407: Never Give UP. Never Quit. Bounce Back. With Travis Mills

Retired United States Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne is a recalibrated warrior, motivational speaker, actor, author and an advocate for veterans and amputees. Travis’s New York Times bestselling memoir, Tough as They Come, is currently available on sale in bookstores everywhere. Despite losing portions of both arms and legs from an IED while on active duty in Afghanistan, Travis continues to overcome life’s challenges, breaking physical barriers and defying odds. 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 407 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  We all face challenges. We all have setbacks. We all suffer.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  When these difficulties hit, some people break. They surrender. They let circumstances, fate, and events that unfold control their attitude, dictate their emotional state, and determine their destiny. They adopt a defeatist attitude of negativity. They accept failure.

• 0:34Jocko Willink?

  They curl up in a ball and wait for the clock to run out.

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  They quit.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  But there are other people who are diametrically opposed to that attitude. People who, in spite of incredible challenges, adapt and overcome.

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  Of every person I have ever met in my life, Travis Mills has faced the most traumatic, intense, and brutal challenges a human being could face. And he faces these severe challenges continuously, every day, over and over again.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  And yet, he has the best attitude of anyone I know or have ever known. His emotional state is always positive. His humor is always on point. His mentality is pure strength of will.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  Despite suffering the most horrific wounds imaginable, he chooses his own destiny and is unstoppable in his drive and commitment to live life. Travis Mills is one of my friends, one of my heroes, and the most inspiring human being I have ever met.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  Travis received injuries beyond all comprehension. While serving in the US Army in Afghanistan, an improvised explosive device big enough to destroy a vehicle ripped off his arms and legs, leaving him a quadruple amputee.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  In that moment of shock and despair, when most people would be focused on themselves, Travis's first response was directing the medics tending to him to care for his fellow soldiers instead.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  He thought he was going to die.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  Against the odds, and thanks to the skill and determination of those medics, he lived. But his battle was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning. Upon returning to America, he started an almost unbearable journey of recovery and recalibration. Countless surgeries, excruciating pain, hallucinations, fighting to stay alive.

• 2:52Jocko Willink?

  Then, he had to learn how to live again. He had to learn to utilize prosthetic limbs. He had to learn how to walk, eat, and accomplish seemingly ordinary tasks like getting dressed and brushing his teeth. He also had to recreate his identity now that he could no longer serve in his beloved army.

• 3:16Jocko Willink?

  And, most important, he had to recalculate and reimagine how he could be the husband and father he knew his family deserved.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  This was not an easy path. I cannot think of anything in life more difficult to overcome. Yet, Travis has achieved exactly that. He has excelled in every aspect of life. He is an author, a business owner, the founder of a powerful charity organization, a speaker, and a devoted family man. He is a recognized source of laughter and light to all who encounter him.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  Without question, Travis Mills has turned tragedy into triumph and victimhood into victory. In the game of life, Travis Mills is the undisputed champion.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from the foreword, which I had the honor of writing to a new book, which is called Bounce Back 12 Warrior Principles to Reclaim and Recalibrate Your Life, which is written by Travis Mills, the man himself. Travis has been on this podcast before, over six years ago, actually, episode 90, where we discussed his first book, which is called Tough As They Come. And if you haven't read that book or listened to that podcast, go listen to that podcast and read that book to learn about the life of Travis Mills, where he came from, what he went through. But if you want to learn how he got through it,

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  and what he learned from it, and the principles that he has to pass on, then get this book, Bounce Back. We can all learn so much from Travis, and it is an honor to have him here with us tonight to discuss his life and some of these lessons learned. Travis?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  I mean, that was so good. I don't know what I should say, because you always, I mean, it's impressive. I'm over here with goosebumps thinking like, man, this guy sounds awesome, whoever he's reading about, what a cool, I mean, I want to know that guy.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I'll tell you what, man, to be honest with you, I almost never talk in like absolute terms. Think about it, you know, it's really difficult to say someone is the most inspirational person you've ever met in your life. I don't throw those things out there lightly, but this is the truth, man. Like, I have never met anyone that inspires me as much as you do. And so, like I said, I don't speak in those terms. If you listen, I'm always very careful. You know, because when you say someone's like the best, you're basically dissing everyone else. Like, if I'm doing jujitsu with someone, and they're really, really good, they might even be a world champion, I'll still be like careful about saying, oh, they're the best person I've ever trained with. Because isn't there some other people that, you know what I mean?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I mean, I did, and I appreciate that because obviously you wake up every day and look in the mirror at yourself. And I mean, everybody gets motivated, even my wife today, she, before we flew out here to OCalifor, IA. She took a picture of her watch, it was 4:54, she goes, who am I, Jaco? She's a little late, but either way, no, I appreciate that, and I'll tell you, I'm pretty good at jiu-jitsu myself. I was at the camp, I started on the white belt mat, day one, you know, not knowing what I was doing, and by day two, I was on the black belt. So, I mean, it's a pretty big deal.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  How'd you feel? Have you kept training?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  I went one other time, just because of scheduling, I plan on going next, nope, not next week, no, maybe next Wednesday. But, no, I do.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  Was it fun?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It is fun, but what I, you know, there's some people, one guy in particular did not like when I tapped him out. He actually was pretty upset, and I saw him the other time, went and trained, and he didn't really make eye contact with me, but he was upset, and I get it, because I'm handicapped, but what people don't realize is like, we used to do ground fighting tactics, like three days a week, and when I was in the military, so like, I understand the concept. And with me, it's so hard, you either gotta choke me out, you know what I mean?

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not, you're difficult to leg lock.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  You're difficult to arm lock.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  You gotta choke you. You know what I, what I realized when we were talking was, for you to do exercise is like, there's only so many limited moves that you can do, and so like, doing jiu-jitsu, you totally were doing jiu-jitsu, I mean, and that's gotta be so much more fun than the kind of norm, I mean, for me, jiu-jitsu is more fun than running, more fun than swimming, it's more fun than lift, it's more fun than any, Echo Charles, support, it's more fun than any form of exercise?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes. Oh, definitely, and I used more muscles I haven't used in years.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  Were you sore the next day?

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I was like playing it off, like, I'm not sore, you know, I'm like, oh, let's go again, I'm ready. But then, then I go to Pete's, and where he trains, in his gym there, he has a, he's like, I want to feel like it's Brazil. So the doors are closed, the windows are closed, he's probably had the, I think he had the heat on, pumping humidity in the air somehow.

• 8:27Jocko Willink?

  And then he plays, did he play Brazilian music too?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Oh, he did, oh, he did, and I'm like, and I'm like, okay, how do I get more air in my lungs? Like, I was going against Ian. I got to the point where I'm like Ian, you're not gonna tap me, but I'm, but I'm telling you right now, like I can't breathe. Like I'm gonna need to take a minute here.

• 8:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's tapping by the way.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 8:44Jocko Willink?

  Just saying that counts.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I understand that. I understand he didn't choke me. He didn't choke me out.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  But you're right. You're right. And then, and then, like, I, I spent like $50,000 on a brand new gym at my house. I got a sauna. My wife's got a Peloton. I got a tonal machine. And let me tell you something. The two times I've worked out in there, for the, for the gram, those posts have went very well. So you know what I'm saying? Do it for the gram. And for my health. I need to do it for my health.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's awesome. And, uh, I know you were an athlete. Again, go listen to Podcast Night if you were, if you haven't, or get the book, uh, uh, Tough As They Come. Because you were an athlete growing up and like you, it's real obvious that you were an athlete growing up when you train, when I trained with you, like when I trained jiu-jitsu with you, you can just feel you have, like, you're strong as hell. And you, the way you move is like a little crazy.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  I think I actually punched you with my left, uh, right, my left, uh, my nub.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  And your eyes went like red. I was like, oh, this is how I die. Because the way you snapped from like, oh yeah, try this. And then to like, I'm gonna eat you. Um, it scared me. I'm not gonna lie. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. And you see the film, actually. They have the video where I'm like, I, I, I'm sorry. You just keep going. I'm like, ah, I just punched him right in the forehead.

• 10:01Jocko Willink?

  That's the way jiu-jitsu is. Jiu-jitsu is a full contact evolution. Like you're gonna get, you're gonna get jacked. You're gonna get punched. You're gonna get hit in the face, head butted. Like everything's gonna happen. And it's just kind of the way it is.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  And I mean, I just got my little arm, like a little bone there, that secret weapon. I love it.

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You definitely have some techniques to develop. Cause like in, Echo, like in his arm, his shorter arm, there's like a bone in there.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:25Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's like, it's like having an elbow at the end of your arm or something like that. So when you grind it in there, it was not, it didn't feel good. We'll say that.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  It's, did I, did I show you when you were there? Or did I put, did I push it in your?

• 10:36Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I, I.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm saying, no, you will.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  But it's, uh, it's, it's some form of HO that like when your bone breaks, it like grows funny. And they were supposed to like, it grew so hard. I mean, so pointed that it was bruising my skin from the inside out when I was putting my left or my right prosthetic arm on. And then they wanted to like cut you open and grind it down.

• 10:53Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  And it would took me out of my recovery. For like two weeks or or something like that. And I said, no, I can't do that. So my buddy was like, just hit it on the table. And it'll chip the bone. So I just like hit it on the table repeatedly for like forty five minutes. Until finally, I was like, I think I might have rounded it up. And I did. It I mean, it rounded out enough. Like, it doesn't bother me anymore.

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  Where are the chips?

• 11:13Speaker 01

  They just float around, I think.

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  Just got consumed.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:18Jocko Willink?

  So we were talking before we hit record, like your reason behind writing this book twelve. I didn't. Did I read the twelve warrior principles to reclaim? Okay. So that's like the subtitle twelve warrior principles to reclaim and recalibrate your life, which

• 11:33Jocko Willink?

  can we say you took that from Jordan Peterson, who had like the number like the bestselling book for

• 11:37Speaker 01

  This is the second time I heard this today. And I was like, I don't even read books. So I have no idea if that's what they did. Because I didn't pick that. The publisher was like, hey, we're gonna do this. And I was like, if that's what you think, but I don't know who that guy even is.

• 11:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  And here's the thing, like, I should because it's embarrassing because I'm the drive down. My buddy Max, who lives in Temecula, he's a Paralympian, like in track and field and Navy corpsman. And I called him up, see how far he was away and whatnot. He goes, did you steal that? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. He goes, okay. And I'm like, no, seriously, I don't like read books. If it's not audible. So like now I feel embarrassed where I'm like, well.

• 12:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, not only do you write a book called Twelve Rules for Life, he wrote another book that's called Twelve More Rules.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Well, this is, yeah, well, did he cover the the? You know what? I have no idea. I didn't do that. But I mean, look.

• 12:32Jocko Willink?

  The cool thing is, uh, he would like, he would love this book. Um, so we'll, I'll, I'll send him a copy of this thing.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want to get mad at me because I didn't, I didn't even know he existed before.

• 12:43Jocko Willink?

  That's probably what he'd be more mad about.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but just because I'm not a learned man.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  He's been one of the most, uh, covered figures in the news for the past like five, five years.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we had him on this podcast. He's been on a few times. The first time he was on, he wasn't really popular yet.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:00Jocko Willink?

  And so, you know, he came on and it was sort of like, cool. Um, he wasn't quite. Then after that one, he just went Richter. He did an interview with the BBC. And this woman was kind of questioning him. And he was just kinda calm, cool and collected and and she kept saying, um, so you're saying and she would like take his words and kinda try and make him sound a little bit different. And he he was like, no, I'm not saying that. And it was just, it really was a, it was an interesting interview to watch and it and it got tens of millions of views. And then his book came out and then it just all went crazy and he became like a really, really popular guy. He's a super nice guy. He's

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  even to this day, like he's a super nice guy. He's always been cool to me. He's been cool to us the whole time. Like, he didn't change. Like when he became from just like a normal kinda person to a li- He's gotta be the most famous psychologist, Echo.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:58Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I-

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I mean, before this book comes out, November 7th.

• 14:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I get what your book comes out.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  But uh, so, so here's the thing, like, I, yeah, I don't know. I didn't know this coming down. I catch your guys' podcast when I can, when I have time to drive, but usually it's windshield time. So I catch the ones that I can, but I don't, I don't read a lot. Just like flipping pages is hard for me and it's like a total excuse. I know that.

• 14:20Jocko Willink?

  Do you do audiobooks or something?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  I, I do. I catch them audiobooks. I listened to, uh, this book of stream ownership. I did.

• 14:26Jocko Willink?

  I heard that one was good.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, real good. Real good. There you go. There's two guys that narrate. They're just fantastic. Um, but I do a lot of audiobooks just because it's, I, I can't like flip pages that well. And I mean, I know it sounds soft to me, like I probably could figure it out, but, but then, blech, I don't know. Reading puts me to sleep.

• 14:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, reading, I, I read cause I have to read. Sometimes I wanna read, but like when I was growing up, I didn't read barely anything. Like when I was in high school and stuff, I didn't, I didn't read barely anything. I, I don't think I completed a book in high school.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  I read one. I read one when I was-

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember what it was?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Oh, I do.

• 15:00Jocko Willink?

  What?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Where the Red Fern Grows. And let me tell you something. I wanna ruin it for everybody. But I'm going to. When those dogs died, it wrecked me. I walked across the hall to my sister's room, full tears. Dan Littlean died?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Are you kidding me?

• 15:17Jocko Willink?

  What's the book about? I don't know what the book is about.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Uh, like Backwoods, something they like, they're like, uh-

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  Is it about dogs? Is it like, is it about humans or is like the dogs or humans?

• 15:28Speaker 01

  No, no, it's humans. Then these two dogs are like hunting dogs.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  Can they talk and stuff like that?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  No, no, I don't think, I don't remember. It was fifth grade, but I do remember like, I'm done reading. Like this just ruined me. I'm out. You know what I mean? Like if you read my first book, you're gonna find out, I got blown up. You know, it's sad. I didn't see it coming, but you know, it's weird being thirty six now because I got two feet in the grave. But like, sorry.

• 15:55Jocko Willink?

  You were, yeah, I was, you know, just reviewing, like I said, I reviewed, re-reviewed the first book. I listened to when you were on the podcast again, and yeah, you were twenty five when you got blowed up.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. And I didn't even see it coming. I know. I mean, I always thought I retired from the military, but I didn't know I could just do it that fast.

• 16:14Jocko Willink?

  Do not pass, go, go straight to medical retirement?

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Just there, just there. I just, you know, I want it, I got it, you know?

• 16:22Jocko Willink?

  So going back to the question that I veered off on, what was kind of the reason that you ended up writing this book? You were saying this because people would ask you like, dude, how do you, basically, which I could see, you probably get asked that thousands of times.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Jocko Willink?

  Like, how do you do it, man?

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I mean, the worst, yeah, people are always like, how do you do this? Or like, I don't know, like how you're so able to, like how you're able to just be so, you know, cool with it and, you know? And I was always like, well, I have to, you know, like real simple to the point, like I have to. It's kind of like, um, and it's, you know, veering off, but like at my foundation there, we bring out the, um, I sounded very, very Minnesota right there. At my foundation there, but I didn't mean to. But, um, we, we did the veterans that have been through.

• 17:03Jocko Willink?

  You do, do you?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, don't you know? So we, well, we bring out the veterans and their families, uh, physically injured veterans. And we show them how to do things adaptively, but everybody's always like, what do you do for post-traumatic stress? And I was like, ah, well, there's these two programs that I highly recommend, Home Base and Warrior Path. And they have their own thing set up, blah, blah, blah. Well, we became a chapter of Warrior Path program, so we offer it now. And when people were asking me like, how do you do it? Like this would be miserable and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, I have to. And I was like, maybe I should break that down. And not only break it down, because I feel like a lot of times. Uh, people will look at me like, oh my gosh, well, I have this going on, but there's nothing compared to your situation. And I gotta remind them, like, your biggest problem is your biggest problem. You know what I mean? You can't compare what happened to me to what you're going through.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  So I took stories of, um, you know, drug addiction, uh, there was a sexual assault, like a child sexual assault case. There was, um, a widower, uh, cancer survivor, things like that, people go through every day. Um, a house fire and a divorce and how they got to the very bottom and then how they like climbed their way back out. And then because I had a collaborative author, um, Kathy Huck, who's a research author, she went and found the medical. Cause I said, you know, there, there's gotta be medical research and theories on why your mind does this or your brain's able to think a certain way. So we put those at the end of the chapters that we, um, had in there.

• 18:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that was clever how you got someone that was

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 18:23Jocko Willink?

  Smart to help you in this book.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Cause you know, I, I, I, um, I, I left college cause I couldn't, I just couldn't focus on the whole school work.

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  But then I found as long as I get blown up and I look handicapped and people are like, oh my gosh, he can walk and talk. That's amazing. I can find someone to do the work for me, you know?

• 18:40Jocko Willink?

  Guilt trip them into it.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. That's all my life. I get pulled over all the time. I'm like, oh, my foot got stuck. I'm sorry. I just couldn't feel it, you know? Heck, the state troopers in Maine gave me my own badge. Like I got my own badge.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  What are you driving? Driving a, are you driving a Bronco?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  I have the Bronco, um.

• 18:55Jocko Willink?

  Is that thing like a Raptor Bronco or is it a regular?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  No, they didn't have the Raptor Bronco when I bought it. So, but it's, it's all, you know, the wild, wild tracks and Sasquatch stance.

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  It's all souped up.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  It's awesome. I like it. I drive that just in the, and you know, it's gonna sound bougie, but I only drive in the summer. I don't wanna get it like, I don't wanna get it like, um, any salt on it. So I drive it with the top off. And here's a dumb thing. I know we're veering here. The dumb thing is I waited. They were like, hey, for the 2021s, we can get you a soft top, not a hard top. I'm like, I want the hard top. That's what I put in for. Now I'm gonna wait. So I got the hard top. And then I take the doors and top off all summer long, so I don't even use it. And then when the winter comes, I have a, I have a Yukon that I drive, an older Yukon. I got an American flag really in it, all blacked out. It's tinted illegally, but again, I got that special badge. In my registration, I keep inside the badge that the state troopers gave me. So I'm like, oh, it's in here if you can just find it in there.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Get out your free card. Monopoly is a game, but this is my life.

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  Freaking awesome. Um, all right. So let's, let's, let's go into the book a little bit and um, start with this section here. You say, "We all have a moment in our lives we'll never forget. A moment that completely changes our life's trajectory. For me, it was not the blistering hot day in Afghanistan on April 10th, 2012, when I dropped my backpack and inadvertently set off an IED intended for a truck. It was not the day that nearly killed me and left me seriously injured, although I will say that day was a really, really bad day at the office. No, my moment came some 18 months later, sitting alone at my in-laws' bedroom on a small Texas ranch. As I sat on the edge of the bed, I looked at a young soldier staring

• 20:35Jocko Willink?

  back at me from a small sterling silver picture frame, sporting a bright orange baseball hat and a toothpaste ad-worthy smile. The soldier stood proudly in uniform, flanked by his squad, grinning in the Afghan sun. That soldier was me, US Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne Division. The picture was only taken two years earlier, but it might as well have been another lifetime. I was no longer that man in the image and never would be again. That was the moment I felt helpless, enraged, despondent, afraid, all at once." And we all have those moments. I had a hard realization. My military days

• 21:19Jocko Willink?

  were over and I would never wear a uniform again. I would never give orders to my men again. I would not fight for my country again. I was no longer Staff Sergeant Travis Mills, serving on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan. In the Army, everything had been laid out for me. There was always a clear mission and a thorough strategy to execute it. I always knew what I needed to do and how to get it done. Now it was all just so unknown. I know I am not supposed to admit this, especially as a former member of the 82nd Airborne, but my eyes welled up. I blubbered between deep gulps of air, trying to catch my breath. Luckily, my wife, Kelsey, walked in at that moment. I used what was left of my right arm to wipe

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  my eyes as she sat down next to me. As soon as I, as soon as she saw my blotchy face, she looked into my eyes and, rubbing my back, reassured me, "Everything is going to be okay. We have each other, and you know we can get through anything. It's all going to be fine." She didn't say much else. She didn't have to. Just being there helped. I knew she was right. Kelsey and my daughter had been with me every step of the way while I recovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. My parents, her parents, and my extended family were also so supportive. My fellow soldiers had my back, and still do. I knew I was one of the lucky ones. There were plenty of fellow soldiers who didn't get to go home. There were others who had made it but

• 22:42Jocko Willink?

  didn't have the kind of support that I had. Some still carried the weight of war, which seemed nearly impossible to get past. In that moment, in Kelsey's arms, I made the conscious decision not to let the enemy win. I had to grieve for that person in the picture, or I couldn't move forward. I thought, "Okay, I am no longer that Travis. That's the old Travis. The whiteboard has been erased. I have a pen in my hand, and I can totally start anew." I began to see life as two choices: you move forward or backward. What I wanted in my life was in front of me, not the one in that photo anymore. Though the man in that photo was gone,

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  to me, the choice was clear. Damn if I don't hate that I will never feel the skin of my wife's hand in mine, or throw my son in the air to catch him, but there was only one direction to go, and that was forward.

• 23:43Jocko Willink?

  You know, what struck me about that is, I mean, you have such a clear distinct moment where you talk about that. But like, that's where we're all at. Like, everyone. We're all at this point where we, you have to go forward. You can't wish for what was and what could have been and woulda, shoulda, coulda. That stuff doesn't help and doesn't move you anywhere. You had that like distinct moment.

• 24:14Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  You know, and my thing is, I'm always a guy telling jokes, making people feel comfortable. I'm always having a good, you know, good laugh. And at the hospital, I became a mentor, right? I was an older guy. At 25, I was an old guy that got injured. I was a staff sergeant in a lot of privates. And, you know, when I was in the service, I had a clear, this is my job, it's my role, people look up to me. When I got injured, this is my job, my role, people look up to me. I wanted to retire. I fought to retire. I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. You know, within the means of like, I can do everything that I need to be able to do or required to do, but it's time to move on. And then I did. And I got home and that picture was up there. And I'd never, I mean, this is, honestly, this is the first time I've talked about it.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Like, this book coming out is the first time I've talked about this moment, because I never showed that side of me. I don't know why. You know, everybody think like, oh, it's okay, whatever. But, but no, Kelsey walked in and I was just, just tears just down my face. And I was like, I'm just not that guy. I'm no longer Staff Sergeant Travis Mills, leader of combat soldiers. You know, best job I ever had. And, and I just didn't know what I was gonna do. And, you know, I, I wanted to retire. The military, good, bad, or different, people hear on the news and all this stuff with the VA. Like, I have a very, very, you know, well, taken care of, like, plan of care and I have a pension and things like that. So like, I'm good. And I appreciate that. But, just, I was lost. I was lost completely. And I didn't know what I was gonna do.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, luckily, I mean, I had some sort of foundation of, okay, well, we started the foundation. We have speaking that's starting to pick up for me. And my documentary was being done by Reese and Katie Norris. And Reese was there helping me along, as well as my father-in-law, who works with me every day. And we lived in my in-laws because our house in Maine wasn't built yet, but... But yeah, I um, I play it off as, you know, we joke, we have fun, but when you think back, I'm like, you know, even taking a step further, like I'm always like, oh yeah, 19 months I recovered at Walter Reed and then I was like out. It's like, that was 19 months. There were some days that were terrible, you know? The first day I walked was great. Second day I tried to walk, I couldn't. I fell over, my legs cramped up, I was, my muscles spasmed and I couldn't move.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  And I felt so defeated that day. And then, you know, after 19 months of being at Walter Reed, and then you forget. So, and I'm not sure if you guys have that in your life, where you forget the tough times?

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  You're like, oh yeah, no, that was terrible. But it's like, I can remember just sitting at the end of the bed saying like, who am I and what am I doing? You know, and, and this is, I mean, maybe I top, maybe not. I had a lady that came up to house sit across the lake from us at the foundation. Their friend was like, hey, you know what? By the way, you're a traveling nurse, but you should know, there's a guy over here who's in the service. He lost both arms and legs. And he, he's made something out of it. And she goes, what, who, who's this guy? And this nurse was very excited, like, very like, over the top, like, who is this? And she goes, his name's Travis Mills, but here's a picture of him. And she recognized the diamonds on my arm. She worked on me in Afghanistan.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  And now she has moved up, she's a volunteer, and I've had her speak a few times, you know, for the foundation. And she's admitted openly, she's embarrassed about it, but she admitted openly, when she was working on me on the table, she was in her head saying like, why don't we let him die? Cause he can die with some dignity. And it's the same thought I had when I woke up in the hospital. It's like, you know, this is my Lieutenant Dan, right? My moment, like, why didn't I just die? How is this gonna be better? But then, I get out of the hospital, I met every requirement they put in front of me to retire, and it's time to go on with my life. Okay, you're out. Go forth and do some, you know, good stuff. And I don't know what I'm gonna do. And it was a, it was a hard realization of like, okay, I've done everything the military needs of me.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Now what?

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  Now what?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  You know?

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's interesting. I was just thinking about, uh, by chance, this part of the book is in the foreword of the book. It's not chapter one, it's in the foreword. And it's like, the lesson is, you have to be moving forward. You, you have to be like thinking about where am I gonna go now? And, you know, I'm always talking to guys that are getting out of the military and you gotta find your next mission, right? And so this is a classic case, because when you're in Walter Reed, you have a mission. It's like, oh, I'm gonna freaking learn to walk. I'm gonna get on my big legs. I'm gonna do that. You got a lot of mission every single day. You're trying to get something done. And then all of a sudden, you did it all.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, okay, you're out, you're retired, out of the military. What are you gonna do now?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  You know, and I, I relied on my military training, because when I was becoming an NCO, they said, what's the job of an NCO? Not commissioned officer, and it's to provide purpose and direction. And I forgot that, right? Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I need to have my own purpose and direction. And then slowly but surely, after I got out and retired, was at my in-laws' house for the three months, then I went to Michigan for three months. Um, just tried to escape the hot, uh, summer, you know, and then moved up to Maine to our house. I had to find my purpose and my direction I was gonna go. And, um, and, I mean, luckily, luckily, I, I, you know, was able to, you know, kind of rely on a lot of my military training for that stuff. Just like the mindset stuff they teach you and, and things like that.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  Get some. All right, um, now we're gonna roll into these principles a little bit. And again, there's, this book is, I'm gonna read like,

• 29:30Jocko Willink?

  a few little tiny sections of the book. The book has got all kinds of, like you said, there's a lot of stories in here that you've, people that you've met, people that have overcome things similar to yours. And you kind of, you align and explain what they did to get through something, and how you did that thing to get through it. And then you've got this sort of, uh, what is the academic side explaining why that's happening? So it's an outstanding book to explain these principles, give multiple examples, and then, and then tell why it's happening. So it's an awesome book. Did a great job. Uh, the, the, the woman that helped you did a really good job.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I tell you what, the research authors, they are very thorough.

• 30:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Like, I, I literally hired a PR firm for like, oh yeah, I'm having a book. I'm gonna hire a PR firm with some of the advance or whatever. And then year two hit and I was like, what? I thought it was gonna take six months. That first book took like five months, I think, and we had it done.

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she had to research some stuff.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  But it pays off.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying I was surprised at.

• 30:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she's gonna be thorough.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, checks.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  I wish I would have been. I would have like checked the ground a little better. Not just been like, man, this bag's heavy. Screw this. Pop it down.

• 30:41Jocko Willink?

  All right. Principle number one, that dog don't hunt. Stop torturing yourself and stop asking why. And you go into a story here. You got a buddy named David Vabora. Is am I saying that right? And he's got a thing called the Adaptive Training Foundation in Dallas, Texas. And you went there, uh, and you were kind of hanging out. It wasn't, I think you went, did some training sessions, but you, you end up crashing a barbecue. There's like 20 guys that are going through this, this week long workshop. And you're sitting around, uh, you know, having some burgers and some beers. And then the conversation starts to get a little bit heavy. And you go into this section here, it says, one guy named Bruce, who'd been injured in a car accident and paralyzed from the waist down, spoke up.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  Quote, "I just have to keep going because if I slow down, I'll just end up crying. The worst part of it all is that I don't understand why, why it happened, why it happened to me." Joe, the head counselor replied, "Let's dig into that." "Oh, no, we won't," I thought. "No." "No, you don't," I said, this time aloud, my outburst surprising the group. I surprised myself too. I meant to be lying back, just enjoying the bonfire. The counselor shot me a look and asked, "What are you talking about?" There's no, there's no digging into why, because you're never gonna get the answer you want. "What do you mean?" "I get it. Bruce wants to understand why this was meant for him. At first, I did too.

• 32:09Jocko Willink?

  But the truth is, that dog don't hunt." "What I mean by that is, you're never going to get that answer. So why harp on it? You're only slowing yourself down from accepting something you can't change and moving on. As I live and breathe, I will never know the answer to why I had stood in that exact spot where there was an IED buried in the ground, waiting for me. It's a fight you are not going to win, ever. So why not make peace with it?"

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  And and you go on to explain, you know, talk more about that, but that that principle right there, like people will will tear themselves apart, asking that question over and over again. And there's nothing you can do about it.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  No, there's in like, um, and I, and I, I have admitted this openly, like some nights, you know, like, you know, I'd say once every three, four months, not, not continual. There's nights when it's dark and there's no sleep to be had right then. And your mind starts saying like, I can't believe this the rest of my life. I have no arms and legs. Like what in the hell? Like how, how is this something that I was, you know, supposed to have happen to me or why this happened? And, and you have those, those nights and all I do is get up and go watch SportsCenter. Cause I'm like, well, this is getting me nowhere. Um, cause you're still going to have some doubt and things like that and some wonder, but to sit there every day and to sit there and think, well, why this happened? Could it be because of this? Did I do this? Like, was it because of, and you never get the answer.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Like, nobody's going to tell me why I got blown up. I mean, I know why I got, I mean, the bomb was here, right? But I'm saying like, there's no rhyme or reason to it. And anytime I get thinking about it, that's when I'm just like, stop. There's nothing to be had here. Just misery, you know?

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  You know what? So I did a podcast a long time ago about, uh, Louis Puller Jr., who was the son of Chesty Puller, the Marine. Louis Puller Jr. Got wounded in Vietnam, lost both of his legs, had his hands jacked up really bad. He lost his legs at like the hips, came home, had a really hard recovery. Uh, just, you know, got addicted to alcohol, got addicted to painkillers. Um, just really had a hard time. And he ended up writing this incredible book, which is called Fortunate Son. This, the book comes out, it's gets a Pulitzer Prize. It's just like an incredible book. We covered the book on the podcast.

• 34:35Jocko Willink?

  And then he's participating in helping with the Vietnam Memorial Wall being built and judging the design and all this stuff. And then that thing gets dedicated. And he's kind of straightened his life back out. And then he falls out of his wheelchair. He gets hurt. They bring him to the hospital. He had stopped drinking and they put him on like painkillers again. He goes right down a spiral. He ends up killing himself. This is Chesty Puller, Chesty Puller's son, who joined the Marine Corps like his dad, ends up killing himself.

• 35:06Jocko Willink?

  I did that podcast and then like a year later, I had another guy on my podcast, a guy named Jim Surlesley. Jim Surlesley was a guy who was in Vietnam. He had volunteered for the army. He didn't get drafted. He joined the army. And when he got his orders after basic and he went to school as a tanker, he gets sent to Germany. Like in the middle of Vietnam war, they sent him to Germany and he's like getting done with his tour. And he says, hey, I feel like I should go to Vietnam. So he volunteers to go to Vietnam. His sergeant major is like, you need to think about this for the weekend or whatever. And he thinks about over the weekend. It's like, I'm a soldier. I need to serve, goes to Vietnam. He's in Vietnam for 11 months. Last month that he's there, he's

• 35:50Jocko Willink?

  got his squad out and they're set checking security and he's checking their perimeter. And he steps on a landmine, gets blown up, loses both of his legs, loses one arm.

• 36:00Jocko Willink?

  He comes on the podcast and this dude just lived like an awesome life. Like he came home, he came home, he spent nine months in rehab, learning, learning, learning to use his wheelchair, learning how to operate things, learning how to function, and then goes out, gets his real estate license, starts a roofing company, gets married, has kids, like hunts, just lives an awesome life. And, you know, we go through his whole story and everything and we get done with the podcast and we're downstairs, we're here, but we're downstairs talking. And he says, uh, we're talking, I said, I said, you know, like, how did you progress like so much?

• 36:40Jocko Willink?

  And he looked at me, he goes, have you ever heard of Lewis Puller Jr.? And I said, yes, sir. You know, Jesse Puller's son. And he said, I was in rehab with him. So they were both got wounded about the same time in Vietnam. They were both in rehab together. And he said, I accepted a hundred percent what had happened to me. And I moved on. And he said, Lewis never really accepted it.

• 37:06Jocko Willink?

  And it just tore him up for his whole life. And this story that you tell here, like I wish somebody would have been around to tell like Louis Pollard like, "Hey, that dog, that dog don't hunt, man. You ain't gonna get an answer."

• 37:19Speaker 01

  So it's weird to have the big smile and I shouldn't have a smile. I have the same kinda story in a way. So there's a gentleman who got both legs taken, one hand kinda like lost like a top of a finger, you know, nothing. But he lost both legs and he was pretty bitter, right? Angry, kinda like not somebody that the therapist really like hanging out with. And we were out this um, this barbecue one day. And I was talking, we were joking and everything and he's, he told me, "You know, you know what Travis? You're part of the everything's great club." I said, "What do you mean by that?" He said, "Well, everything you, you do, you just act like everything's just so great." And I mean, and I was kinda tired of this guy, to be honest with you. He was always just a whiner. And looked at him and said, "Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. I act like everything's great because I realized I was given a chance to live through my injuries.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  I know that I can't go back in time and change them and being, you know, 25 years old, I hope I have 50 years left. And I'd rather be me than be a miserable SOB and not be able to get over it like you're acting like right now. And you have been all this time that you've been here. And I don't think anybody could have punched this guy harder in the face than those words hit him. And, you know, and again, I mean, I normally tell the story a lot like, "Oh, you know, I told him this." And he was like, "Oh, that's so amazing." But really, it like hit him, cause I, I was, I was tired of just kind of his attitude. And he was telling me like, "Everything's so great." And I'm like, "Dude, it, it's not that bad. Like I get to be here with my daughter. I don't think I'd be the same person if my daughter wasn't there." Um, and just letting him know like, "Dude, I have 50 years left. I'm not sure how long you think you have left, but I'm pretty sure I got 50.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  I'll make the most of it and I'll realize the gift that it was given when a lot of my friends didn't make it back home." And I can, you know, whatever. And then he, he, I hope, he's doing a lot better, seems to do a lot better now. And we're not like at each other, like, he's been to the foundation and stuff like that. It's no big deal, you know, but I think maybe he just needed to hear that that day because he just, he was so bitter and I'm like, "Dude."

• 39:10Jocko Willink?

  I would venture to say that the everything greats club is better than the everything sucks club.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:16Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:17Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I think 10 out of 10 times, having the attitude of like, oh, I'm actually thankful that I got to come home.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  And not all my friends did. And yeah, I gotta, gotta deal with what I gotta deal with, but I get to deal with it.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think maybe you probably have a lot of people that you know that, not to put it in spite of it, but survivor's guilt is huge. And it blows my mind because it's like, you can feel bad that they are no longer with us. You can be, you know, sitting there and thinking about what the situation was and maybe what you could have done differently, but at the end of the day, you couldn't because this is what happened. And I take it as, I'm gonna do the best I can every day, not just for my family, you know, not just for my, my, my kids and my wife, but I'm gonna do it because they didn't make it back home. And they would hopefully live life to the fullest if I would have died over there, in my honor as well. I think it's selfish slap in the face if I gave up myself because I was given this opportunity. And it really is a privilege to like be given life.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I mean, those doctors worked on me for like 14 hours. And they could have loosened up one tourniquet and said they gave blood from their veins right into me and they did a mass call over this PA system in Kandahar, anybody with A positive and universal blood, run to the doors. And they just, they had to keep giving me tests because they didn't test the blood. They just needed it. They needed it now. So, but, but anyway, I mean, survivor guilt gets me because I feel bad that people can't get out of their own way. And, and accept like, it's what happened, but you have the ability now to make the most out of life. It's kinda like the Saving Private Ryan.

• 40:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Like telling me, you know, I'm a good, you know, you know what I'm saying?

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Get off my soapbox here.

• 40:49Jocko Willink?

  No, all good.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Eko, what are you thinking there?

• 40:52Speaker 02

  No, I'm taking it all in, but yeah, it's, it's funny because like all these concepts and you always talk about these concepts on the, in these circumstances that are so heavy, you know? But then when they trickle down to like everyday stuff too as well. So it's like interesting to get that little reminder, huge reminder. That's what I'm thinking at this time.

• 41:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Um, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. There's a book, like I said, this is like a pragmatic book. This is like a field manual, almost of sorts. Um, if you would have consulted me on the name, it might have even been called a field manual, but you didn't. So, whatever.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  I'm the worst. Yeah, I'm the worst.

• 41:31Jocko Willink?

  But some of the stuff that you've got in here is like, uh, this section here, it says, are you ruminating too much? And you introduced the, the idea of ruminating a little bit earlier in the book, but it says, it says, some signs that you may be overthinking what happened. Do you ponder, why did this happen to me and to my family? Do you think, what if I didn't do X, Y, or Z? Would there have been a different outcome? Do you often wonder what life would look like if this hadn't happened? Do you play out the accident or incident in your head repeatedly? Do you feel that what happened was unfair? Do you blame yourself for doing something or not doing something that could have been done to avoid the trauma? So again, these are, these are like pragmatic things to ask yourself.

• 42:14Jocko Willink?

  If you find yourself going down this spiral, the what-if spiral, or the why spiral, you know, and that's exactly Jim Searlsley, uh, unfortunately Jim Searlsley, he, he passed away, uh, like a year and a half ago or so. But that was the thing that he said is like, he, he can't just keep asking like, why, why me? Woe is me, why me? And this is the exact same message that you've got in this book. So, um, yeah, if you find yourself.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Is that the second time he said I plagiarized?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  I didn't plagiarize.

• 42:47Jocko Willink?

  Jim Searlsley didn't write this, didn't write a book. Um, but you know, he, he, he definitely, I mean, he clearly had a very similar attitude as you and clearly like made it through with, with some similar thoughts along the way. So it's pretty, it's pretty interesting. I didn't really think of that until I, I didn't think of it while I was reading the book. I didn't think of it until actually right now when we were talking. I was like, oh yeah, this is the same stuff that, that Jim Searlsley was saying.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think I put a principle in there called YOLO, but I'm telling you right now, like, people wonder why I do so much. Like I have, I started a restaurant, you know, recently and I have, uh, the marina that I, I bought just drinking whiskey one night. And I thought, let's go in debt.

• 43:26Jocko Willink?

  Good decision making.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why not go in debt? And a few other things. And people are like, why do you do it? And I'm just like, well, they already said YOLO, obviously, but. I think I'm not afraid to try new things and I've given the chance to live through my injuries. So go after it. Um, but, but yeah, I, I just, again, all those questions and all that like I don't, you know, I tell people my, some of my biggest regrets, um, you know, I quit college football. I wasn't going to play college football like that much. Like I should have probably played baseball, but I was so good at the position of sideline because I was there all season. And Last Chance You, if that was a documentary, we would have been on it because we actually won the championship. I didn't even get the rings. I'm like, I'm just like a, like a red shirt freshman. So I didn't want the ring.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Should have got it. Um, and then I had a Ranger contract. All my buddies were going to go to the 82nd. And they're like, hey, let's just go to the 82nd. They're letting us choose. And I was like, oh, it sounds great. So I went to the 82nd. 21 guys went to first brigade to Iraq. One guy went to fourth brigade to Afghanistan. So I lost all my basic training buddies. And then just like the gentleman you're talking about that, uh, wanted to go overseas. My orders took me to Fort Hood. The big army said, hey, you got over two years of combat. But I had a newborn baby that tax free money at staff sergeant ain't a bad thing to have to plus up my bank account. It was a nine month hitter and I was a weapon squad leader. So I'm supposed to be theoretically the most protected. Cause I have the two big, you know, two 40 bravos. I'm in the middle of everything, like in the middle of the, the formation.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Not that I ever cared about that. I was actually usually getting in trouble for being the first one in the door. But that's just, I love to fight. But, um, but I, I guess the, the point is like, I don't, I don't have those questions anymore. My big questions are like, my wife gets pissed too. We're having our coffee. I'm like, hey, so what are you thinking we're having for dinner? And she's like, are you, are you serious?

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  That's a hostile question. It's the same thing at my house. Uh, I have to like set, I have to be disciplined. Because when I come home, like been podcast, record the podcast, we get done, we train jujitsu, uh, get done jujitsu. It's now like six o'clock at night. I didn't eat lunch, so I've been like fasting all day. Come home and brother, there's, there's literally one thing in the world I want to know. And that's what's for dinner. You know what I mean? But if I come through that door and I don't talk about four other things, four other things before, and sometimes now I just investigate, bro. I'll be like, look in the oven, see if there's something in there. What is it? Can it be PID, you know? Cause that what's for dinner? Man, that this is what you echo. You're nodding your head.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Oh, I can see how that could be for sure.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  But it doesn't, no issue.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  I have learned that.

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  This is just Secret, long term ago. Okay.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Oh geez, I, I, we sit there have our coffee in the morning. She's just getting in the room. And I'm like, hey, what do you want, what do you want to do for dinner, you think? You know, and she's like, are you, are you serious right now? And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, I'll go to the grocery store if you need it. We can go to the restaurant. It don't matter. But that's, yeah, that's, that's not a question you should ask.

• 46:26Jocko Willink?

  Careful.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Especially at seven thirty in the morning, having coffee.

• 46:30Jocko Willink?

  Dude, only dudes think about like, what's for dinner at seven thirty in the morning, right? Am I right? Mostly dudes.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  My wife, she's going to New Zealand, right? So like, I'm gonna start just using the crock pot, I think.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  Do you not have Uber Eats where you are?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's, we do, but it's like, I mean, I can just go down. I'll be honest with you. I just go to the restaurant.

• 46:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, you got your own restaurant. Are you kidding me?

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but I'm telling you, I love the crock pot. I'm so fired up. Cause at the, the grocery store, they already cut up all the onions and the peppers and the tomatoes, like everything I need.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  Thing with the crock pot for me.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Toss it in.

• 47:02Jocko Willink?

  It, it, when you get to do the crock pot thing, to me, everything kind of tastes the same. The meat tastes the same, everything tastes the same in that big bucket, right?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  That's, that's spices. You gotta add spices and different meat.

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  My wife's from England, so. Like, some things like spices are a little bit unfamiliar.

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  I could have burned for that.

• 47:26Jocko Willink?

  Go edit that out.

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  All right, uh, principle number two. Unpack that rucksack. Process what happened so you can grow from it. While, when, when I tell people to stop asking why something bad happened, I don't mean shut the door on everything. You still need to process your experience and make sense of it. There's a difference between rumination and reflection as well as merely overthinking and understanding. So this is again, I was, as soon as I got, you know, opened this one up, I was like, oh, what does he mean by that? Cause he just said, don't ask too many questions. And now he's saying, unpack it. So right out of the gate, you made a.

• 48:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, reference is something that I say is like when people deal with loss. I tell them, remember, but don't dwell. Right? Like, hey, man, you want to remember your friends. But you don't want to dwell on it. And that's all you think about. And it's a similar message. That you put in, in this chapter here about unpacking the rucksack like you. Want to unpack the rucksack and make sure you comprehend what you went through. But you don't want to just like. Keep repacking it and unpacking it, repacking it and unpacking it type thing.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what I do is actually I tell people when I get off stage, I got two life lessons I live by, right? The first one is, is this one, don't dwell on the past, just reminisce it. I mean, I used to, you know, wake up in the hospital bed, hope, wish and pray this never happened, close my eyes, they, this nightmare is going to be over. I'm going to wake up right now. And I never did wake up from that nightmare. Every time I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital bed. And I realized early on. Stop dwelling on it, just reminisce. I had 25 years of arms and legs. You know, 25 amazing years with arms and legs and, and then I, I didn't have any more, but I don't dwell on the fact that I got blown up. I just, like you said, I remember, right? I, again. Um, that's basically, you know. That's just what I do. Like, I'm like, hey, I played college football. I joined the military. I jumped out of airplanes and got paid to do it, you know, like.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Um, led some of the greatest guys overseas and had some of the most fun I've ever gonna, you know, ever had. But just because I got blown up doesn't mean my life was over. I just remember what I used to have and, and I, you know, this has been now over 11 years. Being injured and I've had pretty incredible things happen since then too, you know?

• 49:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  I mean, like being your, your guys' friend.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean Echo's friend?

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Okay. Do you want to grab my self-esteem? I can't seem to reach it down there.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Come a little short over here, but it's okay. It's fine. They can just stay down there. It's cool.

• 49:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh. Little section in here, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. Again, I'm fast forwarding through like most of the book, obviously, I'm not going to do the audio book. Did you do the audio book?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Uh, did not this time.

• 50:04Jocko Willink?

  You had an actor do it?

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 50:08Jocko Willink?

  I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I would, I don't want to buy, I told you, I don't like, look, I like being your friend.

• 50:13Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's something, uh.

• 50:17Jocko Willink?

  Some people have a hard time reading stuff. Did you do the audio book for this one?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  I did.

• 50:22Jocko Willink?

  Did you not like doing it?

• 50:23Speaker 01

  It sucked. I wasn't, so you know, so I, I, I don't remember if I explained this on the last podcast, um, but my body overheats.

• 50:30Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  I get hot.

• 50:31Jocko Willink?

  So they stuck you in one of those booths to read this thing?

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. AC had to get turned off so you don't hear the thing. I had to read a book three days in a row.

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  And they actually, after I was getting decent, they were like, okay, well, we gotta read the first third of the book again. And I was like, oof, awesome. Let's just, let's just knock this out. And you know how you write something? And you think like, okay, I wrote it. I know I wrote it. I was there when it was written. So I should be able to read it. And then you're putting like, instead of we are, it's like, yeah, so we're, and they're like, nope, that's not how it says in there. Again, I'm gonna try again. So we, ah, son of a.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I mean, there's a lot of blooper outtakes where some, some words came out.

• 51:05Jocko Willink?

  It's not an, it's not an, yeah, it's not an easy thing to do for some people. Like for me, it's honestly, it's easy for me to read stuff. I don't know why. Uh, but like, I've seen people that are the most conversational, just really good to go. And you put them to read something, you hand them like, hey, read this right now. And it's just like, lot, brain lock.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I do okay with it. Like I could do the teleprompter. Um, I, and I could, I could have done it, but I just think the time wise. Um, it didn't make sense. And they, they, they gave me like five voiceover people that I had to choose from. So we picked the one that I think was the most interesting. I mean, I, look, I've already said, I appreciate just being your friend. So like, I don't just like, hey, can you do me another favor? You know, that time I got blown up and you feel bad for me. So, no, so like I would have bothered you, but.

• 51:52Jocko Willink?

  Next time bother me, I'll read it.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I gotta write another book. I gotta figure out what other thing I can see was successful out there.

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, Jordan Peterson did 12 more rules. So you can do 12 more warrior principles.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  I might do, I might do 11 or 13, you know, maybe just go one up or one down.

• 52:07Jocko Willink?

  Chuck.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  And then I'm just gonna do like.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  Seven minute abs, six minute abs?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, like we, yeah, I'm all about the eight minute abs, you know what I'm saying? People don't realize, like this, this physique, this core is strong, I'll tell you right now.

• 52:19Jocko Willink?

  It is strong. I love that for rolling with you because you, you, yeah, that's like your main body group.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  I was surprised that the FX cameras that you guys use for, for Origin and everything for the, the camp, they record in slow motion because I mean, I was moving so much faster than those videos on Instagram that were posted. Look, I mean, I don't know, I was going a mile a minute. I was like, man, those, those cameras slowed the frame down for sure.

• 52:41Jocko Willink?

  It is a little bit weird, like how fast you move, like on the mat. It's kind of like a weird, like kind of alien sensation. Did you get that?

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, because there's a lot of stuff you're not used to.

• 52:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, with me, yeah.

• 52:55Jocko Willink?

  It's a weird.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  I can make like a weird growl sound too, like.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  And then that really gets them.

• 53:00Jocko Willink?

  It is a weird thing to, like when you start moving fast, it definitely, like you said, I guess it's because you're not used to it. So you're not used to seeing like a body move in this really fast way. It's kind of, it's kind of a freak, kind of freaked me out a little bit.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Well, and, and like with the deco, he was saying, and his birthday just hit, so happy birthday to him, but um, he was saying, he was trying to reach for my wrist and he just kept coming up short of my wrist because it's not there.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  It's real.

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I saw, when I was watching him roll with you, I could see his like arm moving to grab. Or like to underhook your arm and it's not there. It's, it's definitely takes some adjustments for the other guy as well.

• 53:38Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 53:39Jocko Willink?

  Talk it through. There are, there is a lot of benefits that comes with sharing your struggles with another human. The biggest being you find out you're not alone. When something bad happens to us, we tend to feel that we are the only ones dealing with it. And if you focus on the traumatic event itself, then yes, of course you are alone. As you literally, as you, as you were literally the only person experiencing that very event. However, if you change your perspective and focus on what comes with experience. What you find is that everyone has experienced similar effects to some degree. When you share our feelings, you discover that you aren't really alone. That realization alone can lift a tremendous weight off your shoulders. Dude, it's like everybody's been through some.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Well, so I.

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  Trauma.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  I got two stories for this. The first one, you know, like, uh, is it Good Will Hunting where he has to sit with a therapist and he won't talk to him? And doesn't, he finally breaks him. Well, they had a social worker named Christie that they made everybody talk. You know, you had to go to see her for an hour. And I went there and talked to her and we talked about football. She was a Green Bay Packers fan. I'm a Lions fan, you know, whatever. Clay Matthews's hair. And then she'd ask me a personal question and I'm like, yeah, no. And then we get talking about other stuff and then we did it again. And I sat there for the hours. Like, all right, well, time's up. I gotta go. Came back next time, but 20 minutes in, I said, I'll be honest with you. We're never going to discuss anything, anything of real substance. I said, I didn't talk to mental health when they came into my room. And I literally gave the name, I, I, I gave her my name rank and social, like mental health came in the first time I was sleeping.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  Geneva Convention.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So second time they came in, I was like, Kelsey goes, mental health's here to talk to you. I was still in the hospital, you know? I just shut my eyes, I'm trying to go to sleep in. Third time, eating a bowl of cereal with a makeshift arm, like, like duct taped, like with a spoon. And I'm eating and I see her come in and I know who she is. I saw her last time and I said, oh, you know, oh shit. I don't know if I can swear and I can bleep it or whatever. And that's exactly what I said. And I fell back into my bed, like from sitting up, fell right back. And I shut my eyes and pretended like I was snoring. And she walks, she goes, what are you doing? And I gave her my name rank and social. And she said, what? And I did it again. She goes, I don't understand. So that's where you tell the enemy if they capture you. Said, take it and leave or just leave. I don't care. We're not, we're not going to do this. So that's my first time.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And then I had a social worker as I got to outpatient. And the second time I went there for 20 minutes, said, look, never going to happen. Said, this isn't the movies. I got nothing to say to you. I appreciate what you do for people that need it. I don't need it. And that was it. And I got thinking about that and I tell people, probably not the right approach and blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  So wait, did she never get anything out of you?

• 56:10Speaker 01

  She released me. No, she never was going to. We were not going to be on that level. But I got thinking about it.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  Didn't go full Robin Williams Good Will Hunting and like get you crying or anything?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  No. What can she do? I mean, she was a nice person. I said, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But when I realized.

• 56:24Jocko Willink?

  Asshole.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Or, or.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Other side, I realized I had a community of my own. And I had Taylor Morris, who's a quadruple amputee. I had Drew Moley, single leg amputee. And I had Bo Reichenbach, Navy SEAL, right? Double leg amputee. As well as Josh Wetzel and Andrew Smith, both double leg amputees. And not just them, they're spouses. And we were all the best of friends. We all dealt with everything together. We hung out every day. And our kids hung out, you know, those of us that had kids at the time. And, and I realized in that, you know, looking back, because yeah, you're right. That was, I was probably a jerk. So I didn't want to talk about my feelings with her. I wasn't mean to her by any means. I was never rude. I, you know, I wasn't, she would never later, like if you asked her today, she wouldn't say I was a jerk or anything like that. I was just very like, hey, look, this is not the movies.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  This is not gonna happen. But I got thinking about it and I realized I had my community. And it wasn't just my community, it was me and Kelsey's community. Kelsey still is on a text chain with all the wives. They talk every day. The one lady, Jen, just had twins, that kid number four and five. But her husband's only missing one leg, so it's like a paper cut. So they, they're fine. But, um, but I had my community to talk to every day and hang out with and go out to dinners and, and, and we always ate, you know, together and go around, talk and things like that. And then take a step further, my alive day, I always hated my alive day. You know what that is? Maybe people out there listening don't, but, um, when the day you get injured, like car accident real bad, or like me got blown up, or whatever, that you almost died, that you lived, they call it your alive day. They want to celebrate it. Some guys drink heavily, some guys enjoy it, other guys don't pay much attention. For the years, I hated it.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I was like, I don't want to talk about it. My birthday's in four days. You know, I'm fine. I'll wait for the actual day I was alive. But then by year eight, I think it was, I did an Instagram live and I, I got talking and I teared up and said, you know, at the end of it, I used to be pissed, I used to hate this, I used to think this is the worst day ever. Why would I want to remember any of this? You know, instead of just, you know, move on. And I said, but then you realize how fortunate I am. And I look back at the years I've had to recover, to have my family, to have, have my friends and to be here to watch my daughter grow, to be here, um, and have my son, which would have never happened if I would have just died. I said, so at the end of it, for the alive day, I'm just more grateful than anything. And then Taylor, like, you know, he's now the quad, he's very dry, very quiet, and Navy EOD guy, great guy.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  He texts me, goes, nailed it, you know, and that meant a lot to him. He said it because he doesn't, we don't talk feelings. And the thing is with my community, we didn't talk about feelings in general, like, oh, those socks, I got blown up. And it was like, he was just like, understood, like, we all thought it sucked, you know, so we were all just like.

• 58:57Jocko Willink?

  Baseline level suck.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  We've all been there. And that was like my community. So I, that's, that's the important thing. Well, you find a lot of guys that won't engage with somebody that's not military. Or don't, they're like, they're not gonna understand me, so I'm not gonna talk to them. And that's why the foundation, the Travis Mills Foundation, shameless plug for my foundation here. We have the path program, the Warrior Path program for first responders and combat veterans because it's led, train the trainer style, non-clinical. And it's one of the top in the nation. It teaches people how to struggle well, because we're all gonna struggle, and about post-traumatic growth. You know, how to, how to understand what's going on and to fight through and to come out the other side better. When you have an episode or when you feel that stuff. And I'm way off topic, probably.

• 59:38Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no. All good. That's, that's what we're here for.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  But I think, you know, with the community, I had, I had a solid community, some of the greatest friends I'm ever gonna have, you know. And I get to see, actually, Danielle, we picked up today on the way here. Taylor couldn't come. I saw him from the plane. We talked a little bit through the door and then

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Andrew and Toy are coming with their kids as well. So, pretty cool.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, you, again, I'm not gonna read the whole book, but it says, focus on what's in your control and what's not in your control. Let's use what is in our control to grow from. This is something I always have to refer back to. Always have to refer back to like, hey, you got some things you can control in life or you got some things you can't. Usually, we can control more than we think we can, but there are absolutely are things that are gonna be totally out of your control.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the five today, trying to drive down there.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  And I'm hour late.

• 1:00:32Jocko Willink?

  You have no control over the five.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  I was so mad. I was like, oh, no, I'm letting them down. I'm an hour late. And I was. But my driver was so sweet to take me because the car service, I screwed it up somehow. So like Uber down from whatever.

• 1:00:46Jocko Willink?

  Was it an Uber you took down here?

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  It was.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Good times.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  I gave the guy a big tip. Like I was like, dude, I'll like, I gave him as much as like, I tried to do a hundred and like, you can't do a hundred. You only do ninety eight. I'm like ninety eight to his.

• 1:00:55Jocko Willink?

  Jack, you can't do more than a hundred?

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Said I couldn't.

• 1:00:59Jocko Willink?

  Huh. Maxing that thing out. Uh, principle three. Point the finger and three fingers point back at you. Don't blame others, but be compassionate to yourself. You go in here, you talk about your program director, director James. Is that at the foundation?

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  It is. He's a marine that runs the path program.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  Marine Corps, two thousand nine to two thousand thirteen. He was like one of the guys working on IEDs, finding IEDs. He, he got, you know, explosions, got some blast damage along the way. And I'm fast forward a little bit. You say he came back from his second deployment. He says, I was super angry. I woke up pissed at the world and that's just the way I stayed twenty four seven. I don't know why. I didn't know why. I just knew that I was pissed. I was getting violent at work with junior Marines and verbal fits at home that just kept escalating. This, among other things, ultimately led to divorce. I left the Marine Corps in April two thousand thirteen, but at that point I'd been diagnosed with PTSD, TBI and a bunch of other crap and was forced to seek treatment. Doctors put me on a zombie cocktail of medication.

• 1:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Eventually it came to a total of seventeen different meds, some for depression, some for anxiety, some for TBI related headaches, and a bunch of other pills to counter the side effects of the medication. I mean, this is just like kind of one of those horror stories you hear, just getting medicated. Uh, he ends up start drinking. He's, he starts feeling out of control. Um, no matter how mad I was, he wasn't, I wasn't myself, uh, I project anger on someone else. I think who am I going to blame today because it can't be me?

• 1:02:35Jocko Willink?

  And you say that right there is a victim mentality. He ends up like suicidal. And again, this is a long story that you tell in the book. But then you say, the biggest aha moment was when James realized he was accountable for himself. And this is one of the best definitions of extreme ownership I've ever heard. If I don't change my diaper, then I'm gonna have shitty pants. That's on me. I stopped looking outward to blame and started to look inward. Change that diaper.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  And you know, the thing, not funny, but the thing is with James, he actually, he's our coordinator for Path. Like, he's like a big wig, like, and there's like 10 locations around the nation for Path program. And we, our numbers are very well where they use us for a lot of examples. And I mean, where James was at, I think he tells a story, does he tell a story about throwing a turkey? He was at work at a gro-

• 1:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Like, he threw a turkey-

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  Threw a turkey.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  At a customer.

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep, at a customer.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Pissed him off.

• 1:03:43Jocko Willink?

  He tells that, yeah, you could see he's come a long way.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  And, oh, yeah. But, but again, yes, he has, great guy. I mean, truly just a great guy, but he's getting remarried and they just, you know, moved into another, a new house. They just built a brand new house. But he's, he's that community that we're talking about too. Like, he's the one that leads this program for people that face this every day. So he's been there, lived it, done it. And he still works on himself every day, you know, it's a constant, it's constantly a recalibration in a, in a, in a focus or refocus.

• 1:04:17Jocko Willink?

  The, the contrast that you talk about in the book, and this is really important, I've, I've talked about this as well. Cause this is clearly, this is this same principles, extreme ownership. You know, this is like you point one finger at someone else, there's three pointing back. It's the same thing. And then you talk about forgiveness, this is again, something that I address. And you say this, essentially, everyone has regrets for things they did or didn't do. But you can't get hung up on these regrets or you will never get peace. Repeat after me. I am human and I make mistakes. Show yourself some grace, accept the mistakes and learn from them. Instead of dwelling and letting them hold you back, use them to propel yourself forward in a new direction. Life is trial and error. There's no handbook on how to live your life. Every time that you feel you may be beating yourself up, stop reflecting the situation and ask yourself,

• 1:05:01Jocko Willink?

  what can I learn from this situation and how can I do better? And the big thing when I talk about forgiving yourself, if you think about like your relationship with your wife or your kids or whatever, if you don't learn how to forgive, like when they mess something up, it's never gonna work. So if you can't forgive yourself for some mistake that you made in the past, you're gonna have problems for a long time. So you gotta learn to get over it.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's what I do. Like my son, he'll, he'll do something stupid, you know, obviously. And I'm like, look, you little six year old, you little turd. Yeah, actually, uh, you know, it's hereditary. I kind of, I blame myself. Right? I gotta take the extreme ownership. Uh, he's a mama's boy. And I, so am I, but I hate it. Oh, but my daughter and me are best friends.

• 1:05:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, he's only six, right?

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  They, they're, he's gonna be that way for a bit.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  I know, but here's the thing. We went to, I took him to a birthday party to his cousin's house and he had to pick up like the Nerf gun we brought his cousin. He picks it up, it's a big box, hits himself in the neck. He's, oh, it hurts. And I'm like, it doesn't hurt. It's probably unpleasant for a second. You're fine. He goes, you're just mean. You're a mean dad. I'm like, no, I'm not. You're soft. And then we had a whole conversation. He's like, you want, is this how you want your friends to talk to you if you hurt yourself? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I do. He's just a mean dad. So get in the car. And then, you know, later on, he was fine. But I'm like, I also, my daughter like hit her head at school in kindergarten and had a huge goose egg on her, on her head.

• 1:06:26Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. She went out, like, school calls, oh my, she hit her head. Probably should come get her. I came to get her. We're going out in the parking lot. She's dancing and twirling. I said, you feel fine? She goes, yeah. Alright, so take her back in school. I said, "Look, I know how it looks, right?" I was in an explosion. I'm probably like a hard ass. Like, "My kid's fine. Went through a bomb. What was this?" I said, "Well, she's fine." If she passes out or something, give us a call, but she's going back to class.

• 1:06:48Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  And when my son, he had a thing at school where he, you know, he got sick or something. And he just wanted to get out of school, I feel like.

• 1:06:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  And my wife got the phone call, and she called me and she beat me there about five minutes. And she let him get out of school. He comes home, he's dancing and jumping up the stairs, fired up. "Gonna turn on this and play this and whatever." And I said, "You know what, Kelsey? If I would've got there, I would've told him, "Dax, you can come home, no problem." "You're gonna sit in my Yukon while I go to all my meetings today at all the different various places I gotta stop, "and you're not getting my phone, you're not watching a movie, you're gonna sit there, 'cause you don't feel good." "You can go out to class, play to friends, or you can come home with me." He would've took option one. She's, she's making him soft, John.

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Here's some, here's some advice, uh, that I've given to like, a lot of my friends that have kids. I've given it to Leif. Leif's super fired up for this, and he takes advantage of it. Every chance you get to pull your kids out of school and go do something cool, do it.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Oh, no, we're, we're in California till Tuesday.

• 1:07:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. She's going to New Zealand for sixteen days.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  That's what I like to hear, man. The kids will never remember like some day at school where they learned about whatever.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:53Jocko Willink?

  But you go do something cool with your kids, take them to work, let them hang out, go to wherever, like, take them fishing, whatever you're gonna do with them.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a thousand times better, and they're gonna learn more.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  I just don't want them to go to the nurse's office. That's what I was mad about.

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  No, you're fine.

• 1:08:07Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, that's a different thing. That's, that's also like, the kids are learning to manipulate. Right? They're learning to work the system. They're human beings that are learning to navigate through the shit, you know what I mean? Like, "Well, if I go here, I can come home, I can watch TV or whatever."

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  Dance around or whatever you're saying he was doing, so.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Up the stairs, just like, going upstairs, petting the dog, like, having a good old time.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Five minutes after he got home.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  Good, smart kid, right?

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Kinda. Well, you don't feel good, it's like, "Yeah, I just, yeah, yeah, you're right. I don't feel good."

• 1:08:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there you go. Kids are crafty.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  But no, yeah, we, uh, my parents were like, every day, you're at school, that's it. I'm like, I think, I think I'm dying, you know, you're fine.

• 1:08:48Jocko Willink?

  I broke my, I was out in the woods with my dad and we were cutting down wood for the fire. And the, the tree fell on my leg because I was an idiot and, and so. I was like, I think I hurt my leg and my dad was like, you're fine. Keep toe the sled back. So we had like a sled filled with wood. So I had to like drag it back. And I was crawling, kind of like with my hands and one leg, because my leg really hurt a lot. And, you know, I get back and like three days later. They took me to the hospital because I was still hopping around and yeah, I had a broken leg.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, our parents were tough. My dad, I broke my wrist. He's like, you're fine. He smacks it and like boom.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  He goes, you know what? I think we're gonna go check that out. But he had to like make sure by just like, I was holding my, my, my left arm. I was like, no, I think it's broke. He's like, you're fine.

• 1:09:38Jocko Willink?

  You're fine.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  He's like, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna check that out.

• 1:09:44Jocko Willink?

  Yep. When they clear their throat like that, you know, you know, something's wrong.

• 1:09:50Jocko Willink?

  Uh, principle four. Snap your fingers, wiggle your toes and get the out of bed. Create small achievable goals for moving forward. When dealing with trauma, there may be days, weeks that you don't feel like doing anything. You may feel so depressed and deflated that you may feel too paralyzed to do anything. My friend, that is called collateral damage. To which I say, snap your fingers and wiggle your toes. I can't do that for obvious reasons, but chances are that you can. The idea behind it is simple. Do one small thing to get you moving. That one small thing will get you motivated, go on to the next thing. The simple act of getting out of bed and getting out of bed will curtail whatever you got spinning in that mind of yours.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink?

  The mere physicality of these actions should spur a mental shift as well. Once you stop being physically and mentally stuck. This is when you can start to take responsibility for your behavior. Choose to see something in your life that you can find a positive in every single day. Snap your fingers, wiggle your toes, get out of bed. It's a simple act that can remind you that life isn't that bad.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Now we did, we did take from the idea of make your bed.

• 1:11:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  But it was like, you know, making your bed, like setting goals, maybe you just gotta get out of bed first. So like, we didn't.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  You know, you made, you made Admiral McRaven, you know, you made him look bad here. No. Oh, hey, hey Admiral, hey Admiral, oh, you're just making your bed. What if you can't even get out of bed?

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:11:18Jocko Willink?

  You went one step deeper.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  We just wanted to include everybody. It's very inclusive.

• 1:11:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm just saying, it sounds like you're trying to one up him.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  I can't even snap my fingers and look at my toes.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  You got, you continue, like I said, this is really a pragmatic manual. You got a whole section on keeping, you do a section on goals and creating goals. And then, uh, once you have a goal, you'll need some tips on, to keep you going. You've got things in here like be flexible, be kind to yourself, don't judge, be patient. Visualize achieving your goal, have a support system. And you got expansions on all this. I'm just kind of burning through them. Celebrate the wins.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Question though, so like, right, look, I, I'm not silly, like I, I'm fortunate to know you outside of the podcast. Um, do you visualize all the success that you were, like, you reach out to Pete, hey Pete, like your geez, you wanna do something? And you're like, then now look at, like all the drinks and all, like I'm drinking Leif's drink just because I like the flavor. But like, did you visualize, do you do that? Like, all this success, I mean, I'm sure people know, obviously Jaco products are successful. And then Origin and everything like that.

• 1:12:27Jocko Willink?

  No, I would say this.

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  So like when I try and make something, I don't over invest or over index or think it's gonna be successful. I just try it. Like the first thing, like Echelon Front, like Leif and I weren't like, yo. Like we gotta build a giant consulting company. Like we were like, hey, let's see if anybody wants this information.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:12:52Jocko Willink?

  And then as they wanted the information, it's like, oh, cool. People want this information. They need to learn how to lead. Okay, cool. How many people? Okay, well, let's hire another instructor. JP, come on board.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  By the way, does a fantastic job.

• 1:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, thank you.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  I've been able to sit through a couple of his.

• 1:13:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  He was in my restaurant.

• 1:13:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, JP.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  He spoke for a big energy company that gives a lot of money to the foundation.

• 1:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  And I walked in, I was like, Joe, are you serious? Like, I'm a speaker too, you know? But no, I'm kidding. Uh, Joe Perrington, he actually, um, he got to do a lot with you when he was in New Hampshire.

• 1:13:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, JP's phenomenal.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Jocko Willink?

  It's JP came on, then Dave Burke, like, we just expanded and expanded, expanded. Uh, same thing with, you know, origin, like, we were making geese. Okay, that's like one product. How are they doing? They were doing good. Well, let's make rash cards. No, okay, cool. Eventually it's like, hey, don't a lot of people wear jeans? Cause it seems like everyone wears jeans. Let's try making jeans. Did we buy a jean factory immediately? No, we took a few years, then we bought a jean factory. But so, so for me, I don't like visualize blindly like this is gonna be great. I'm gonna take a huge step in this direction. Same thing with all those supplements. It wasn't like, we didn't come out with a line of supplements. We came out with two supplements. Right? And then do, did people like them?

• 1:14:06Jocko Willink?

  Are we, are they effective? Do they give people the, the benefits that we are saying like, yep. Look, yep, growing, people, more people want them. Then we bring out another supplement, then we bring out protein. So doing it in a small way so that you don't have to be able to see really far in the future to visualize. For me, I'm just looking like, oh, there's an opportunity. Let's give it a shot type thing. Makes sense?

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah, but I, I'm just like, I visualize like, yeah, we're gonna, I'm gonna do this. It's gonna be awesome. Let's go big. And my business partner, Bill, is always like, hey, let's just start small. I'm like, no.

• 1:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  No, I wanted to build this 200 person event center with a brewery underneath and and, um, a tasting room and it was gonna be like 1.6 million dollar project and and then like one of the guys that's one of the partners is like, oh, it's kind of big, blah, blah, blah. So I put in a little four bay garage. And like about the vibes, I don't care about the vibes. Dogfish Head Brewing sold for 180 million dollars. That's where I'm going, straight to the top.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  But we're gonna slow it down a bit.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Have you had any, have you had any big failures yet?

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got one right now.

• 1:15:06Jocko Willink?

  What was your biggest failure?

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Um, I went, okay, well, my arms and legs. I lost those. But. Didn't lose my ass on it.

• 1:15:15Jocko Willink?

  Your biggest failure was looking for IEDs?

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, no, I found that.

• 1:15:19Jocko Willink?

  Make success there.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  No, um, I wouldn't say failure. There's a, the closing line I'm trying to do right now is not, I'm not putting much time and effort into it.

• 1:15:25Jocko Willink?

  Have you, how much have you invested in it? Like, like a huge amount?

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm not sure what a huge amount is. For me, it's a huge amount. It's like a hundred thousand.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  And, uh, I'm not too like, you know, I don't work on it hard enough. That's why I told my wife she's taking over.

• 1:15:39Jocko Willink?

  So again, to me, that's a lot of money to put into something when you may or may not have something that people really want. And there's only one, the only, the only group that can tell what the public wants is the public. So you, you know, you can make something that every, you think is the best thing, you know, the greatest thing in the world. And people are like, yo, we don't, we don't want this.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  When I promote it and stuff, I sell, but my problem is I have a million different things going. So like, it's me. Like I understand, like it's, it's the three fingers pointing back at me.

• 1:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:16:09Jocko Willink?

  What's the name? Where can people buy the stuff? So we can at least sell a little bit of it. Maybe you can get some of your hundred grand back.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Well, it's revel for good. Well, I mean, I, I, what I did was I, cause okay, so the military will give you a certain amount of money. When you get blown up per limb, they cap it at two limbs total.

• 1:16:24Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:16:25Jocko Willink?

  What?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  They cap it at two limbs?

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's, it's, it's, it's public knowledge. It's 50,000 per limb, but it's capped at a hundred thousand. And with that hundred thousand.

• 1:16:35Jocko Willink?

  Dude.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  I know. I don't know.

• 1:16:36Jocko Willink?

  That is the most freaking ridiculous thing ever.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  I don't know. I know. I'm not trying to start a fight with anybody. There was some talks about going and saying like, no, no, it's not right. But the point is, is appreciative. And it's tax free. And what I did instead of buying Escalade or go out and buy some dumb, you know, something stupid, I flipped houses. No, no, no. I like Escalade. I'm just saying at the time, at the time, I was like number one podcast in America, like able to like buy an Escalade. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying, Echo, you have the clout. I didn't. Um, so I flipped houses and I had some real home runs. I flipped eight houses. Um, some were just like, nothing, just like, okay, bought it for 80,000, sold it for a hundred and eighty thousand. You know, like nothing to it before it got saturated. So then I bought the marina and I bought a cottage. And, and I've done investments, right? And I've worked and stuff like that. So what I did was.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Like two, two years ago in February, I decided I was gonna bet on myself. So I took money out of the stock market because I didn't like where I was heading. Great time to take it out.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  I bought an investment property in Florida and I put money into this company. But I just don't dedicate enough of my time as I need to. So it's on me, but I'm, I'm, we have a store, main local store that's like in 17 stores that's gonna go into.

• 1:17:45Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  So we'll see, we'll start there and see.

• 1:17:47Jocko Willink?

  And if people want to order something today, just to like trying to maybe help you stay.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  I don't want to take away from, I don't want to take away from Origin, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:17:54Jocko Willink?

  Bro, what is it?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  It's just rebelforgood.com. It's all about, so Rebel for Good is like.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  Here comes the pitch.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  What we came up for.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sell anything, but Rebel for Good is a.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Well, the idea was you go against the grain and you be a rebel, but you do good with it. Like, you know, you, you, uh, I don't know. It's just what we came up with. So, so yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not upset about it. Cause I have another, another company that I'm doing some contracting with. That's, that will, it'll work out. It'll all work out.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink?

  Which company is that?

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  It's just, it's just called One Elf Outdoors, but it's like, uh, I'm doing like government bidding.

• 1:18:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, awesome.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Cause they give, you know, disabled, I get all, whatever.

• 1:18:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  I'm more quiet about, not quiet, but like.

• 1:18:36Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  I'm disabled veteran, so I have a status.

• 1:18:38Jocko Willink?

  You're disabled veteran. Okay.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Well, they put out my paper. I mean, I'm handy capable though.

• 1:18:44Jocko Willink?

  All right. We good? Does that, does that answer your visualization question?

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  It does because I, I sit there and I visualize a lot. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm building this. I'm building that. Like when I'm on like airplanes and stuff like that, that's what I'm doing. I'm like staring off into nothingness.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, Echo and I just did like a little recording and I was talking about being paranoid that I'm paranoid. I'm a paranoid person, not in a paranoid like, oh, I think everyone's trying to get me, but like paranoid, like when I was in the SEAL Teams, I think I, I'm paranoid. I'm gonna forget a piece of gear. So I'd like check my gear five times and I would never forget anything. I paranoid I was gonna be late, so I'd have three alarm clocks. So I was never late. I'm paranoid that like, oh, I'm gonna make horrible business decision. So I'm more cautious. Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm not cautious, but I'm, but I don't over commit to things. So I don't think, I don't have an idea and think like, dude, dude, I just, I thought of the best, you know, widget ever.

• 1:19:36Jocko Willink?

  And I'm gonna build a factory to make this widget. Like we have what? Four factories now at Origin? But we started with one, you know what I mean? And grow. We didn't pool all of our money and borrow a bunch of money and leverage my house and I'll do this, all this other stuff to get four factories in one shot. No, we built one, then another one, then another one. So that's kind of same thing with Ashlan Front. Like, there's a lot of people that work at Ashlan Front now. We have a office building. We have, like, we got a lot of stuff at Ashlan Front, a lot of things going on. But we didn't start that way. We started small and grow. And that's what I recommend people all the time to do with business is start small and grow.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  That's, I should have, you know, here's the thing. I should have probably did that when it came to like hitting a bomb, but I just dove right in. You know, I could have just took one leg below and see if I like it.

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  Especially if you knew you're only gonna get, if you're gonna get capped at two limbs.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  They didn't tell you that.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  They didn't say like, hey, listen, if you're gonna lose limbs, just try to hold fast at two.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  But don't you think, okay, so everybody out there listening, like, working hard and going about life, don't you think like that's a little bit like even arrogant for me to tell people in a way?

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I would have probably at this point written a book, said, you're capped at two limbs. And the whole book would have been about this shit. This is freaking ridiculous.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  The US government, I mean, the amount of guys that lose more than two limbs is not a freaking big number. And it's not like we can't pay the guys the other 50 grand or the other 100 grand for four freaking limbs. Come on.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Well, if you're listening to this, and I'm, I'm kind of out some money right now. So I mean, if you want, no, I'm just kidding. No, I, I believe it's gonna like, I, we have made some money on it, right? I'm, I'm not like out 100,000, but I also, I realize like, it was stupid of me to

• 1:21:16Jocko Willink?

  Do you have a bunch of t-shirts or whatever, sitting around that you already made?

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  We have some stock, yeah. We have some stock, yeah. Shirts, there's hats, there's stuff.

• 1:21:24Jocko Willink?

  Hey, everybody go to rebelforgood.com and buy some stuff.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:21:29Jocko Willink?

  From this broke ass veteran.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:21:31Jocko Willink?

  That over invested.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  They didn't give me enough for my arms and legs being gone. I was just trying. No, no, I just, I'm not saying it's a failure. I'm just saying I don't, I, I think maybe I visualize, I visualize that I don't attack. You know what I mean?

• 1:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Like, I'm like, oh, hey, we're gonna work on Rebel for Good today. And then I was gonna do it tomorrow, but I gotta fly to Vegas. And then I gotta fly to, you know, just my schedule gets me. So I, my wife would love me to like. Slow down.

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  Chill out, chill out.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Well, just figure out what I want to actually do. So like.

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Do you know?

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Your purpose?

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, yup, yeah.

• 1:22:06Jocko Willink?

  Driving purpose?

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  There's a song about it and I plan on just being a billionaire. I'm not sure I'm gonna do that.

• 1:22:11Jocko Willink?

  That's what you're visualizing?

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  I don't even know why. I mean, I just like this song. I wanna be a billionaire, you know, so, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Do you know that song?

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, everybody, no, I don't know. I don't know. I just, I like being busy. Actually, I was talking with Pete just yesterday. I was driving and I was talking to Pete and I said, you know, he said, oh, man, I've been in meetings all day and I'm sure maybe you were in the meetings with him or whatever, but they had meetings all day and it's been a couple of days and he's like, yeah, you know, I was like, no, I'm just gonna go home and maybe relax a bit. I'm like, yeah, but you liked work. He goes, yeah, he goes, I love it. It's what I do. I'm like, I'm the same way. So like, I call it work, but when you're the boss, it's not really work, you know, you show up, everybody's nice to me. You know, I go to the foundation, I was going, hey, Travis, how you doing? I'm like, I'm doing well. How are you? No one's like, hey, you're gonna get this paper done.

• 1:22:59Jocko Willink?

  They're like, what are you working on today? You're like, I'm gonna eat a piece of the chicken and.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Customer relations, you know, employee relations. But anyway, anyway, no, I, I just, we got way off topic there.

• 1:23:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, all good. All right, going back to getting back on track, going back to principle number five, stay within the guardrails. Manage your emotions and control your attitude.

• 1:23:24Jocko Willink?

  And you got a section in here that I, I gotta run through. When Robert was in grad school, he took an adaptive leadership class that always stayed with him. And it came in handy when he's in danger of losing his job. At that moment, over lunch, he had so many emotions control, consuming him. I really wanted to scream, hey, you've set me up to fail. This is a guy that had like, lost his job. Or he, no, he was, he wasn't, hadn't lost his job yet, but he was going to get fired. They told him he was gonna get fired. He wanted to scream, "Hey, you set me up to fail. You didn't even communicate what you wanted from me. I felt we didn't have an agreement on what I was supposed to do, yet here I was being told I was failed." But I didn't scream. I remember what I learned in that class, is the adaptive leadership class. To get up on the balcony, get up high and look from above at a situation.

• 1:24:09Jocko Willink?

  Get that perspective to get out of your head and leave your emotions on the floor. So you can be more objective and resist having a hasty reaction. Going up on the balcony gave me the space and the presence of mind to get a broader picture and figure out a good plan forward. There may be something you want to say, but that doesn't mean you should say it. And being on the balcony gave me that time to think on my feet and respond the right way. This is something that I talk about all the time. Just being able to detach is what I call it. Being able to detach, not get caught up, take a step back, pay attention to what's going on. So what you're talking about in this section of the book is like getting control of your emotions.

• 1:24:51Jocko Willink?

  And you got a bunch of like things to, uh, that you covered here.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  I mean, per our last conversation, I just, I literally realized it's my fault for not spending enough time on the product right now. I detached and looked from above and I was like, you know what, actually as I'm telling you guys this, it's my fault. I suck.

• 1:25:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you also probably get like emotional about like, hey, this is going to be a great product. And you don't take a step back and go, okay, hold on a second. Have I tested the market? Do I understand what people really want? Cause you think you do. We all think we do. We think in our gut, like everyone's gonna love this.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Well, I thought I had some stuff lined up too, where it's going to go into a big retail store automatically. And I had it all lined up and then last minute did not work out that way. I was like, okay. Cause I remember telling my wife, like, hey, I'm just gonna bet on myself. You know, just, I'm gonna invest in myself.

• 1:25:35Jocko Willink?

  There's a weird too thing, like sometimes people have, and you probably have some of this too, is like people that are so good and convincing that they convince themselves and then they convince everybody else that they're right. Like I have to be careful that, like, I don't, I'm, I can be pretty persuasive about stuff. I can be so persuasive that I can persuade, like echo that like, we're gonna do something and it doesn't make any sense. So I'm always like, Checking myself again, I'm paranoid. I'm paranoid that I might be wrong and that keeps me a little bit more in check about things. Um, you've got a couple of things in here about, uh, when you talk about emotions like breathing, you say, practice mindfulness, which when I

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Again, this is the research that was done.

• 1:26:13Jocko Willink?

  No, but when I was reading it, I was kind of like, okay, here we go. But then you said, here's a typical initial conversation with many former Marines. Hey, so we're going to do some mindfulness work before we work out today. Oh, so we're going to go full on hippie? Ever shoot between breasts when you were behind the scope of a rifle? Well, that's mindfulness. So you kind of brought it down for us freaking knuckle draggers. I like, I like that. You talk about that mindfulness stuff. You talk about humor. Using anger as a motivator, role playing you put in there does freaking awesome. Something we do all the time. And they're just making sure, and again, you go into this, get the book, get the book out there because it talks about like the actual methodology from going from like a negative

• 1:26:55Jocko Willink?

  thought to a positive thought. And this is some of the really good stuff to take away from the book. Uh, principle six. Make the time to be grateful for what you have. And then this is when the science, you have a little thing in here. It's called, you've got creative. It's called science lesson number one. We tend to be negative nancies. I've got a little excerpts here. It's called negativity bias. We tend to remember and dwell from stressful, negative experiences more than a positive. And to base our behaviors off of them, which is interesting. It goes into it here like, if you are out on the, you know, Serengeti plains and you watched like your family get mauled by a lion back in the day. You'd be like lions bad.

• 1:27:40Jocko Willink?

  I need to stay away from them. So that makes us dwell more on the negative than, than on the positive.

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  And I think that we do that as, as, uh, just, just as our, as, you know, as humans, we do that. Like, we've had at the foundation, thousands of families or thousands of people come, right? Um, hundreds of families. And I I tend to imagine or I tend to like relive like the three or four that won't get invited back. Out of all the success stories we've had, all the the spouses and and the crying and like this is the best thing ever. My husband. This is the guy I I married. He's acting like the guy I married and I haven't seen this guy since before he deployed. And it was like four years prior. And I'm like, remember that one family that came here? And like they let their kids just ruin everything. They they used our brand new towels with the kids' poopy butt and like. Just, you know, it's like the dumbest thing ever. And I do that and I and I focus on that or.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  It's just it it's irritating that I do that. And then I had one comment made to me. When my house got built, Garry Snee's Foundation, Karen Cherable Foundation, and Tallon Towers were all together. They built it. Very, very grateful to have the adaptive home. And I had an older gentleman come out because I had an elevator in my house. The elevator was donated, but I had an elevator and the guy said. How many elevator, how many ramps did you put on veterans' houses and you have an elevator in your house? He said, you're just building a shrine for yourself out there with your foundation. Damn. And that like sticks in my head because I've never taken a dollar from my foundation. I mean, I've never taken a bonus. I don't use any of the money for myself. Like, and and if I did. Nobody would say anything if I had a salary, but I don't. And like we raise quite a bit of money. We're very fortunate. People support and believe in us.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  But I literally go out for two hours now during a Tuesday lunch. I don't even eat lunch. I meet the families. I say hi. And then I take off and I go to different, I schedule other stuff because I don't want people to think I did it just so I can be out there and like, look at me, look at me. And like, just some old, some old guy. As a matter of fact, he's a Vietnam vet. And he happened to be business partners with a friend of mine that I met, my plumber. I called my plumber and I got the guy's number. That's a bitter dude. Well, let me tell you something. You want to see a Facebook troll? You got one in front of you. People that give me a bad review of my restaurant, they're going to find out. You talk bad about my marina, we're going to have a conversation. This gentleman, I got his phone number. I called him up.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  I said, hey, I'm not sure why you're saying this, but we're going to have a conversation about it. How'd you get my number? I'm like, I know people. Don't worry about it. And he just, he just couldn't get over, they didn't understand what I was doing with the foundation. And now to this day, I still always think about that. I want to make sure people know like. And I don't know why, but I'm like, hey, look, we raised, you know, I think we're going on forty million dollars of in kind of nations and donations and. And we're we're building and we're helping and supporting and building programs out. And I make sure every cha- every chance I get, just like right now, I don't know why I feel compelled, but everybody knows like I and Kelsey, we have never taken a dollar, a salary, a bonus, nothing. And we're never going to, but I want people, I don't know why, that guy just got in my head. That was like when I was moving in my house.

• 1:30:30Jocko Willink?

  Dude, that's, that's case in point. People focus of all the people that have praised and been thankful for all the families that you've helped and everything. But you think about this one dude that talks shit about you.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I tell you what.

• 1:30:42Jocko Willink?

  So, case in point, sometimes we focus on the negative.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:30:46Jocko Willink?

  Your book is correct. Science lesson number one, science lesson number two. This is your brain on gratitude. Studies have shown that practicing gratitude can have incredible results on the brain and mood. People reported feeling happier, more motivated and more content after adding the practice into their daily life. So you got that in there. Gratitude breed resilience. You give some science behind that. You give, science lesson number four. Really believe it. And you talk about Andrew Huberman, Dr. Andrew Huberman. And just the fact that he's like talking about when, when you go into a, what is it, an ice bath you're talking about here?

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:31:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for it to really work, you have to believe that it really works. You have to think that like this is good for me. And then it, then it's like more helpful.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  I should, I should know this about you, but do you do the ice plunges and all that?

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  I do, yeah.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought so.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Why'd you think so?

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  Did you ever post about it or did we talk about it? I can't, I, I thought I heard it.

• 1:31:42Jocko Willink?

  I don't really, I don't really post about it a lot, no.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Alright, well, I didn't mean to bring it up here for the world.

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  No, no, there's, there's like a whole thing. There's a whole thing around like doing ice bath and posting about it, you know what I mean?

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:53Jocko Willink?

  It's like, you can do that.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink?

  You know, i- i- if I don't post about it, did it really happen? That's the question, you know? But no, I, I do, I, I, I do. I do it every day. I have a sauna and a ice bath. So yes, I do that stuff. Every day.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  We have the sun. My wife wants to get ice, the ice bath. I'm not sure if I can get out of it, though. That's my problem.

• 1:32:15Jocko Willink?

  You would need to get some kind of modifications or something to it, but they're not deep. You could, you wouldn't drown in it. I can get. No, actually, you know what? You know what? You could definitely get out of it because I'm thinking about when I was rolling jujitsu with you. You have like this weird upper body mobility. You'd be able to like hook onto the side and yank yourself out.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  I'm not so sure it's weird. It's just, it's just how I am now, but it's fine.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  I don't know why. It's gotta be weird.

• 1:32:41Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you'd probably like that ice bath because I know you run hot because you, because you don't have the like as much radiator as the rest of us have.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  My blood circulates faster through my body.

• 1:32:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you would probably, it would probably feel really good to you.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Like refreshing.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  It does feel good. I mean, you know, all the stuff that you hear about it is true. Like you get in there. It sucks when you get in there and then you're just like, yo, and I used to not dunk my head on under because I have like real bad something called surfer's ears. Have you ever heard of that?

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  I mean, I know what cauliflower, I know surfing.

• 1:33:12Jocko Willink?

  So surfer's ears, it's the inside of your ear canal. You expose it to cold water a lot and it gets, it starts to get bone growths and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So like my ears, my ear canals are like eighty-five percent shut. And so I get ear infections easily. So, but now I just like plug my ears with my fingers and just go under and it feels really good. But yeah, my son, when my son was like nine years old, we were at a surf contest and they had a person there selling like earplugs. Cause everyone gets surfer's ear and it's really bad out here in California. And he looked at my ears and he's like, dude, and then he goes, well, let me take a look at your son.

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  And my son's like a maniac in the water. He would be in the water his whole life. And he, he like looks at my son's ear and he goes, I have never seen a child with ears like this. His ears were already like forty percent closed at age nine. Yeah. It was like, yo, bad father coming in hot. Uh, next principle, get up, battle buddy. Never underestimate the power of a support system. We have to realize that while our individual experience may differ, the struggle is the same 99.9% of all human beings struggle. It's just what we do. And then you quote a Harvard study.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I, I'm, I have three doctorates. Um, I'm a doctor three times over. Bates Unity and University of Maine Augusta, what, what my alma mater is.

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  I showed up for a day for one of them. The other one, I showed up for a dinner and a day for the.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  And they gave you like honorary doctorates?

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  You know, they still count. But yeah, I got, you don't have any honorary.

• 1:34:55Jocko Willink?

  I'm so impressed, bro. No, no. No. When I got done with the University of San Diego, I was like, I'm never going back to school.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I, I just went, I went for the graduation ceremony.

• 1:35:05Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't, I don't know. Maybe I have too many arms and legs to get honorary degrees over here.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Hold what you got. It's up to me. If you're taking advice from me for anything, hold what you got.

• 1:35:16Jocko Willink?

  A Harvard study, apparently the longest study on human behavior was, has found that overwhelmingly people who have deep personal relationships with others are happier than people who don't. Translation, you could be a billionaire and have all the material things you want in life and still be miserable. Money will not bring you happiness. Status will not bring you happiness. Deep personal connections you have will. It does not just affect emotional health. It also affects your physical health, health. One recent study found that seniors who consider themselves lonely have a 59% higher risk of physical and mental health decline and a 45% greater risk of death. Other studies liken loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

• 1:35:57Jocko Willink?

  Check. What about dogs? Are dogs in the game for that? Like, don't, don't, don't dogs make, don't dogs make like pets make you kind of happier too?

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hear good things.

• 1:36:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You got dogs?

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  I do. I do. I got dogs, but I don't have a service dog. I don't want a service dog. I don't want to take a dog everywhere.

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  Everybody's got a service dog now.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  You go into the airport and there's people that are like walking around with a service dog? You don't know why they look, they seem to be healthy.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  And you can't question it. That's the only thing you can't question is a service dog is jumping up, peeing on everything. But, uh, no, I have, I have two dogs. Um, and they're at my house. My wife made me, uh, she made me, I went out at a golf tournament out in Iowa. And our old dog, we had to put him down. And I was like, you can just do without me. It's cool. She's like, yeah, no. So I had to fly back from Iowa.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  That's when the army soldier slips out. Sometimes you're like, oh, gotta put the, yeah, go ahead. Take care of it.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Jocko Willink?

  I'll be back, I'll be back next week.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  So I had to fly home knowing I was like, oh yeah. So I'm gonna land, get home, a vet's gonna come to our house and we're gonna kill my dog. So cool. So like, I had to do that. And then, um, I always joke around like about service dogs. Like everybody's like, you should get a service dog. I'm like, I, I got a dog. His name's Buddy. They're like, yeah, but we, we can get your dog that listens. And I get offended. Cause my dog Buddy was so good. I used to look at my dog and say, buddy, sit. Like when you want, you know, and eventually he would sit down.

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you want it.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, uh, no, we have, we have a fox red lab and a havenese. They're good dogs.

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Sure. But do you think they help people live longer? Echo Charles assessment.

• 1:37:30Speaker 02

  That, well, I hear good things. I've, I've heard about, you know, they give, um, people all kinds of random pets and yeah, they get, they get like half. Cause they have more of a purpose. They can take care of it, all this stuff.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  But now the fact that they don't live past like 12, 13 is that when they have to go, is that a bad thing?

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that feels like they might beat jam somebody up for sure. Yeah. I've heard it with like dogs, um, cats, rabbits. You know, people just have a pet to take, can take care of, kind of companionship scenario.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  I think, I think that, I think there's some truth to that. Yeah.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  Feels like.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  And some people like dogs better than people.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. My wife was saying the other day, um, we were, my family was having a discussion about like what you would pay to like, keep the dog alive and everything. And I think my oldest daughter, who's kind of cold blooded, she was like, no more than a thousand, you know, or something like that. And then, you know, my little daughter was like, oh no, you, my son was like, dude, that's crazy. And then my wife says, um, I view our dog, I view Odin as one of my children. I was just like, yo, if this dog gets sick, I'm gonna be bankrupt.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, my, my, one of my, my friends, um, their dog had like cancer, his three year old dog, and they spent like, I think eight grand on it. And I'm like, why?

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  He bought it for three hundred probably. You can buy another lab, you know?

• 1:38:48Jocko Willink?

  You can buy a lot of labs.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, I would never do that. And Kelsey looked at me, she goes, oh, oh, yeah, you would. And like, she was on their side. And I'm like, nah.

• 1:38:56Jocko Willink?

  Got shut down.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  Got shut down.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  What, what was your number?

• 1:39:01Jocko Willink?

  Uh, look, my wife's, you know, she's gonna make the call on my dog. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Same as my number.

• 1:39:08Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna back out of that conversation real quick. And my dog, you know, it, it, you know, I'm the alpha, you know what I mean? In the house?

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Jocko Willink?

  You know, like I get, he listens to me the most, but he does like her more.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  Now, let me ask you a question, cause I don't, I had never been to your house. Like, do you live in the country a little bit? I know, I know where we're at.

• 1:39:25Jocko Willink?

  No, I live by the ocean.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  But like, do you? Like, I live, you, you've been to my house? I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, you did. Didn't you come for dinner? No? Okay. Thanks a lot. Appreciate that.

• 1:39:36Jocko Willink?

  No, thank you for the invite.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  I did. You didn't fly in quick enough. I remember. Cause Leif and the ladies came, yeah, anyway. So I can go out my back door on my porch and I have a twenty acres with no neighbors. So I tinkle outside. That's what I do. But when my dog walks over and pees on top of mine, that's when I get angry. I'm like, excuse me? You know what I'm saying? Like, what, what are you, and the funny thing is, it's like the little dog first. He's just like a little thirty pound.

• 1:40:00Jocko Willink?

  So he kinda out alphas you, your dogs?

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  Well, he tries to. But then, you know, then I let him know. It's just, I don't know. That's a weird thing to bring up, but I get pissed. I'm like, what are you doing?

• 1:40:10Speaker 02

  Wait, that's a flex, right? For dogs?

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:40:12Speaker 02

  Peeing over your pee?

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Jocko Willink?

  Dude, there was an MMA fighter a while ago that his nickname was Show Enough The Master.

• 1:40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Remember that dude?

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  Remember, what was his real name?

• 1:40:26Speaker 02

  Oh, the MMA fighter, the real Show Enough?

• 1:40:28Jocko Willink?

  There was a MMA fighter whose name was, you know, Bill Show Enough The Master Smith, or whatever his actual name was.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  Oh, like a, wait, I thought he was a regular martial artist, like tradit- traditional.

• 1:40:38Jocko Willink?

  No, there was an MMA fighter.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  Whose nickname was Show Enough The Master.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  I've.

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  Which I have to say is like one of the top nicknames.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  I saw a thug nasty one again.

• 1:40:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:40:49Speaker 01

  Bryce, yeah.

• 1:40:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  I didn't get to meet him yet, but he seems like a pretty decent guy.

• 1:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, he's a character. And that was a really good scrap, dude. He looked sharp. And he's down there.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  He got hit pretty good.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, he got cracked in the eye, but dude, he, he.

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  Oh, he looked good.

• 1:41:03Jocko Willink?

  Really good in that fight.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  That guy could not defend the takedown.

• 1:41:06Jocko Willink?

  And dude, this is a dude that's like, the wrestling he's doing is like with chickens right now. My boy Bryce, dude.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  That dude's out wrestling chickens and going in the cage and jacking people up.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Well, cause Ty.

• 1:41:15Jocko Willink?

  God bless him.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Ty and Ian went out there. They had a great time.

• 1:41:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  They, I think they FaceTimed me actually.

• 1:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  But, uh, they had a great time hanging out with him.

• 1:41:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, Bryce is a maniac, dude.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:23Jocko Willink?

  But, yeah, he looked really good in that fight. He, yeah, his nickname's good, Thug Nasty.

• 1:41:28Speaker 02

  Thug Nasty. Well, Show Enough is from a old movie.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I kind of vaguely remember that.

• 1:41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's called The Last Dragon, which was the, uh, black, you know how they do like the black version of a like movie? It's like there's the black version of one of the Bruce Lee movies. So instead of Shogun, it was Show Enough.

• 1:41:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's legit right there.

• 1:41:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that part, that movie's actually pretty, it's a comedy movie.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  So it's like, like Robin Hood and then Robin Hood Men in Tights?

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  Like a spoof kind of?

• 1:41:55Speaker 02

  Kind of, yeah.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Like Scream and the Scream, yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  I got you.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  It's, is it a spoof? It's like kind of a spoof. Yeah.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:02Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a spoof, yeah, for sure.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  No, I don't mean it the bad way.

• 1:42:04Speaker 02

  No, no, it's, it's, it's a funny movie. It's old school though, but that's where Show Enough came from. In fact, I always thought that too, that, that name is pretty dope.

• 1:42:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Speaker 02

  Show Enough The Master.

• 1:42:12Jocko Willink?

  But, yeah, Show Enough The Master, is that his full name in the movie?

• 1:42:16Speaker 02

  Yes, if I'm not mistaken, dude. Man, I was a little kid when I watched that.

• 1:42:19Jocko Willink?

  But the thing is, it's a real problem if you try and give yourself a nickname that's that badass, right?

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can't give your nickname, you can't give yourself your own nickname like Nighthawk. Which I think I just took from Step Brothers, right?

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Jocko Willink?

  Step Brothers, he says like, "You call me Night Hawk," or something like that.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Call me Dragon.

• 1:42:36Jocko Willink?

  Dragon.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can't give yourself cool nicknames. Doesn't work that way.

• 1:42:44Jocko Willink?

  Principal eight.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, back on, back on.

• 1:42:46Jocko Willink?

  One that I am familiar with from the SEAL teams. Never give up, never quit, ever. Push past your own personal best.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  So when I came up with this, like, my slogan, if you will, is never give up, never quit.

• 1:43:01Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  I was doing sit-ups. After I got blown up, I was doing sit-ups and I was 140 pounds, right? I lost 110 pounds, my injury. And I was doing sit-ups and they were recording me. And as I was doing these sit-ups, the occupational therapist was like, "Hey, do you want to take a break?" And I'm like, "No, I'm never gonna take, I'm never gonna take a break." I said, "I'm just never gonna give up, never gonna quit." And I just kept like ripping these sit-ups out. And I mean, I was so weak, I, I mean, drugged up, looked like a crackhead. And I was just like, "That's where I came from." So.

• 1:43:28Jocko Willink?

  I'm never gonna stop.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was just like ripping them out.

• 1:43:33Jocko Willink?

  Friggin' awesome, man.

• 1:43:36Jocko Willink?

  You, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. You say, uh, having a growth mindset. Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth is the bestselling author of Grit, Power of Passion and Perseverance. In it, Duckworth defines grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. In her words, quote, "Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over the years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress." People are born with various levels of grit, but Duckworth contends that it is a trait that develops through experience. One key to improving it, as she points out in her TED Talk, is by shifting your mindset from a fixed to a growth orientation.

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  So you also have some tips in here about how to stick it out. Don't overthink it. And again, you get the book, take your time.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  You keep saying I have these tips, but you wrote the foreword. You're it's we.

• 1:44:33Jocko Willink?

  We.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  We have these tips.

• 1:44:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we have these tips in our book.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  In our book.

• 1:44:38Jocko Willink?

  Am I getting a cut?

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Well, I tell you what.

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  In the contract.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think it was, uh, if you would have narrated.

• 1:44:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, check. Uh, take your time, always be curious, be a one percenter. The one percent rule is a theory is making tiny changes that add up. Well, we just covered something like that on the podcast. Uh, be careful about perfectionism. And then you get to the fixed and growth mindsets here from care. Another psychologist, you got all these psychologists in here, but you don't have Jordan Peterson.

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  I just, yeah, well, I didn't, I didn't know if he would want to be in my.

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Well, you didn't know who he is.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Twenty four.

• 1:45:14Jocko Willink?

  Until fifteen minutes ago.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  He's like, hey, this is my twenty five through thirty six. What the hell? And I'm like, oh, I didn't realize this is extension.

• 1:45:21Jocko Willink?

  Uh, people with a fixed mindset, those who believe that abilities are absolute, are less likely to flourish than those who believe that abilities can be developed. In other words, with a growth mindset, you, you see challenges as learning opportunities rather than as obstacles to overcome.

• 1:45:39Jocko Willink?

  That's, um, one of those things, man, you know, people that are like that. Like, do you know people like I know people in my life where they like anything? They like, look at it and they're like, I can do this. I can figure this out. I can make this happen. That's a, it's a good thing to have.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's what Pete really, I feel like, you know, Pete Roberts. I mean, I think, feel like he did that too with like the, hey, we gotta bring manufacturing back. Let me go get this old piece of equipment that hasn't ran in forty years. Let's just figure this out from nothing.

• 1:46:07Jocko Willink?

  Which is freaking crazy. Well, I was gonna say that I was thinking about that too. When we were talking about like growing businesses, like origin started with one sewing. Actually, I think it was started with two sewing machines, two like broken sewing machines that didn't work, you know, like make them work. The loom, bro, the loom is crazy. Now we got.

• 1:46:26Jocko Willink?

  Six looms, I think one of them, five looms, one of them broke, but yeah, that's some growth mindset. Right? It's like a lot of people were like, oh, you cannot manufacture here. You can't do this here. Oh, yes, we can't watch this.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  You know, and, and not to like toot my own horn here, but let me just say.

• 1:46:41Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like we're about to.

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  Beef, beef. Okay. So I was the guy that would always like help somebody like I look, I couldn't change the brakes that well. I could figure it out, but not like. I was a mechanically inclined person, but when you lose your arms and legs and you have to literally explain to people what you need, like. You have to figure some shit out. So like for me now, after my injury, I have to break everything down to like, how am I gonna, even like making. Like as simple as like making an egg sandwich in the morning, not even egg, I can't crack eggs. So I'm saying like a ham cheese. You know, like, I'm like, okay, I gotta get this out first. I gotta make sure I have this set up. And like, I never did that before, right? I just like run to a wall and just try to like, ah, I can't figure it out. Let me just ask, I'll, I'll phone a friend and I'll Google it.

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  But after being injured, like I have to like think every single step of how I need to do something out before I do it, because if I don't, it can go real bad, real quick.

• 1:47:29Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta be more, uh.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Patient.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Patient and what's that word? Like proactively thinking about way you're gonna execute things.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause you can get, you can get like tripped up in a situation that's gonna be shitty.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Well, like, you know, it's funny you said shitty because I wasn't gonna say that, but like, say I gotta use, use the restroom, right? I got a hook I have. I gotta make sure I get my legs off the right way. My shorts gotta come off the right way. I gotta make sure I'm all set up so that after I take everything off, I can put it all back on. To like, make sure I don't have to call someone to help me out. You know what I mean? And, um, it's just like, it's all a process now, which, which is fine, right? It's fine. It's like your new normal. I, I, I talk about you find your new normal. Um, but it's just, I never had that before, but now it's like, I can only get frustrated so much if I can't figure something out or some, I can't get someone to help the way I need them to help. Cause what's it gonna do for me?

• 1:48:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, dude, your patience must be like level ninja.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  For myself, other people, not so much. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:48:30Jocko Willink?

  Not for your si- not for your six year old son Dax.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh. Patience is thin.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  My daughter, at college, she's like, I'll be right there, one sec. And here talking to her friend Ashley or Emily still, and I'm like, I don't know what you didn't get about when I said, get over here. She says, geez, Dad, just calm down. I can do it faster than you. I'm like, you know what, you little turd? This is 12.

• 1:48:51Jocko Willink?

  So it's only gonna, it's only gonna get, it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I'll tell you that much right now. Uh, principle number nine. Swim with the sharks. Walk with the horses. Make fear your friend. I'm gonna read a little section here. For me, the fear of failure hits home. When I was growing up and playing a lot of competitive sports, I never wanted to fail. And I took that fear to my military days as it, as it folded in nicely with the military's hard ass philosophy of always having a game face. I always wanted to make sure that I led from the front and never showed any weakness because if I did, my guys would lose faith in me. I knew that if that happened, they wouldn't follow my orders that were meant to keep them alive. That fear drove me.

• 1:49:32Jocko Willink?

  When I became injured, I was confronted with a new, seemingly impossible, insurmountable fear. How the hell was I going to take care of my wife and daughter with no legs and arms? Who did I think I was? Because I was certainly no longer Staff Sergeant Mills, fearless leader of combat soldiers. I was instead lying in a bed, helpless, limbless, and jobless. That immediate fe- fear I had in that hospital bed lasted for weeks, months even. No one saw it, though. I wouldn't let them. I wouldn't let fear win. I probably didn't handle this perfectly, but in the military, you're taught if you stop moving forward, you die. So even though I couldn't physically move forward, I knew I had to move on emotionally. I use this fear as a motivating factor to help me.

• 1:50:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, here's getting into some steps that you've got here to help you overcome fear.

• 1:50:32Jocko Willink?

  Number one, know what your fear is. Is there something in your life you want to change but don't? Knowledge is power. Number two, acknowledge that a bit of fear is good. It means it is taking you out of your comfort zone, getting comfortable with, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Know that it is normal to feel this way and many people feel fear. You are not alone. These two right here. Making sure that people know that like that's okay. And acknowledging that it's good. I've had that. I originally had that conversation with guys in the teams, like especially like young guys. Like you could see like before an op, like it was first couple of ops on deployment. You could see they're like real nervous and just being like, hey dude, you got some butterflies in your stomach there, homie?

• 1:51:16Jocko Willink?

  You just went to the bathroom four times in the last 15 minutes and it's like, no, I'm good. It's like, hey, bro. It's all, it is good. Like you should feel afraid. You should be like nervous because you're going to get, getting ready to go out into combat. And I had that same conversation with, with quite a few MMA fighters before fighting in like in the UFC where, you know, they might have all those guys, like you don't get to the UFC without having competed your whole life in wrestling or in jujitsu or in whatever. And so they're, they're, they're feel real comfortable. And then all of a sudden you get to the UFC. Dude, it's a hundred percent. They're going to be nervous because it's the UFC. And you see them get nervous and just being able to tell them, hey, man, you're feeling nervous, huh? Dude, I'm, uh, I don't know, man. Uh, it's like, hey, man, it's good.

• 1:52:01Jocko Willink?

  That's your body getting, your body, your mind getting ready for combat. It's okay.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's heightened senses too, right?

• 1:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly. It's your body and your mind getting ready. It's freaking, it's how it should be.

• 1:52:13Jocko Willink?

  Number four, share your fear with others who will understand what you are going through. Number five, stop negative thinking in its tracks. Number six, plan.

• 1:52:25Jocko Willink?

  Number seven, call it. Realize that you have a choice to get over fear or not. Number eight, give yourself a big hoo-ya for going for it. Now you use the term hoo-ya. Why did you use the term hoo-ya?

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  Super great question for my collaborative author Kathy.

• 1:52:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Just because we know that in the army, you say hoo-ah.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I say airborne. I never said hoo-ah.

• 1:52:50Jocko Willink?

  And as a matter of fact, the only place they say hoo-ya is in the SEAL teams. They've started to say it in other places now in the Navy?

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  Maybe that's because SEAL teams are the best, you know, maybe if they had a movie out, you know, that I would have been able to see, I would have tried to go for a SEAL team.

• 1:53:06Jocko Willink?

  If only there were more books about the SEAL teams.

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying?

• 1:53:11Jocko Willink?

  I'll get right to work.

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. Well, no, I'm not in high school anymore. I mean, I had my choice. Navy didn't have the best reputation when I was looking at the services.

• 1:53:20Jocko Willink?

  Did you even know what the SEAL teams were when you were looking at the services?

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  No, I was looking at Rangers and Special Forces. And then I had the Ranger contract and I feel like I could have did it, but they were just like, they're like, they just, they got me.

• 1:53:31Jocko Willink?

  You and I had that conversation on the first time is like, you were definitely a way better athlete than I was, like not even close. But for some reason I was like cocky enough to think like, I'll make it through that training. And for some reason you were like, oh, I'm not sure, which is a weird thing.

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  I was just like, they were like, oh, hey, we could send you whatever unit you want. Cause they were just trying to plus your stuff to go overseas. And they were like, you're going to go there and it's be six months wait here. And I was like, we're all like, well, we gotta get in the fight right now. I shipped out a week later, like, like those guys went like the next day. And then we, we still hung out with them like at UNC Chapel Hill, all my friends. And I'm like, oh my God.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  It's weird that in 2006, you thought you needed to like hurry up and get in the fight. The war had already been going on for five years and it was going to go on for another 15.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  Well, cause you know, that one time I got blown up. I didn't know the future. Uh, it's kind of the same situation there. Like I didn't know how long it was going to be. But the drill sergeant's like, you gotta get over there.

• 1:54:24Jocko Willink?

  In 2006, bro, I mean, it was, there was no slowing down in sight. It wasn't like this.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  You know, 10 foot tall bulletproof.

• 1:54:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what happens when you're a young kid.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but uh.

• 1:54:34Jocko Willink?

  How old were you? So were you like 19 when you enlisted or were you 20?

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  I was 18, but then I turned 19 in basic.

• 1:54:39Jocko Willink?

  Cause you went to one year, oh no, you only went to like one.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  Semester and a half.

• 1:54:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, semester and a half.

• 1:54:45Jocko Willink?

  Shag.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I only have a year and a half left, like, uh, like if I would, now it's probably expired, but I only had a year and a half left for like a degree. If I would have, cause I did college op, I kept re-enlisted to go to college.

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  But you got three doctorates, why do you care anymore?

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't. Yeah, no, I'm not going. I literally had my daughter doing like, she was doing math like, like last year. And they were doing this Common Core thing and I'm like, what is this?

• 1:55:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  And it's like, well Danny does it this way and Susan does it this way. I said, Chloe, cross out Susan's name. And put my dad. And I showed her how to do long division. She's like, this is so much easier. I'm like, yeah. So next day, like she got to show her class, like long, the teacher goes, that's what we're trying to get guys to do. And Chloe's like, Yeah, this is what my dad said. This is his philosophy, how he does it.

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  The Common Core thing is definitely strange.

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  It's like, have you seen it yet, Echo? You might, your kids might be too old or too young.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:55:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're like, wait a second, just subtract one. You know, and they're like, well, no, what you need to do is add two and then remove three. And then you're gonna get the answer of minus one. Like, it's just real strange.

• 1:55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, I, you know, I don't like feeling dumb at sixth grade or fifth grade math, you know? And I'm just like, nah, just cross it out and say, my dad said this is how he does it.

• 1:55:52Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have a fun time at the parent teachers conference.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  I did, I did get yelled at with my wife. Cause I said, Chloe, when you go to school tomorrow, like this was, This was last year, sixth grade. I said, when you go to school, just tell them that your dad, you know, owns a few businesses. He's, you know, and in my 35 years of being alive, that time was 35, I said, I've never used this once a day in my life. So just let them know That I own these businesses and I've never used this crap ever. So I'm glad you're learning it. And Kelsey goes, you can't say that. I'm like, okay.

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  I, I would go to a parent teacher night. I haven't done it in a while. But when I, last time I went, I like took selfies with all the teachers. You know, like with a, with a crazy face and sent them to, cause then my kids were like, what are you doing? My daughters, my son didn't get, I didn't even do it because it wouldn't like faze him. He'd just be like, whatever. But my daughters, I took crazy like selfies with all their teachers, you know, like, let me get a selfie with you.

• 1:56:48Jocko Willink?

  Uh, number nine, debrief. Think about how you would improve, show a growth mindset.

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I was gonna touch on something quick with, with the, the previous one. When it says like, you know, I wouldn't let, like, anybody see what was going on. Like, I had my community. But I, I, I thought it was a Japanese philosopher that said like, there's your friends that know you. There's like your spouse that knows your intimate friends. There are people, how that people know you, how your friends know you than actually how, who you really are. For six months, I couldn't look in a mirror at myself. I just wouldn't. I, I literally would brush my teeth off to the side because I couldn't, I couldn't see just this little arm. As I was brushing my teeth with a prosthetic. And it was like so hard for me, but nobody knew that because I was in the bathroom by myself when I was doing that. And like I said, I probably didn't do the mental health thing the right way, but.

• 1:57:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I wonder if like the prescription would be like, oh, you should have told your wife or you should have told your friends or something like that.

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm sure somebody else is feeling like now you're deformed, like I was deformed, mutated in a way. I still am. But I got, I can accept this isn't who I, this is my body now, you know? But, but I mean, as far as I have the community and have people you rely on and stuff like that, like that's advice I need to take. Cause at the time, I couldn't even, I, I, I didn't look in a mirror at all. If it wasn't like neck up, I wasn't looking.

• 1:58:05Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:07Jocko Willink?

  And it took you like six months, you're saying, or like where you're like, started to accept it?

• 1:58:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, kinda like, okay, well, this isn't changing. I went to bed every night, hope it's gonna change. It hasn't changed yet. I don't think it's gonna grow back. And, uh, yeah.

• 1:58:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I hate to bring the mood down. I mean, I didn't mean that in a bad way, just, but sometimes, you know, it takes.

• 1:58:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's wild. You were talking earlier about like that. If you, feeling like, okay, this must be a dream and I'm just gonna wake up and it's gonna be over. And, you know, we've all probably had bad dreams where we're like, wake up and you're so relieved that it was a dream. And you're just like, after a while, you keep wanting to have that feeling and it ain't happening.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  And I was okay, like I was accepting my injuries and I was getting better, I was working out. But it was like, just, there was different things, you know? There's different things. Like, I actually think, in this book, in the pitcher section, like the pitcher with the orange hats in there.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  You know, and I like the pitcher now. At the time, I was like, no, I can't. I remember having that, kind of go viral, with Jenna putting me on Fox News and, and all that stuff, that pitcher. And my sergeant major called me, and I was in launch tool. And I said, Sergeant Major, I'm so sorry, that pitcher, I shouldn't have had that hat on, and I was out of regulation, I understand if I gotta get a demotion, like, best job I've ever had, I appreciate it, but I apologize for it. He's like, Mills, you crazy son of a bitch, what are you talking about? I was like, well, I have a baseball cap on, outside, like, I shouldn't have had that on, I'm sorry. And he was just like, I think you're good. I'm like, oh, okay. Never mind, forget what I said then.

• 1:59:39Jocko Willink?

  Jenna trying to get you in trouble. Principle 10, a new normal. Your vulnerability is your strength. Vulnerability is defined as the ability or the chance of being physically or emotionally wounded. In the military, we don't like vulnerability, since it can imply that you're in danger or in a weak position. Being vulnerable is the very thing you didn't want to be as a soldier after all. When a soldier is vulnerable, in a vulnerable position, you can get killed, vulnerable to the enemy, vulnerable to attack. We were trained to not be vulnerable. Yet, in real life, it takes on a different meaning. While being vulnerable on the battlefield means weakness, being vulnerable with yourself doesn't have to mean you're weak. In fact, it can mean the opposite. Being vulnerable is strength. What do you mean by that?

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, like, opening up, like, I mean, just, when I was saying my, my alive day, how I hated it, it irritated me, I didn't want to celebrate it, and then all of a sudden I said, you know, but after the last eight years, or whatever it was, whatever alive day it was, I realized, like, it's a thank you, for all the hard work that went into my recovery, doctors, nurses, staff, therapists at Walter Reed, you know, prosthetists, everybody that got me back where I was at. And it was a more gratitude of... What was done to save my life rather than anger of being injured? Or thinking about the day I got blown up as like a positive? And then like having Taylor like, hey man, nailed it. Like that man, Taylor doesn't say very much, like he's a good guy, but he's

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  pretty dry, quiet, hilarious, but you know, and him just saying that like just nailed it. I think it's all he texted me. I was like, man, that's cool. That we can, you know, have that, he felt the same way, but never, we never voiced it.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  But you know, I like, you know, I say I was negotiating from a position of strength, you know? I don't know if that's true or not, because a lot of times I feel like I'm just trying to be on the same level. I don't want to be above or like, do this because I'm in power. But I find myself using my story, having me to like, help mentor people and talk to them. So like I use the vulnerability of my story, but it's never like on the same level as somebody where I'm like, like I'm not asking people for their, you know, advice on my injuries and maybe I need to do better about that because I'm more of like, I want to be the mentor, not the mentoree, if you will. You know, unless it's you, I'll talk, you know, you two out. But when it comes

• 2:01:58Jocko Willink?

  Like I know you feel I sprained my ankle last week, so I kind of, let me give you some, some advice on mental toughness.

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  Right, right. No, I get it. I get it. That's right. You did crawl with a broken leg eight miles. And then, and then walk, yeah, then walk up the hill to school and back up the hill home with a broken leg for five days. I heard the whole story. I get it. I know about, I know that you know about

• 2:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Vulnerability like I do, bro.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Well, I tell you what, I tell you what, have your arms legs taken away and have to use the restroom and have the corpsman have to help you every time. You are vulnerable. And that was like the worst, like literally the worst time, like the worst part of my life was having to like with that part. As soon as I got my arm, I was like, never again. Because they have these surgeries out there, like they'll put steel rods in my arm. And they're like, it's called osteo integration, but I'd be without an arm for like, Nope, one day's too long.

• 2:02:49Jocko Willink?

  What would the, what would the purpose of the steel rods going in your arm be?

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  Gets rid of the socket completely and then the hand hooks right into it and then they just, they do with the legs too. A lot of people you see with legs like that, they have steel rods come on their leg called.

• 2:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  And like it helps with the overheating because I have three layers on my legs that like don't sweat. You know, like it's up my inner thigh.

• 2:03:07Jocko Willink?

  So you're saying there'd be a metal protrusion coming out of your body?

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  How do they like keep it uh sealed and not getting infected?

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  Well, there's a ton of uh medication that you gotta take just in case, but they're trying to redo the dermatology. The dermatologists are doing like skin and they're trying to make it like your skin on your, either your fingernails, skin or your gums, try and change it to that. But I'm just, I'm not gonna.

• 2:03:31Jocko Willink?

  But you're not doing it because you're not gonna go without an arm.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, without arm, I'm not gonna go without legs for nine months. That's what it takes usually. So it's cool, but it is what it is.

• 2:03:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, plus things are advancing so fast now that you could probably wait like another two, three, four years. They'll have some new advancements.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Well, stem cell, they're actually regrowing people's limbs. They just can't figure out how to make it stop. Crazy stuff going on right now.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  So you just grow like the biggest arm ever?

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I don't want that.

• 2:03:57Jocko Willink?

  You like Echo over here?

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, look at this guy, this guy.

• 2:04:00Speaker 02

  I think that's length. I think you would just want you to have a real long arms, right? After a while.

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  Do the best bear hugs ever.

• 2:04:06Jocko Willink?

  So wait, so for real, they can take stem cells and your arm will keep growing?

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  I met a Navy doctor that was at um, I think NIH doing that and he was like, hey, this is coming in the next like ten to fifteen years. And like it's your nerves, it's your body.

• 2:04:21Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:04:21Speaker 01

  But I don't know. I mean, two of the, two of the guys that are quadruple A P T's got double arm transplants. So like there was five of us. Now there's only three because the other two quit our club.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  And the arms are functional and working and.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:36Jocko Willink?

  Can they grab things?

• 2:04:37Speaker 01

  Kinda, kinda. They do a lot more sandwiching, you know, like pinching it.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  I, if they're happy, I'm great. If they're happy, happy for them.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  I just know, I just know replacing nerves or connecting nerves is really freaking hard.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Centimeter a month for eighteen months and that's it. So like this little guy, what are you gonna do? This one, I'd probably get something, but then I was like, I guess one else's hand on, which really kind of freaks me out. And not talking bad about the people that do it. Like please, if you're listening and you're like, well, I have that done. Good for you, but.

• 2:05:09Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and again, probably if you wait like three years, five years, stuff is advancing so quickly now that things will probably just improve a ton. Like I got neck surgery many years ago. And just after I got neck surgery, they came out with like replacement discs, like a little vertebrae that you can put in there. And it was like experimental and I knew a couple of guys get it, got it and everything. And one of my friends got pretty bad problems with it, didn't work out good. And but now like a bunch of people have gotten it and it works really good. And this was over the span of 10 years. So the advances that and things are improving so much faster right now, like just with technologies just improving so rapidly.

• 2:05:53Jocko Willink?

  Because like AI, you can have AI working on some problem while you're not having to do anything, you know, you're just like run the, run the, uh, the protocols or whatever.

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  They're doing 3D printing now for socket fits. And they're like, they fit better than the molds that they're doing.

• 2:06:10Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't have it, but that's what I've been told.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  But you might eventually get something like that.

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  You know, let me tell you something, there's Vietnam vets, they come in with their old sea legs. And they come in with their old, you know, body powered hooks. Like, hey, check out this, like this hand spins three, oh my gosh, look at that, isn't that cool? You want that? No, what I got works. And then I get told like, hey, they got this new thing. I'm like, cool. I'm that Vietnam vet now. I'm like, no, what I got works.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to learn how to work the hand?

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  So, um, it took me, well, I mean, five weeks to get a hand. And they have like this, the sensors hooked to my arm. So I like have to flex certain way for it to make it work.

• 2:06:49Jocko Willink?

  The sensors that are in hooked to your arm, they're like, are they like pads that you push into?

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:54Jocko Willink?

  That you push into basically?

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  Kinda like I, yeah, so like

• 2:06:56Jocko Willink?

  It's like a button in there.

• 2:06:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:58Jocko Willink?

  Of sorts.

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  Make a fist real quick, make a fist, grab the engine like on a motorcycle. So this muscle right here, I have that and the muscle down, if you go down, the muscle down here.

• 2:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  So if I twitch this muscle slow, it opens if I flex it, like if I flex it towards the ceiling. If I flex it up fast, it rotates around to the left. And then if I go down slow and then down fast.

• 2:07:18Jocko Willink?

  Got it. And but you don't think about that anymore?

• 2:07:21Speaker 01

  I mean, some kinda, but like people, cause I can't feel. So when I grab something like this cane, I have to like watch what I'm doing.

• 2:07:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I was in the VA bathroom, like when I first retired. And I was taking a pee, not paying attention, and I just grabbed right a hold of myself. And I about passed out from the pain. And I had to like breathe through it like, okay, we gotta breathe this out. Cause I need to, I need to, I need to unflex this, I need to flex this hand up slowly. I, I really gotta stop grabbing my weener at the urinal right now.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Cause I almost passed out from the pain. I mean, it was.

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 2:07:57Jocko Willink?

  So if you like tense your arm because you're in pain, does it grab harder and all of a sudden you're just in a real pickle?

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not good. It's not good. But, uh, I remember like in the bathroom, like breathing it out, like, okay, like talking myself off ledge like this, this, uh, this is not good. Yeah. I was just happy no one walked in on me talking to myself at the urinal. Like let go, just like, we're just gonna let go right now.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  That's off the rails. Anyway, sorry.

• 2:08:31Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Well, okay. So, yeah.

• 2:08:34Jocko Willink?

  Go.

• 2:08:36Speaker 01

  Things happen, right? Like the other night, my one arm, like I have a couple of arms. And I usually put one on the charger and I wear one and I switch them out. Well, I had the one on longer than I thought, so it died. So I had my arm on with a hook. I had to go upstairs, 10:30 at night, right? Everybody's already in bed. I'm up watching college football or something. I grab my other arm. I go out to the elevator. I try to switch the hook out. The hook falls in the ground. Okay, now I don't have, so now, right, what I have is my hook on the ground. I'm in my wheelchair and I can't reach it.

• 2:09:08Speaker 01

  Well, then I switch out the hand. I switch this arm out. And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna switch it out quick and get the one that's powered. So I put the one that has the power on. I can't get that. I knocked the other arm onto the ground. So I'm like trying not to fall on my chair, like brushing it over against the wall. I gotta go downstairs. I gotta drive over and get my hand, put my hand on this arm, get it to work. Pick up the other arm, pick the hook up, take the hand off, put the hook on. And but, but again, this is all like, I'm banging and clanging stuff where I'm waking everybody up, but like, that's where you gotta stay patient, right? I mean, it wasn't like grabbing myself, like passing out from pain, but wow, I was mad. And that's when you're like, why is this my life? Like, are you kidding me right now? But I made it work. You know?

• 2:09:53Jocko Willink?

  How long does the, how long does the power in the arm last for?

• 2:09:56Speaker 01

  About a day and a half.

• 2:09:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Day and a half, two days.

• 2:09:58Jocko Willink?

  And you got two of them on rotation?

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I have a few of them.

• 2:10:03Jocko Willink?

  Check. Alright.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Cause then when I go to get them, they're like, sometimes like, well, you want another one? I'm like, well, yeah. And then they look at me funny. I'm like, you ever had no hands? And then have one not work and then you need one? Cause you don't have them?

• 2:10:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  They're like, no, no. I'm like, yeah, well, that's, that's what happens to me. So.

• 2:10:21Jocko Willink?

  Give me another one.

• 2:10:22Speaker 01

  So I'll take another, please. Within the guideline.

• 2:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, principle 11. Serve. Find your for, find your voice, build on your strengths, and live meaningfully. So this is where we start talking, this is a, um, PTG, post-traumatic growth. I'm no expert, so I point at path founder, and this is P A T H H founder, Josh Goldberg, who wrote, "Struggle Well", to better explain how this happens. A great deal of the time, people who go through these difficult life experiences, that these traumas and these losses, often reported in the aftermath of that experience,

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  going through the post, the process of post-traumatic growth. This leads them to report that their life had changed for the better in terms of it being more authentic and more meaningful and more purposeful than it was before they had the experience. They talk about growing in terms of their sense of hope for the future, a recognition of the value of deeper relationships with other people, a sense of personal strength, the idea that nothing can be permanently not, the idea that nothing can permanently knock us down, and appreciation for the small and big things in life, and spiritual and existential growth. The idea that they are now asking and reflecting upon the deepest questions that life can offer us. Who am I? Why am I here? And where do I belong? And that's what post-traumatic growth describes,

• 2:11:53Jocko Willink?

  and what the entire science and concept behind it are all about. So. This is just like the opposite of, well, maybe it's not the opposite of, but it's a different take on post-traumatic stress disorder. Which is like, I got a real problem because of this bad thing happened to me. This is, hey, this bad thing happened to me, and I'm actually better because of it.

• 2:12:13Speaker 01

  And then the, did I not spell out what PATH meant in there?

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  It's not in here. I found it on your website, though. Absolute idiot. It is progressive and alternative training for helping heroes.

• 2:12:25Speaker 01

  So, that's the, that's the nonprofit that we partner with, and we have the, there's like ten facilities around the nation, and that's for combat veterans, and it's for first responders. And it's a week, week-long course. We get a big grant, Avalon, Avalon Action Alliance? Anyway, we get a grant for it, and then there's places like throughout the nation that do it, and it's one of the best in the nation. And I, I, look, I know we have it in my foundation, so I'm like, oh, it's the best in the nation, but, but really it is. I mean, the amount of letters we get from either the person that came, or the family members, spouses, moms, dads, about the change they actually see in the person that came to the, to the program,

• 2:13:10Speaker 01

  it just, it just lifts you up, you know? I mean, we had a few people say like, this is my last thing, I was gonna commit suicide after this.

• 2:13:17Jocko Willink?

  It's the, this is the most effective one that you've seen?

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  There's this one, and there's one out of Massachusetts called Homebase, that I, I believe in as well. It's a, it's a two-week program, this is a one-week, and then follow-ons. And, you know, it, it's cool because it's train the trainer. I mean, everybody wants to train the trainers. It's people that have been through the program that actually did serve, whether they're, we have some state troopers as well as combat veterans that lead it. And I, you know, the thing is, you have to fill out the paperwork yourself. Like, if, say, say your wife thinks you should go, and she hits up the website, she fills it out, doesn't matter. This person has to want to go. And if, if you sign up, you'll get in, but just, they're on a little bit of a back order, so they're expanding right now. I mean, yeah, and this isn't like any big secret. Um, I think we're buying another facility

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  um, to actually run just path out of.

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Where?

• 2:14:08Speaker 01

  Just down the road, actually. So actually, it's down the road from, from, from the, the camp, the emerging camp.

• 2:14:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:14:13Speaker 01

  So we're talking like three, like, no, not even three miles, probably, probably a mile and a half from, from where the emerging camp is.

• 2:14:19Jocko Willink?

  Will it be a year-round camp?

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But we're, um, I, we're, I think we put the, we're about to put the offer in.

• 2:14:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  But, um, I mean, it could fall through, but we're trying to find a facility so we can do, instead of the 12 weeks we do now, um, at least 24 weeks. Um, because there's nine days that is total for the path guides, but, but we're trying to do that full-time because it's, it's, there's so much need right now.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:44Speaker 01

  And, and they're opening the program for a few other people. I don't think I can go into that right now, but they're opening the program um, for, for more people to be able to do it.

• 2:14:52Jocko Willink?

  Good, good. No, uh, just reading about it, it sounds like an awesome program. And again, you've got more information here in the book about it. So that's, that's cool. Um, going back to the book here, it says, like I said, at the end of the day, you get one go around in life. You get one chance to make your mark. How do you want to leave your mark on this world? The answer should give you purpose. If that's being a coach and giving your all to the students, or being a parent and being the best darn parent there is, then how can you be better at that every day?

• 2:15:22Jocko Willink?

  And that leads to the, the final principle, principle number 12, make it a daily practice. Ask yourself, what is stopping you from recalibrating? Resilience isn't something that you get like a sticker or a badge and then you carry around for your life. You need to continue to work at it. And you will want to, because we all need it again and again. Hopefully by now you have learned that pain is good and important, never fun or easy, but we can learn from it. And build a resilience for it. Science shows that we can develop and improve our resilience, but it requires practice and consistency.

• 2:16:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think this is, you know, the, the biggest message or the underlying message in the book is like, we all have the ability to get better, stronger, and recognizing that the pain and suffering that you have. First of all, you're gonna have it. You're gonna have it in life. It doesn't matter. You're gonna have it. There's gonna be pain. There's gonna be suffering. You're gonna face disease. You're gonna lose people. You're gonna lose. You're gonna have to freaking fly home and put down your dog. Like, things are gonna suck sometimes. And you gotta be able to deal with those things. And this is another interesting point on that. Every day is a choice. Humans make about thirty-five thousand conscious decisions each day. Each decision, of course, can change your life in a big, in big ways and smalls for better or worse.

• 2:16:46Jocko Willink?

  While I couldn't stop that IED from doing its job that day, I can stop it from detracting from the rest of my life. From those decisions, you have a choice of how to react. Do you choose to be angry, isolated, fearful, untrusting? Or do you choose to be hopeful, fearless, and trusting?

• 2:17:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, that right there, recognizing that you have the ability to decide which way you're gonna go.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  And, and you know, the thing is with, with the book is we, like you said, we have other people's stories too, you know, people go through divorce, house fires, cancer. You know, we, we all face something in life. Like you said, there's, you know, um, there's just things that happen to us. And it's how we, we wanna react to them. It's how we wanna get through them. Uh, and it's not like unheard of. Like, I'm not the only person to get blown up, lose my arms and legs. As unique as it is, I'm not the only one. And I had a guy that came to the hospital to tell me, I'm not a bad person. God doesn't hate me. Nothing I did in life made me deserve this. And that I was gonna be A-OK. I was gonna learn how to walk, drive, feed myself. And he was a second ever quadruple A P G. You know, um, and moreover than that, he was a marine. So I was like, man, if he can figure it out, it can't be that hard.

• 2:18:02Speaker 01

  You know, no, good, good guy. Good guy. Todd Nicely. And, and that's the thing, like, people have all. You know, it's probably a bad say been there, done that, but people, they face the same problems. Whether they think they're alone or not, or they believe that no one's out there like them. There's somebody out there is most likely been through it. And, you know, that's what I was trying to do with, with this is, is try to highlight my story and my outlook, but using other people's stories and their outlook. And then, like you said, I got all this, I missed out on the most important psychologist, apparently. I apologize.

• 2:18:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:35Speaker 01

  But, you know, maybe, maybe next time.

• 2:18:37Jocko Willink?

  Maybe next book.

• 2:18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  The next 12 Rules of Warrior Resilience.

• 2:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:41Jocko Willink?

  Get in there.

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's, that's what I said. It's like such a good guidebook and, and you're right. I didn't, uh, you know, when I was highlighting what to read and after I read the book, uh, I wanted to kind of focus on the principles themselves today, but the, the stories that you've got in the book, and they're not all your stories. There's, are your stories, but a lot of them are stories of people that you know, people that you've worked with, people that have come through, and they've got their, their struggles that they've been through, whether it's losing a spouse and then losing a child. Like you got a woman in there that's suffered through that. You got, you know, victims of disease, people that have been through, you know, got severe PTSD. So there's.

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  The sergeant major that he lost a lot of guys.

• 2:19:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, 20, I think you said 22 guys.

• 2:19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:30Speaker 01

  A lot more wounded too. Yeah, yeah, he had, he's, and he's one of our path guides, actually.

• 2:19:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's like, like what better guy?

• 2:19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:37Jocko Willink?

  To be able to talk and help, help people out for that.

• 2:19:40Speaker 01

  And I wasn't criticizing how you did this. I just meant, I appreciate the fact you're highlighting this. I didn't want to be, does that sound like criticizing?

• 2:19:47Jocko Willink?

  No, didn't come across that at all. They just reminded me.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  You grabbed your knife when I said it. I was just like, shit.

• 2:19:51Jocko Willink?

  When you mentioned that, I, I remember thinking consciously like, okay, there's these stories that will definitely be able to show us examples, but it was, we'd just be like, I might as well just read the book. Might as well just do the audio book, which is apparently what you wanted me to do anyways.

• 2:20:05Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it's all right. That's, you know what? I'm the worst. Ask my, ask my wife, she'll tell you.

• 2:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  Only when I ask her what's for dinner at eight, you know, seven in the morning.

• 2:20:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not a good move. Don't need path to tell you that.

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  Every day is about control. A major plot point in this book is that you can't change what happened to you nor make it go away, but you can control your attitude. After all, you don't want to fall into the category of learned helplessness or victimhood. Here are a few ways to stave off helplessness. And you got a bunch of them here. Be optimistic, have a creative outlet, get walking. Any exercise is good. You got this thing, uh, practice a Japanese thing called forest bathing or Shinrin Yoku, which is like going out into the wilderness, which is awesome. Yeah, I think that was my idea, probably. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

• 2:20:57Jocko Willink?

  While you're at it, walk to the gym, be grateful. Like, these are the key components that you've got. So much about gaining and maintaining resilience is about practicing it. And life gives us many opportunities to practice. Am I right? Once you make resilience a daily practice, it will become second nature. And with that inevitable next crisis or challenge, you will be that much stronger and prepared to take it on. It will be about how to put the next foot in front of the other and keep you going. Always bounce back. And just to close out, uh, the book, I want to read one little section from the, from the epilogue. It just says, as you finish this book, I want to leave you with this message.

• 2:21:40Jocko Willink?

  You are a lot more resilient than you think you are. And there are things that you can choose to do to allow that resilience to bloom. Are you ready to make that choice?

• 2:21:56Jocko Willink?

  Man, I sound like a genius whenever you guys do this. I'm telling you what. A little bit of a miracle worker over here, I guess. Yeah, I'm telling you what, yeah, yeah. No, man, it's, it is, it's cause honestly, think about what you've been through. Think about where you're at now, like. You've got some freaking lessons learned to pass on and you pass them on in the book. Um, are you ready to make that choice? And that's, that's like the question, right? And like I said, you're living proof that it truly is a choice.

• 2:22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:27Jocko Willink?

  Uh, our attitude, our perspective, our ability to bounce back. That's on us, you know? So this book is going to help a lot of people. And it's gonna, you look, you don't need to be in one of these severe moments right now to be like, oh, I don't really have any trauma right now, so I don't need this book. A, this stuff is effective for, as Echo pointed out, like every day, what like, what little, oh, you lost your job. That's not, that's probably not going to leave like some big traumatic mark on you. But guess what? You gotta make some adjustments in life, right? You got some things you're gonna have to get through. Uh, you might go through like a relationship issue. Like maybe you get, you know, you split up from your girlfriend if you're 19 years old. That can be traumatic when you're 19, right?

• 2:23:09Jocko Willink?

  Or you're getting a divorce, like things that may not seem as severe as like what guys in the military might go through. There's still, the principles in this book are going to be able to help you out. And what's really nice is when you do face something that's more severe, when you lose a loved one, when there's some horrible disease that enters your world, you'll, you'll definitely have some tools to work through that stuff. And I think this, this is gonna help out so many people.

• 2:23:34Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that. Also, I was thinking, what is, what is your nickname? Cause I was about to call you Big Mac, cause you're the secret sauce, baby. That's, you know what I'm saying? Is that?

• 2:23:45Jocko Willink?

  No, my, my nickname is just, my nickname is just Jaco.

• 2:23:48Speaker 01

  Just Jaco?

• 2:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. My parents gave me that nickname before I was even born.

• 2:23:52Speaker 02

  I know two other nicknames, by the way.

• 2:23:53Jocko Willink?

  For me?

• 2:23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, what are they?

• 2:23:56Speaker 02

  Mothra.

• 2:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's an old school one.

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  Yep. And the other one is, uh, Way of the Streets.

• 2:24:02Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 2:24:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Wait, so I remember Mothra.

• 2:24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Why did I come up with that?

• 2:24:10Speaker 02

  I don't know why.

• 2:24:11Jocko Willink?

  I forget what it was.

• 2:24:12Speaker 02

  Well, Mothra is the bad guy on Godzilla or something.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  The bad guy on Godzilla, but there was so Echo's brother had a social media platform before any of these other social media platforms were around. And it was almost, it was honestly, it would seem like there was thirty people on it. Right? That's what it seemed like to me. There was probably thousands, but like.

• 2:24:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're the like, we would kind of all interact with each other.

• 2:24:35Jocko Willink?

  There was just a small group of people that I actually knew the people. And for some reason.

• 2:24:41Speaker 02

  True story.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  There was some like, probably some shit talking about like being Godzilla or something. And then I came back with like, well, Mothra, and I'm like, there's probably something stupid like that. And then what was the other one? Way of the Streets. Where did that come from?

• 2:24:53Speaker 02

  I forget where it was, but to me, that one was like the one that I would use from time to time.

• 2:24:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:24:59Speaker 02

  Way of the Streets.

• 2:25:00Jocko Willink?

  Just Way of the Streets.

• 2:25:01Speaker 02

  I forget where.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  It might be because we made that old advertisement for Victory MMA.

• 2:25:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:06Jocko Willink?

  Where I was like, uh. In the streets. I was saying that jujitsu is good, like on the mat, in the cage, or in the streets.

• 2:25:14Speaker 02

  Okay, so to crack Jaco, because I remember way better. So he said, well, his closing line in one of the videos was, uh, gi, no gi, or in the streets. And then it says, then he says, uh, making things work, making people hurt. That's what Jaco said, his closing line. And then, no, but then it came up later. I forget what, um, like what we're doing or what. I don't know, but it was written like way of the street. I don't know, it was like way of the streets. And one time he said, uh, when we're gonna go train and you're like, um, oh yeah, I'm gonna be there at noon or whatever. And then, and then I would like talk some trash or whatever. And you'd be like, whatever, then I'll see you at noon. Gi or no gi, then period, period, period, wait for a little while.

• 2:26:00Speaker 01

  Or of course, in the streets.

• 2:26:02Jocko Willink?

  In the streets.

• 2:26:03Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  So I don't know if I'm secret sauce, but I can make some stuff work, make people hurt in the streets.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:26:10Jocko Willink?

  In the streets of justice.

• 2:26:12Speaker 01

  I've found that as much as I really appreciate the ghee that I got at camp. It's better be no ghee because no one can ghee choke me.

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you're you're at a disadvantage with ghee because you can't grab. You can't grab the ghee, so you're much better off with no ghee for sure.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't mind if they wear a ghee. I'm just saying I don't want to wear one. It sets me up for failure.

• 2:26:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, ghee is not good for you.

• 2:26:32Speaker 01

  I thought about going naked, you know, just like see who's really dedicated enough.

• 2:26:35Jocko Willink?

  You you can you can claim victory. I'm not I'm not getting into.

• 2:26:40Speaker 01

  Well, that's a shot at the old self-esteem, but okay, that's cool, cool, cool. And I've been slim fasting. I don't know if you've noticed.

• 2:26:46Jocko Willink?

  You've been what?

• 2:26:47Speaker 01

  Slim fasting.

• 2:26:48Jocko Willink?

  Sun fasting?

• 2:26:49Speaker 01

  Slim.

• 2:26:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, sun fasting.

• 2:26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 2:26:52Speaker 01

  No, actually, I I tried to do the RTDs, but then I just I drink too much of them. Like, this is not reducing any calories. Well, I did like the crush, like how crushable these are. I knew that story because I I find myself, I'm like, I'm on my third, my third jock, I'll go, and I haven't had any water today.

• 2:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:07Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, it's one o'clock in the afternoon. I'm like, I know.

• 2:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're gonna be awake for nineteen hours.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:12Speaker 01

  Does electrolyte.

• 2:27:13Jocko Willink?

  You definitely gotta be, you definitely gotta be a little bit careful on that. That's what I find. Like, I had one. Normally, I don't drink them like after like maybe two o'clock. Occasionally during the week, if I'm going to train that. Then I'll drink one on the way here, but then you exert so much energy, you're just gonna be tired. But if I'm just not doing anything and I drink one, bruh.

• 2:27:36Speaker 01

  That's that's basically what I do. I just ride around, do a lot of phone calls and conference meetings and stuff, and I just drink them.

• 2:27:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:41Speaker 01

  Because, you know, I work I work out for the gram, but that's it.

• 2:27:45Speaker 01

  And then it looks like the one video that you guys put out, it looks like I actually am choking you out. You're telling me what to do, and it looks like I'm actually getting you. People are like, oh, my gosh, can't believe you choked him out. I'm like, yeah, I know.

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:53Speaker 01

  I know. That was all that was all make believe.

• 2:27:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  Um, so you got this book, man. Order it. What, do we hit everything else? You got, you got the Travis Mills Foundation, right?

• 2:28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:06Jocko Willink?

  You got the campus up in Maine, travismillsfoundation.org. This is a, I've been there. It, you know, I've met a bunch of people that have been through the programs. You do everything up there. Cooking, baking, martial arts, ropes course, cycling, horse riding, shooting, hiking, golf, massage therapy, ice fishing, yoga, archery, kayaking, canoeing, boating, fly fishing, bass fishing, pottery, painting, and snowshoeing to list a few of the freaking activities that people can do up there.

• 2:28:32Speaker 01

  They bring out a dog sled in the wintertime, let people ride on a dog sled. That's actually pretty, it's pretty legit.

• 2:28:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that sounds awesome.

• 2:28:37Speaker 01

  I mean, that other stuff's kinda cool too, I guess.

• 2:28:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:39Speaker 01

  But, uh, no, I, look, I appreciate just the chance to hang out with you guys. You guys are always awesome. And, um, you know, with the book coming out, I'm, I'm fired up for it because I, I get asked all the time how I do it. And I thought, let me just figure out how I can show people how, how I do it, or how they can do anything that's hard in life because we all have, you know, we all have struggles and things like that that we go through where you could use a little guiding light. And I mean,

• 2:29:02Speaker 01

  I got tired of just saying like, well, I just do, you know, I have to. You have two choices, right? Real Oliver Twist situation. Get better or don't.

• 2:29:11Jocko Willink?

  What's the Oliver Twist situation?

• 2:29:13Speaker 01

  Isn't that, no, it's Robert, that's a forest, damn it. Oliver Twist.

• 2:29:19Speaker 01

  Oliver Twist.

• 2:29:21Jocko Willink?

  He's made a metaphor you didn't know.

• 2:29:23Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't Oliver Twist. I'm thinking about Robert Redford, uh, the, damn it. I'm a doctor, okay? I'm a doctor of three.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  What, I wonder what metaphor you could have been thinking of?

• 2:29:32Speaker 01

  You know, the, uh,

• 2:29:36Speaker 01

  the, the forest, both paths in the forest, it's like Robert Redford, maybe.

• 2:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Robert Redford's an actor, isn't he?

• 2:29:42Speaker 01

  He says it. No, it's Robert Frost.

• 2:29:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Robert, Robert Frost. Two roads diverged in the yellow wood.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. What path I had to take, get better or not. Oliver Twist, I'm like, please, sir, I want some more. Shit.

• 2:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Just like Oliver Twist and of course I'm over there like, yeah, just like Oliver Twist.

• 2:29:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You know, it was just like.

• 2:30:01Jocko Willink?

  That's a brilliant metaphor.

• 2:30:02Speaker 01

  I did not.

• 2:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Just like Annie, dude.

• 2:30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Just like Fiddler on the Roof.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, the summer will come out tomorrow if you want it to, you know, if you let it, just if you let it. Bet your bottom dollar.

• 2:30:12Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what else you got going on? Uh, you got Rebel for Good, so we talked about that.

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:17Jocko Willink?

  Everyone's gonna buy rebelforgood.com. They're gonna go and buy it.

• 2:30:20Speaker 01

  They're gonna love these shirts. They got the backwards.

• 2:30:21Jocko Willink?

  Best shirts.

• 2:30:22Speaker 01

  Turn their life around.

• 2:30:23Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:24Jocko Willink?

  So you can see that you got the Marina.

• 2:30:26Speaker 01

  You got the Marina.

• 2:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Lakeside Lodge and Marina in East Winthrop, Maine.

• 2:30:31Speaker 01

  It's just like a, we just named it Lakeside Lodge because you've got Lakeside Motel and cabins and Norman Bates didn't help us out with the whole motel thing.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  But we're actually doing a remodel right now, but it's, it's going well. It's fun. Uh, it closes down like two weeks. We have like the main building open, but.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  So lakesidelodge.com, but people come in there in the, in the springtime, start coming back up to Maine for vacation.

• 2:30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's like number one, like fishing lake. So we have a lot of fishermen that come like number one bass lake in Maine on a lot of charts.

• 2:30:56Jocko Willink?

  No kidding.

• 2:30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't fish. So when people come in the office like, hey, where are they catching the fish at? I'm like, in the water. They're like, yeah, but where? Like between the top and the bottom for sure. They're like, what do you know? What do you, what do you catch? Like, what do you? I'm like, I catch a buzz on my boat sometimes, but like it's accidental. I don't try to do that. But they get, they get a little irritated.

• 2:31:15Jocko Willink?

  And then, and then you have the restaurant.

• 2:31:17Speaker 01

  Restaurant, yeah, the restaurant's going pretty well.

• 2:31:18Jocko Willink?

  Duck Pub dot com.

• 2:31:20Speaker 01

  What, uh, like.

• 2:31:22Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it's White Duck, White Duck Pub dot com. I looked it up.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  Sure it's not White Duck Brew Pub?

• 2:31:27Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. No, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure. Anyways, if you Google White Duck Pub, you'll find it.

• 2:31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:35Jocko Willink?

  What do you, what's the main deal going on there?

• 2:31:36Speaker 01

  It's just American bistro.

• 2:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Open year round?

• 2:31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Eleven to nine every day. And, um, we're made from scratch kitchen. So nothing's ever frozen. Like our wings take like 13 hours to make. We sell a lot of them. We sold over 10,000 burgers the first year. This year we're like crushing that.

• 2:31:50Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:31:51Speaker 01

  And, uh, we have burger of like, we have a, only one burger on the menu. It's not like you can get like this kind of burger and that kind of burger. It's like we have the White Duck Brew Pub burger.

• 2:31:58Jocko Willink?

  What's the, what is the deal? What's?

• 2:31:59Speaker 01

  It's just really good.

• 2:32:00Jocko Willink?

  But like, what is on a White Duck burger?

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  Lettuce, tomato, onion.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  Lettuce, tomato, onion, it's just like it's a basic meal.

• 2:32:07Speaker 01

  Not basic.

• 2:32:08Jocko Willink?

  It's not gourmet.

• 2:32:09Speaker 01

  Oh, it's gourmet for sure. Like how you cook it. Yeah.

• 2:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's true. And it's made with love. That's the kicker. So, and we have poutine. So like our number one seller is actually the burger. Second thing we sell the most of is actually bacon. And third is potatoes.

• 2:32:24Jocko Willink?

  Do you do breakfast or no?

• 2:32:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:32:26Jocko Willink?

  So how do you sell so much bacon?

• 2:32:27Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 2:32:28Jocko Willink?

  On the burgers?

• 2:32:29Speaker 01

  I think we just, that's, I think that's why everything tastes good. I think we're just baking everything. It's like thick cut delicious, like organic whatever bacon of awesomeness. And then, yeah, and then, um, up the hill I own, um,

• 2:32:43Speaker 01

  well, me and some, me and some buddies, we own a couple more buildings, we're putting a brewery in, and then eventually a distillery. I was in Arizona where JP was speaking, actually. I was with JP. And I was speaking, um, as well, but I was with JP there. And, uh, we had a booth right next to Mama Lee's booth. We actually split, uh, the fundraising, um, a hundred and fifty thousand to each of us. It was really nice. Taral Yarver put it on.

• 2:33:03Jocko Willink?

  Nice. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep.

• 2:33:05Speaker 01

  And, uh, this guy walks by, he's all tatted up, and he's pretty buff, and he walks by, I'm like, hey, look, I'm not a piece of meat. Stop looking at my, look at me like that, okay? My wife's a jealous type too, so it's not gonna happen. And I, the guy wasn't even looking at me. He's like, what, what? I'm like, I saw you checking my legs out, okay? Looks are free, but that's all you're gonna get from me, bud. And just like hit a conversation off. Turns out, his name's John Peasy, uh, Peasley, and his wife Sarah, fantastic people. He is the biggest independent brewery and distillery owner in Arizona. He has Grand Canyon River, um, brewing and, and spirits.

• 2:33:40Jocko Willink?

  Chuck.

• 2:33:41Speaker 01

  He's like, dude, I'll show you how to do it all. So he's like, give me like, like he flew out to my gala. He hung out for a week.

• 2:33:46Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome, man.

• 2:33:47Speaker 01

  Good dude. Navy, Navy vet.

• 2:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, awesome.

• 2:33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he does jujitsu. He met Pete, um, and Amanda at the, at the gala, but.

• 2:33:53Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna do a brewery, making beer?

• 2:33:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:33:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh, is it just beer? Is it like whiskey or something else?

• 2:33:59Speaker 01

  So here's the thing, you take beer, when it goes bad, you can turn it within two weeks into vodka, gin, whiskey. Takes four years for a whiskey, but you can turn it all into that. That's what people do. So. You can like go to the local distribution centers that gotta send like all the old beer back. Instead of them paying to send it back, they'll just give it to you.

• 2:34:20Jocko Willink?

  No kidding.

• 2:34:20Speaker 01

  Then you get a crushing machine, you crush it down.

• 2:34:22Jocko Willink?

  Crush beer?

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  You crush the beer down, right? So they crush the cans.

• 2:34:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:34:27Speaker 01

  And then you take the cans, turn those in for the aluminum prices. And then you get all this old beer and two weeks later you got all the the stuff made for vodka, gin, whatever.

• 2:34:36Jocko Willink?

  Are you the first person to think of this?

• 2:34:39Speaker 01

  No, that's what John told me. And people do it all the time. But like this guy Pumpkinhead is a big beer that comes out. And this guy had so much surplus, he knew what to do with it. And he made ice pick vodka.

• 2:34:49Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 2:34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:50Jocko Willink?

  So you see that's what you're gonna do, going down that path as well?

• 2:34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but here's the beauty, right? Like I'm not, I'm an equal owner, right? But I know my value is is in the these pearly whites. I smile, shake some hands, I put some money in, right? So out of the the owners of the brewery, we have one guy that his son's a brewmaster and he's um gonna like help out and work there. We have the other guy, he's putting money in, he's a builder, he's gonna build it all. The other guy is um me. And I'm just gonna like shake hands, make deals and say, hey, drink my beer, cause I have arms and legs. People just feel bad for me.

• 2:35:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:28Speaker 01

  I spoke to like the National Hole Builders Association or something out in Vegas and like, they love me. And they'll bring me back. And I'll be like, hey, guys, I need all of you guys to buy my beer and sell it. And all of a sudden, Dogfish Head Brewing is not the only one that sold for a hundred and eighty million dollars. What, what?

• 2:35:43Jocko Willink?

  What, uh, what, do you know the name of your brewing beer?

• 2:35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gonna call it Castle Island Brewery.

• 2:35:48Jocko Willink?

  Castle Island?

• 2:35:49Speaker 01

  Nope, that's a lie. That's a lie. That's a different, that's a different road that I drive on. It's gonna be called Island Park Brewing. I gotta get that out of my head.

• 2:35:56Jocko Willink?

  Island Park Brewing?

• 2:35:57Speaker 01

  Island Park, cause right across from where my restaurant is, there's a bridge.

• 2:36:00Jocko Willink?

  Make sure you get the URL for that like immediately.

• 2:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:03Jocko Willink?

  Cause otherwise someone's gonna buy it as soon as they hear this and they're gonna sell it back to you for a hundred thousand dollars.

• 2:36:08Speaker 01

  Alright, cuz I wanna, I wanna be called Humble Beginnings anyway. I want Humble Beginnings Brewery.

• 2:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well.

• 2:36:13Speaker 01

  So, I might buy that too, we'll see.

• 2:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Buy that both.

• 2:36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:17Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I don't know. I just, my wife wants me to slow down, but this is all stuff that I have business partners in that we all know our role kinda. Like, I'm not gonna go there and lug kegs, you know? I would, I'm just handicapped, but, but I definitely will promote it and try to get more people to drink it.

• 2:36:33Jocko Willink?

  But you won't lug kegs.

• 2:36:35Speaker 01

  I mean, I might kick one over and kinda, you know, push it. That's my ability.

• 2:36:42Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, man. Well, does that get us up to speed? Are we there? We up to?

• 2:36:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I just hope everybody wants to come hang out with, with me in, in Maine, cuz it gets lonely up there. Winters are long. Best time to visit's not in February. If you guys go there in February, I won't be there, but you're more than welcome.

• 2:36:56Jocko Willink?

  Where do you go? Do you go somewhere else for real?

• 2:36:58Speaker 01

  Uh, for like, uh, yeah.

• 2:37:00Jocko Willink?

  Arizona or something?

• 2:37:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Florida?

• 2:37:02Speaker 01

  Florida. Yeah, just, just like for a week.

• 2:37:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:05Speaker 01

  Like, the kids get a school week off. We go, when I say a week, I mean, my wife pushes it to like ten days, which really turns into like two weeks.

• 2:37:11Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 2:37:12Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:37:12Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 2:37:13Speaker 01

  We have a, a rental property outside of Disney, so.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Sweet. Hey, where can people find you? So you got travismills.org, that's you.

• 2:37:22Speaker 01

  That's me.

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  You got travismillsfoundation.org.

• 2:37:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:37:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you got lakeside lodging.com, you got the White Duck Pub or Pub and Brewery something.com, we're really not sure a hundred percent.

• 2:37:32Speaker 01

  I think, I think, yeah, yeah, just travismills.org, the website has all the little tiles I believe on there. I don't know.

• 2:37:38Jocko Willink?

  Then you got, you're on Twitter, you're on Facebook, you're on Instagram.

• 2:37:41Speaker 01

  I tell you what, Instagram been growing. I've been doing some fun videos.

• 2:37:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:44Speaker 01

  Taking a page out of your guys' book. I was like, hey, Ian Dow actually set me up with, with Evan.

• 2:37:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:37:49Speaker 01

  Ian's like, look, this guy's, he's talented, you're gonna love him, he's my roommate now, and he's gonna come do videos for you. And I said, look, all I want is reels. I want shorts and reels. And he's been doing pretty well.

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, he's, he's cutting some good stuff, man.

• 2:38:03Speaker 01

  But that's at SSG.

• 2:38:05Jocko Willink?

  At SSG Travis Mills, and then you're on Facebook, you're on Twitter, and you're, apparently, you're in love with yourself on the Gram is what I just heard.

• 2:38:13Speaker 01

  I'm not in love with myself.

• 2:38:14Jocko Willink?

  I want a bunch of reels of myself.

• 2:38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, nothing wrong with that. I mean, do you know how much, let me tell you something, before I see any of my videos on, on Facebook and Instagram, I see you sitting, talking to a mic, giving motivation like every day. Oh, you don't want that. Okay, I see the difference. Yeah. I'm like, hey, I want that in my life. And you're like, I don't want it, it just kinda happens.

• 2:38:36Jocko Willink?

  It just kinda happens. I don't know what Echo's doing over there, because he's got a camera, it looks like maybe, maybe he's gonna do something with it.

• 2:38:43Speaker 01

  I'm just, I'm just here to say what I'm gonna say in the microphone.

• 2:38:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm just saying it, dude.

• 2:38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know.

• 2:38:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what's gonna happen. I do my part, you know? You're not lugging kegs? I'm not turning on the camera. I'm just here doing what I'm supposed to do.

• 2:38:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

• 2:38:57Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, Echo Charles.

• 2:38:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:39:00Jocko Willink?

  Any questions?

• 2:39:02Speaker 02

  I don't. Oh, how do you power your arm? You like USB, something like that?

• 2:39:05Speaker 01

  See the little, the little gold things in there? So that's, it's a magnetic charger.

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  Oh, the special one. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:11Speaker 01

  It lights up, it lights up green. And when it lit, when the little light on is green, it means it's charging. When it shuts off, it's done.

• 2:39:16Speaker 02

  Is that carbon fiber?

• 2:39:17Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 2:39:18Speaker 02

  I love carbon fiber.

• 2:39:19Speaker 01

  Go ahead, you can touch it. It's not worth for me.

• 2:39:20Speaker 02

  If you notice, the Mango Mayhem can, carbon fiber.

• 2:39:24Jocko Willink?

  The old one.

• 2:39:25Speaker 02

  The old one.

• 2:39:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, not the, not the new one.

• 2:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Not the new one. You got denied the carbon fiber.

• 2:39:30Speaker 02

  Okay, it is what it is. Good to see you, always.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  Uh, good to see you too. And I'm not sure, um, are we supposed to talk about the, any of the beef stuff or no?

• 2:39:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, I was just, I was just so fortunate that you were like, hey,

• 2:39:44Speaker 01

  yo, I'm gonna start this beef company. You can be a part of it if you want. And I'm like, I'm all about it. I'm all about about it.

• 2:39:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't start it, but luckily, uh, actually Brian kinda spearheaded that thing. And he made connections with Jeff and they put together, so Colorado Craft Beef.

• 2:40:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:40:02Jocko Willink?

  Colorado Craft Beef.

• 2:40:03Speaker 01

  I have that going on too.

• 2:40:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:05Speaker 01

  And I'm saying that because I, the last investment I did where I told him I liked to believe in me, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:40:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:40:10Speaker 01

  Rebelforgood.com.

• 2:40:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:40:14Jocko Willink?

  We try, you're trying to recover from that. Yeah, man, it's awesome. Uh, great people, great company. Great steaks. The steaks are freaking delicious. So.

• 2:40:22Speaker 01

  Did they do jiu jitsu before or they just tried it that time when they came to the camp?

• 2:40:25Jocko Willink?

  Uh, no, I think he's kinda like into training now.

• 2:40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, so.

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  I hope everybody out there like listening knows when they come to, when they come to the camp, the jiu jitsu camp over there in Camp Laurel in Maine, I'm only 20 minutes down the road. So I will, I come out in a heckle, you know?

• 2:40:40Jocko Willink?

  We should do something like where people can swing by. You know, we go by the factory. We should do something like just like come by or something, come by the facility.

• 2:40:47Speaker 01

  Every, like every Friday, cause I'm not sure what days you guys are doing now, but every Friday, like the families always leave. So like it's just open, getting cleaned, but it's open. Check it to.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  That'd be cool for people to be, come and check it out. Maybe like get to meet you and stuff like that. That'd be pretty cool. I mean, you come down to camp. So people can meet you there, but.

• 2:41:02Speaker 01

  Well, I felt bad. I didn't even go to the purple and the blue belt, you know?

• 2:41:06Jocko Willink?

  You straight to black.

• 2:41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:08Jocko Willink?

  That's how you roll. That's.

• 2:41:10Speaker 01

  Some people are like, it took me 20 years to get over here. I like took me day two.

• 2:41:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:14Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:41:14Jocko Willink?

  So Colorado craft beef. Look, you're gonna be, you need steak. Get yourself some steak, people.

• 2:41:19Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 2:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Travis, any closing thoughts, bro?

• 2:41:23Speaker 01

  You know, um, look, everybody's biggest problems are biggest problem. My problems don't outweigh anybody else's. Uh, whatever Jaco or Echo go through, um, don't outweigh anybody else's and we're on this together. So, uh, I hope that this podcast has been fun as well as, you know, maybe opened your eyes to, uh, new ways of thinking about your situations that you go through or levels go through. And if you, uh, wanna get the book, bounce back, by all means, go ahead. But if this is enough information, take it. Take it and run with it. Cause you got legs to do that. I got running legs too. It just takes me a while to put them on.

• 2:41:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, I can tell you that if you got something out of this podcast, you should definitely get the book because the book has infinitely more information, infinitely more stories, details that are really gonna help everyone out. So, uh, yeah, man, get the book and Travis, man, thank you. Once again, it's always an honor to be able to talk to you, be able to have you. Um, thanks for joining us. Thanks for writing these books. Both these books are awesome. And, um, you know, thanks for your service. Thanks for your sacrifice. Thanks for the service and sacrifice of your family. And most of all, bro, thanks for being. An inspiration to everybody.

• 2:42:32Speaker 01

  I appreciate you. You guys are so awesome. You say nice things. I'm telling you what, he's got the secret sauce, all Big Mac over there. But on top of that, on top of that, I will say, I appreciate the fact that you have the book and it's all like, went through and highlighted because I talked with Jenna and I said, hey, so yeah, she's like, you're gonna come promote your book and come down? I was like, yeah, absolutely. What'd you think about it? She goes, oh, I got it on PDF. I'm like, I, I gave Leif like the, like the third or second edition ever handed out. He goes, yeah, it's buried on my desk. She had no idea he even had it since camp.

• 2:43:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, bother.

• 2:43:04Speaker 01

  Just saying.

• 2:43:04Jocko Willink?

  When are you going down there?

• 2:43:06Speaker 01

  Well, I'm gonna try to line a few things up, so.

• 2:43:09Jocko Willink?

  So she'll, she'll have time to read it. Yeah.

• 2:43:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. No, she's already read that on the, I think, PDF. I sent her like the manuscript. But the point was, I'm glad that you actually care about it. And Pete was like talking about how he cares about it. But then I talked to Leif and he's like, yeah, it's on my desk. I'm sorry. I didn't tell you.

• 2:43:23Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I was, my dad was at my house. This was like a few years ago when I only had one book, The Book Extreme Ownership. And like my dad was over my house and I don't know what he said or whatever. And he's like, yeah, need to take extreme ownership, he said to me. And I was like, have you even read the book? And he was like, I could see immediately. Yeah, and I was like, bro. I was like, hey dad, you might want to check it out before you start trying to talk smack to me.

• 2:43:49Speaker 01

  That's like my, uh, my wife, someone will say like, oh my gosh, your husband, when he said this in his presentation, and she just goes like, yeah, she's never seen me speak ever.

• 2:43:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 2:43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, she don't care.

• 2:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she doesn't care. She's heard enough.

• 2:44:01Speaker 01

  She's out by the pool, just hanging out, waiting for me to go on another work trip.

• 2:44:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, man. Awesome. Uh, yeah, man. Like I said, thanks for coming. Appreciate it. Appreciate everything you do, man. And you're my hero.

• 2:44:16Speaker 01

  Quit it.

• 2:44:16Jocko Willink?

  Thank you, bro.

• 2:44:17Speaker 01

  Blush. You're my hero. You guys both are so awesome. Thank you, guys.

• 2:44:20Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, bro.

• 2:44:22Jocko Willink?

  And with that Travis Mills has left the building.

• 2:44:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:44:28Jocko Willink?

  And left us with some lessons and some leadership and some inspiration.

• 2:44:38Jocko Willink?

  Literally, nothing to complain about on earth.

• 2:44:42Speaker 02

  You know, you know which one stuck with me?

• 2:44:44Jocko Willink?

  Which?

• 2:44:44Speaker 02

  Like in day to day, that dog don't hunt. Sometimes, bro, you just gotta let it go. And you know, you get, and I get it. And I said that thing earlier for a reason where it's like it trickles down to your everyday life. Because that's what most of us are dealing with most of the time.

• 2:44:59Jocko Willink?

  And I tried to make that point at the end, like just because you might feel like you're not going through any major problems right now. It's still, there's, you are going through things and these things will help you with everything that you're dealing with. And one of those things for sure is that dog don't hunt.

• 2:45:12Speaker 02

  Even the small problems, even, and even Travis, he does such a good job in saying, hey, I realized my situation is very extreme compared to other people's bad situations. And really, he's, I'll even go one further and be like, hey, these principles apply to things that you wouldn't even look at and be like, oh, that's a bad situation. Just like you, it's a, it's a way to choose to look at certain situations if they don't go the way that you wanted them to go in that moment. Super small situations. If you're just, the idea, if you just take that one, where that dog don't hunt. Bro, the idea of just, just let it go, bro. Just let it go instead of looking, you know, how they say, don't look behind, look forward, you know? Move forward, that's a big deal when you can remember it.

• 2:45:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:51Speaker 02

  Helps you a lot.

• 2:45:52Jocko Willink?

  For sure, for sure. And when you, when you can do it with something as severe as what Travis has been, been through, it means that the rest of us can do it over some much, much smaller things. And medium things and big things. And that's the point that he made was like, oh, your biggest problem is like your biggest problem. I, I remember that, what the lesson I learned from that, or the time I learned that was with my kids.

• 2:46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:15Jocko Willink?

  And like I was in the teams, we had war going on and people were getting killed. And like my daughter, you know, whatever, one of my daughters was like, oh, good. Let's see on a test in school or whatever, in third grade. And my attitude like for a split second is like, this doesn't matter. And then I realized, oh, this is the biggest problem that she has in the world. And this is her world. That's another thing I always try to remember. We, look, essentially, are we all in the same world? Yes, we are, sure. But everyone's in their own world. And whatever's going on in your world is what's going on in your world. Well, the rest of the world doesn't even matter compared to what's going on in your world.

• 2:46:55Jocko Willink?

  So especially you get those teenage years, like you're 16 years old and you get dumped by your girlfriend. Those dudes get broke up, bro. Mentally. So for those dudes and females too, girls happens to them too. So tons of lessons, you know, we forgot to mention that also, you know, Travis Mills was talking about all the different things that he's involved. He's also in Jaco Fuel, by the way. You know, so he's one of the, one of the shareholders over at Jaco Fuel. So if you want to support Jaco Fuel, it's going to help out across the board. All aspects, hydrate, greens, you, the greens, man, underrated.

• 2:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Maybe they're not even underrated, just maybe I need to do a better job of telling people about the greens. The greens are the best. Uh, hands down, we got go RTD, we already talked about that. Mulk, can't drink too many, Echo just pointed out. I think you gotta really try, cause I think, I think if you are drinking four a day, you're good.

• 2:47:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah, so in what I really meant, cause only because, cause I rethought about it, the whole thing when I said it too. I was like, wait, that, I don't even know if me saying it the way I did is as accurate as the message I was trying to say, given what Travis said, cause he was talking about like, oh, I want to stay slim. And you know, when you're, when you're running a calorie deficit, right? You ever heard of that? Run a calorie deficit, cause you want to lose weight, right? The right, the correct way and all this stuff. What I'm saying is, if you're not necessarily quote unquote. Focusing on a calorie deficit. Or if you are focusing on calorie deficit, but you're like, oh, I'll just drink these mulks because they're, you know, it's better than eating like a whole freaking uh double burger with cheese and bacon or something like this.

• 2:48:39Jocko Willink?

  From the white duck in.

• 2:48:40Speaker 02

  Or where, yeah, or what have you. Um, you just gotta be careful with that because if you're pounding, yeah, four or five mulks a day because they're good and you're like, oh yeah, freaking, I'm cleared hot.

• 2:48:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:50Speaker 02

  I got the green light, as you guys say.

• 2:48:51Jocko Willink?

  The cool thing about a milk though, and I, I experienced this today. No, I experienced it last night. I got home like kinda late from jujitsu, from training. And so I had a lunch, late lunch at like two thirty and my late lunch was just like, I was like, oh, I'm just gonna have something light because we're gonna have dinner in a little while. And we're gonna have steaks, so I was fired up. So I was, I'll just have a milk. So I had a RTD milk and, and honestly, I had a protein cookie. I had a milk cookie, but then, then three hours go by and it's time for a ribeye steak, by the way.

• 2:49:28Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:49:29Jocko Willink?

  So I'm fired up, you know? And I didn't eat the whole thing. I ate like half of it, you know? Got that primal beef. I was all fired up.

• 2:49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:41Jocko Willink?

  Primalbeef.com, got myself a ribeye. You know what I mean? So I'm all fired up and it's delicious, but I was full.

• 2:49:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:48Jocko Willink?

  Already full. So anyways, uh, jockofuel.com, go there, get your stuff, get what you need, get, it's cold season coming, get your immunity gigs back up, get your cold war on, get your vitamin D, make sure you're taking that. You can get this stuff at Wawa, you can get it at Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanaford, Dash Stores, Wake Fern, Shoprite, HEB down in Tejas, Ben Doonous Right, same with Meyer up in the Midwest, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, small gyms all over the place.

• 2:50:21Jocko Willink?

  Jiu Jitsu gyms, if you want to sell Jaco Fuel, CrossFit gyms, you want to sell Jaco Fuel, J F sales at Jaco Fuel dot com. Give your clients what they need to get better. So we got that going for us. Also, you're just talking about Origin USA tonight. Talking about Origin USA, making stuff in America. We got factories in America. That's what we got. We don't have slave labor overseas in dangerous factory settings, breathing chemicals, dumping chemicals into the atmosphere and into the water, which is what they're doing in the clothes that you're buying, if you're not buying from Origin USA.

• 2:50:59Jocko Willink?

  So go to OriginUSA.com, help the national security of this country by bringing back manufacturing. What else you need to know? Oh, you want to know what we have? We have workout gear, we have Jiu Jitsu gear, we have rash guards, gis, we have t-shirts, hoodies, heavy hoodies, light hoodies, medium hoodies, kilo hoodies, jeans, heavy jeans, factory, light jeans, Delta, boots, hats. You can just go there, go there and get some American made stuff.

• 2:51:32Jocko Willink?

  Help across the board. We also have another store that's been very creatively named.

• 2:51:37Speaker 02

  Jaco Store. Oh yeah, JacoStore.com. That's the Discipline Equals Freedom branch of this whole representation thing that we're doing on the path. So yeah, Discipline Equals Freedom, good, you know, all that, all that type of stuff. So JacoStore.com is where you get it. Also, there's a subscription scenario. Don't want to forget about that. You want a new shirt every month, new design, a little bit more, you know, interesting type designs, little layers in there. That's where you can get it.

• 2:52:04Jocko Willink?

  Can you get the old shirts?

• 2:52:06Speaker 02

  You can get the past shirts, yes. If you subscribe, like if you subscribe, Shirt Locker, you subscribe right now, but you want the, you also want the shirt from last year, I don't know, October, whatever, last year, yes, you can get it.

• 2:52:19Jocko Willink?

  The reason I ask that is because I believe there were some backdoor channels utilized by my children to get past shirts. And I thought they pulled some strings.

• 2:52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:32Jocko Willink?

  Which they did, apparently.

• 2:52:33Speaker 02

  Yes, they did.

• 2:52:34Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so the, my point in saying that, though, is the designs are at a level of coolness that even my own children.

• 2:52:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:52:43Jocko Willink?

  Were like, yo.

• 2:52:44Speaker 02

  Gotta represent that one.

• 2:52:46Jocko Willink?

  Represent.

• 2:52:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a few one. Hey, there's a few of them and it's interesting because it's been going on for what? I don't know, a while.

• 2:52:53Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:52:53Speaker 02

  More than a year. So there's like a backlog of designs that people just kind of are not familiar with. So they'll see like me or someone, you know, someone from the beginning days or what I'm wearing would be like, hey, where'd that shirt come from? Like, oh, what, you know, where did I get that shirt? Where do I get that shirt? That's where you get it. That's gonna be the answer.

• 2:53:08Jocko Willink?

  First world problems, good shirts.

• 2:53:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:53:12Jocko Willink?

  The toxic productivity shirt.

• 2:53:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:53:15Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Some good shirts, uh, subscription, Shirt Locker, JacoStore.com, PrimalBeef.com. Get that, get that beef from the Shenandoah Valley. Or ColoradoCraftBeef.com. Get that beef from the Colorado goodness. We also have, uh, Underground Podcast, JacoUnderground.com. We answer your questions. It costs eight dollars and 18 cents a month. That's what we can own it. It's a platform that we own. If you can't afford it, we still want you there. [email protected]. Check it out. YouTube, subscribe. Psychological Warfare, get it. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Bunch of books. Obviously, the books for today, Bounce Back.

• 2:53:59Jocko Willink?

  12 Warrior Principles to Reclaim and Recalibrate Your Life. So get this book. Gonna help you with everything that you're doing. Also, the last book that you wrote, which is phenomenal. Tough as they come, man. Just check out Podcast 90, but get that book as well. And then obviously, I've written a bunch of books. You might want to check those out as well, especially those kids books. Come on. Look, you want to stay on a crappy path and not get books for yourself? Don't want to get Discipline Freedom Field Manual? You don't want to get Leadership Strategy and Tactics Revised Expanded Edition? Okay, okay, that's fine. You don't want to do it? You want to stay on a rut? Okay. But if, don't do that to your kids, or the neighbor's kids, or your nephew, right? Get him the Warrior Kid books. Get him Mikey and the Dragons, that's what we're talking about.

• 2:54:44Jocko Willink?

  Ashlamfront, ashlamfront.com, we have a leadership consultancy. We can help your business, we can help your team, we can help you in life. In everything that you do, by teaching you leadership. We can come into your organization, go to ashlamfront.com to check that out. We also have the Extreme Ownership Academy online. It's extremeownership.com. That's going to help you in life, it's going to help you in business, it's going to help you with your family, it's going to help you interacting with other human beings. It's going to help you lead yourself to victory. ExtremeOwnership.com. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization, if you want to donate or you want to get involved,

• 2:55:28Jocko Willink?

  go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. She's helping out so many people with that program. Also, check out HeroesAndHorses.org. Micah Fink taking people into the dang backwoods of Montana,

• 2:55:45Jocko Willink?

  where they get lost so they can get found. And Jimmy May's got his organization BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. And obviously, obviously TravisMillsFoundation.org. You heard what he's doing. And if you want to connect with us, Travis is on Instagram, apparently making his shorts reels. And he's on Twitter, @SSGTravisMills. That stands for Staff Sergeant. And Echo's there as well, as am I. Echo's @EchoCharles. I'm at Jocko. Just be careful, because there's an algorithm that's trying to grab you by the back of the neck and kill you. That's what's going on. So don't let it happen.

• 2:56:31Jocko Willink?

  Thanks once again to Travis for joining us. The ultimate human being.

• 2:56:36Jocko Willink?

  Honored to talk to you. And have you as a friend. Thank you for being who you are. And thanks to all the men and women in the military. Thank you for your service. Especially grateful for all of the recalibrated warriors. Who have served and sacrificed so much. Thank you all for our freedom. And also thanks to our police and law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders. Thank you for your service here on the home front to keep us safe every day. And to everyone else out there.

• 2:57:14Jocko Willink?

  I know life is a struggle. Struggle. You're gonna face struggle. And it can be rough. It can be really rough. But don't forget that while you can't choose the trauma that you are dealt. You can choose how you respond to it.

• 2:57:33Jocko Willink?

  And if Travis Mills can carry on like Travis Mills carries on. Then I think we can all step up. Every day.

• 2:57:43Jocko Willink?

  And get after it.

• 2:57:46Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.