to fill it, which I was a little surprised to see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you, so you had that, you had TV, right? So you saw The Fresh Prince, you know, with Will Smith. You saw Martin, you saw music videos, you had movies.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  You had, uh, Bad Boys with, with Will Smith and Martin in it. Whatever happened to Martin? He's still doing his thing. I think they're shooting, they're shooting Bad Boys 4 now. Oh damn. Yeah. That, well, before the, right, before the strike, the act of strike they were. Yeah.

• 51:18Jocko Willink?

  Bad Boys and and this is interesting. I noticed in the book you talk about the director, Michael Bay.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:24Jocko Willink?

  Which like when I was a kid watching movies, I didn't care about any directors or anything. But you you somehow had some kind of in in like, understanding of directors? Even as a kid?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it was because they would he had two movies that came out. Bad Boys was my favorite movie of all time. Even to this day, and I remember as a young kid, it really hit me hard because as I mentioned in the book, that was the first time I saw two two guys who looked like me, but they were playing heroes and it planted that seed that I could be something other than a drug dealer, athlete, or or rapper. And and so I studied that movie to nauseam. I remember, as a matter of fact, right after it came out, I bought the bootleg version of it and with a guy holding a camcorder and and and I remember watching it and rewinding and watching and I went to my Uncle Mike's house and I was like, Uncle Mike, you gotta watch this.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  And I just I watched everything, read through the credits, listened to the music, watched the music video that came along with it. And so that was like my first like introduction to not just the the what's on the screen, but behind the screen. You know, because I wanted to know everything about this movie. And then so Michael Bay's name popped, you know, for me, especially being being that I studied the movie religiously. And then two years later, The Rock came out. So when I saw

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Michael Bay, director of Bad Boys, new movie, Rock, I was like, oh, Rock, I'm gonna go see this. So that's kind of how the name popped in my head.

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  So you go see The Rock? And you say this about going to see The Rock?

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  "Green light on the SEAL incursion," a character in the film said. "The SEALs received the go ahead to sneak onto Alcatraz, rescue the hostages, and defuse the missiles. As I sat on the edge of my seat, I got my first insight into these bold men, who these bold men were and what they did. Their gear was state of the art. They didn't seem uptight in the way other military units were often portrayed in film. Their movements were smooth and precise, and each member of the team, though unique, operated cohesively with everyone else. I would later find out that the guys playing SEALs were so convincing because Michael Bay hired real Navy SEALs for the roles. Then came the iconic shower room shootout. Spoiler alert."

• 53:44Jocko Willink?

  The SEALs are discovered, a shootout ensues, and the Marines kill all the SEALs. One might think that this would leave a bad impression with me, but it didn't. Even after the movie ended, I couldn't get Navy SEALs out of my mind. The scene of the SEALs rising out of the water to sacrifice themselves to save others kept replaying in my head. I recognized something honorable in that. Something special about that group of men somehow resonated with me. Bad Boys planted the seed that I could one day be a hero. The Rock planted the seed of the type of hero I would want to be if I ever could. In the weeks that followed, I learned as much as I could about the Navy SEALs. And one day, I made the commitment to myself.

• 54:25Jocko Willink?

  Remy, if you can ever become something special, it's going to be a Navy SEAL. How old were you when you saw that movie?

• 54:35Speaker 01

  I must have been sixteen, sixteen, sixteen.

• 54:38Jocko Willink?

  Beginning to have some cohesive thoughts about the world.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:42Jocko Willink?

  You're getting there.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  But, but you still have a ways to go.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  A long way to go, yeah.

• 54:48Jocko Willink?

  In fact, your, uh, your next chapter in the book is called Hustler.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, this is when you start doing, you know, you start doing bad shit.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:59Jocko Willink?

  God, you steal your mom's engagement ring.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, you know, to this day, that's something that I, I, I regret. That's something that I wish I can go back in time and take back because that was the only thing that my father left her. But I was so, going back to me, that whole driven part, I was driven in the wrong way. You know, I wanted affirmation. I think every boy needs a man to teach him how to be a man, but also to affirm him. And every girl needs a father to affirm her so that she's not looking for affirmation from wrong sources. And for me, affirmation came from getting money or making money and my friends saying, you the man, and you this, and you that.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  And so that's, that was the substratum of why I did what I did. I'm not justifying it in any way, but I was looking for that pat on my back from my dad that I couldn't get and. Stealing that ring and I can't even remember it wasn't bought and maybe the ring was probably worth fifteen, twenty grand and I only got like maybe two hundred dollars for it.

• 56:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a disturbing read in the book. You talk about you're bringing into this pawn shop and you know, you know, the, you know, the ring's worth whatever, ten, fifteen grand and the guy's like, I'll give you a hundred and fifty.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:23Jocko Willink?

  And I think maybe you get him up to two hundred, but.

• 56:27Jocko Willink?

  And you got all kinds of things going on. You're, you're working at a sneaker store. You start taking cash, you know, for, for sneakers. So you're selling people just, you know, not, not put them in the register and pocketing that money.

• 56:42Jocko Willink?

  You, you, in high school, you're kind of just barely getting by. Matter of fact, when you're about to graduate from high school, you find out you're not going to graduate in high school. And so in the book, you say you had to write a fifty page report in a weekend.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  But no, no, the reality was, no, it was in the night. And, and the reality was I, I changed it from, it was actually a hundred page report. For the book, I'd cut it down to fifty because I was like.

• 57:07Jocko Willink?

  This is too unrealistic.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, people are not going to believe me if I put in, in, in one hundred. So let me, let me put it down to fifty. But the reality was it was one hundred. And.

• 57:16Jocko Willink?

  How the hell did you write a hundred pages in a night?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  I just put in, I, I was driven. I, I want to gra, I don't want to, I didn't want to get left back. The worst thing that could happen to you, at least for me at the time, the worst thing that could happen where everybody would call you stupid and do the opposite of affirm you is if you ever got left back. And I didn't want to get left back and I didn't want to drop out and I didn't want to have anything to do with school anymore. So that's what drove me. And yeah, the, Mr. Wolf, I'll never forget. He said, write a paper on why English is important. And I figured it out, man.

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  Do you still have that paper?

• 57:48Speaker 01

  You know, my mom, Brad knows this. We were in my mom's house yesterday. She brought out a whole folder of, of papers that I've, that I had been, that she would make me write. She would make me write from the time I was a small kid and the date of when I, I, I didn't see though that paper. I think I had to turn it in though. I think I turned it into the, the teacher. I don't think I got that one back.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  Um, so you got, you're doing, you're just doing bad shit. You're doing that, but you, but once you get it, get out of high school. Uh, that's what I kind of opened up with. I had to take the opportunity to open up with something, you know, just you out there. Yeah. Selling drugs, man. So you go through that phase, but what's interesting in the end of that section I read, I start, uh, talking about how you, you were saying you needed something bigger, something with more money. And what that ended up being, that ended up being, uh, actually sell, uh, selling cell phones.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, to drug dealers, yeah.

• 58:42Jocko Willink?

  And you end up making good money doing that.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars a week. It was crazy. It was nuts.

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  So talk us through that scam. What were you doing?

• 58:50Speaker 01

  So essentially.

• 58:50Jocko Willink?

  It's in the book, but like just, I don't want to read that whole section.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Nah, it's all good. So essentially, um, uh, I got a, I got a, I was able to get a license, a cell phone selling, a cell phone license through a company. I won't mention that company name in the book. I call them WTC and, uh, and this guy who worked there essentially showed me how to activate phones on lines of credit. So essentially, uh, well, well, on other people's lines of credit, people who weren't, who weren't trying to get the phone. So essentially, uh, depending on a person's credit, you could activate up to three cell phone lines. And then you had, you want to receive your bill until the 30 day mark. And then you had 30 days from there, which was a 60 day mark to pay your bill.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  And if the bill wasn't paid by the 90 day mark, then the phone would cut off. So essentially it was a, it was a free phone and you did, and upfront there was no payment. So it wasn't like, uh, buy the phone for $200 and then get a bill because the cell phone company was making this, it's money, more of its money in the, in the actual monthly bill because it was $29.99 a month for 30 minutes. Who talked for 30 minutes? I mean, even think about it now, but who talked for 30 minutes? Especially when cell phones became a thing, nobody talked for 30 minutes. Everybody was going 50 minutes, 60, three, four hours. And then, you know, the cell phone companies were making crazy money. Cause I think it was like five cent a minute or something ridiculous like that after you exceeded your 30 minutes.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  And so, so yeah, I was, uh, I partnered up with a guy, um, who I went to high school with. And he had a girlfriend that worked in a hospice clinic. And so he, his girlfriend would get me. Sheet of paper and it's like five or six people's names on it. And be named their name and these are people who are about to die expire. So their name, date of birth, social security and address. And then I would plug that in for I would call up, we'll use my license, call, call up the company. Say, hey, I have Ricardo Reglato, you know, just known on a random name. And here's the social, here's this, and then they would run, the person on the line would run and run the credit. Be like, oh, he qualifies for three phones, perfect.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  I'll take all three and then I would, I would receive the phones from the company as well. So I would have the box and I would read the number, the serial code number to the operator. And they would activate three phones. And, uh, and then I would then sell those phones. I started out selling to random people, but then I put a most part, the majority of my clients were drug dealers. Because they liked the phone, the phone would stay on for ninety days and was a burner phone and would go turn off. And then they would come back to me and get another one and then they would use.

• 1:01:31Jocko Willink?

  How much did they pay you for a phone?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  It depended on, it depended on the phone. So the cheapest phone, my memory serves right, around three hundred dollars. So I would sell a phone, the most expensive phone was nine hundred dollars. And that was a Motorola Tic Tac phone. Because it was like, it looked like a Tic Tac and it was really small and guys liked it because it was, it was cool. And then there were the Motorola two-way pagers. They came in like silver and, and black. And Jay-Z and all these artists made them super popular because they went to music videos. And, uh, and so I would sell those for about five hundred a pop. And, uh, again, they would stay on for ninety days as well. Guys could text, do what they needed to do, cut off, come back to me, here's another one. And, uh, I was rolling in the money, man.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I bought a brand new car. Uh, I remember driving it right off the dealership downtown Manhattan, not too far from, uh, from, uh.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  What'd you get, wasn't it Lexus or something?

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  A Lincoln, a Lincoln LS.

• 1:02:26Jocko Willink?

  The Lincoln LS.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:02:28Jocko Willink?

  You got that in the book.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Lincoln LS. And yeah, I was I was started my record company and essentially laundering the money through the company so that that way we could we can make music and I could kind of hide the money there and

• 1:02:43Jocko Willink?

  This is eighth wonder

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Entertainment, yeah.

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Eighth wonder entertainment.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:48Jocko Willink?

  So now you got some some rap artists that you're helping produce. You getting studio time and stuff for them?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Paying for studio time, paying for, you know, when it came to shows and we needed to guys needed new clothes and boots and all that stuff so they could look the part, paying for that. We would go down to Virginia Beach. Interestingly, I went, we go down to Virginia Beach and record down there. Was it Portsmouth, Virginia? Yeah, Portsmouth, Virginia. And found a DJ down there that would make beats for us. So yeah, that's where a lot of the money was going to.

• 1:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Now, you get at one point in the book, and this is a big part of the book, this is kind of a turning point for you. You get confronted by this guy, what's his name, Devon?

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Devon, yeah.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  Devon. He's a drug dealer that you've given a bunch of phones through.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  And the phones got cut off after a short, very short period of time. So he came back to you like, yo, these things aren't working. You realize, or you at least suspect that the phone company's on to you.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:47Jocko Willink?

  Because how many freaking people have not paid for the phones that you have sold?

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  Were you doing any legit business at this time?

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was. Yeah, so I was always smart about it. I was always smart. Okay, if I'm gonna sell every three phones that I sold illegally, like I needed to sell at least like seven, eight or nine phones. That way I was covering my bases. So if somebody ever came and investigated me, I could say, hey, like, this was a legit customer, here's the ID, because they would, I would also get like a driver's license, you know, a photo of the driver's license to prove that, hey, like, yeah, this person. And so the guy in hospice, his girlfriend would be able to get me the pictures of the driver's license as well. So if anything did come up, I could say, hey, like, this is the person I met with, and there's their signature. I don't know what's going on. And here are all my other

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  legit clients. I got scammed, you know. And so I was really, really smart about not going overboard until I met Devon.

• 1:04:44Jocko Willink?

  Right. And he comes to your house with the freaking, he's gonna kill you. Or he's telling you like, hey, I'm gonna kill you if you don't give me my freaking money.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. But see, it was all his fault because when he approached me initially and said, hey, I want to buy bulk, I said, no. And I was like, that's not the way this works. If I, if you, if I do bulk, then I'm gonna, it's gonna mess up my ratio and there were guys that were getting caught. Maybe not at my company, other companies. There was one guy in my company, they were getting caught prosecuting, sent to federal prisons. It's a federal crime.

• 1:05:16Jocko Willink?

  Why is it a federal crime?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Because you're, you're, you're, you're stealing people's personal information. Identification and you're activating lines of credit.

• 1:05:24Jocko Willink?

  So you knew this and so you thought, I'm not gonna go sell you bulk.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  No, I told him no. And then he just kept on pressing, kept on pressing. Come on, man, it'll be fine. Just try one time.

• 1:05:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, you just, just so you know, I wrote a book called Extreme Ownership and you just blamed him for this happening. You said it's his fault.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  We can't let that slide, bro.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  That's true, that's true, that's true, that's true. In retrospect, I thought it was his fault, but the reality is, I was an idiot. I was, I mean, I was, I was the brains behind the operation. So it all, it all falls on me, but.

• 1:05:53Jocko Willink?

  So he comes to you, now you think, oh, they're on to me.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm scared. As a matter of fact, when he, when he threatened me, I wasn't even thinking about him. I didn't even see him. You know what I mean? I saw.

• 1:06:06Jocko Willink?

  Federal prison.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Federal prison. You know, and, and, you know, Rod is actually still in prison to this day. Um, who I used to hustle with and.

• 1:06:16Jocko Willink?

  What's he, what did he go to prison for?

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Uh, strong arm robbery, you know, drugs, all that. I mean, he got, and the crazy thing is, after I got into the teams, I met Rod, you know, he, he got clean for a little bit. I met him, he got clean for a little bit. He was a bus driver. And then he fell back into it. He would, he would call me up and, and talk about how he was struggling, be like, yo, don't do it, don't fall back. And then finally he was like, I can't. And he fell back into a strong arm robbery in Pennsylvania. He did his time there. As soon as he got released from prison in Pennsylvania, he had charges in Jersey. So he got thrown right, right back into prison in Jersey. So he's still in prison in Jersey right now to this day.

• 1:06:55Jocko Willink?

  So speaking of charges, you did get rolled up for uh eating a freaking burger at McDonald's.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:01Jocko Willink?

  Right? So you got that in there.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink?

  And that plays a little bit of a role because now you have a record.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Jocko Willink?

  So you get rolled up, typical like kinda cops are harassing you guys, you're a, you know, just shit. This is the kinda shit that happens, you know?

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:17Jocko Willink?

  So you guys get, you get arrested.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Jocko Willink?

  Um, that's at a McDonald's.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  You end up quitting your job with the phone thing. You're like, alright, I'm out. Federal prison doesn't sound like a good deal.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  And I wrote a letter, uh, had my mom help me write in my letter, cause in my stupid mind, I felt, oh, if I write a letter and quit, uh, and explain that the reason why I'm quitting is cause there's just too much craziness going on. If they ever discovered that it was me, they can't prosecute me cause I quit.

• 1:07:45Jocko Willink?

  I don't know why I thought that. Just covering your tracks, dude.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Let me quit before I get prosecuted. Oh, well, I think you can get prosecuted even if you do quit, right?

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  Wait, sorry, who's the letter to?

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  It was to, it was to the, it was to my boss at the company. So there was a woman that I had to report into and she loved me. I mean, she was, uh, you know.

• 1:08:07Jocko Willink?

  You were making her a lot of money, man.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Making a lot of money. She even cried when I, when I came to her, gave her the letter and she was just like, why are you like, you're doing so good here? And I was just like, there's too much craziness going on. Yeah.

• 1:08:20Jocko Willink?

  So you got that going on.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Jocko Willink?

  You quit that. Once you quit that, now you don't have the money that you had to fund, uh, Eighth Wonder.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  So now you're starting to scramble and trying to make something happen there and you had a connection. Who had a connection, who had a connection or something along those lines with, with Kevin Lyles, who's like, I think at this time, he might've been the president of Def Jam. Um, and so you get a meeting with, with the, with the president of Def Jam Records. I mean, this is as good as it gets. And, uh, so Kevin Lyles, here, let me go to the book. Mr. Lyles, your visitors are here, the assistant said. Mr. Lyles stood up and said, come on in, guys. He had a warm, comforting spirit about him. He wasn't intimidating, but I could tell he was all business. Willie embraced him with a handshake and said, these are the guys I've been working with. I think they got some good stuff for you.

• 1:09:13Jocko Willink?

  After Willie made the introductions, he stepped into the corner and stood there with his hands in his pockets. What would happen for the remainder of the meeting was now on me. Okay, okay. What's your name again, Mr. Lyles asked? I'm Remy. I'm the CEO and founder of Eighth Wonder Records, and these are my artists. Do you have music with you? He asked. I handed our CD to Mr. Lyles. Yes, here's our compilation album that we produced. He read the print on the cover. Who will discover the eighth wonder of the world?

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  Interesting. Let's see what you got. Mr. Lyles popped the CD into his player and started listening. Our album was set up with what we thought was the best songs first because we intended the CD to be a demo also. As the music played, I watched Mr. Lyles intently. He only listened to snippets of each song. He nodded a little, seemed disinterested in some songs and interested in others. The good news was that he listened to some of every song. I honestly didn't know what to think. My assessment was that he could lean either way. Finally, he spoke, and when he did, he was direct. Um, yeah, it's good, but it's not there. My heart sank, but I maintained my composure. He continued, let me play you something that's popping. I just signed an artist named Joe Button.

• 1:10:26Jocko Willink?

  His album isn't out yet, but check this out. This is the kind of stuff we're looking for, for artists that pop. So he plays this. You're just trying to like freaking act cool. Then you say, uh, we said our goodbyes to Mr. Lyles, and we thanked him for his time and honesty and made our way out of the building. We were finally out. When we were finally out, we stood at the southeast corner and talked. I tried to motivate the troops the best I could, telling them that we'd find another way, but deep down, I knew it was over. There was no way I could keep funding Eighth Wonder at the same level.

• 1:10:57Jocko Willink?

  So that's that.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Jocko Willink?

  Um, what? Where are you? Cause at some time around here is when nine 11 happens.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, that event with Def Jam was January 2002. Everything that happened with Devon happened in November, December 2001.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  I watched the twin towers come down. As a matter of fact, I went, um, my mom woke me up on September 11th at like nine AM and told me what was going on. There was a girl I was dating at the time. She lived like two, two, three buildings down. She called me up and told me to come to her, uh, come meet her at her apartment, went to her apartment. We went up on the roof and she was trying to call her cousin. Cause her cousin worked at windows of the world and wasn't getting through. And then we both watched the towers come down from like the 18th floor on, well, 17th floor in the building. So the 18th, uh, the roof of the building.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  And yeah, that was, that was crazy, man. Um, sirens back and forth all day, all night long. It was horrific, man. Um.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  But it brought the city together. That was the one thing that I remember. Everybody, regardless of race, regardless of what neighborhood, you know, just, it was like New York just came together in a way that I had never seen before. But it was, uh, it was absolutely horrific. It didn't, I remember watching when I was on the roof, watching the twin towers getting ready to come down. A part of me was like, man, I want to go do something. Like I wanna, I wanna go, like, I wanna go get those who did the, did whatever happened. Cause I, nobody really knew what had happened yet at that point. We didn't know if it was, you know, did the plane flying by accident? Nobody really knew what was happening until the second plane hit was like, okay, this is an accident, but we didn't know who it was.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  We didn't know, you know, if some pilots made a pact or what. And a part of me just wanted to go in and, and get revenge. But then that faded really, really quick because of what I was involved in from a hustling standpoint and focus, being focused on making money.

• 1:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And you had this dream of the music, right? I mean, you're putting in work to try and make that happen as well. You got the meeting coming up with Def Jam. I mean, that's freaking. Yeah, legit. Um, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Yeah. As I lay there in bed, I heard a voice say, "You need to get out of here. You need to join the military." It was the type of voice you hear off in the distance within a dream, the way someone speaks to you while you're asleep. But I wasn't dreaming. I was awake. Yeah. In a state of bemusement, I propped my head up to look around, but there was no one in the room but me. The voice said it two more times, but softer than the first, even softer, even softer on the last. "You need to join the military. You need to join the military."

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  Now, I'll be honest, I've smoked a lot of weed in my teenage years, and in the process of getting high, I did experience some freaky events, but I hadn't been high for at least three weeks before this. I was clean, I promise. Not only was the voice audible, but it penetrated my mind and reverberated through my very being. It got my attention. I sat up and just stared in the room. And as I stared, I actually began to entertain the idea of joining the military. What do I have left? I have nothing else to do. Then I shook my head and began a silent argument. "No, I can't do that. I hate the police. And anyone in uniform is the police. No. Plus, I like my hat backward and my clothes baggy, so there's no way I'm slipping into one of those tight-ass sailor boy costumes. No." Full of frustration and anger, I laid back down and stared at the ceiling. Damn, damn, damn. I ain't got nothing left.

• 1:14:34Jocko Willink?

  I took a deep sigh and began to whisper, "If you don't leave, man, you're probably gonna end up dead or in prison." If I lay, I lay there for about thirty minutes trying to figure out what else I could do in my life, and nothing came up. Finally, I capitulated. "All right, I'm gonna do it." What else do I have left? The decision made, was made. I was all in. Yeah. And boom, like that, next thing you know, you're going to recruiters. Yeah. You go to the army, you talk a little bit to the army, um, you end up at a marine recruiter who's trying to get you. You see the, you see like a force recon picture. You're like, yo, that's it? Yeah, no one's in there. No one's in there? Yeah. And then you go into the Navy recruiter. Yeah. And you get Petty Officer Tiana Reyes. Yeah, Tiana Reyes.

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  Tiana Reyes. And she's, she's good to go. Yeah, man. Um, as she starts running your record and stuff. Little background check. She finds out here, she says, you have a warrant for arrest in New York and you have a warrant for arrest in New Jersey. What was the New Jersey arrest? Was that traffic or something?

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  That was reckless driving. I was doing like something like a hundred twenty and like a sixty-five or seventy, something stupid. And I didn't stop at first because I knew the cops were behind me. I knew the sirens, but I tried to play it off like they weren't. But I eventually pulled. It wasn't like a high speed chase. And then when they pulled me over, they were like, what are you? Why didn't you stop? It's like, oh, you know, you're going a hundred twenty miles an hour. Sirens, who else do you think we're chasing? And I never went to court. You know, even with the whole, you know, the thing that happened with the resisting arrest and disobeying a lawful order, like that happened. I got arrested with the jail. I never went to court.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, oh, I didn't know I needed to go to court. I didn't know I needed to show up for trial. And yeah, so that's what the warrants were.

• 1:16:26Jocko Willink?

  So you had two warrants out and luckily Tiana, she's freaking squared away.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Jocko Willink?

  And she set up appointments for you with the New Jersey court and the New York court. She went there, put her ass on the line, as a matter of fact, and said like, I vouch for this guy. He wants to change his life. He's had some rough steps. He's gonna go in the Navy. If you can let him, if you can let him in, basically, is where it comes from.

• 1:16:58Jocko Willink?

  Now, how long was it before you actually shipped out?

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  Two weeks. That was June.

• 1:17:04Jocko Willink?

  How old were you?

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  I'm nineteen. I turned twenty in boot camp.

• 1:17:07Jocko Willink?

  Turned twenty in boot camp.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Twenty in boot camp. And the crazy thing about it is Tiana died two years later.

• 1:17:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's a cool afterword in the book that you write about her and you find her and find her family.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  I was with her, actually with her. Yeah, I was with her aunt and uncle, yes, two nights ago at the live bar. So yeah, I'm super close to family. But yeah, she changed the trajectory of my life.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And she did it, you know, you mentioned this in the afterword of the book, like, and just shout out to her. She changed the trajectory of a lot of, a lot of young men and women to get them in the military. And, you know, sometimes people talk about recruiters, you know, recruiters lie and all this stuff, which they do. But I'll tell you what. You know, when, when they, when they take someone that's on a negative trajectory and you get them in the Navy? Or get them in the military, man, you're doing a huge favor to them, a huge favor to them. I can tell you right now, like, best thing that ever happened to me was going in the, going in the Navy.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:18:05Jocko Willink?

  Um, so boot camp, you ship off to boot camp?

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  How's, how's Remy, young Remy like boot camp?

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  Uh, it was easy.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  It was ridiculously easy. Um, I, I was motivated to be AJ squared away because of the decision that Tiana made. I didn't want to, um, prove her decision wrong because there was a reason why the military didn't want me in with my record, um, but my warrants and my background, which, you know, in retrospect, I understand. And, and I, and I knew that Tiana took a risk and I knew that if I screwed up, or if I talked back, or if I was rude, or if I didn't pay attention to detail, then I would just be proving, proving, you know, the system right, you know? And so, uh, so boot camp was easy for me. It, uh, you know, I just did what I was told.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  But every single day I was in boot camp though, even, and they, even when I got, by the, when I got to the teams, I was petrified. Because I always had that thing hanging over me, that, that the stuff that I did with the cell phones hanging over me, it's gonna come back, it's gonna bite me in the butt. So every, I remember being in boot camp and when my name would get called, even if it was something simple as, hey, you know, hey, get over here, and like, and I go in, I'm like, oh crap, this is it. They shipping me out, uh, you know, I lied, moment of truth, all of this other stuff. Yeah, you know, I was, I was just petrified and it'd be something simple as, oh, we just wanna confirm what your preference is on your dog tag.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  My heart just, and I go back in, but that followed me. And that's one thing I learned, you know, when you do, when you do wrong, it, it, it, it sticks with you, it follows you, man, and, and, and for a long time, and so. Yeah.

• 1:19:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what you gotta be careful too is sometimes, you know, people make mistakes.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  And they think, well, I already made a mistake. So like you could easily done that. If you had a different mindset, like, well, they'll never let me in. I'll never be able to make it. So I'll just keep doing both, you know, criminal shit.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Jocko Willink?

  Because I've already screwed up.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:04Jocko Willink?

  So luckily you didn't get that. I forgot to mention, you didn't come in the Navy on a SEAL contract.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Um, you, I don't think your ASVAB score was good enough.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Nope, my, I couldn't swim.

• 1:20:16Jocko Willink?

  And you couldn't swim.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yep. And I was, and I was skinny.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  How much did you weigh?

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  I was like one forty-five, maybe, one fifty. I was, I was, I was skinny. I would wear baggy clothes and, and, you know, present like I was large and in charge, but I was, I was always skinny.

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  You said one forty-five?

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  I was like one forty-five, one fifty.

• 1:20:34Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  I was skinny. My brother was really skinny. My brother now is like still super skinny.

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did, did you play any sports in high school?

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  I played, I played basketball and then I got kicked off the team and I never played again. I remember, I'll never forget it. Um, I was in my sophomore year and somebody made a joke. The coach is standing there, somebody made a joke. All of us laughed. The coach's eyes for some reason landed on me and he said, you think that was, you think that's funny? And I was like, yeah, it's, it's funny, not being aware that he was upset. And he said, all right, you kicked off the team.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  And I was like, what? He's like, you kicked off the team. Get out of here. You still think that's funny? And I never played basketball ever again, like, like in, in, in that type of capacity. It really screwed me up. Um, but yeah.

• 1:21:25Jocko Willink?

  So like, and did you ever work out? Did you ever run? Did you ever do pushups, any shit like that?

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  All the stuff I did in Fordham Hill, you know, running around with the guys, playing two-hand touch football, you know, kicking the door, running. Um, there was, I remember in high school, I can't remember if it was my sophomore or junior year, but we had like a weightlifting class and I did that. And I remember, you know, getting, you know, putting on muscle quick. That's something that I've never had an issue. When I start working out, like I'll put on muscle quick and I lose it fast if I don't maintain it. And then, yeah, other than that, yeah, I didn't have like a set fitness regimen.

• 1:21:59Jocko Willink?

  It's good to hear, cause you know, sometimes guys, they think, oh, if I wasn't a freaking. Swimmer, football player, whatever wrestler, then I don't have a chance of making it through BUDS. It's actually not true. It just depends on your mentality. But you show up and did you get a contract to be a corpsman?

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got, yeah, I was a corpsman, yep.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  So you go to boot camp, you make it through the moment of truth, which if you don't know, a moment of truth is when they like, tell you like, we have all of your records. And if you don't come clean with what your records say, you're gonna be sent to federal prison for the rest of your life.

• 1:22:38Jocko Willink?

  And then some kids break up like, I got copper shoplifting in fourth grade, you know, but, but Tiana had told you, keep your fucking mouth shut, boy.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Shut up, man. Don't let them, don't come on, you're in New York, don't fall for the okie doke.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  And I didn't, I was scared, I almost did, but I didn't.

• 1:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so you get that, you get, you get through boot camp, you get through HM School.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna become, if you don't know what a corpsman is, it's a medic in the Navy.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you get stationed at Camp Pendleton, at the, at the hospital. What year is this?

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  This is 2000, I got to the hospital in 2003.

• 1:23:18Jocko Willink?

  2003.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Um, you show up there, and again, this is like, great stuff in the book, funny stuff in the book. You get some, your interaction with some of the fleet people that are showing up and treating you like shit, uh, which is terrible. Um, but you know you want to go to BUDS?

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:38Jocko Willink?

  You get the, you get the DVD of the documentary for, uh, the Class 234 documentary.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah.

• 1:23:45Jocko Willink?

  And again, you don't really know much about working out. So you just make up your own workouts.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  I just make it up. I just see, alright, I watch the documentary and I see, alright, these dudes are just constantly moving. They're just going from the pull-up bar, the push-ups, to the surf zone and back. So I can't work out where I'm gonna sit down, bench, get up, you know, sit, bench, sit, you know, just chill. I need to be constantly moving. So that's what I did. I, I, I remember having a logbook where I just, you know, the, the first part of my workout was where I had to max out, you know, I had to, was my test. So if it was a pull-up workout, then that was when I would try and get the most pull-ups that I could get. And I would log it, so on, you know. To twenty-three, two thousand and three, like five pull-ups, then you know, the next week when I did

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  that workout, I had to at least hit six pull-ups and I just gradually just started creating circuits around that.

• 1:24:40Jocko Willink?

  Seemed like you're pretty methodical.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Jocko Willink?

  There's something about your nature that's methodical.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  I think it comes from my dad, you know.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Being an engineer or whatever.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, being an engineer and having that engineering mind, you know, even now as a filmmaker and you know, whether it's doing an organ harvesting film or an action thriller or you know, a drama like in my mind, it's just piecing the story together in a way that an engineer pieces a, a building together or pieces of a car together. It's just like, I, I just, I see the problem and my mind just start trying to figure out how to work through that problem. And that's how, how it worked out with, with fitness and trying to get in proper shape.

• 1:25:15Jocko Willink?

  And you do that with your ASVAB as well, because you got to improve your ASVAB score. So you figured out, and again, all this stuff is in the book, read the book.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Because it shows when you take a methodical approach to things, you can, you can get through them.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you also do some dumb shit.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, like you've got this one, uh, like second class, maybe she's an HM two or an HM three and she like doesn't like you.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  Is that her real name?

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:25:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  I could tell you her real name.

• 1:25:42Jocko Willink?

  No, don't tell me. I don't want, I don't want this girl to get hate, hate mail from around the world. But yeah, you got like a, a third, third class?

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Third class, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  And she like doesn't like you and she just hates you.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:52Jocko Willink?

  And then you got a situation where you're the duty driver, meaning you need to be on call to drive if needed.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  And you done it a bunch of times. You'd never been called before. And so she tells you, you know, you're duty driver, you better not leave base. And you're like, okay. And sure enough, one of your buddies is some new freak.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Tears of the sun, bro.

• 1:26:14Jocko Willink?

  You couldn't resist it.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  I couldn't resist, man. Opening weekend. I wanted to say tears of the sun, dude.

• 1:26:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah. So you, so you go and see it, you get in trouble. Again, all this stuff is in the book. These are all great little, uh, stories from the book as well.

• 1:26:29Jocko Willink?

  But you end up getting through that and you get you get in two thousand and four. You get you get orders to Bud's.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:35Jocko Willink?

  Get orders to Bud's, man. What's your first impression when you show up at Bud's?

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Ah, it was like shocking, ah, bro, but it was also like, wow, this is where I'm supposed to be. Um, there were times when I was just like, man, can they do this to you? Like, I was like, what the heck? I remember, uh, one instructor, I can't remember his name. I won't, I probably couldn't say his name anyway, but he was like, we get hammered, um, uh, during inspection. Wear our uniform and my pants were had sagged down, like past my butt and my boots were on. Like, what you doing, boy? You think this is the hood? And I looked up, I'm like, can you say that to me?

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  And you realize it's all a mind game. They all messing with you, but yeah, it was just, it was like a beautiful world, man, that I had never been in. And then also the caliber of guys that, you know, that that I was around, you know, they they would, I had never been. And this is like the cream of the crop as it relates to Americans. Mikey Monster was in my boat crew. Ray Bobby here was in my class. Brian Joe roll into the roll into our class. It was like all of these really, really good dudes and guys who would go on to be legends, you know, in our community. And so just to be a kid from the hood, like here, there were times when I was like, do I even belong here? Like, are they gonna find out that like, I should be here for some reason?

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  And but it was, I was happy. Every day I was just, I was just happy to be there.

• 1:28:00Jocko Willink?

  How old are you now at this point when you showed up?

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  See, that's two, I might have been twenty one. I should have, and I was twenty one for sure, because I turned twenty in boot camp, went through to January. I started in January of two thousand and four, so I was twenty one.

• 1:28:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would have, I turned twenty two in, um, that upcoming August of two thousand and four.

• 1:28:20Jocko Willink?

  You give a good description here. Yeah. You say this, "Master Chief picked up the megaphone and said, 'This is just the first hour of training and you clowns are falling apart. You want to waste my, waste the time of our instructor staff? Well, I'm gonna waste your time. Go line up on the beach. We all scurried out to the beach and lined up side by side with our backs to the ocean. The medical truck drove through a break in the berm and flashed its high beams on us. Then the instructor slowly walked over the berm and down to where we stood in silent anticipation. The temperature was still around 55 degrees and there was a slight breeze. Because of my lack of body fat and wet clothes, I was already shaking. To make matters worse, I knew exactly what was coming next, an evolution called surf torture.' Through the megaphone, Master Chief gave the command, 'About face.' We all turned around to face the ocean. Lock arms."

• 1:29:05Jocko Willink?

  I can't help but smile when I hear this. We all know what this means. Uh, we interlocked arms. "Forward, march." As a class, we began to make our way into the ocean. The water temperature in San Diego in February hovers around 57 degrees. In layman's terms, that's freezing cold. I'd already been in the water, but it was a quick in and out. Now I was slowly walking in and the only way I could stop was if I unlocked arms and turned to quit. The water got up to my ankles. I said, "Damn, that's cold," but I kept moving. Then the water was at my thighs, then hips, and finally the water reached my abdomen. Master Chief said, "And halt." We all stopped and stood there as the waves splashed on us. I remember trying to stand on my toes to keep as much of my upper body out of the water as possible.

• 1:29:50Jocko Willink?

  Then I heard the command, "Take seats." We all slowly got in the sitting position. I could hear all kinds of cursing from the guys up and down the line. Our upper bodies were now submerged and when the waves crashed over us, our faces would be submerged as well. I quickly learned that I could take name-calling. Growing up in the hill prepared me for that. The sprints and push-ups, my training at the hospital prepared me for that, and everything else they threw at me. But the cold was my kryptonite. My body wasn't built for it. After 15 minutes of lying there shaking like a coconut on a tree, I heard the infamous ding ding ding again. The instructors had brought the bell to the beach and another student had quit.

• 1:30:27Jocko Willink?

  That's buds, man.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Um, so what you you figure your body fat was super low?

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  Done. I had no, I had zero body fat. I mean, every surf torture, even at the end of every two mile time swim, I was either borderline hypothermia.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Just because it's like, especially being in winter, you know, it was just like, ah.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  You, so you had, you also had some problems with swimming with fins. You'd never swam with fins before.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know that. I thought that I, when you, when I took the screening test, I thought that I just had to learn how to do the 500 to get in. I didn't know that I actually had to swim with fins and buds. I saw it in, I saw it in, in the buds two, three, four, but I didn't know that it was like time. I thought, oh, you just get in and, cause I saw the base women, um, when the guy, it's that famous base swim scene.

• 1:31:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, do typing out a little bit?

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just completion, completion. I always thought completion. And, uh, uh, yeah, man, that's, that was my, that was also my kryptonite.

• 1:31:30Jocko Willink?

  So you, you kind of got through that. The cold isn't, is a freaking issue for you. You talk about doing these swims. And by the time you get done with the swims, just about every time you're, um, you're not doing good.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Nah, two hours, like two hours instructors were always messing with me saying, well, saying, hey dude, oh, we're gonna have to bring a deep, a tape player and DVD on this boat with us on the safety boat. Cause two hours. Because the swim, the passing time was 85 minutes and I'm out there for two hours and they were, they were, they were intentionally making me finish it. Cause they were like, nah, we're gonna let him suffer until he quits.

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  You.

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Again, there's a bunch of good stories about this stuff in the book, but the, for instance, at Steel, so now we get to hell week.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:18Jocko Willink?

  In hell week, at Steel Pier, you, you start to hype out.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  And who's your, your body temperature was like 87 degrees.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Eighty, yeah, I think it was 88.7.

• 1:32:28Jocko Willink?

  Eighty eight point seven. That's not a good sign.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:32:30Jocko Willink?

  So you, you got hypothermia.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:33Jocko Willink?

  Um, they take you out of the water. They bring you to medical. They warm you up.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh, which I didn't even know they did this.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:42Jocko Willink?

  So they take you out of the water. They warm you up and now they, what, like an hour or something like that. Get your core temperature back up. Thing is, man.

• 1:32:52Jocko Willink?

  Bud's is psycho.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Jocko Willink?

  But it's actually fair.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  Like, and you're a good example of that. And this is your whole story is a good example of the fact that like that right there.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  If you quit because you're cold, you're a quitter.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  But if you hype out, there's only so much you can do about that as a human. Like, you know, you, you, some people, they just don't have, uh, well, number one, they don't have the body fat. If you were probably like this freaking skinny hundred and sixty pound or a hundred and fifty pound kid, you don't have body fat.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna be freaking chilly.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Jocko Willink?

  Like even we have a joke in the teams, we call it, when someone's a little chubby, they call it combat swimmer muscle. He's like, hey, I can stay warm for a long time.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:34Jocko Willink?

  So it's a real thing.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  And so when, when you got a guy that like gets hypothermic, it's the Steel Pier Echo Charles. What it is, is there's a, there's a pier over in the San Diego Bay on the, on the Navy base. It's made of steel.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Steel is not warm, by the way. So at Steel Pier, and it's usually, I think it's the first night of hell week. It's maybe like two or three o'clock in the morning. It might be the second night of hell week.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  It was the second night of hell weekend.

• 1:33:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  Cause we did the, uh, elephant run down to, uh, it may even been the third night. Cause we did the elephant run with the, uh, boats on heads from Bards down to Imperial Beach. We were down there for a while. Daybreak comes and then we do some stuff down there and then maybe it was that night we had to.

• 1:34:19Jocko Willink?

  It's, it has to be one of the first two nights. Cause by the third night, you, you would just be like not, not into it, not, not able to do it.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:27Jocko Willink?

  But they put you, they basically put you on the steel pier. It's freezing cold and then they put you in the water and they bring you out. They're spraying you with cold hoses and they make you lay down on the steel pier and then stand up with the wind blowing. And they're just, they're just gonna get people to hype out. They're gonna get you cold.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  So you hyped out, they take you away, they warm you up. How'd you feel? Cause then they're bringing you back.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Jocko Willink?

  And this is what, this is Dale Fort, Chief Forten, right? Bringing you back. What was he saying to you, dude?

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Oh, well, he was funny, man. You know, he was just like, so, uh, you wanna quit or you wanna go back? You wanna go back in? And I was like, oh yeah, I'll go back in. He's like, all right, good on you.

• 1:35:05Jocko Willink?

  So that's your mindset, like you're freezing cold.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:09Jocko Willink?

  Then they go, okay, yep, we warmed you back up.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:12Jocko Willink?

  Like I said, Bud's is fair.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:13Jocko Willink?

  You're warm now.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, go back in.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  Go back.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  But and they didn't know in their defense, they didn't know I was sick.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. They didn't know that. You covered up the fact that you had S I P.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started with S I P. I was spitting up blood and so, um, you know, none of the instructors knew. Cause I, cause for me, it was like, dude, I don't want to freaking.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Go to this med check, that med check before hell week, they find out that I have S I P and I'm spitting up blood. And then I have to start day one of first base all over again. So I'd rather, you know, get, at least get to Wednesday. Hell week to get real for it.

• 1:35:47Jocko Willink?

  You go back to the class here, I'm going to pick it up in the book. The short rest had helped. I wasn't feeling great by any means, but I was feeling good enough to manage. About 30 minutes later, my lungs felt like I was breathing through a kitty straw.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:58Jocko Willink?

  I started to feel dizzy from lack of oxygen and before I knew it, I'd fallen to the ground. I was still conscious when the instructors were on me like blood drunk hyenas. Get up, you quitter. There's nothing wrong with you, instructor G said as I stumbled my way to my feet and began to stagger behind my boat crew. Medical cleared you, so stop faking it and get under the boat. I mustered the last ounce of strength in my body. After about 30 seconds, I caught up to my boat crew, stood erect with my head under the boat and kept driving. Despite my lack, despite being back in position, the instructors didn't care. They wanted me gone. Three instructors ran beside me shouting all kinds of stuff. Drama queen, weak, loser. And then just like that, in the midst of the chaos, everything went black. I can't tell you exactly what happened, but before I was told later, every part of my body stopped moving at the same time.

• 1:36:42Jocko Willink?

  My arms fell down to my side and, and like a leaning tower that has passed the point of no return, I face planted into the concrete. One student described it like seeing a robot powered down in mid-flight. The instructors flipped my motionless body over and tried to bring me back to consciousness. After two minutes, one of the instructors did a deep sternum rub, which led my nerves to shock me awake. When my eyes opened, everything seemed hazy. I could see instructors running to me and the Ambu pulling up. I remember coughing violently. I felt like my lungs were full of dust. The medical team loaded me back in the Ambu and raced me back to medical. I kept going in and out of consciousness. I couldn't feel anything, hot, cold or pain. Am I dying, I thought? It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It seemed kinda like a peaceful slipping away.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  As soon as we got to Bud's Medical, Dr. Ryan listened to my lungs. All he could say was, oh my, that's not good. A civilian ambulance was called and I was rushed to Balboa Hospital with sirens and lights blazing. My self-diagnosis turned out to be correct, and I skipped this part, but we mentioned it. You had, you knew as a corpsman that you had some, some swimmer-induced pulmonary edema. You had fluid in your lungs. X-ray showed that my lungs were filled with fluid. I was subsequently diagnosed with SYP pneumonia and another potentially fatal condition, rhabdomylosis. There was no way I could return to Hell Week. Instead, I spent two days in the ICU and three more days in general recovery.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  So that's your first crack at Hell Week. Didn't go good.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't go too well.

• 1:38:08Jocko Willink?

  But you didn't quit. And like I said, Bud's is hard, but it's fair.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fair.

• 1:38:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's why if you meet someone and they kinda like blame.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, there's a, there's a really good chance that they're, they're not being honest with you and they're probably not being honest with themselves as well. My, my friend and former Admiral McGuire used to tell the guys before Hell Week. If you don't make it through, it's because of you.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:38:38Jocko Willink?

  And again, you're a good example of that because here you are, you hyped out.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Jocko Willink?

  They warm you up, they let you restart with the class. Now you freaking pass out. Fast out while running and they don't drop you. You didn't quit.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:55Jocko Willink?

  So they put you back to first day of first phase again.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  What I didn't want to happen, happened anyway.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  And I met Mark Lee.

• 1:39:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there you go.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  Mark Lee was in my boat crew.

• 1:39:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, cuz you had, you had Mikey was in 250.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:15Jocko Willink?

  And then. And then Mark was in two fifty one, right on.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Jocko Willink?

  He was in your boat crew?

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were in the same boat.

• 1:39:21Jocko Willink?

  Was he a freaking character?

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Dude, no, he was so humble. He got on me one time because you know how it is, you get, well, I'm sure you don't because you're a way better man than I could ever be, but you know, I got my chest popped out a little bit more because of the fact that I made it through first phase, the first time, got to hell week.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  And then here I am, this kid from the Bronx. So my head just got big and I remember just walking around and I remember Mark Lee, we were in front of our Barrack six oh two and lined up in our boat crew and I looked over after talking to Master Chief, the Master Chief first phase, won't mention his last name and you know, because he, Master Chief was joking with me about something. And so I had my chest, oh, the instructor's joking with me being buddy buddy. So I walked back over, my chest is out and I look out the corner of my eye and Mark Lee's just looking at me.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  And I look over and I'm like, what are you looking at, man? And he's like, you need to be humble.

• 1:40:18Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, and I remember it bothered me and it wasn't until like we got close to the hell week that I really understood what he was saying. And we became really, really cool. But he checked me because he saw where my head was going. And he, and he said, hey, if you, if you keep this up, he was pretty much saying, if you keep this up, they're gonna kick you out. Don't, don't let their kindness fool you, you know, just because you had a, a run. So. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget him checking me.

• 1:40:47Jocko Willink?

  What about Mikey? Do you remember Mikey?

• 1:40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I will never forget after I got, he made it through hell week and I got back, he came up to me. And he was like, because I think, I can't remember if he had been in Bud's before or something.

• 1:41:03Jocko Willink?

  Both Mark and Mikey had both been to Bud's before. They were with you. They both quit.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Okay. So Mikey came up to me, he's like, put his hand on my shoulder. He's like, dude, I understand, bro, like. It's alright, you get back in and keep your head in the game. And I'll never forget that comfort that he gave me. Cause I was crushed when I came back from the hospital. So all of them with their brown shirts on. And they're like, yeah, Tuesday, you know, the, the, the yell that we do after we get a call out. And he came up to me and comforted me. And I'll never forget that. He said something to me before we went into Hell Week that I remember for a long time. But I can't remember now. It was, it was, he was such a humble dude.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink?

  He was, man.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  He was like a humble, good, good dude, man. You know what I mean? That was the one thing I remember about Mikey. And even when we were boat crew and everything, when we were in like, in surf torture or to run with boats on our heads or whatever the case may be. Workman was in our boat crew as well. You know, he would just always be positive. It was almost like he was the leader of the crew and very selfless, you know? And obviously we know what, what happened, but that's what I remember. But I'll never forget him coming up to me after I got released from the hospital. And that gave me, that conversation that he had with me, gave me that spark to keep going. Cause you know, I never, the idea of quitting never really crossed my mind. But I was down hard, you know, seeing my brothers moving on.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  And, and yeah, so I'll never forget that for sure.

• 1:42:36Jocko Willink?

  Awesome freaking guys, man. So you start up again and won one day.

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Jocko Willink?

  So you done what? Four weeks of training, four weeks of, four weeks of just freaking circus games, bro. And you go all the way back to the beginning. This time, you're, you do good, right?

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  You make it through Hell Week.

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:59Jocko Willink?

  Um, once you make it through Hell Week, these instructors realize that you sucked at swimming.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:07Jocko Willink?

  And you had just barely gotten past every swim. And so they actually, when you get done with Hell Week, and this happens pretty nor, pretty regularly, people get, you get done with Hell Week and you're just done, like you're, you're injured.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Jocko Willink?

  You're basically make, can be any kind of injury, but like you get rolled.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Jocko Willink?

  Happens to a lot of guys after Hell Week. You, so you get rolled, but they actually roll you for two classes.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Classes, I'll never forget when I'm running off the beach. Hell Week just secured Master Chief Hoffman. God rest his soul, Commander Zinke and Captain Smithers. You know, they, uh, they, they, I'm about to run through that gate, you know, from the beach into the compound. And they're like, Adelaide, come here. And Master Chief was like, yo, you ain't moving forward.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  He was like, yo, we think you, we think you're a good dude and you got potential, but we got it. Now we're gonna teach you how to swim. Cause you proved that you wanna be here.

• 1:44:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  So now we're gonna teach you how to swim. And, uh, yeah, man, start, started, uh, went in the rollback land.

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they, they do, like even that right there, you can tell they didn't wanna invest in you before Hell Week, because then you take a bunch of time, put it into a guy and he just quits anyways. You never know who's gonna quit.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  You just never know. Someone might seem like a quote, "good dude",

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Jocko Willink?

  and then steel pier.

• 1:44:29Jocko Willink?

  Steel pier comes around, boy, those things, those good dudes, they, they start having a different opinion about things, about what they wanna do with life.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:44:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, they start having those things happen. So you, you get rolled, even though you learned how to swim, so now you cross back up again.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Jocko Willink?

  You still fail swims, cause the time tightens up.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Time's tight, but it was, it was my pride. I mean, uh, that conversation that, um, uh, Mark Lee had with me, time had passed and I didn't, and he, and another thing about Mark, he was always holding me accountable throughout that whole process of us going through first phase in the Hell Week. Sometimes it was just a look. Adelaide, you're getting, getting a little ahead of yourself, right? And I didn't have that accountability anymore. And when I was in rollback land, I had a lot of time on my hands. And so after we, we would get off at like 12 o'clock, we'd just have to do our swim PT and then I'm out.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Hanging out, going downtown, doing all of these stupid things and then on the weekends, it was party time. And right after I passed my first swim in first phase, it was on. I was just like, I'm making it through BUDs. Cause now I'm going to dive phase. Nobody can't tell me anything. And the instructors would show up on the weekends.

• 1:45:51Jocko Willink?

  To help.

• 1:45:51Speaker 01

  To help. Anybody with anything. This is post hell week. You know, whether you were struggling with swims, even if you were struggling with runs, if you're struggling with, and if, if you anticipate, anticipated that you would be struggling with anything dive related, they would show up on the weekends at like eight o'clock in the morning, a reasonable time, nothing too crazy. Work with guys for a couple of hours and then go, and I, I never showed up. Because I'm too busy partying in the Gaslamp District and chasing girls and doing all the stupidity. Then I'm too hung over to, you know, to show up.

• 1:46:25Jocko Willink?

  Part of the test of BUDs.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:28Jocko Willink?

  Is the weekends.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:29Jocko Willink?

  And it's part of the test. Like people are always surprised like,

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  You don't have every weekend off and you don't, you definitely don't have, definitely don't have every weekend off and you definitely have things to do on the weekend. But if you want to go down to the Gaslamp District and get drunk and, and be stupid.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:44Jocko Willink?

  You can do it.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:46Jocko Willink?

  But it's going to catch up with you.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:48Jocko Willink?

  And, and that is, and not to mention get, just getting in trouble, getting arrested, getting whatever rolled up for whatever thing. So that, they're kind of looking to see how mature you are, if you can handle that.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  So you have the opportunity to train, but you, you passed one swim and you're like, oh, I'm good to go.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  To go.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  You, you even have the book, in the book, and I forget which part it is, but it's like cardinal sin. Like some girl out in the bar asks you what you do and you're like, I'm a, I'm a Navy SEAL. And like as you said, you're like, oh, wait a second. That's like a cardinal sin, dude.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  And I wanted to be honest. You know what I mean? Like, and that was one thing in a book. I wanted to be honest about, you know, cause it's good to show all the glamorous things and all that other stuff, but I wanted to show, I was, I was in a bad place. And it was all my, it was all on me. And I wanted people to see the mistakes that I made and see, hey, I even told foolish lies like that.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  The cardinal sin, bro. Don't say your, don't say it, man. Don't say it. You could say I'm a trainee. You know, there's all kinds of things you could say, but he said it. And thankfully, no one was there to hear it.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:57Jocko Willink?

  Other than this poor girl.

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:58Jocko Willink?

  Who was getting lied to, by the way.

• 1:48:01Jocko Willink?

  So you so you get so now you get back in the class, you're in second phase, which is dive phase.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:06Jocko Willink?

  You failed the first swim.

• 1:48:08Speaker 01

  Failed the first swim, failed the second swim.

• 1:48:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you failed the second swim.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  And then there's an area of training, uh, it's I guess it's called pool week.

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:18Jocko Willink?

  And you're now this is when you're actually learning to dive.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:20Jocko Willink?

  With with uh with twin eighties. Open circuit diving, which is like regular scuba diving. And you have a bunch of protocols and tests to go through with that. And you you actually are passing these tests, but there's another test called the tread.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:38Jocko Willink?

  Tell us about the tread.

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  The tread is five minutes treading water, hands above the water. As soon as your hands touch the water, you fail. Uh, twin eighties on your back, tanks, full dive gear, weight belt on. You're just using your fins. And I'm a dude that already struggled with swims. So you had that. And and you know, for some people, like Ryan Jobe, I know he had no issue with it.

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  No, it's because he can float, dude.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was just. But for me, I'm already negative, no body fat, jumping the water, I go down anyway. With that, it's like I'm drowning. As a matter of fact, when I did um uh drown proofing in first phase and part of part of drown proofing is a float. I didn't float, I had, I was literally kicking the entire time because I'm so negative. So multiply that with with uh the dive tanks and the tread and that was horrific. I mean, for me, it was was like I felt like I was drowning and I failed that four times. And again, here was an evolution that the instructors would show up on a weekend because they knew it was coming. If you want to learn some techniques or you know, some ways to to pass this, show up and we'll help you. And I wasn't there.

• 1:49:52Jocko Willink?

  So you failed the tread. Yeah. Four times. Yeah. Um, you end up at going to a board. Yeah. To see what they're gonna do with you, and I'm gonna take it to the book here. Yeah. Adeleke, come in, Commander O said. I replied, hoo ya, before stepping into the room and standing at attention. Commander O asked, Adeleke, you've been here for a year, haven't you? Hoo ya, sir, I replied. He continued, well, because of your length of time here, I'm sure you understand what's about to happen. Hoo ya, I replied again. Then the command master chief chimed in, Adeleke, listen, you've been rolled three times, once for medical, and the command decided to give you a double roll for swims. Hoo ya, master chief. Looking down at my record, master chief continued, after being double rolled for swims,

• 1:50:35Jocko Willink?

  you failed both your swims in second phase, and one of those failing times didn't even meet the first phase standard. So you got worse. Yeah. You swam eighty-six minutes. After reading through my stats, he looked up at me for a response. Hoo ya, no excuse, master chief, I failed, I said, trying to keep it short. Lieutenant B read me my rights. Because of your triple rolls, your failure to meet the swim standard, and this week's pool week failures, you've shown us that you don't have what it takes to be a SEAL. I, we hereby, performance drop you from BUDS, you must immediately return your training gear in and report to X Division. The command career counselor will talk with your detailer, and you will re-enter the general navy.

• 1:51:17Jocko Willink?

  Hoo ya, sir, I replied respective respectfully. The commander asked, do you have anything to say, Adeleke? Yes, sir, I want to thank you for all the countless opportunities that you have given me to succeed. When I look at what has transpired over the last year, I can't blame anyone but myself. I made sure to scan the entire room as I delivered my parting words. I showed up unprepared, and when I had the opportunity to get remediation on the weekends, I didn't show up. My goal moving forward is to learn from my mistakes and come back ten times better. In retrospect, that was the first time in my adult life I remember taking responsibility for my actions. In the past, my failures were always somebody else's fault. But finally, I took a stand and pointed the finger at my own chest. Master chief concluded, dismissed, Adeleke. Hoo ya, I replied.

• 1:51:59Jocko Willink?

  Then I did an about face and walked out of the conference room, through the quarter deck, and out to the grinder. As I walked across the grinder, I stared down the big, uh, be someone's special sign, and then made my way to the barracks to move out.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Damn. Yeah. It was good and it was necessary, you know, I look back on my life, certain things that happened to me, even with, you know, looking back on my dad and what happened to him and coming to America. I wouldn't be who I am without what happened to my dad. I know it sounds crazy and um, I wouldn't be who I am without having learned that lesson, without having taken responsibility.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  I needed that to happen. I wasn't ready. And I know for unequivocal doubt that if I would have made it through and, you know, went on with, with Mikey and those guys and, and to the teams and all that, I would have been an out of control monster. And going back to Mark, Mark saw that. And that's what Mark was trying to rectify in me, you know, throughout our time in first phase in the hell week, because he saw what I would potentially become if I got to the team. So that moment was necessary, me getting kicked out, but even more so, me getting that lesson.

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Extreme ownership, you take responsibility for your actions. You can't grow. I don't think, there's no way I could have grown without looking in the mirror at that point and saying it's your fault.

• 1:53:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, that's.

• 1:53:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you at that moment, truly think like, I'm going to get better and I'm going to come back?

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  I, I didn't know if I was going to get the opportunity to come back, but I knew that if I did, I would be ready, you know?

• 1:53:51Jocko Willink?

  Because it's not. Now, look, this is, this is like the war's going on. So at this time, at this juncture, there was a better opportunity of coming back than there is like today. Today, if guys don't make it, like, they're not going back.

• 1:54:06Jocko Willink?

  But it's definitely, even here, I mean, you gotta do all kinds of things to get back. You know, you gotta get approval, you gotta spend a couple of years out on the fleet. Like, it is no easy task to get back. This conversation was like a nightmare, even when I read it. I read it, your book, it like, it like, like turned my stomach, you know? Even I can just remember, you know, because you're always facing something.

• 1:54:31Jocko Willink?

  For me, when I was going through BUDs, like, I was, I was never that great at anything. So, on any day, I kinda could fail something. Like, I, I would pass, but, like, if I tripped on a run or something, or I, you know, whatever, dropped the fin on a swim and had to go back and find her, something like that? Or, you know, like, those kinda little things could trip me up.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  So, I was paranoid, you know? I was paranoid. And reading this thing, and, and I looked at it like, man, if you don't make it through this time, I don't know what's gonna be like. I couldn't even imagine going to the fleet and coming back. Like, you took that like a champ, bro. You took that like a champ.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  It was humbling, man.

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  If I wrote this chapter, it'd have been like, so then I was crying, I fell on the floor, and I begged them for mercy, and told them I'd never be a bad person again, and, uh, cause, yeah, man. And, but that being said, you really didn't have a leg to stand on.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 1:55:32Jocko Willink?

  You failed, they gave you two rolls, and you failed two swims, and you failed, you even didn't make the first phase time, and then you failed four treads.

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  And in my engineering mind, you know, my dad's mind, you know, it's always trying to figure out a way to, like, fix the problem or get around it. And my, like, my mind saw this problem, like, there's no computing here. There's no working your way back into this right now. You gotta go away.

• 1:56:00Jocko Willink?

  And I bet whatever they write on your, like, uh, record.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:05Jocko Willink?

  I bet if you went in there like, well, you know, I didn't get this, and I didn't get, they'd probably been like, don't let this guy return.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:10Jocko Willink?

  But, like you said, you took ownership, hey, this is my fault.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:14Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for the opportunities that we, you, I, clearly, you gave me a bunch of opportunities.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  They probably said, hey, you know what? He's got a good attitude. If he wants to come back, let's let him come back.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Case in point, um, uh, Senior Chief Hitchcock gave me a, a recommendation letter right after that. He, when I was walking across the grinder, and I, a lot of this is cut out, cause my publisher was like, uh, he wanted it to be a shorter book, so so much is truncated and cut out, but, when I, uh, right before I got off the grinder, Senior Chief Hitchcock was like, come here, Wicky. Went on, he's like, dude, like, here's, uh, as a matter of fact, I ended up going to SWIC. That's a that that's the all out.

• 1:56:52Jocko Willink?

  That's not even in the book?

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  That's not in the book. So, so, so, so afterwards, he Hitchcock pulled me aside and like two other instructors, like, yo, dude, we want to kind of keep you in the community.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Maybe you should consider going SWIC and then then coming back and going to BUDS.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  So you went to SWIC?

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  I went to SWIC.

• 1:57:12Jocko Willink?

  How'd that go?

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  I was in, I was in training. Well, I got put back in Rob, Brownshire, Robekland. And then I was in training for maybe like a week and I was like, this ain't for me, man. Nothing against it. This is just not for me. And I went back to ARB board and I was like, and and the Proctor, I can't remember his name, bad with names, but he was super cool. And he told the, it was a SEAL, I can't remember that dude's name, but he was a SEAL. He was the ops guy in charge of both classes. And he was like, listen, Remmy wants to be, he wants to be a SEAL. And, you know, we know he can make it through SWIC, but this is not what he wants. And then I went to First Marine.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was, and then Hitchcock gave me the, wrote me the letter.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  And said, hey, come back. We recommend that you come back in a year.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  So now you go to First Battalion, Fourth Marines.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:58:15Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're a medic.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:16Jocko Willink?

  A corpsman.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  Doc.

• 1:58:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, you go on deployment.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:21Jocko Willink?

  On the USS Palau.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah. Um, you do a pay comm deployment.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:26Jocko Willink?

  Sailing around.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Went to Kuwait.

• 1:58:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, then you went to Kuwait?

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We, we, we were, well, we were just gonna do the pay comm thing. And then the S report came in, hey, the, our sister battalion was getting, taking heavy losses. And so they needed us to come in and reinforce the, the, the command battalion, whatever it was. So the Palau pulled into Kuwait, we were offloaded, moved to the Iraqi border.

• 1:58:55Jocko Willink?

  So this, what year was that deployment?

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  This was two thousand and five, two thousand and five.

• 1:59:00Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  And, um. You know, we sat there every day. They like, hey, you guys are gonna go in. You gotta go in. And then finally, like after three months, they said, hey, we're just gonna, I guess I got another battalion, whatever. So then we just loaded back on the Pelican, sailed back to California.

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  So no Iraq for you on that deployment?

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  Um, and again, there's all kinds of good information in here, but you, you, you have some bad luck in your life. You also have some good luck in your life because it turns out that a guy named HM1 Roscoe, Roscoe, is that Roscoe?

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  Roscoe, yeah.

• 1:59:32Jocko Willink?

  He's one of your buddies?

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:34Jocko Willink?

  And he gets assigned?

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  He was my LPO.

• 1:59:36Jocko Willink?

  He was your LPO, your leading petty officer, and he gets assigned at the, at the Division HQ to sort of control where all the corpsmen are gonna go.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  And he knows you want to go back to BUDS?

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  And so instead of spending over two years in the fleet?

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:53Jocko Willink?

  You spend what, like a year in the fleet?

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  A year, like a year and change, couple of months, yeah.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  And he gets you orders back to BUDS?

• 1:59:59Speaker 01

  Gets me back to BUDS, yeah.

• 2:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Um, you go back to BUDS again. This, this stuff is all, you give, you give a lot of good stories, some funny stuff. You end up now, you're in Class 266.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  How's your attitude coming back this time?

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Squared away. Kept, yeah, I was, I was.

• 2:00:17Jocko Willink?

  You ain't playing no more.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  Nah, I already, I already got my, I already got my PP slap, bro. It's like, I ain't gonna have it happen again. I was AJ squared away, quiet, helpful team. I was a team, team player.

• 2:00:30Jocko Willink?

  Is it weird going to BUDS when you have a pretty clear idea of like what's gonna happen?

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  It's easier because you know everything that's gonna happen. So when the instructor's like, we're gonna keep you in the water for another 30 minutes and guys start quitting, just like, we ain't keeping this. Like, hell week is gonna go until Saturday, you know, because it ends on Friday. Yeah, it ends on Friday. It's like, I ain't going until Saturday. You know what I mean? So you, in my mind, I already kind of knew when things were gonna end, even evolutions, like beat down sessions. I kind of like, in my mind, knew when it was gonna happen.

• 2:01:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I, I, uh, I knew nothing about BUDS.

• 2:01:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:08Jocko Willink?

  I like knew nothing.

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:10Jocko Willink?

  And I.

• 2:01:12Jocko Willink?

  We didn't know, I didn't know what pool comp was.

• 2:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:14Jocko Willink?

  Like I showed up and there was a poster, they had a Texas chainsaw massacre poster.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Jocko Willink?

  But they had changed it with like a Sharpie marker.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:22Jocko Willink?

  To put like a student down there that was getting massacred. And it said Texas pool, no Bud's pool comp massacre. And a guy was like drowning and dying. I was like, what, I was like, what is this? That was my, that was my first memory of Bud's. I walked by medical and I saw, I was like, what is that? What is the, what are they doing? So I didn't know anything. So for me, it was always just like, I thought in the 30 second timeframe. You know, like what am I doing right now is all I'm caring about. It, it seems like knowing could go two ways.

• 2:01:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, like if you know, like, oh gosh, I gotta do all this again. Cause I think some people quit because of that.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:00Jocko Willink?

  Like when you got rolled back, sometimes people hear that one, one day rollback and they go, I'm not doing this again. So now you going through and you know what's gonna happen, but you kind of look, it kind of fell for a positive way for you.

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew it was gonna suck, but I knew I was prepared this time. Cause I, you know, the, the very next day after I left SWIC, I was in the pool. You know, working on my swims. I was, I, I, I created this exercise to strengthen my hip flexors and, and my quads and, and just all the muscles that needed to be strengthened for the tread. And I was, I was good to go. I was AJ, I was locked in and I didn't fail any swims in first phase.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  Hell week, good to go.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Hell week, good to go.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Kind of fun? Was it kind of fun?

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  I mean, it sucked. But I mean, it was, it was, it wasn't like, yeah, it was, yeah, it was fun. I mean, um, in the sense that, uh, I was able to enjoy it. Cause I wasn't so stressed out about, can I make it?

• 2:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Did you try, did you try and put on weight? Do you try and fatten up at all?

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  And for Hell Week?

• 2:03:02Jocko Willink?

  Just in general, just like going back to Bud's.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  I, no, I, I don't want to say it, dude. I want to say, cause I, no matter what I, what I do, even now, since I can't put on body fat. Like I, like I, I tried, like, I can't eat a bunch of cheeseburgers, Popeyes, all that stuff.

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  He's got bad genetics.

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  I just got bad.

• 2:03:17Jocko Willink?

  Terrible genetics.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  That's that Eurogenetic.

• 2:03:20Jocko Willink?

  You just can't be fat, dude. What's wrong with you?

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um.

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  So it's all going good. Um. Until you get to your nemesis, the treads.

• 2:03:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:31Jocko Willink?

  The treads come again.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:34Jocko Willink?

  And you you fail them. You failed two of them. I'm gonna go back to the book.

• 2:03:38Speaker 01

  Technically.

• 2:03:39Jocko Willink?

  Technically failed them.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  I failed them, but I passed the I passed the tread part of it.

• 2:03:44Jocko Willink?

  You passed the tread part where you didn't pass the swim, but your thing popped off, your tank popped off or something like that?

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  For the first.

• 2:03:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what?

• 2:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I thought you were about to read it. Yeah.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  You failed the first one cuz.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  I after after they called time for the five minute tread, I went swimming down and then on my uh and the strap was got loose and wrapped around my neck. But they I was still technically in it and then I hit the wall and when I came back, I was swimming and strap was now around my neck and then I it fell off like right before I was about to touch the wall. So instructor is called fail.

• 2:04:18Jocko Willink?

  So they say fail.

• 2:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Then what about the second one?

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  Second one, did the five minute tread, swim down on a on my back, on a on a on a swim back on the back. I have a shallow water blackout right after I passed the second dive, right after I passed the second dive tower. So it was that first small one and then not the yeah, the dive platform, second uh dive platform. And so and then one day they all I didn't know what happened, but when they pulled me out of the water and got me on revived me. They said that uh again, it's like somebody pulled the switch and then and then instructor looks at me fail. It's like dude, I thought I was like. And then the third time.

• 2:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, so you failed the two.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:00Jocko Willink?

  And then and then I'm gonna go to the book here. It says, at the end of the day, all the students who failed the tread were ordered to Bud's quarter deck conference room for a board. The last time I was in that room, I was performance dropped and sent back to Camp Pendleton. I knew there was that wasn't gonna happen today, but still I didn't want to be anywhere near that place. The second phase, oh, I see, opened up the board. So you're all here because you failed to meet the minimum standard for the tread twice. This board is more of a warning than a final decision. If you fail the next two treads, you will stand before us and dress uniform and we will determine whether you will be performance dropped or performance rolled. My advice to you, don't leave your fate in our hands. Go out there tomorrow and make the decision to continue with the rest of your class. Then senior chief went down the row of students asking each. One of us if we attended the if we had had attended the optional weekend training. When he got to me, I said, hoo ya.

• 2:05:43Jocko Willink?

  That's right. This time my weekends weren't for partying for just just for rest and any optional training offered. I had my I had learned my lesson. After all, the instructors said their piece. All the students were dismissed except me. Senior chief said, Adelaide K. You've had some bad luck, haven't you? Hoo ya, I replied. Listen, dude, we know you can do this. You pretty much passed twice. Okay? But pretty much is not the standard here. And we can't let you go on until you meet the standard. So just go out there tomorrow and get it over with. So we continue with training. Okay? Hoo ya. I replied. Dismissed. The next day I passed the buddy gear exchange with ease afterward. I went straight to passing area, sat down, faced the fence and focused on meditating and breathing. I'd been so confident before the last two treads that I didn't do my spiritual teacher.

• 2:06:26Jocko Willink?

  I didn't do anything. My spiritual teachers had taught me, and you've got a bunch of stuff about how you were learning about meditation and stuff. I whispered to myself, calm, Remy, in and out, in and out. I cleared all the negativity and noise out of my mind. I searched for peace within. I'm sorry, I'm laughing. I'm just trying to picture like how freaking like how focused you had to be. You're like looking for peace within before the tread. I found it, stood up, had my dive buddy help me dawn my tanks and waited for the evolution to start. Prepare to enter the water, senior chief commanded. You are you are one with the water.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  You are you are one with each inhale and each exhale. Peace among the chaos, I declare. I was in the zone, stone cold focus, jaw clenched and body still. Enter the water. Soon as I hit the water, I popped back to the top. I decided to keep my eyes closed this time to center my senses within. Everything had been I'd been taught was working. The five minute tread felt like two minutes time. Start your swim on your stomach. Upon the command, I opened my eyes and turned around with my hands still in the air. Once I saw the target, I slowly dipped my hands in the water and began to swim. Even though I was past the hardest part of the test, I didn't let go of my meditative state. I breathed in cadence with my mantra, peace, peace, peace.

• 2:07:38Jocko Willink?

  I made it to the wall, spun around, kicked off and started my flutter kick on my back as I stared at the sky. Couldn't help but think of my pool sprint workouts. I did those workouts when I. Cold when it was raining, when the pool area was packed, when it was empty. I did it when I didn't want to do it and I did it after the long drives up from back up from Camp Pendleton. I was staring at the same sky I had stared out on so many days and nights. It was full circle event for the first time since starting BUDS. I finally felt gratitude to the universe. For all that I had to go through to get to this point. Thank you for making me do this tread three times. Now I understand why. I wouldn't have appreciated my journey if I had passed the first time. Thank you. When I touched the starting wall, I peacefully climbed out of the pool. As I felt nothing, as if nothing had happened. The calm that I had derived from my meditation was still lingering. Senior chief yelled.

• 2:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Adelaide K. Pass. It's about damn time now drop down for taking so long to pass the tread. Hoo ya with tanks on my back, I dropped to do push up. To do push ups this time as I stared at the ground with water dripping from my body. I knew it was over. I knew that despite having six more weeks of dive trading and eight more weeks of third phase. Land navigation, weapons demolition and tactics, nothing was going to stop me. I was going to gra- graduate.

• 2:08:49Jocko Willink?

  So you made it through that through freaking peaceful meditation and stuff. Hell.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  It works, man. I felt it even reading that. I was like, oh, I can't.

• 2:09:00Jocko Willink?

  What's funny though is like when I was reading it, I was kind of like, oh yeah, it's cool. But then when I, when I actually started reading it out loud, I was like, this is kind of funny, kind of funny. Especially if you're an instructor and you, and you knew that was going on. They were like, they would have like.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  I'd have got tore apart.

• 2:09:15Jocko Willink?

  They would have freaking got on your ass, dude, for sure.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  You make it through, man. You get rolled in two sixty seven for land. What'd you do?

• 2:09:25Speaker 01

  Dude, I failed. It was stupid. It was like a demo test, man. Like I, I ju- I just screwed up the procedure. You know, I failed the demo test. I, I can't remember. I mean, this is like years ago. So, but it was like something with the demo.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Some kind of demo procedure.

• 2:09:40Speaker 01

  Some demo procedure.

• 2:09:41Jocko Willink?

  Ground yourself or something like this. Boom. They, they roll you.

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Dude, it ain't over, man. I know. It ain't over till, that's why even like, I never had the feeling in any of Bud's that I was gonna graduate until like, I graduated and even then I was a little worried. You know, I was like, wait a second, I could make it through this.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  By the way, this book, I'm just reading like some parts of this book, but you got like a whole up-down relationship going on with this girl, Cecilia.

• 2:10:16Jocko Willink?

  While you were, you know, you're kinda going out with her, you're also kinda like still like a young player out getting after it.

• 2:10:26Jocko Willink?

  You end up, kinda you're in this like weird relationship with her where it's like I said, it's on and off again. She seems like, even the way it started, like she had a different boyfriend, you guys kinda got together, but then she went back with this other guy and you were kinda like, whatever, but then you guys get back. There's a whole, there's a whole freaking, you know, romance story there going on and that's all covered. You're, but now you get, you graduate Bud's, now you're in SQT, SEAL qualification training, and you're up doing land navigation in Alaska. And you start to like, you have a little epiphany, a little life, one of your life epiphanies here. You say, "As I walked through the wilderness, it was hard not to stop and admire the beauty. The snow hadn't started to fall yet, so everything was bright green.

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  Trees were, trees were massive, some shot up 200 feet in the sky. Being from the Bronx, I'd never seen a place like this and never in a million years that I ever think I would end up in a place like this. Remy, I said to myself, as I stood in awe at my first steak, that's what you're looking for, a land nav steak. You've come a long way. Wow, this is so beautiful, I wish Cecilia could see this. As I continued to walk, I noticed that one of the most serene aspects of the Kodiak forest was the silence. There were times when I would hear an occasional chirping from a bird or rustling in the trees when the wind blew, but for the most part it was quiet, I was truly alone. Something miraculous began to happen while I continued through the wilderness. In the silence and the beauty, I began to reflect on my life, who I was and how I treated people. It was as though someone or something was holding up a mirror and showing me what I had become.

• 2:11:52Jocko Willink?

  And the more I walked and reflected, the more I didn't like what I saw. I saw a kid who stole an engagement ring from his mom and never confessed to her. I saw a person who treated his own brother like he was worthless. I saw a person who had integrity when it was convenient for him, but didn't when it wasn't. I saw a prideful person whose favorite song had become, "You Can't Tell Me Nothing." I saw a man who treated women like meat. And what hurt me the most was I saw a man who treated a woman who truly loved him with constant contempt. As the memories replayed in my mind, I began to be depressed. And then my depression led to anger. My anger led to questions. You did that. How could you do that to a person? What were you thinking? What's wrong with you? It was as though I'd been outside my body on vacation for 26 years.

• 2:12:37Jocko Willink?

  And when I came back and home and saw the mess I'd made, I was in shock. At that time of year in Kodiak, daylight was from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. So when I got to the last stake at 8:00 p.m., it was still bright. In the brightness of the night, I made a vow. That's it. I'm going to fix me. I'm not going to be the same person I was anymore. I'm going to meditate more. I'm going to spend more time with my spiritual group. I'm going to buy a ring and propose to Cecilia. And I'm going to be the man that to her that I need to be. No more of this garbage. No more, no more.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  Interestingly, while you're having that epiphany. Yeah. She's having an epiphany as well. Yeah. And um, the epiphany that she's having is that she shouldn't be with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And of course, you can't really communicate. Um. And. It, it just doesn't work out. Yeah. Um.

• 2:13:36Jocko Willink?

  Then you get to. You get to a point where you, you, you, you have a, uh, the ultimate, you call a chapter called the ultimate transformation. Yeah. And this is like a spiritual awakening for you. Uh, in church. Yeah. And you know, you, you, you basically.

• 2:13:54Jocko Willink?

  Uh, are, you encounter God for the first time. Yeah. And um, you go through that in the book and, and it leaves you with this.

• 2:14:04Jocko Willink?

  In a new, in a new light, right? Yeah. You say, day after day, I would experience, experience miraculous events. I began to feel God's presence. I began to encounter Him in a tangible way. And I had so many dramatic encounters with God that all I wanted to do day in and day out was be with Him and do for Him and forsake the life I used to live so I could live this new life with Him.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  Dramatic.

• 2:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Yeah. I went from sleeping around and not having sex at all.

• 2:14:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you you you you became abstinent.

• 2:14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, which is that's a miracle in a way, especially the way I was whoring. It was like, you know, I had an encounter that

• 2:14:46Speaker 01

  no one could fix me but God.

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  And I had a lot of traumas from what happened in Bronx, my childhood, and traumas that I created for myself, scars. And I I searched for other things to bring me to healing that I needed. Meditation, that helped to a certain extent. Women, relationships, affirmation from other people. But it was almost, it was just like putting a Band-Aid on a gushing wound, you know? And then it was finally when my brother would tell me all the time, because my brother became a Christian, like, when he was in college. And I used to make fun of him before, because I would fluctuate between atheism and agnosticism, depending on the day of week, day of the week.

• 2:15:33Speaker 01

  And I, and my brother would always tell me, Remy, when you hit rock bottom, not if, but when you hit rock bottom, just remember to cry out to Jesus. And I just remember mocking him for that. But when I was in that very, very dark point in my life in Alaska and then even coming back,

• 2:15:52Speaker 01

  and nothing worked, and I just, I just kept on hearing these voices. I just, I was just in such a very dark, dark place. And I said, all right, Jesus, help me. If you're real, help me. Turn this around. Help me. And I'm not saying turn my situation around, but turn around what's going on in here. Because what's going on in here is really tormenting me. And that's when it, that's when I felt for the first time peace. I felt like God was saying to me, the Father that you had always been searching for has been right here with you. And I am here with you. And

• 2:16:31Speaker 01

  Everything changed from there. You know, me and my wife were talking a couple nights ago before I left for New York and she was sharing a story that one of our neighbors was sharing. It's a park by where we live and the neighbor was telling her that her, uh, her daughter was getting picked up, picked on by another kid in the park. And the parent of the other kid wasn't saying anything. The parent was just allowing this kid to just, not just pick on her kid, but pick on other kids as well. And finally, the mother said something to the kid who was picking on her kid. And the actual mother, who had not been doing anything, ran over and screamed at the woman and said, "How dare you ever correct my, my, my child."

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  And as soon as my wife shared that story, I was reminded of the same exact situation that happened in the same park years ago with my oldest son. He's, he's nine now, but he was five at the time. And, um, this kid was just picking on a bunch of kids. He was just like, he was, he was a bigger kid, but he was like pushing kids and making fun of kids and just doing things. And he saw my son and, uh, he like tapped one of his friends like, "He's next. This kid's next." And he beelined towards my son and I was sitting on the bench watching and I just stood up and all I said was, "Hey, that's my son." And in the instant, that kid stopped, looked at me and went in the other direction.

• 2:17:59Speaker 01

  And just the power of having a father say, "Hey, that's my son." Meaning I'm his protection. I'm his source. I'm, I'm the person that he can cry on if something happens. That was what I felt when I had that transformation, when I, when I, when I cried out to God and said, "Help me." And it was as though he said, "You're my son and I've always been here and I'm gonna always be here now and cover you." And that is something that can't really be explained in words. It was real heavy. And even to this day, like it's heavy. Even now, when I go through stuff and, uh, struggling mentally.

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  Um, I, I, I always like, I have that source to go to. And that gives me peace and it gives me hope, you know, um, especially with all of the stuff that I still deal with. Um, in my head, you know, and, uh, um, with my family and the battles in the business that I work in, in the film and TV industry. And even stuff, you know, working on a human, volunteering on the human trafficking side of things and just horror stories that I hear. Um, and feeling hopeless and then also even the, the division in our country. You know what I mean? It's, it's like sickening to me at times because, you know, I came here with nothing, absolutely nothing.

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  And put in the work and was able to rise to where I am at today. And that's only possible because of the freedoms that America has allowed allotted to me. Um, and so to see how divisive we are as a nation, and I know, and I understand that part of it is. There's outside forces that understand the, the concept of divide and conquer. And the plan is to conquer our nation and they, and the way to do it is from within. Um, but to see how so many people are just falling into that trap just, just crushes me at times and it messes with me. So, but I say all this to say, I always can go back to the source. And say, God, I know you got me. You've brought me through worse. I know you'll bring me through this.

• 2:20:11Speaker 01

  And I know that you'll bring my kids through whatever's going to come their way. So that's why, um, that whole, that whole story even now to this day touches me and it's a good reminder for me. Um, a refresher for me as well.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it really, I mean, the name of the book is transformed and, and that is the transformation ultimately that has the biggest impact on you. And, and the way you're gonna live your life.

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:40Jocko Willink?

  You end up getting through SEAL qualification training. For those of you that don't know, Echo Charles, human, human intelligence. So you know, there's obviously different ways to gather intelligence. You can study maps to gather intelligence. You can study data to gather intelligence. You can intercept the radio communications to gather intelligence. You can get intelligence from humans, from sources in the world. It's called human, human intelligence. And there's a whole, there's a whole craft to it, right? Not only how to meet the right people, how to communicate with the right people, how to communicate the information, how to vet the information. There's a whole, uh, yeah, a whole, a whole methodology to it.

• 2:21:23Jocko Willink?

  And, and a lot of things that you need to learn to get into that world. It's becomes your, kind of can become your specialty.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, eventually ended up going to, I don't know if I can say the actual name of the school. And I'm in this class, it's like all the stuff that I'd learned in the streets. It's like, I was like now, it's just they're putting the terms behind it. You know, because I mentioned earlier, like I had to learn how to read people, especially when I'm hustling and doing certain things. And it really set me up nicely for when I got into the course and then went back on it. The point was actually deep into the human stuff and running sources and having to keep track and having to be a different person, learn the personality of a source and then be a specific person to that source to collect the information so that we can then run it up the chain of command, get it vetted against other intelligence and then hopefully go out the door and do stuff.

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  So, um, it was, it was a cool world to be a part of, that's for sure.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  What do you remember about checking into Team Three?

• 2:22:21Speaker 01

  It was, it was empty.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:22:23Speaker 01

  Cause there was nobody really there. Yeah, yeah, it was empty and nobody was really there. But it was, it was, it was, uh, seeing the pictures of the battles on the walls and stuff. It's in like your guys and you know, you know, Task Force Bruiser and just all of those pictures. And it was just like, wow. You know, it was like, holy crap, this is really happening, man. And then even like, even the, you know, I didn't have, I can't recall if I had my, uh... Fob, not fob, but key card.

• 2:22:55Jocko Willink?

  Key card to get in.

• 2:22:56Speaker 01

  So somebody had to do, but even that was like.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  You thought you were James Bond?

• 2:23:01Speaker 01

  It was, it was like cool of me, man. You know what I mean? And then, you know, going down to see the armory and I'm, again, I'm a kid from the Bronx that wasn't supposed to be here. You know, and so all of that stuff was eye opening. And even just being on the, just being on the, that side of the compound because we were always. I mean, we had to run through the park a lot to get to the old course. But for the most part, we were always separated from, from that. So to be able to be, actually be there and see and, and see the Mark Lee Trade At Center and all of that was like. It was, it was, it was surreal for sure.

• 2:23:38Jocko Willink?

  Going the other direction when I retired, so I had my key card. And so I, I had my key card and I was the Admiral's aide for a while. And so when I had the, when I was working for the Admiral, I had access to like every building in NSW.

• 2:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  And so, and when I left being the Admiral's aide, I just kept that card and they never changed anything. So I like just could go anywhere and NSW just get into anything. And yeah, and then the, that last day, I remember I cleaned out my, my cage. And I turned in that card and I was like, yo, it's over.

• 2:24:10Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking over.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like the cop movies turning in your badge.

• 2:24:16Jocko Willink?

  You got some good word in here from, uh, your chief.

• 2:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:20Jocko Willink?

  And again, you know, things when you write a book, they start editing stuff and adding stuff and switching stuff around. But this is, I think this is worth, it's, it's, uh, Hudeka.

• 2:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, Hootie.

• 2:24:29Jocko Willink?

  Hootie. And he says, uh, so he's kind of giving you a tour. You said, I could hear chief's word echo up the long stair, stairwell. This is as he's giving you a, a tour. He says, "If you're not early, you're late. Be at every platoon muster five minutes early." He was talking to me as if I was already part of his platoon. "Always check, check and recheck your gear. If we're out on an op or training and you run out of anything, I don't care what it is, batteries or whatever it is you needed, that's on you. Check that shit multiple times before you go out the door." Roger that, chief. Hootie continued. "Don't take anything personal and if you fuck up, own it. This is the big boy club, no excuses." We exited the stairwell and made our way down to the platoon space hallway. We got to the Delta platoon space door. I noticed the legendary Punisher skull. Emblem on the door. It was the emblem worn emblem worn by SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Two.

• 2:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Task Unit Bruiser, which was made up of two platoons Charlie and Delta. Many legends were wore the skull patch, some of whom I was in buds with two fifty and two fifty-one. Ryan Jobe, Michael Monsour, Mark Lee.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  One last thing, you're a new guy, so you know what that means? I replied quickly, I'm the first to volunteer for everything. You got it, Chief replied. Who'd he open the door to the platoon space, sitting right in the middle of the platoon space was Chris Kyle.

• 2:25:41Jocko Willink?

  That moment really made me appreciate how far I'd come. It made me appreciate the caliber of people I had earned the right to work alongside. Who's the new guy, Chris asked. Who'd he answered, SO2 Adeleke, he's from the Bronx.

• 2:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, that was.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Was your first platoon with Chris?

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And here's a, I didn't know who he, I didn't know anything about him.

• 2:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, no, why would you, he was another team guy.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  I didn't know anything about him until later when people like sniper and done all of this and done that. And I was like, oh crap, like dude. And again, it's surreal because like I said, for me, I wasn't supposed to.

• 2:26:26Speaker 01

  You know, it's a world that I I never envisioned being in and that not many people who come from inner city Bronx end up in, you know, or Compton or other places. So, um, that was, that was, that was eye opening.

• 2:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, maybe if they'd let you go back and talk to your old school in the Bronx, you could get some people on the track and on the path.

• 2:26:48Speaker 01

  Dude, and that's the craziest thing. I get opportunities to speak at like suburban schools all the time. No red tape, no nothing, inner city schools. All the red tape in the world. Um, even when I, when we've done stuff at an inner city school here in San Diego, all the red tape we had to cut through just to get inside. It's, it's, I think it's saddening. I think it's a part of it is, you know, they want to keep. Again, this is my theory. I could be a hundred percent wrong, but like in these inner cities, they want to keep the cycle going. Mm hmm. Because then that'll keep people as victims and keep them making wrong decisions and keep those people in power who are, you know, in power. And, and so that's my only explanation

• 2:27:30Speaker 01

  for why you want to allow a person who was quote unquote, a criminal, but was able to rise out of the situation that, that he was in. Come back and tell these, look these kids in the eye who I can identify with and they can ident- I've gone to prisons and spoken in prisons. Mm hmm. And you'd be surprised at the guys that come up to me and be like, I wish you came and spoke to me when I was, when I was this age. Mm hmm. Crying, guys in tears, crying. You know what I mean? I get guys who've read my book in prison and, and you know, and I hear, you know, they don't write me, but I hear from, you know, the counselors, man, he was mu- I never saw, I've never seen such and such inmate cry or show emotion. He's a hard dude. He's in for murder, in for life, never getting

• 2:28:14Speaker 01

  out. And you read your book, came to me in tears.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, we were talking earlier about like little decisions and you made some good, you know, you made, you made some jacked up decisions, but you made a couple of key decisions that totally changed your life.

• 2:28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:29Jocko Willink?

  And you're already talking about, you know, the guy I used to run with is in prison right now, right?

• 2:28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ron.

• 2:28:33Jocko Willink?

  So it's just as easy that you could have gone that direction.

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:36Jocko Willink?

  And you make one little adjustment, one little change, one little maneuver, that's, that's the right, in the right direction, your whole life is, is changed.

• 2:28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:46Jocko Willink?

  And look, Michael Bay made a movie about the freaking SEALs.

• 2:28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:28:51Jocko Willink?

  You know, and made Bad Boys.

• 2:28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:54Jocko Willink?

  He made like, coincidentally, a movie with some guys you could relate to.

• 2:28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  And some guys that you thought that would be cool to be.

• 2:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:00Jocko Willink?

  And that changed the trajectory of your life.

• 2:29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  So for them not to let someone like you.

• 2:29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:05Jocko Willink?

  Into a school.

• 2:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:06Jocko Willink?

  And be like, yo, this is the deal. This is, you guys can keep making these bad decisions or you can get out of this.

• 2:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:12Jocko Willink?

  Where you're at. There's a, you know, people think there's no way out. There's ways out.

• 2:29:15Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 2:29:16Jocko Willink?

  There's ways out. You're living proof of that.

• 2:29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, living proof of that, that you can get out of those situations. Um, but if you don't get any guidance, I mean, if you didn't see that Michael Bay movie.

• 2:29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:25Jocko Willink?

  If you didn't see, uh, Bad Boys.

• 2:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:28Jocko Willink?

  You just wouldn't have, you know, you, you, you said it. That's what put on the radar.

• 2:29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:33Jocko Willink?

  That you don't have to be a drug dealer.

• 2:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:34Jocko Willink?

  You don't have to be a criminal. You could take a, a, a better path.

• 2:29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:38Jocko Willink?

  And it was just that movie that showed you that.

• 2:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was that exposure. And that's, you know, like my, my brother's another good example. He ended up not going down the path I did. Because he was exposed to engineering. You know, my dad was an engineer. And so they, I forgot what age he was at, but he, how old he was, but he came across my dad's blueprints and all my dad's engineering stuff. And that one instant of exposure in his mind, he's like, I'm gonna be engineer. And then they're graduating high school for three years. In three years, Kennedy High School, which is, was a hard, worse than Clinton at the time from a, from a safety standpoint. Graduated from there in three years, got a full ride academic scholarship to Syracuse University, graduated from there in three years.

• 2:30:21Speaker 01

  Got his masters in computer science engineering from Syracuse University in one year. And then like.

• 2:30:26Jocko Willink?

  Maybe we should have him on a podcast, bro.

• 2:30:29Speaker 01

  He works for the DOE now. I mean, he worked for Saudi Ramco for a number of years. Yeah, he's, he'd be a great one to have on here. Cause that dude, he's a genius. And he knows a lot about what's going on with the water drying up in the, in the country and Colorado and west. But I say all that to say, you know, he was exposed. It was that one moment of exposure that changed the trajectory of his life. And that's what a lot of these kids need. They, you know, especially, especially these kids without fathers. They're so, they easily influenced. And if you can have somebody come in and influence them in a positive way, somebody who they can identify with. And it doesn't have to be a long drawn out speech. It could just be one moment. It's somebody saying, dude, look at where you are. Look at where I'm at. You can be there. That's enough for a lot of these kids.

• 2:31:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they start saying, ugh, is this where I want to be? Is this where is this decision gonna lead me?

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:22Jocko Willink?

  Going back to your story here. So you're now at the team.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:26Jocko Willink?

  You get into a platoon.

• 2:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:27Jocko Willink?

  You, did you go to humid school right out of the gate?

• 2:31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:30Jocko Willink?

  Like as a new guy?

• 2:31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, well, I went, I went to, I went after, not during Pro Dev, after ULT.

• 2:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it, got it. So you do your, you do ULT?

• 2:31:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, with you, man.

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:43Speaker 01

  I never forget, man. Land warfare, bro. You killed half the platoon. Keep going. I'll never forget. You came in and you were giving it to the task. And I was like, that's, that dude's a beast. Talked to everybody the same. No rank, brother. It was awesome, man.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  I always joke, like, everybody in the teams from a brand new guy to the Admiral, all called me Jocko.

• 2:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the way it is. Yeah. So you, did you have any challenges? Uh, was anything hard for you? Cause you, you'd already been through with the Marine Corps. Like this stuff was pretty

• 2:32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  second nature for you at this point.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it was, I, I, land warfare, I mean, Marines do, I mean, they do those type of tactics all the time. So I got out there and didn't have any problem.

• 2:32:24Jocko Willink?

  What was your job? And were you a gunner, a machine gunner?

• 2:32:26Speaker 01

  Nah, I was a corpsman.

• 2:32:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no kidding?

• 2:32:29Speaker 01

  So I was a corpsman. So I did the corpsman thing, actually before we went to ULT, um, I went to SOF OEMS.

• 2:32:35Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  And did that course. And then I was the corpsman. And then, uh, and then I went to humid after, I don't know if you can say the name of the school, but we'll just say humid for the sake of

• 2:32:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:45Speaker 01

  confidentiality, but I went there after ULT. So went through CQC, love CQC.

• 2:32:49Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, no issue at all. Aaron Vaughn.

• 2:32:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:53Speaker 01

  Never forget, we were, uh, doing, uh, we doing our FTX.

• 2:32:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 2:32:58Speaker 01

  And, uh, there was somebody on the other side of the room was that we cleared all the rooms. And in the last room, there was somebody like on the other one, like it was like with these paint, I don't know what it was. These guns that had like paintballs that were painful, dude.

• 2:33:12Jocko Willink?

  Legit paintballs.

• 2:33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Probably just out of the freezer, by the way.

• 2:33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:15Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes old, sometimes my old trade, trade at homies, they'd be freezing some, freezing some paintballs.

• 2:33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:21Jocko Willink?

  Get those things, maybe they'd freeze them, but they definitely could keep them in the fridge.

• 2:33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:25Jocko Willink?

  Just the fridge is the next level, right?

• 2:33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, that was painful. And I remember we got to the last part and, and it was, they were, we opened up the door. And this, it was like a machine, I don't know what type of gun it had, but it was like a bunch of bullets coming down. And we all got back behind the corner, I was appointment. And it was another guy on the other side of the door, on the other side of the hallway. And Aaron Vaughn's yelling, "Somebody get in there, what are you doing? Say, what are you gonna do? You're not gonna do anything, what are you gonna do?" And finally, I took one of the, uh, the blue grenade things. And I tossed it in there and waited like a second and blew up that, ran it and got a train came behind me, blah, blah, blah. And then Aaron Vaughn was like, "That's what the fuck I'm talking about? That's what I'm supposed to do? Go in there and get after it." And so, I enjoyed it, man, and, uh, I'll never forget that.

• 2:34:11Speaker 01

  Again, it's these moments that always come to my mind, especially with guys who pass away like Aaron Vaughn, what happened on Extortion Seventeen. But, you know, Mark Lee, Mikey Montsour, it's just those moments of encouragement that always kinda gave me that push to keep going and gave me the confidence to keep doing the job. And so, um, so yeah, I, uh, yeah, I didn't have a problem there, did diving, did skydiving, did it all. Easy day, and then, um, um, yeah, went to, went to human school and, uh, got, you know, got in and got through that. It was kicking the nuts from the writing side of it, because it was a lot of writing, um, and then pumped out.

• 2:34:52Jocko Willink?

  And then it's deployment time, I'm gonna go to the book here.

• 2:34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Back to Fallujah.

• 2:34:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, where you guys are Fallujah.

• 2:34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah, back to Fallujah, yeah.

• 2:35:01Jocko Willink?

  After two minutes of holding on the door, the team lined up behind me and I felt a squeeze on my shoulder. I slowly moved up two steps, or I slowly moved up the steps. When I got to the entrance of the roof, I saw the door cracked open. I took my left hand off my M4 and pushed the door just enough for my team and me to make entry. When the door didn't squeak, I moved on to the roof. I immediately saw two bodies forty feet from my position. The roof entrance was at the center of the north end of the roof. The men were sleeping at the south end of the roof. They were lying about ten feet, about ten feet apart from one another. There was an AK-47 to the right of the guy on the right, which led me to believe he may have been Yaseen's bodyguard. I kept the scope of my M4 pointed at the bodyguard's head while the team entered. Around me with their guns trained on the body to the left.

• 2:35:47Jocko Willink?

  Three seals led by Seelod, is that my center?

• 2:35:49Speaker 01

  Seelod, yeah.

• 2:35:50Jocko Willink?

  Seelod. Seelod moved diagonally south toward the east wall. We set up a half cross ambush with sleepers at the center point of the cross. Upon initiation, Seelod's element would move west to the center point while Eli and I moved to the south of the same point. Eli lined up behind me and Hootie stayed at the door to monitor the takedown. After Eli gave me the squeeze, everybody moved swiftly as one. We met at the center point at the exact same time. Without stopping, I kicked the AK away from the bodyguard, then bent down and grabbed his ankle. Seelod's element was already on top of the second sleeper. I dragged the bodyguard like a rag doll to the south wall away from him while Eli followed me with his gun pointed at the man's head.

• 2:36:33Jocko Willink?

  After arriving at the south wall, Eli and I flipped the bodyguard over to examine his face. The look he gave us was priceless. He was frozen, he was in a frozen state with his eyes and mouth wide open. He couldn't move. I probably wouldn't either if I saw a six foot two, 210 pound black guy with a ski mask and a silencer on his gun, just drag me out of my dream and into a nightmare. I live for that look. Why? Because in my opinion, 100% of the terrorists are cowards. They kill innocent people. The high level terrorists send kids to blow themselves up but never volunteer to do it themselves. Then they go and make a video and talk all kinds of trash about what they're about to do. So I loved being the one who awakened them from their dreams and said, what do you got to say now, homie?

• 2:37:16Jocko Willink?

  The utter fear in their eyes nourished me.

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  So you're, you know, you go into a bunch, I obviously, I skip around in the book, I'm just pulling out one of the ops that you're on. You talk about the missions that you were doing. You were obviously, you were working the intel side. And then you guys would figure out where a target was going to be through various sources and various means. And then you'd go hit those targets.

• 2:37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  And that's, this is an example of what you're, what you're doing. How was your op tempo on that deployment?

• 2:37:47Speaker 01

  It was good, man. We're doing a lot of DA's. So it was like, I would say maybe three times a week we would go out, you know? And then there were times when we would get like the random, hey, we need you to come in and help out with this or come up to Ramadi or go up to Baghdad. And I was always busy. I mean, I was always like either in a source meet or, you know? Talking to the source to get with another source and then going up to Ramadi to have a meeting with, again, I'm trying to be careful with specific terms, but to have dialogue with the guy that is my boss on that side of the things or the guys who are our boss and then even

• 2:38:28Speaker 01

  going up to Baghdad and I'll never forget Cinco de Mayo, one year on that particular deployment, they made me take, my publisher suggested I take it out the book, I didn't see it was harmless, but where we were at the, at the agency compound in Baghdad and sipping Cinco de Mayo, sipping Coronas on Cinco de Mayo, you know what I mean, by Saddam's, in Saddam's palace that had been turned into a compound and by the pool and I was like, man, I'll never forget this for the rest of my life, you know what I mean, I mean, talking to the feds before I was scared to death of getting wrapped up by the feds. And so, it was, I was always busy between the source stuff and going out and, you know, even meeting with Shakes off of the compound and stuff like that and then hitting the DAs. I mean,

• 2:39:11Speaker 01

  we worked from, we did, that whole pump was like a vampire hours. So, we were up at like 5pm, out the door, maybe like around 12 midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning, tried to get back before the sun came out. So.

• 2:39:28Jocko Willink?

  So, it's a freaking great deployment. I mean, just, you're busy, you're getting after it. And that deployment, during that deployment, and you talk about this in the book, there's one dude that you're kinda really tracking hard. His name is Umar Zahid.

• 2:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, changed the name up.

• 2:39:46Jocko Willink?

  The name you use in the book is Umar Zahid, but this is a guy's, you know, he's a guy that's just a terrible, terrible subhuman killer of women and children. And so, you go into the book and you talk about the efforts that you go through to try and track him down, try and figure out where he is, you go after him a few times, you don't get him. Finally, you get to a point where, and I'm gonna fast forward a bit, again, read, get the book and read the book, everybody, you know? I'm not doing the audio book. Actually, you read the audio book.

• 2:40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did the audio book.

• 2:40:19Jocko Willink?

  So, get, you wanna hear, you can hear.

• 2:40:21Speaker 01

  I did the audio for Camila, too.

• 2:40:22Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. You wanna hear Remy's version of Remy's story, you don't have to listen to me do it, get the audio book. At this point, fast forward. One of your sources tells you that Umar's back in town. Yeah. This guy you've been looking for. And then you get a location. And it's time to track him. And you say, around 1 a.m., Mr. E. called us in for a brief. All right, at 10 p.m., the drone followed Umar's last known vehicle to a farming area on the outskirts of town. One individual exited. We believe it's Umar. The drone has a large group of people sleeping at the front of the house, south side, and two individuals sleeping at the back of the house, north side. We're not taking any chances. We'll offload the assault team three miles to the east.

• 2:41:02Jocko Willink?

  The assault team consisted of the A O I C, Eli, Selad, Christian, Ox, me, and a few other operators. Looking at us, Mr. E. said, you'll hike in, quietly take down the two individuals at the south end, then assess whether you have to conduct a second search among the north group. Roger, we all said. Any questions, Mr. E. asked. We shook our head. Then Mr. E. finished with, mount up. As planned, we loaded the vehicles and with the lights off, slowly drove to the insert point. When we got there, the assault force offloaded, then started the hike. We crept through the large, flat farmland. There was a full moon, so we made sure to spread out. And anytime we thought we heard or saw something that would give us away, we melted to the ground in a prone position. At about 3 a.m., we finally arrived at the house. There was a large row of bushes running north to south that lined the east side of the property.

• 2:41:46Jocko Willink?

  Eli slowly peered through the bush, and I was able to see two individuals who were fast asleep. Two men, no weapons visible, no suicide visible, he whispered over the bone mics. A O I C commanded in a low tone, Roger, semi, or sorry, Remy, Selad, moved through the bush onto the property and lined up on the east wall facing the two sleepers. We nodded, then found a small opening in the bush to creep through without making noise. Our fire team was essentially setting up an ambush similar to the one we'd used when we captured Umar's brother. Upon indication, Selad and I were going to move north from the corner of the east wall and capture the sleeper on the right side while the rest of the team was going quietly take down the sleeper on the left. Once I got in position and gave the A O I C the nod, he whispered over the bone mic, initiate.

• 2:42:31Jocko Willink?

  As I quietly crept north to the body on the right, Fire Team Two moved in toward the second body. It was like a synchronized dance. I moved in with my IR laser trained on the head of the sleeper. I dare you to move, I thought. Four, four steps, five steps, six. He was only about 30 feet from me, but the walk seemed to take forever. Sweat was dripping down my helmet. My heart was racing in anticipation. I'd set a goal to capture Umar Zahid at the beginning of deployment, and in moments, I might achieve it. When I got to the man, he was still fast asleep. It was Umar. His face had been posted at my trailer desk for seven months and now I had him in the flesh. Honestly, I wanted to put a bullet straight through his head.

• 2:43:12Jocko Willink?

  Not for me, but for the hundreds of innocent people he'd killed and the family members who were left behind. I continued my scan to ensure he wasn't wearing a suicide vest or had a gun. All of this took place in seconds. Once I finished my scan, I kicked Umar over, which startled him from his sleep. Then I knelt down on his back with my left hand and pressed down on the back of his neck. "Don't move," I whispered.

• 2:43:38Jocko Willink?

  And I'll close it out, close out the book with this. I turned and looked at the A O I C, who is in the process of zip tying the second individual, and whispered, "Jackpot." And then I thought, "Now I can go home." It's a good way to end a deployment, right?

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  And it's not the end of the book, but I mean for, for, get the book. Go read the rest of the book. A bunch of other stuff going on here. So from there, you do what? Another deployment?

• 2:44:09Speaker 01

  Yep, do another deployment, do augment, do another deployment, do, um, I don't know, be careful where I say it, but they maybe take out certain terms in the D O D.

• 2:44:20Jocko Willink?

  We'll just say more deployments.

• 2:44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:22Jocko Willink?

  So you do more deployments. Meanwhile, you meet your wife, Jessica.

• 2:44:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:27Jocko Willink?

  You start having kids.

• 2:44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:31Jocko Willink?

  And so you do two more deployments, you said?

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:37Jocko Willink?

  And you continue working as a medic?

• 2:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, medic mainly.

• 2:44:40Jocko Willink?

  But you start going more in the human?

• 2:44:42Speaker 01

  More in human stuff, yeah, especially when we did the national level tasker. Be careful about what I talk, I cut a lot of it in the book for the sake of.

• 2:44:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, you don't need to say any of it, it's good enough. We understand, it's all good. You're working high level missions on these deployments.

• 2:45:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:45:02Jocko Willink?

  And then like at a certain point, you think about getting out.

• 2:45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:08Jocko Willink?

  So what what what triggers that?

• 2:45:09Speaker 01

  Uh, my kids, man. My oldest son was, uh, born in twenty fourteen. My second son was born in twenty fifteen. And having had my dad die when I was five, I wasn't fearful of death. It was more so, you know how it is, work up, deployment, being gone. I mean, gone is almost as a lot. I mean, it's almost as much during work up as you are during the deployment sometimes, depending on the deployment cycle. Uh, it's me, the work up cycle. And I just wanted to be home with my kids, man. I wanted to be dad.

• 2:45:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  So that was the main decision.

• 2:45:42Jocko Willink?

  And your wife's a doctor?

• 2:45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's a doctor.

• 2:45:44Jocko Willink?

  Was she? When did she graduate from medical school?

• 2:45:46Speaker 01

  Uh, she graduated from medical school in, I want to say, June, no, sorry, May of two thousand and eleven, I want to say.

• 2:45:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. So she was a doctor.

• 2:45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:56Jocko Willink?

  While you were in the teams.

• 2:45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she, uh, I met her when she started residency. She started, she moved down here to start residency. She went to residency at, um,

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  on the other side of, uh, Chula Vista, H for Kaiser.

• 2:46:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay, Kaiser, I believe.

• 2:46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:12Jocko Willink?

  So you kind of at least had some kind of, uh, financial stability with your wife?

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:46:18Jocko Willink?

  She's a doctor?

• 2:46:19Speaker 01

  Residency.

• 2:46:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, residency.

• 2:46:21Speaker 01

  They don't make no money.

• 2:46:21Jocko Willink?

  No, wait, but but but by this time.

• 2:46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:24Jocko Willink?

  By the time you were looking at getting out, she was done with the residency or no?

• 2:46:26Speaker 01

  No, cuz she had, she had, her residency got extended cuz she had my, my, my son.

• 2:46:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:46:32Speaker 01

  During res, so she had to take a break in residency. They allowed her to graduate with her starting class, but then she had to go back and finish her ULT.

• 2:46:43Jocko Willink?

  And that's like a couple of years, three years?

• 2:46:45Speaker 01

  Years, yeah, man.

• 2:46:46Jocko Willink?

  And that's like you're making like thirty eight thousand dollars a year?

• 2:46:48Speaker 01

  I don't know the exact number, but she wasn't making much, much of anything.

• 2:46:51Jocko Willink?

  It ain't much.

• 2:46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, she wasn't making much of anything.

• 2:46:53Jocko Willink?

  So with that, you decide, even with her only making it whatever, not enough to support the fam.

• 2:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:58Jocko Willink?

  You're like, I'm gonna get out.

• 2:46:59Speaker 01

  I was always smart with my money.

• 2:47:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you had.

• 2:47:02Speaker 01

  Well, I was smart with my money after I had, you know, my faith transition. Before that, I was like crazy with the money, but yeah, I was, I was.

• 2:47:08Jocko Willink?

  God was, God was good with your money.

• 2:47:12Speaker 01

  So I saved a lot of money and then from the deployments, you know, I started buying a flashy car when I came back, put it in an account, let it, you know, save it. That's how I was able to buy my first house when I got back from that, uh, second deployment, um, uh, in two thousand and ten, I was able to buy. First house by myself before I even met my wife. And so by the time I got out, we had a good cushion and then I was, I already started, um. I finished my bachelor's while I was in. I was able to, I was taking classes, online classes, and then I started my masters. And so when I got out. I was still in grad, I, I was able to use a post nine eleven G I bill.

• 2:47:46Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:47:46Speaker 01

  So that was providing some cover for us as well. And I was planning on going into business consultant full time because my, my wife's brother's a Y P O guy. And I'm sure you work with those guys a bunch of times. And so he was getting me like side consulting gigs with his. Y P O chapter in Toronto and stuff like that. So I wanted to get my, my, my masters because I didn't want to just rely on the team guy side of things. I wanted to have it, but I also wanted to have the, that theory and academics as well. And so, uh, I was at school and my plan was to just. You know, finish out school and then work with my brother in law full time.

• 2:48:20Jocko Willink?

  What year did you leave the Navy?

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  January twenty sixteen.

• 2:48:24Jocko Willink?

  January twenty sixteen. So when did your first, what was the first acting opportunity that you had? Was this the, was this last ship? Is this, is this a movie? What is last ship? I saw it on the internet, but I don't know what it is.

• 2:48:38Speaker 01

  It was, it, it was like, uh, it was on T N T.

• 2:48:43Jocko Willink?

  Like a TV show?

• 2:48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like a TV show on T N T. So I did like some extra stuff. I don't even call that acting. I don't even want to call that acting. I just literally just. Showed up the base and shot on, sat on the boat.

• 2:48:53Jocko Willink?

  How'd that come from? Like, where'd that come from?

• 2:48:55Speaker 01

  Team guy network.

• 2:48:56Jocko Willink?

  So some team guys like, yo, you want to sit down here? I'll give you four hundred bucks. You're like, we'll do it. Let's go.

• 2:49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:49:03Jocko Willink?

  So then. What's never too late? This is a play that you were?

• 2:49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a play. Yeah, that was a.

• 2:49:10Jocko Willink?

  So you had to straight up, they say, you can't, you can't pass this one off, bro.

• 2:49:12Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 2:49:13Jocko Willink?

  You can't pass this one off.

• 2:49:14Speaker 01

  I know. Yeah, this lady at my church, she was like, hey, um, they're doing a play down in, um, down, I forgot where it was, downtown San Diego, that mall. It was, it was a theater that used to be by the mall.

• 2:49:27Jocko Willink?

  Horton Plaza?

• 2:49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Horton Plaza, it was like a theater, like, right under, right, pretty much right in the mall area. And, uh, she was like, I just need you to be a pastor, or something, give a speech. In the play, okay. So I went and did that. But I was like, I don't want to have anything to do with this anymore.

• 2:49:44Jocko Willink?

  Did you, how many, how many shows did you do?

• 2:49:46Speaker 01

  It was just, it was, one, it was just one show.

• 2:49:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was just one show. Yeah, it was like, it was like a big bill, like a, it was like a big training, I don't even know what they call it, but like a training, but I didn't show up most of the time because I was in school. I was just like, showed up. Uh, I just memorized my lines and then all I had to do was give a speech at the end.

• 2:50:04Jocko Willink?

  But you didn't really like it that much?

• 2:50:06Speaker 01

  No, not at all, not at all.

• 2:50:07Jocko Willink?

  So then came Transformers, right? This is now 2015, so you're still in the Navy?

• 2:50:12Speaker 01

  2016.

• 2:50:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's 2016?

• 2:50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's 2016, yeah.

• 2:50:15Jocko Willink?

  2016?

• 2:50:16Speaker 01

  It's May.

• 2:50:17Jocko Willink?

  And, so are you out of the Navy now?

• 2:50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got out in January and then I was in grad school. And then, uh, in May of 2016 is when I got the phone call. I was, I was actually in my office writing papers.

• 2:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:50:31Speaker 01

  Uh, for school.

• 2:50:32Jocko Willink?

  And who, what was the connection there?

• 2:50:33Speaker 01

  Um, there was a woman who worked with a guy by the name of Kevin Kent.

• 2:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know Kevin.

• 2:50:38Speaker 01

  And, uh, so she, I guess Kevin Kent had given her my phone number.

• 2:50:43Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:50:44Speaker 01

  And so she reached out to me and she was just like, hey, um, Kevin Kent told me about you and Bay's looking for some frogmen to, to work tomorrow in LA.

• 2:50:51Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:50:52Speaker 01

  What's your schedule looking like? And I was like, ah. Was interested in doing it, but she was like, uh, you know, it's a good opportunity. So I was like, alright.

• 2:51:02Jocko Willink?

  We'll give you five hundred bucks.

• 2:51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll give you five hundred. Alright.

• 2:51:04Jocko Willink?

  And it's Michael Bay, right?

• 2:51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:06Jocko Willink?

  So there's a little bit of, uh, you had to be stoked on that.

• 2:51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she, but that didn't come out, I'm truncating it, but that didn't come out until like a little bit later in the conversation.

• 2:51:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:51:14Speaker 01

  She didn't want to tell me what the movie was until, you know, until she found out that I was like more interested, like invested. Like my priorities weren't in the right place.

• 2:51:23Jocko Willink?

  God, that's a little trick.

• 2:51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:51:25Jocko Willink?

  She played a little trick on you. You could be like, yo, I don't care.

• 2:51:28Speaker 01

  Cause her husband, her husband's a team guy.

• 2:51:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:51:31Speaker 01

  Harry Humphries is her husband.

• 2:51:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:51:32Speaker 01

  So she's been around a lot of team guys and put a lot, her and her husband put a lot of team guys in, in, in films and stuff. So I guess it was part of her vetting process to make sure I wasn't gonna be like a, I don't know, like a, a fanboy or something going, not knowing how to act on set and stuff like that. But, uh, but yeah, I, uh, but yeah, I, you know, I said, she finally said, hey, send me some pictures. I sent her some pictures. She said, hey, uh, um, alright, babe, approved your pictures and, uh, come up to LA tomorrow.

• 2:52:03Jocko Willink?

  So then you get up there.

• 2:52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:04Jocko Willink?

  But you, this turns into bigger.

• 2:52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that one day, uh, and turning it three weeks. After that one day, she calls me back and said, hey, babe, like that your, your performance and, and your consulting and that you could take, uh, take direction. Can you, uh, do three weeks? We're gonna do a week in Arizona.

• 2:52:21Jocko Willink?

  Was JP in this with you? Was he JP Danelle?

• 2:52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was the same one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, uh, that one week turned in, one day turned into three weeks. I met JP. Yeah, he went out to London with us.

• 2:52:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He went out to London with us. That's right. That's right. Now I remember. So he wasn't in Arizona and Michigan. He came later in Michigan. Yeah, he would, he wasn't in, in Arizona, but he came out later to Michigan and replaced a bunch of other team guys. And then I stayed on and went to London with him in Wales. And then, and then came back here in San Diego. We filmed some stuff in December, uh, down in, uh... On base on a naval air station. Base.

• 2:53:04Jocko Willink?

  So three weeks is total time that you spent on this?

• 2:53:07Speaker 01

  No, six months.

• 2:53:07Jocko Willink?

  Six months?

• 2:53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So I was in.

• 2:53:10Jocko Willink?

  How much are you in the movie?

• 2:53:12Speaker 01

  I'm in a good chunk of it. I'm in it from beginning to end. It's like.

• 2:53:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no kidding?

• 2:53:15Speaker 01

  I got lines and everything in that movie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got the line.

• 2:53:19Jocko Willink?

  You're in it from beginning to end?

• 2:53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, not like, not the first scene, but like from the first act of the film to the last act of the film.

• 2:53:26Jocko Willink?

  And what do you say?

• 2:53:27Speaker 01

  Ah, man, I got a couple of good lines. I got the, we going home, Izzy at the end.

• 2:53:33Speaker 01

  When I strap her on, on me in tandem with her and then I have some other lines at Mark Wahlberg, put it down and all that kind of, you know, one liners. And stuff like that, not like heavy dialogue stuff, but, um, and then there's some, there's a line I have in the plane with Mark, Mark Wahlberg and some of the other actors, but the big one that's like clear, like this one I skip. Oh, and then there's a line when the girl comes up to me and I have like a, that's like a bazooka, like it wasn't even, it was like a,

• 2:54:03Speaker 01

  Transformer level bazooka type thing. And she's like, does that thing kill Decepticons? And I look at her, I said, no, we do.

• 2:54:12Jocko Willink?

  That's the line I was looking for, you know? That's the line I was looking for. Okay, so that's, what's next after that? Is it Who Dares Wins?

• 2:54:20Speaker 01

  No, that didn't come until later. Yeah, that came like into 2021 is when I did the, my first season of Who Dares Wins.

• 2:54:30Speaker 01

  We did that out in Jordan. I did two seasons of that out there. Yeah.

• 2:54:34Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what about Ambu-, so Ambulance is another movie?

• 2:54:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:37Jocko Willink?

  Is that another Michael Bay movie?

• 2:54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was another one. I did Six Underground before that. So Six Underground, I was, I didn't act in Six Underground. I was the consultant on Six Underground.

• 2:54:45Jocko Willink?

  Six in the ground?

• 2:54:46Speaker 01

  Six Underground. That was on Netflix with Ryan Reynolds and, uh, and Corey Hawkins and a bunch of, we shot that in, in Italy, like all over Italy and then Abu Dhabi. And, uh, and I trained with the actors before we went out there and shot. I wasn't really on camera much. I just had like one scene, but I was on the whole shoot for like four months, just working on the consulting side of things. And then, uh, did Ambulance, which was Bay's next film.

• 2:55:10Jocko Willink?

  And then what's your, what's your role in Ambulance?

• 2:55:12Speaker 01

  I played an undercover cop. So I played a undercover cop that was, uh, setting, helping set up the, uh, bank robbers. So we knew that, I mean, it wasn't really. Explain much in the script, but essentially we got intel that the bank robbers were gonna rob this particular bank. So it's like, I was like an undercover cop. But then I also did some consulting on that as well.

• 2:55:35Jocko Willink?

  So consulting means you're telling them like, hey, you should not shoot this type of weapon. Or like, don't go in the room like this.

• 2:55:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, even even looking at the script and like, just saying, okay, this dialogue doesn't make sense here. Or doesn't make sense for this to happen at this part of the screenplay because, you know, tactically, that wouldn't happen that way, you know. So that was kind of how I got into the, would later get into the WGA and end up becoming a WGA writer in Hollywood is reading, getting off of these scripts and saying, hey, can you read these scripts and consult them? And then I would consult on the scripts. And I was like, dude, I think I could actually write these scripts. But some of these people write these scripts. And then I started writing scripts and got into the WGA that way.

• 2:56:14Jocko Willink?

  And so what was the first script that you wrote?

• 2:56:16Speaker 01

  I adapted a book called Slave Stealers into a limited series. And so that it hasn't shot yet, but it's the Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard has a book called Slave Stealers where he jumps back and forth between his story and a woman by the name of Harriet Jacobs. So Harriet Jacobs was a slave in the 1800s. And she was doing all kinds of, she, I mean, her story is crazy. She was doing tradecraft before anybody even knew what tradecraft was. And she was a slave and she like intentionally got impregnated in that, in order to be able to use that to escape slavery. It was, her story is crazy. She was wearing

• 2:56:57Speaker 01

  disguises. And after she escaped, she came back to the town and eating to North Carolina. I mean, her story is just ridiculously crazy. And she's the first known slave to have written an autobiography. And so called, what was it called? Incidents of a, Incidents of a Slave Girl or something like that. And so Tim kind of did a, did a book where he jumped back and forth and took techniques that she used to rescue other slaves and how he applied those, applies those techniques in what he does or what he did at the time in O U R, Operation Underground Railroad. And so I adapted the flashback chapters essentially into a limited series.

• 2:57:36Jocko Willink?

  And that's being made for Netflix, you said?

• 2:57:39Speaker 01

  A streamer hasn't signed on yet, but it's being made for a streamer. Yes, for sure. Yeah.

• 2:57:46Jocko Willink?

  What else? What? So you got, that's a bunch of stuff.

• 2:57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57:50Jocko Willink?

  That's a bunch of stuff.

• 2:57:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57:52Jocko Willink?

  And so, the latest that thing that you got going on right now.

• 2:57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57:56Jocko Willink?

  Is Chameleon.

• 2:57:57Speaker 01

  Chameleon, yeah.

• 2:57:59Jocko Willink?

  This is your first book?

• 2:58:00Speaker 01

  It's my first fiction book. First fiction book.

• 2:58:02Jocko Willink?

  First fiction book?

• 2:58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58:04Jocko Willink?

  Tell us about Chameleon. What's the deal with this thing?

• 2:58:06Speaker 01

  So Chameleon is, I say it's like somewhat of a fictional extension of Transform. You know, all the stuff that I couldn't talk about and would never talk about in Transform. It's like wholly fictionalized, right? So like the plot and the characters and the places and even Colly Kent is very loosely based off of me. The name is based off of a kid in the Bronx by the name of Kalief Browder. So Colly's full name is actually Kalief Browder Kent. There's a kid in, in the Bronx who grew, grew up not too far from me. And he was unjustly accused of stealing a backpack, sent to Rikers Island jail at 16, held in, at Rikers Island for three years without trial. I mean, he was put in general population with adults, beat up.

• 2:58:51Speaker 01

  He spent 700 days in solitary confinement. And then he was so tormented after he got out that he committed suicide two years later. And he, the only reason why he got out is because the, a judge finally looked at his case and said, oh, um, there's no evidence here to charge him. And so, uh, they dismissed the case and then, you know, let him, let him free. So anyway, the, the character's main name is Kalief Browder Kent. Um, loose, you know, very loosely based off of me, but the name comes from that. And he's part of a, a secret program called the Black Box. CIA program called Black Box. Essentially, um, made up of people with different specializations. You have chameleons who are able to become whatever character they need to become at the drop of a dime, but it's all grounded. They're just very good method actors.

• 2:59:35Speaker 01

  Uh, you have ghost agents who are people who are able to get in and out of places like a ghost. Um, you have aberration agents who are a combination of, of chameleons and ghosts, but they do it for a decade plus. Then you have wind agents who are pretty much swick. They could drive any vehicle like the wind. Um, and they're all part of a team called Dark Horse and in this. Particular book, um, they are trying to find the identity and of a um, South African uh, mastermind is manipulating worldwide. Stock markets in order to cause economic collapse. So I didn't want to go with the traditional. Bad guy has a nuclear bomb or the bad guy has a biological chemical weapon that he's gonna.

• 3:00:16Speaker 01

  Said I wanted to go, you know, on the, on the financial economic warfare side of things. Cause I think that a lot of people now, it's more plausible now with. Well, at least to people to, to the general population is more plausible with everything that happened financially after COVID and even where we are. Um, with the recession now and with the impending recession and all of these things that are happening financially. I want to, wanted to be able to portray. A villain that is using his brain to essentially destabilize uh, the Western world and Western economies. And cause even more chaos than in some cases, you know, a bomb can sometimes.

• 3:00:51Jocko Willink?

  It seems like he'd be able to possibly get away with that.

• 3:00:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:00:55Jocko Willink?

  That's a, that's a kind of crime you can get away with like right in front of everybody.

• 3:00:58Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 3:00:59Jocko Willink?

  And they don't understand like, oh, you know, well, it seems like the stock market's down and this guy happened to make whatever, you know? Uh, sold shorts on these companies that went on, you know, like that's. Start manipulating that kind of thing, kind of do in front of people's faces.

• 3:01:12Speaker 01

  Yep. And part of what he's doing is he is, uh, you know. He'll buy stock in a specific company and then he will have his, uh, his team essentially take. Take somebody in that company hostage and then uh, essentially force. Force the CEO of the company to make a specific business decision that's gonna either allow the stock to go up or a stock to go down. So. Uh, he does this under the table clandestinely. So the general public doesn't know what's going on. So it's, it's, it's very intricate espionage as type. Uh, uh, corporate espionage is a part of it as well. And uh, so.

• 3:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Different, different.

• 3:01:51Speaker 01

  And so Colleen and his team are tasked essentially. Essentially bring this guy in and shut it down. But then there's also, you know, the backdrop of it takes place during, obviously, what's going on now with Ukraine and Russia. So there's a connection there as well with, with, with the antagonists and what he's doing. And then the substratum of the book is, is national unity. Like, you know, when I'm, when I'm writing a story, whether it's a screenplay, or whether it's a book, whatever it is, like, I always try to put some type of inspirational, educational, motivational message in there. Otherwise, I think that it's a waste of a, of a person's time, you know, to spend two hours on a book, or, sorry, two hours in a film, or 11 hours on a book, and, and they

• 3:02:36Speaker 01

  invest that time, and, and all they get out of it is our thrills and laughs. I think that, you know, I truly believe that as a storyteller, my job is to kind of engage them in a different way, or challenge them in a different way. And so, the, again, the substratum of the book is the importance of national unity, and what happens when we don't have national unity. And I also dive into the fact that the reason why we are so divided is because it's actually, it's not just coming from outside entities, but a big part of it is coming from the top. Politicians and, and, and people in Washington DC that kind of needs us to be divided in order to maintain power over the groups that they want to maintain power over. So that's like, it's, it's not just an espionage thriller and an action thriller, but it's

• 3:03:19Speaker 01

  also a, it's also a political thriller as well. To try to engage people's mind and get them thinking, what am I doing that's, that's contributing to the disunity? Not just in our nation, but in my family, or in my community, or, you know, in my state? And what can I do better? So it's essentially holding up a mirror, kind of like what has happened to me, and we talked about where I've had to have a mirror, proverbial mirror held up to my face to show me what I've been doing wrong. So I'm hoping that the book acts, acts as that and, and brings the healing that, or plays a role in bringing healing that's necessary to our nation.

• 3:03:56Jocko Willink?

  What was your writing methodology? How are you writing? What do you do?

• 3:04:00Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, for me, I have a, my writing starts long before I actually get to the computer and start structuring out and putting, you know, proverbial pen to paper. So, for example, Chameleon's been in my head for over ten years and I have a notepad, not a physical notepad, but a digital notepad where when certain things came to me, like the idea about it, their, um, finances being a, of the backdrop and, and the antagonists. Uh, I, I can't remember what I saw, but I was watching something on, on, uh, sixty minutes one day and, uh, the, the, um, interviewer was asking this guy questions about how somebody could, uh, I think it had to do with insider trading and what's going on there and how people are getting rich.

• 3:04:41Speaker 01

  And I was like, huh, it'd be interesting if there was a, uh, if it was a bad guy that was, uh, using insider trading in a different way. And so I just dropped that into my notepad. This might've been like three or four years ago. Then one day I hear somebody say something and I'm like, oh, that would be a great line of dialogue. So, over the course of ten years, I'm just putting all this information in and, uh, and then one day when I decided, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna create this world, then now all I have to do is take what I put in that notepad and I just now put it in a structure, uh, from three act structure. Here's where this is gonna happen, here's where this is gonna happen, here's where I'm gonna intro- uh, introduce the villain and so on and so forth. And even now, like for Chameleon, book two and Chameleon, book three, like, um, I'm, ideas come to me, I drop them in, even with screenplays, ideas come to me.

• 3:05:26Speaker 01

  When I was writing the transform screenplay, like I had the book as a reference, but there were so many stories that didn't make it into the book, or as we talked about, had to be truncated and changed. I was like, oh, maybe I could take that part and put it in, in, into the, uh, into the, into my notepad and I would put it into notepads. And then when, when I got to writing the screenplay, a lot of what I needed to essentially, the meat was there, now I just had to massage it. And then my, my process is just sitting down and, and, and I, I, I tend to not outline, or if I do outline, I, uh... It's I'm not I'm not regimental on it, you know, I it's not the gospel to me. So when I take all of these ideas and and put it in into this space, even if it's structured, I don't hold to it.

• 3:06:09Speaker 01

  I like because I like characters to tell the story. For me, it's always about character driving plot and driving narrative versus plot driving characters and what they do. So once I get a good sense of of of the character I'm writing, whether it be Colly Kent, whether it be Nevea, whether it be Thane Macklin, whoever it is, how they would react is going to drive where we where we're going to go into the story. So, for example, if if Colly is, uh, if I've already established him as a guy that's going to, uh, conduct an interrogation in a way where he's not going to go straight in and start screaming or yelling, or he's going to be a bit more calculated, then that's how that scene is going to be driven, because that's his personality. And there's times where I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the scene that I'm

• 3:06:53Speaker 01

  going to write, whether it's a book or whether it's a script.

• 3:06:57Speaker 01

  I allow that character with the attributes that I've kind of given him or he or he or he or she has shown me begin to fill in the gap. And then before you know it, you have like a very cool scene, especially with dialogue and stuff like that that comes together, so.

• 3:07:13Jocko Willink?

  Can you write for a long time at a time? Like, I can only write for like an hour and I get super bored, so I just like write an hour every day.

• 3:07:19Speaker 01

  I know, I I I could write for a long time.

• 3:07:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for me, it's it's I I go for time because, you know, my my nanny starts at eight thirty, gotta work out. I'm I don't do I don't do the three AM work wakeups like you, Jocko, sorry, I ain't wanting to like you here yet.

• 3:07:35Speaker 01

  Uh, and so, uh, so, uh, you know, I work out and then after that, I come to my I get to my computer and I'm I'm I'm I'm at my computer from, say, about ten thirty until Monday and it gets off at four thirty and I write for time.

• 3:07:46Jocko Willink?

  So six hours?

• 3:07:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:07:48Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 3:07:49Speaker 01

  And then sometimes, um, like if, if I'm on a time crunch and I need to get it done, or I need to get into a publisher, or I need to get a script into a produc- a producer, or whatever the case may be, after my nanny's off, hang out with the kids, once they're at bed, in bed, like around nine o'clock, I'm back at the computer and I'm there until about two, three in the morning, just hammering it out, just to get it done. So I go for time.

• 3:08:09Jocko Willink?

  I wish I had a little logbook and I could make a version of my books where each section I wrote where I wrote it. Like, you know, like some random, like bus, train, freaking airplane. A lot of, a lot, I wrote a lot in airplanes and hotels. I travel a bunch. I'd just be like on a plane, just get my hour done.

• 3:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, sometimes obviously be at my house, but yeah, there's a, you use some, I, I would do, cause I write every day. When I'm, when I'm writing, I'm going every day for like an hour.

• 3:08:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Because otherwise I get bored and crazy. And so I just like write an hour.

• 3:08:41Speaker 01

  So it must take you a long time to get it done.

• 3:08:43Jocko Willink?

  Uh, well, you know, a thousand words a day, cause I can write, I write about a thousand words in an hour. So it's about, you know, three months and you got ninety thousand words, pare it down, you got your book.

• 3:08:53Speaker 01

  Oh, they, oh, yeah.

• 3:08:54Jocko Willink?

  So I can knock them out pretty quick, actually.

• 3:08:56Speaker 01

  So no writer's block in that one hour? Is this like, you, it's just?

• 3:08:59Jocko Willink?

  No, no. Um, I also, I will have, like you, I'll have the whole thing in my head.

• 3:09:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:05Jocko Willink?

  So I have the whole thing in my head and I just gotta, and I take the whole thing that's in my head, outline it, like I write it down. Like basically chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, whatever. And then I have like a very brief description of what's gonna happen in that chapter. You know, in this chapter, Uncle Jake shows up and he takes me to jujitsu. Like I know what's gonna happen and I, I kinda already have that whole thing in my head.

• 3:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, or you know, in this one, you know, Reagan, Mark's gonna do this, or what Johnny's gonna do this, whatever. And then I just sit down and I write for an hour, whether, no matter where I'm at.

• 3:09:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:40Jocko Willink?

  I always leave like what's gonna happen in the next frame or whatever. So I, when I sit down again, I just can.

• 3:09:47Speaker 01

  You have a lead in, yeah.

• 3:09:48Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't, for me, if I don't write every day, then when I sit back down, if I skip a day, I can probably get away with it. If I skip two days, now I gotta go back and read everything that I wrote. Takes me twenty minutes. Now I wasted a bunch of time. So I'm very religious about writing it every day. So I don't have to do that review.

• 3:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:04Jocko Willink?

  But that's what I do. Yeah. If I wrote for six hours a day, that'd be 6,000 words. They might could write a book pretty freaking quick.

• 3:10:09Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 3:10:09Jocko Willink?

  But I don't have the patience for it. I get too freaking jumpy after a little while. I'm like, oh, I can't, I get distracted.

• 3:10:15Speaker 01

  I love it, man. I don't mind. Ah, it's just, that's what, that's what drives me, man.

• 3:10:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I think what you said is that there's scenes that you're, that are playing out in your head as you're writing. For me, I don't have that. I already know what's gonna happen. So for me, it's just like, it's like, I'm building a house. Like you're building, you're like an architect that's designing a house. Like, oh, what is this gonna look like? I already know what it's gonna look like in my head. I already know. So for me, it's just a, it's just labor.

• 3:10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:10:43Jocko Willink?

  It's just labor and a freaking type. There's nothing exciting about it. I already know the story.

• 3:10:48Speaker 01

  There's no, there's no discovery.

• 3:10:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's no discovery for me. It's already in there, man. The whole freaking thing. I actually like the lyric, the lyrics, or I guess in books you call, when I write songs, you know, I call them lyrics. But in, you know, when I'm writing books, I guess it's just words or dialogue.

• 3:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:02Jocko Willink?

  I already know what that's gonna be. I already have those things in my head. So anyways, that's, that's me. Um, so,

• 3:11:09Jocko Willink?

  so you said you're already working on the next two chameleon books. So are you gonna do chameleon books and then ghost books and then aberration books and then wind books?

• 3:11:16Speaker 01

  Well, I, right now, I'm, I'm following the main character chameleon. So I'm gonna do two more books in chameleon for sure. And then, but the, the ghost agents are in, so part of the, part of the team in book one is made up of a ghost agent, another chameleon agent, a few aberration agents, and then a wind agent. Um, and so we're gonna keep following Kali and the chameleon, uh, in book two and three, and then maybe we'll branch it off, you know, into a DZ graphic novel, maybe. You don't know what's going down with the aberration agents.

• 3:11:48Jocko Willink?

  That's what I like to hear.

• 3:11:49Speaker 01

  It started out as a screenplay. You know, I, I, I, I wrote the screen, it was the first screenplay I wrote in 2019 and then, um, uh, long story short, my agent shopped it around and. There were three production companies that wanted, we went with one, one of the big ones, and went through a year rewrites on the screenplay. And then after, after, after that, he started, my agent, the producer started shopping the screenplay around to directors, to get a director attached. And got the same, kept getting the same message, great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next two years, great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next three years. And that was when I was like, you know what, I'm tired of this. I wanna, I wanna teach myself how to direct, because it's kinda like almost in the teams. Like, the more qualifications you have, the more ops you're gonna go on. And that's kinda how it is in the whole Hollywood.

• 3:12:34Speaker 01

  If you could write, if you could produce, write, and then direct, then you'll be able to get the job done. And so I directed my organ harvesting film. And then that got picked up to be a feature film, which is gonna go into production after the writer's strike lifts, because we can't get bonded insurance-wise during a writer's strike. But chameleon script is gonna, chameleon film is gonna come at some point as well.

• 3:12:55Jocko Willink?

  And what's the organ harvesting film?

• 3:12:57Speaker 01

  So I did a film called The Unexpected, inspired by true events. Essentially, it's based off of the, you see these genocide? Where ISIS came in and essentially killed the men and then trafficked the women sexually, but also from organ harvesting standpoint, and then also from a labor standpoint. And so I started, I volunteered with a few different human trafficking nonprofits after I got out. You know, nothing like where I'm working with them for months on end, but just popping in here and there, almost like a contractor. And that's when I really got exposed to human trafficking. And I found that there was so much focus on the, on the sex trafficking side of things, and not any focus on a organ harvesting side of things.

• 3:13:40Speaker 01

  And so that's when I decided, you know what, I need to educate the public more about this. And that's when I decided to make the film The Unexpected, which is a, which is a 32-minute short film that really dives deep into the intricacies of organ harvesting rings and how they operate, which organ harvesting is a billion-dollar.

• 3:13:59Speaker 01

  Multibillion dollar industry globally and it's it's it's it's nuts. The more you go down a rabbit hole and learn about it. Cairo, Egypt is considered to be the organ harvesting capital of the world. There's been so many stories coming out as lately of of of Westerners getting caught up. You know, going to other countries to get a kidney and via organ harvesting ring. Because about six thousand five hundred people die every year on on transplant waiting lists. And so there's a there's a big need for it. And so the more I started going down a rabbit hole and and and reading these articles and doing more research. That's when I was like, okay, I need to make this film and.

• 3:14:40Jocko Willink?

  So where can people watch that?

• 3:14:41Speaker 01

  The film's on YouTube.

• 3:14:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's on YouTube?

• 3:14:43Speaker 01

  Yep, it's free on YouTube.

• 3:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Who, what YouTube channel?

• 3:14:46Speaker 01

  Uh, my YouTube channel.

• 3:14:47Jocko Willink?

  What's your YouTube channel?

• 3:14:48Speaker 01

  Just Remy Adelakian.

• 3:14:49Jocko Willink?

  I looked that up, I didn't find it. Unless I need to look harder.

• 3:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, just Remy Adelakian, Unexpected. It'll pop up, it's right on the homepage of it. And you know, I I I just made it just to get it out there and you know, not to not to afford to get distributed. But it got seen by some people in the industry now. That's what got got picked up to be a feature.

• 3:15:12Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 3:15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15:13Jocko Willink?

  It will it be a documentary feature or?

• 3:15:16Speaker 01

  No, two hour film. Actor film, yeah. Some sort of a short film, picks up five years after the events of the short.

• 3:15:22Jocko Willink?

  Sweet, um, what else? You, I mean, you got anything else going on? What else we need to hit, man?

• 3:15:29Speaker 01

  Uh, um, got a new, I got a, well, I was working on Special Forces Fox, not doing that anymore. But I got a new project, can't get into just yet, but we start shooting that, um.

• 3:15:39Jocko Willink?

  Two weeks, right?

• 3:15:40Speaker 01

  Two weeks, um, military related show, cool play, unscripted show. So it'll be cool, cool, just educating people on on on on some cool sides of the military. Not necessarily soft, but like all aspects of the military. And then, um, yeah, got a, uh, transform, hopefully after after the writer's strike, we can get that into production as well.

• 3:16:00Jocko Willink?

  Freaking outstanding, man.

• 3:16:04Jocko Willink?

  Probably, probably a good place, damn. It's been over three hours. Echo Charles.

• 3:16:08Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:16:09Jocko Willink?

  Any questions?

• 3:16:10Speaker 02

  Uh, yes.

• 3:16:12Jocko Willink?

  You ready, dude? Here it comes.

• 3:16:14Speaker 02

  When you, when you used to go party in the gas lamp?

• 3:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:16:17Speaker 02

  What, what year was that about?

• 3:16:20Speaker 01

  Man, 2004 to... Man, I stopped partying in the gas lamp around 2008, so from 2004 to 2008.

• 3:16:28Speaker 02

  Okay, so that was my time too, by the way.

• 3:16:30Jocko Willink?

  Were you a bouncer at any clubs out there?

• 3:16:32Speaker 01

  I knew you looked... Was there a place, uh, on the corner?

• 3:16:39Speaker 01

  And there was a girl named, they named Sin?

• 3:16:41Speaker 02

  Ha, yeah, yeah.

• 3:16:44Jocko Willink?

  There we go.

• 3:16:46Speaker 01

  But that's where I knew I saw you. I was like, I knew I knew you from somewhere. Better end, yeah, yeah.

• 3:16:52Speaker 02

  Right on. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, a lot of the team guys would come down. Cause two of my friends from Kauai, they'd be, they'd always come down and we'd hang with them. But yeah, that's funny.

• 3:17:01Speaker 01

  And you were a bouncer there, right?

• 3:17:02Speaker 02

  I was a bouncer there for like, for a while too, for like, at that time. So since like 2001 to 2007.

• 3:17:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:17:08Jocko Willink?

  What if it happened to Sin?

• 3:17:09Speaker 02

  I think she's still, she might have a promotions coming. I'm not sure. You know, I left that world a long time ago, but, um, from what I see, she's still around. Kinda doing promotions.

• 3:17:18Speaker 01

  You know, you know somebody's out there with a name that's Sin. Like S-I-N, Sin. She had it tattooed on her back.

• 3:17:25Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 3:17:26Speaker 01

  In red, Sin.

• 3:17:27Jocko Willink?

  She okay?

• 3:17:28Speaker 02

  Asian lady. No, no, no, she's cool. Yeah, yeah, she's, she was good. She was good at what she did.

• 3:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Do you think she has a random, happens to have an Asian name that's Sin, or you think that's a adjustment? Cause it is possible. Like, like sometimes, you know, people have a name, it's just like one syllable.

• 3:17:44Speaker 02

  I'm sure it's like short for something.

• 3:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe. I know she had S-I-N.

• 3:17:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:17:50Speaker 01

  In red, tattooed on her back. Cause I'm a red.

• 3:17:53Speaker 02

  Awesome. Um, and then you said you're negative buoyant. Are you like big time negative buoyant?

• 3:17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:58Speaker 02

  Like right now, like if you like took a deep breath, you would still sink.

• 3:18:02Speaker 01

  I'll still sink.

• 3:18:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's how you know right there. Cause sometimes when you're kinda in the middle, if you don't have any breath, you just sink. But then if you, you know, you can float if you try to.

• 3:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Where are you at?

• 3:18:11Speaker 02

  Same. Right now, I'm the same, yeah.

• 3:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Like sink?

• 3:18:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:18:16Jocko Willink?

  Even with the big breath?

• 3:18:16Speaker 02

  Even with the big breath, yeah.

• 3:18:18Jocko Willink?

  No kidding?

• 3:18:19Speaker 02

  The other day. But yeah, when I was bigger, when I was like 240, I could, I could float a little bit.

• 3:18:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, got a little bit of that combat swimmer muscle back in the day.

• 3:18:27Speaker 02

  Hell yeah, hell yeah. But yeah, right on, man. Good to meet you in person. Right on, awesome.

• 3:18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we met. I know we met. Cause I saw you when I first saw you on the podcast. I was like, man, I know that face, but I'm bad with names. I'm good with faces.

• 3:18:39Jocko Willink?

  Now you remember he threw you out the club.

• 3:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he probably did.

• 3:18:45Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we can find you, uh, basically Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Remy Adeleke.

• 3:18:51Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Now YouTube channel as well.

• 3:18:53Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:18:54Jocko Willink?

  You got a website that you're gonna get developed in the near future.

• 3:18:57Speaker 01

  Remy Adeleke.

• 3:18:57Jocko Willink?

  That's just gonna be rebyadelake.com.

• 3:18:59Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:19:00Jocko Willink?

  You gotta get that done, man. You gotta make that happen.

• 3:19:02Speaker 01

  Follow Chaco's orders.

• 3:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Remy, man, any closing thoughts from you?

• 3:19:06Speaker 01

  No, thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to be a part of this, uh, epic podcast and, uh, thank you for, you know, your service and your leadership, man. You're always, you're always in my head, pushing me from the time when we were out in, uh, Nyland and you were getting at us, talking about how much more we can go. There's always more, you know, uh, and so I, I, I try to follow that, um, that, that pattern in my life. So I, I thank you for the inspiration and, and, and motivation, uh, that you give me and I know millions of people around the world. Appreciate you, brother. And same, same echo.

• 3:19:38Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, man. And, uh, obviously thanks for coming. I, I, I sorry this took long. You live in San Diego. You know, we'll be able to wrap it up, do it again. Um, and so thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Uh, obviously thanks for your service in the Navy. Thanks for your service in the teams. And thanks for what you're continuing to do today. I mean, you're, you're putting the word out there. You're setting a great example for people that, like you said, if you work hard, you stay dedicated, you stay focused, um, the American dream.

• 3:20:06Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 3:20:07Jocko Willink?

  The American dream.

• 3:20:08Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 3:20:09Jocko Willink?

  You're living it, man.

• 3:20:10Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:20:10Jocko Willink?

  And you're showing people how to live it. So thanks for getting after it, bro.

• 3:20:13Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 3:20:14Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:20:15Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:20:19Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Remi Adeleke has left the building.

• 3:20:25Jocko Willink?

  And left some positivity.

• 3:20:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:20:28Jocko Willink?

  Can definitely change the course of your existence. You can change the course of your life. Hard work, persistence, making some good decisions. Some of those decisions that he made. Pretty epic.

• 3:20:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:20:44Jocko Willink?

  Joining the Navy. No, no relation to the military, not even, you know, at one point he talks about in the book, like he's not even down with being in a uniform. Hey, I did read that part, right?

• 3:20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't like cops, does, he thinks, you know, military is just cops, more cops.

• 3:21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 3:21:04Jocko Willink?

  I mean, he's got warrants out, he's, he's a hustler. He's a criminal. Makes the decision.

• 3:21:12Jocko Willink?

  So, get on the path out there, everybody help people too, you know? If you can spread that word a little bit. You can spread that word a little bit to people. Let them know they got a choice what's happening. They can change the, they can, you can change the direction you're going.

• 3:21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:21:26Jocko Willink?

  You can do it.

• 3:21:29Speaker 02

  Do you feel like, it felt like he did have tangible seeds of, of like, doing the right thing though? Maybe not like super glaring, but just the idea, okay, so he's in the

• 3:21:44Speaker 02

  phone, illegal phone selling business.

• 3:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Federal prison sounded bad.

• 3:21:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:21:49Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:21:50Speaker 02

  And he was like, hmm, and made the decision just because it's not like, hey, he hit Rockwell, you know, and, or, or almost died, or got arrested and then changes. He was like, hmm, this is getting a little bit too, so let me stop. And then writes a letter. Look, was it the best move? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm just saying.

• 3:22:05Jocko Willink?

  I could see his 18 year old mind thinking like, yo, I'm covered.

• 3:22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, at least helpful, you know, kind of a thing. So it's kind of like. There was some ingredients in there, which is good.

• 3:22:16Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 3:22:17Speaker 02

  So yeah, you add that with a little, you know, and, and he liked the movie The Rock. Let's face it, not the, the Navy SEALs in The Rock, and he was right about that, where they did look freaking badass. Sure, they all got massacred in that one scene, I get it, because they had to make the bad guys look extra bad, I get it. But at the same time, they look badass. So.

• 3:22:35Jocko Willink?

  I cannot give that order, you cannot give that order.

• 3:22:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was it.

• 3:22:40Jocko Willink?

  You must obey that order, I can't give that order, give that order, something like that.

• 3:22:43Speaker 02

  That's exactly what it was. But the part, there was a part where probably if we, we asked him, oh, he'd probably be like, oh yeah, that part was sick too. When he was like, uh, when he asked Nicolas Cage, right, Nicolas Cage was the scientist guy, whatever, and he had to go with him under the water. And he was like, have you ever been in a combat scenario? And he's like, define combat scenario. And then the, the guy, Michael Bean, who also played in Terminator one, by the way, um, he goes Shep, and then Shep is like his right-hand man kind of guy. And he just goes into this thing like, oh, an underwater incursion, but, and he goes into this thing, a real straight face, though, real like, almost like it was rehearsed, but just like, real, um, like regimented way he said it, but it was

• 3:23:24Speaker 02

  freaking sick. And then Nicolas Cage kind of listens to it, and he goes, in that case, no. And then he goes and throws up, it's freaking funny part. But anyway, that, even that part made him look super badass. So yeah, man, I dig it. Michael Bay, he makes a lot of stuff look badass.

• 3:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, there you go. Make good decisions, get after it, get on the path. Hey, if you're on the path, by the way, you need some good fuel. Get yourself some Jocko Fuel, get yourself some Jocko Fuel, energy drinks, get yourself some protein. You're addicted, I've noticed, to milk protein.

• 3:23:57Speaker 02

  Sir, so here, let me tell you what happened today. So I worked out today, no big deal. But right after I worked out, I was like, okay, let me make my way down to record. So what I had was two pieces of chicken. A peach, one milk. Okay, so you know, some people, they really like to take in the protein, the post-workout protein, right? I'm one of those people. I try to anyway, but think about it, two pieces of chicken, that's probably, that was probably like maybe thirty, thirty grams of protein, right there, total. Plus the milk, sixty grams of protein, just like that. Boom. Super fast.

• 3:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Super good.

• 3:24:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:24:36Jocko Willink?

  That's a whole, that's a whole, like, that's a whole spectrum of flavor and taste and satisfaction, right? Little chicken, good, and then you get that milk dessert.

• 3:24:46Speaker 02

  Then I had one when I was here, too.

• 3:24:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you already had ninety, ninety grams, without even thinking about it, no factor.

• 3:24:53Speaker 02

  Easy money, yep.

• 3:24:54Jocko Willink?

  Get some protein. Um, we got powder protein, the Pow Pow. Is Pow Pow gonna catch on as a description?

• 3:25:01Speaker 02

  Um, well, I mean, it's, it's stumbling out of the blocks as of right now, but hey, never know.

• 3:25:06Jocko Willink?

  Didn't go good out of the box, huh? Okay, powder, otherwise known as Pow Pow. We got everything. So, check that out, jockofuel.com. You can get it at Wawa, you can get it at Vitamin Shop. Vitamin Shop's crushing, by the way. G, number one brand, Vitamin Shop. You see that? Last year? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, hey, is that a Nobel Prize? Maybe not, but it's, shows you, it shows you that people, other people, that don't know about it, try it, they keep getting it. That's what the subscriptions do, too. The people that subscribe, go to jockofuel.com, you subscribe to Time War, because you're like, like me. I'm taking Time

• 3:25:46Jocko Willink?

  War for the rest of my life, because it is, has an impact on the way you feel. So, check that out. Get it at Wawa, you can get Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanford, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Farm, ShopRide, HGB, HGB killing it. End caps, you know what an end cap is?

• 3:26:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, the the aisle.

• 3:26:06Jocko Willink?

  The aisle at the end. Yeah. H E P they put they're put like end caps.

• 3:26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Cause everybody down in Tejas is rolling in to getting their Jocko Fuel hitters.

• 3:26:14Speaker 02

  For that Jocko.

• 3:26:15Jocko Willink?

  And then up up in the Midwest, you got Meyer, same thing. Meyer's, we I saw I met about with a bunch of the Meyer people, they're they're getting everything. They're bringing it into the stores. Uh Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields. And then you got like little gyms all over the place, little CrossFit gyms, we're doing CrossFit. We're doing Jiu Jitsu. I happen to have a CrossFit and a Jiu Jitsu gym. It's called Victory MMA and Fitness. Guess what we sell here? Jocko Fuel. When you get done rolling, you can get a Molk. Before you roll, you can get a Go. Molk, Go, Go, Molk. Either way, you're good to go. If you want to sell this stuff at your gym, email J F Sales at jockofuel.com. Get on the path. Get on it. It's called jockofuel.com.

• 3:27:01Jocko Willink?

  The clean path.

• 3:27:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:27:03Jocko Willink?

  The goodness. All right, what else?

• 3:27:05Speaker 02

  Origin, USA. American made, what? It was so we started with gies.

• 3:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes, we did.

• 3:27:11Speaker 02

  Gies made in America. Sure, people thought it was crazy. But then when they start rolling out, you know, rolling off the line. Oh, no, no, people didn't think it was so crazy. In fact, it started to become the new standard. Since then, American made gies, which have gone through some evolution, by the way.

• 3:27:26Jocko Willink?

  Improvements all the time.

• 3:27:28Speaker 02

  So I don't know if you know this about me, but I have one of the original, original Origin gies. Before, before I knew Pete, before I knew even of Origin, I it was gifted to me because I did some work um for this guy, cool guy, he was like fitness dude and he um and he was like, oh, thank you, whatever. And he gave me that gi. It's too big for him or whatever, you know. And um he gave me that gi. And I was like, oh, yeah, cool, Origin gi, right on, cool. It was black with the, you know, gray stripe, it was cool. And then um so I just put it away and I didn't train gi that much. And then years later.

• 3:28:03Speaker 02

  I get the rift gi, I get all these other ones and then I go back, I'm like, wait a second, that original one I got was a freaking origin gi and I grabbed it. But you compare the evolution of the fabric, the material.

• 3:28:15Jocko Willink?

  So FYI, the original ones were better than every other gi. But now we're just upping our own game. And we're doing that across the board with everything, with the t-shirts we're making, with the jeans, with the everything, we're evolving, we're getting better. And we're doing it here in America, which is, which is what it's all about, right? Cause sure, we could be like, oh, we'll make a little t-shirt and we'll make some money off it and have our brand, right? You can do that, you can do that in 15 minutes. Shut up, set up a Shopify, drop ship, you know, the whole thing, right?

• 3:28:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  And that's not just, look, you're a small company out there, you can make that happen. I get it, that's cool. But then at a certain point, you should say, oh, cool, we're gonna buy American. We're gonna sell American. Not, oh, we can save 30 cents a shirt and put it in our pockets as long as we enslave some people overseas and wreck the environment. You can do that. I don't recommend it. I recommend you go to originusa.com, get some American-made stuff. That's what we're doing. What else?

• 3:29:17Speaker 02

  Also Jocko's store called Jocko Store, AKA defcore.com. It's all the same. JacoStore.com, defcore.com, it's the same gig.

• 3:29:26Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 3:29:27Speaker 02

  One and the same. Anyway, you're on this path or if you're representing clothing.

• 3:29:32Jocko Willink?

  Seems like we should have something else on defcore.com.

• 3:29:34Speaker 02

  Like what?

• 3:29:35Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, maybe just like a black screen that says get some. And anytime you're feeling like what to do in life, just go there.

• 3:29:44Speaker 02

  Okay, that could be something. Hey, hey, it's not a bad idea.

• 3:29:48Jocko Willink?

  Seems like that would be better use of the URL. You know what that stands for?

• 3:29:51Speaker 02

  Yes. Wait, no, what does, what does it stand for?

• 3:29:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You told me this a long time ago.

• 3:29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Now you forgot.

• 3:29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I forget. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. I know what it is, so there you go. It's a domain name, it's the freaking URL. Anyway, defcore.com, JacoStore.com, this is where you can get your shirts and hats and hoodies you want to represent on the path. This, this, discipline equals freedom.

• 3:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Discipline?

• 3:30:17Speaker 02

  That too. Represent on the path with discipline equals freedom or good. You know, the concept of good, you ever heard of that? You hear good things?

• 3:30:28Jocko Willink?

  I heard about that one.

• 3:30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I learned about that one too. But anyway, you want to represent? Boom, that's where you can get it. We also have what's called the shirt locker. Subscription scenario, you get a new shirt, new design every month.

• 3:30:40Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Get some of that. Subscribe to subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the unraveling podcast, the warrior kid podcast, the jocko underground.com. Go there. That's our own platform. Look, we don't control the platform. You know, we don't control iTunes. We don't control YouTube. We don't control Spotify. We don't control any of these other platforms. We control jocko underground.com. So we can do whatever we want on there. And that's why we do a little, another little kind of adjacent podcast. It's called the underground. We talk about some other stuff on the underground. We answer a lot of questions on the underground.

• 3:31:16Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, that's life questions, by the way. You, when you think about like, okay, so every once in a great while, we'll get a question that's maybe not quite as impactful. But very interesting, I think, like, you know, well, there's one that he was asking like, what Metallica song you like or something like that? Which is cool. It's fun. It's fun. But most of them are impactful stuff like, hey, you're starting a new job and you don't know. You don't know what like, hey, man, am I going to be able to handle this thing? I'm sketch about it, all this stuff or whatever. Boom, that kind of question. Stuff that's gonna like literally help you and like.

• 3:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Um, no, so there you go. It's $8.18 a month. And listen, if you can't afford it, it's fine. Just email assistance at jock underground.com. We'll get you taken care of. But we do need to have something that we own. We need to have ownership of a platform that we can control. Otherwise, it could be a problem. So to avoid that problem, we appreciate that support. And to pay for you for the support. That's why we do that little adjacent podcast. Check it out. YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, subscribe to psychological warfare. Go to flip side canvas, get some cool stuff from Dakota Meyer to hang up on your wall. We got a bunch of books. Okay. So from Remy Adeleke. We got transformed and then we have chameleon. Go check out Remy's book. You just heard his story. I mean, it's an incredible story, right?

• 3:32:32Jocko Willink?

  I covered 3% of the story on, when I read it. He actually did the audio book and he does like, you know, he does his little accents and stuff like this. He, he, he, he gives some, you know, he, he's an actor.

• 3:32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:32:48Jocko Willink?

  And he acts when he's reading it. He gets into it a little bit.

• 3:32:51Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, that helps.

• 3:32:52Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? It's good. Yeah, it's good.

• 3:32:53Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 3:32:54Jocko Willink?

  I listened to the sample. It's pretty good.

• 3:32:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Remy did, did a good job on that. Hey, was it on the podcast or was it before we were recording when he was telling about how sometimes he'll be talking to his kid and like go into the voice? Was that on the podcast? Okay. I couldn't remember if that was before or after.

• 3:33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:33:09Jocko Willink?

  Are you sure?

• 3:33:11Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was.

• 3:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:33:13Speaker 02

  I was.

• 3:33:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:33:15Speaker 02

  It is. Bro, I'll do that too. So.

• 3:33:17Jocko Willink?

  What voice do you go into?

• 3:33:19Speaker 02

  It's like pigeon.

• 3:33:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:33:20Speaker 02

  But Hawaii pigeon, but not when I'm yelling at my kids, but if I get like, it's been years, but if I start to like lose my temper at someone, like I remember when I was a bouncer, like every once in a while, like I'd get in a confrontation.

• 3:33:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, get Remy's books transformed and get his new book chameleon. Uh, check out final spin. I just gave a copy of final spin to Remy. He was like, yo, let me read this. I was like, cool, do it. So there we go. Uh, leadership strategy and tactics field manual, the code evaluation protocols, discipline equals freedom field manual. Way of the warrior kid, one, two, three. This is, you know, I couldn't help thinking, right? You give a kid way of the warrior kid, one, two, three, four, five. That's the little, that's the little direction change that they need in their life. I know this because thousands of people have told me that that, those books made a shift in their kid's life or in their life. So help the people around you, help the kids around you.

• 3:34:15Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing. Uh, don't forget about Mike and Dragons. Don't forget about About Face by Hackworth. I wrote the foreword to that. What an honor that was. Then Extreme Ownership Academy Leadership. Also, Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. That's what we do. We heard about talking about JP Denell today. He's our first instructor that we hired. So, we got Leif, we got all kinds of instructors, but what we do is we solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com if you need help inside your organization with leadership. If you want to come to one of our live events, go there and check out events and sign up because we sell out. Dallas is sold out. And that's in September, man. It's in October. It's already

• 3:34:56Jocko Willink?

  sold out. So, check it out. We got FTXs, we got Council, we got Battlefield. We got the Women's Assembly coming up. The Chief Operating Officer of Echelon Front, the Chief Operating Officer of Jocko Fuel, and the Chief Operating Officer of Origin USA, they're all going to be there.

• 3:35:16Jocko Willink?

  So, Amanda Roberts is going to be there. Diane's going to be there. Jamie's going to be there.

• 3:35:21Jocko Willink?

  Go and check that out. Uh, Women's Assembly, September 14th through the 16th in Phoenix, Arizona. We also have online training at the Extreme Ownership Academy. This is learn how to live. If you interact with other people, which you do, you're in a leadership position. This is life. Life is leadership. You know how, you need to know how to lead. There are skills that you can learn. Go to extremeownership.com and learn some of these incredible skills. And also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also,

• 3:36:05Jocko Willink?

  don't forget about HeroesAndHorses.org, where Micah Fink takes our vets into the wilderness so that they can find their soul.

• 3:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding program. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, on the Gram, on Twitter, on Facebook, maybe even on Threads. You on Threads?

• 3:36:25Speaker 02

  I'm on Threads.

• 3:36:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're on Threads.

• 3:36:28Jocko Willink?

  For Remy, go to @remyadeleke and Echo is @echocharles. I'm at @chaco Just, just, just watch out because there's that force there and you think it's no big deal. It's a sneaky force. It's not the kind of force that looks intimidating. You actually don't even really know it's there. Next thing you know, you're getting choked out.

• 3:36:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 3:36:48Jocko Willink?

  So, watch out for that. It's like a, it's like a 10th planet, planet jujitsu player, right?

• 3:36:54Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:36:54Jocko Willink?

  You're like, oh, this person's skinny. Little Eddie Bravo. Well, this is no factor. You know, this little guy. Little skinny guy, you know? And then the next thing you know, you're getting choked.

• 3:37:05Speaker 02

  Yep. You don't really detect the threat till it's too late.

• 3:37:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It feels all kind of like limber too, right? Well, so what are you, flexible? Like, what's that?

• 3:37:14Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:37:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm strong. Next thing you know, you're getting your back taken. Next thing you know, getting caught in that, uh, rubber guard. The rubber guard.

• 3:37:21Speaker 02

  That algorithm.

• 3:37:22Jocko Willink?

  That algorithm. That's what it's doing. You don't see it coming. Kind of like a 10th planet jujitsu player. Just watch out for them, right? Watch out for that. Also, thanks once again to Remy for coming down today. Remy, thanks for your work. Thanks for your service in the teams and thanks for your service to our great nation. And thanks to all the military people out there who have served and are serving in our military.

• 3:37:51Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for what you do. We get to do, what we get to do because you protect our way of life. The freedoms that Remy talked about today.

• 3:38:01Jocko Willink?

  That allow us to have these opportunities, that's because of our military personnel keeping evil at bay, keeping tyranny at bay. And we thank you for protecting our way of life. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all you first responders

• 3:38:22Jocko Willink?

  that are out there on the front lines here at home, protecting us and keeping us safe. Thanks to all of you as well. And to everyone else out there, you know, sometimes it's two steps forward and one steps back, right? You heard that expression before, Echo Charles. Two step forward, one step back. Sometimes it's two steps forward and five steps back.

• 3:38:41Jocko Willink?

  That happens. And boy, does that take the wind out of your sails. And that's probably a person's most vulnerable time. That's where you can rationalize quitting.

• 3:38:55Jocko Willink?

  Right? That's when you can say, oh, it's probably not going to work out. I already gave it my best shot. That's when Remy got sent back to the first day of training.

• 3:39:04Jocko Willink?

  After he'd been in basic SEAL training for five weeks and he gets rolled during Hell Week. That's the time where someone goes, uh, you know, I gave it my best shot. And then he actually gets dropped from training. Dropped. You're done. You're out of here. You're turning your cool clothes and get your normal Navy outfit back on and go to the regular Navy.

• 3:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Made it through every, made it through Hell Week, made it through the swims, made it through the runs, made it through all the hypothermia, then he gets dropped because he didn't perform. What does he do? Humbles himself. Humbles himself as Mark Lee told him to do. Owns his mistakes. And then goes back and does it all again. That's a long journey. That's a hard journey. But guess what? In the end, he made it. And that's what it takes to win. That's what it takes to win. Yeah, you have to work. You have to strive. You have to suffer. You have to humble yourself. You have to own your mistakes. You have to fix them. But most important, you cannot give up.

• 3:40:09Jocko Willink?

  That's the rule.

• 3:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Never quit.

• 3:40:14Jocko Willink?

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