222: Life is a Challenge. Life is Suffering. So Live With Fortitude. With Dan Crenshaw

0:00:00 - Opening 0:06:57 - Dan Crenshaw. 3:28:32 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 3:40:46 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:55:59 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 222 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  Someone called for my Afghan interpreter, Rockman, a good man with whom we had worked with for some time. These interpreters are the unsung heroes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They often suffer threats and ostracism for their willingness to endure the battlefield alongside us. Their motivation isn't money. There isn't enough money to make it worthwhile facing down insurgents who know where you and your family live.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  They are idealists. They work and risk death because they believe in our common cause of freedom.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  Rockman responded to the call immediately. Running before me, his foot fell in a particular spot just two feet away from where I stood.

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  I was looking right at him.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  As I later discovered, he instantly lost all his limbs in the explosion.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  Even though I was staring right at him, I never actually saw it happen.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  My experience was a series of tremendous blows and subsequent realizations. A train hit me, ears ringing, what the fuck was that? Darkness, something is wrong, got hit, my legs, reach down and see if they're still there. They're there, I feel them, pain everywhere, mostly my abdomen. Something shot through it, I think, my eyes must be caked with mud, I can barely see anything.

• 1:47Jocko Willink?

  I hear groaning and screaming, someone hit an IED.

• 1:52Jocko Willink?

  Pain everywhere but my eyes.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  I crawl around a little bit, mostly to see if my body still functions. My teammates make their way to me. I asked someone to pour water on my eyes to remove the dirt so I can see.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't work.

• 2:13Jocko Willink?

  I can only see light and some shapes. Must be a lot of dirt.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  I recognize my corpsman's voice as he works on my wounds.

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  I say, "Dude, don't get blown up. It sucks."

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  He laughs and tells me to shut up.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  I was conscious throughout. Our corpsman stopped my bleeding, the worst of which was from my knees and wrapped up my eyes. It still did not occur to me that there was anything wrong with them. I could only hear the situation around me. My teammates calling to each other, communicating the situation with tense voices. I later found out that a foot, wearing the typical Solomon boot that we all wore, hit one of my teammates in the chest about fifty yards away.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  Rockman was groaning in pain. Deep, deep pain.

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  Most people's experience of combat wounds is from the movies. A soldier gets hit, his guts spilling out, and he looks down at them screaming in horror.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  But this is not the way it is. In reality, truly bad injuries sap your energy and prevent you from screaming.

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  Instead, the sound a wounded man makes is a much deeper, more visceral, emanating from the depths of his being.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  It's a groan, a cry, a moaning that reeks of utter desperation.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  It is far worse than a scream.

• 3:55Jocko Willink?

  It is true pain manifested into sound.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  This was the sound that Rockman made.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  It is unforgettable.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  As the corps intended to me and we waited for the medevac helicopter, a thought entered my head. We may be in a firefight any second now. Rockman was barely alive and he would later die in the hospital. Our EOD chief petty officer took a little frag also and would be evacuated with us. All hands were needed to fight. I could hear the medevac helo coming in low. This was no time to ask someone to carry me. Blown up and blind, I stood up and walked myself to it. Dave Warson, who would be killed two months later, heroically laid down cover fire for me as I boarded the helo.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  It was my last memory of him.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  Medics onboard the helicopter took one look at me, laid me down and eased me into unconsciousness. I woke up days later, far away from Helmand, far away from Kandahar, far away from my brothers in arms, far away from the war and dust of Central Asia.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  I was brought back into consciousness in Germany at the American Hospital at Longstuhl. A breathing tube was being unceremoniously ripped from my throat.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Rather unpleasant.

• 5:28Jocko Willink?

  I opened my eyes, or thought I did, and saw nothing.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  A physician came to me and told me the truth. My right eye was gone. My left eye was so heavily damaged that there was virtually no chance I would see with it again.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  My future was a future of blindness, of darkness, of no sight, no color, no visual beauty.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  I would never see a sunset, a friend, a loved one again.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  In one instant, in a fatal footfall.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  All that was ripped away.

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  And that right there was an excerpt from a book called Fortitude, written by Dan Crenshaw, who is a former SEAL officer. And he's actually been on this podcast before, number 118. And the last time he was on, he was in the process of running for Congress.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, he won and is currently a congressman, serving the second congressional district of Texas in the House of Representatives. And, well, it's an honor to have Dan back with us today to share some of the lessons learned that he talks about in his new book. And once again, the name of the book is Fortitude. Dan, thanks for coming back, man.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Hey, thank you for having me. Listening to you read that, I was like, maybe I should have asked you to read my book for the audio version.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  That was good.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, thanks. It's, uh, it's only good because the story that's being told is, is obviously a very powerful one. And, uh, you know, you, you sent me this book and as soon as you sent it to me, I started talking to you about, let's get you back on the podcast. Obviously you're a busy man. Obviously you're a busy man right now. For reference, it is, uh, what is it? It's March of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic is going on around the world and around America. There's schools, and again, who knows what this will look like, looking back on it when people are listening to this in the future, whether they're listening to it a month from now, a week from now, or years from now.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  It'll be interesting what this pandemic turns out to be, but you braved the travel.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  We did. We did. And we just, you know, I'm leaving off the heels of that late night vote again for for listeners trying to put this in context and what you saw in the news. Leaving off the heels of that late night vote where where which was for the economic stimulus that the president supported and bipartisan in nature. Different from the eight billion plus dollars that we voted on a week prior, which was meant to combat it on a public health scale. So, you know, I the it's every everybody agrees. I think we've as a country and as a government, we have taken

• 9:03Speaker 01

  this particular pandemic more seriously than anything in the past, more than we did for Ebola or for H1N1. And I've asked that specific questions to folks like the assistant surgeon general Admiral Red, who who who've worked all of these pandemics. And so I just hope people realize that that's not what you hear from the media. You know, the media would tell you that it's totally unprepared. And you know, you're never going to be perfectly prepared. I think that's a lesson you and I know pretty well. But you learn those lessons and you do better the next time. The finger pointing has been completely unnecessary, mostly dishonest and totally unhelpful. But

• 9:46Speaker 01

  the government has been taking it pretty seriously and we're definitely taking it seriously in Congress.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad you were able to get out here. And again, I think there's no telling what this will look like in hindsight, but it's quiet around here in San Diego right now. There's just not a lot of people doing a lot of stuff. Obviously, we're in the gym and the gym, you know, not a lot, not a ton of people coming into the gym right now. There's still people training though. Don't worry, we're training that jujitsu.

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, you sent me the book and you know, cracked it open, started reading it and immediately was just, you know, getting in touch with you to see if we could get you out here on the podcast to talk about it. And man, you know, the, the, the stuff that you've been through and the lessons that you've taken away from it are, are very powerful. And you know, that's one of the things that struck me out of the gate is that when you got wounded, you actually, you actually drew strength from very powerful place and things that you've been through. And I want to jump in and read some more of this, um, some more of this things that you've been through. And I think a lot of people are going to be able to take a lot away from it. So I'm going back to the book.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  This is after you're wounded. I fought back to another time in my life, two decades earlier.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  The first time I ever witnessed the kind of inescapable pain that I was feeling now and the grit to overcome it was with my mother. She fought a battle so many other modern women fight, breast cancer. And she did so with endurance, grace and optimism. Her example has never left me and I wasn't about to let some cheap ass IED in the ancient killing fields of Afghanistan render me unworthy of her memory. She was only 35 years old when she was diagnosed, same age as me, as I write these words. When she got the news, it was one day before my little brother's first birthday. I was five years old. The doctors told her she might have five years to

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  live. And they were right. Soon after, she would be feeling the pain I was feeling now as the cancer and chemotherapy ripped apart her body in battle. She fought it for five years. And when I was 10, she died. If you've ever cared for a loved one in terminal decline,

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  You know what that's like. There is an intensity of loss that is immeasurable. Words don't do it justice. The hole, deep down in your gut, feels like it will never go away. As a child, the intensity of the experience is made worse as grief is amplified by incomprehension. Going from kindergarten to 4th grade, knowing that your mother is dying, that the center of a small boy's world is collapsing is an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. But from this grief, came learning.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  I got to experience the nature of a true hero. And the example she set was the most powerful, fortifying, and selfless thing I have ever seen, including combat.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  Buying helpless in a hospital bed, I had to wonder whether my mother had asked the same desperate question I was currently asking. Would I ever see my family again? I figured that if she could suffer through that question, and the unknowable answer, so could I.

• 13:16Jocko Willink?

  My mother spent half a decade staring death in the face, burned with caring for two small boys whom she would not live to see grow up. She lived day to day in ever-increasing pain. The cancer afflicted her, and the cancer treatments afflicted her too. Six rounds of chemotherapy on top of radiation treatments are a brutal experience for even the strongest constitution. Self pity is never a useful state. But if anyone had reason to feel sorry for herself and had to complain a bit, it was my mom.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  But she never did.

• 13:58Jocko Willink?

  In terminal decline and in pain across five years, I never heard her complain once. I never heard her bemoan her fate. I never saw her express self pity. Every day she woke up was a day she was still alive and she lived.

• 14:15Jocko Willink?

  She was dying, and she was grateful to not be dead yet. Every extra day was a gift where she could look her boys in the face. Every next evening was another night she could tell us she loved us before bed. Even during her last days, when the hospital delivered her deathbed and hospice nurse to our dining room,

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  her demeanor did not change.

• 14:41Jocko Willink?

  Susan Carol Crenshaw was exactly the opposite of what she had every right to be.

• 14:56Jocko Willink?

  Brutal.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was. More for my mom than for me. You know, I tell that story because well, the name of that chapter is Perspective from Darkness. And Perspective, I think, is something we lack in our modern day society. We are, I think, too many people are willing to jump to this false conclusion that you've had it the worst, that your life is worse than your ancestors, or than your peers, or than anybody else walking around America right now. And there's just a really, just so happens, there's a really good chance that's not true. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just saying there's a pretty good chance it's probably not true.

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting, too. I always talk about perspective from a leadership perspective, which means, hey, if I'm looking at one of my troops, the better I understand their perspective on what I'm telling them, and what their job is, and what the mission is, the better I'm going to be able to lead them. And same thing with my boss. The better I understand my boss's perspective, and what the strategy look like, and what's the overall thing he's trying to get accomplished, the better I understand his perspective, the better I'm going to be able to lead. And it's interesting, because when you put that across society, you would think that in today's day and age, with the, with social media, with the ability to absorb so many other people's perspectives, you'd think that that would open up your mind

• 16:28Jocko Willink?

  to realize that, that there's, you know, a lot of other people that, that have been through much worse than.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  than anything I've even been close to going through.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Jocko Willink?

  And yet it doesn't seem to be happening that way.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  No, and I mean, one of the most popular stories for an American to hear, you know, is is a story of overcoming adversity. And that's a good thing. I'm glad those are still the the stories that are the most popular in the American psyche. You know, that a movie about somebody who's downtrodden and overcomes it is still a good movie. But there there is it's undeniable that there is this fragility that is infecting America. And that's that's why I wrote this book. And it's, um, you know, it's not a political book. It's not a sealed book. It's not a. It's it's a cultural book. It's it's a cultural philosophy book, and it's it's it's simultaneously an individual kind of self-help book on just how to be mentally tougher in your own individual life.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  But there are much broader cultural implications that that are strewn throughout the book. It is a it is a culture book. And because I fear that we are getting more sensitive, more more prone to microaggressions and prone to saying how offended you are and wearing wearing that offense on your sleeve proudly. And, um, and and this gets to the, I think, what's the the next chapter, which is who is your hero? And we've changed what we look up to. Like, we think that it's good to to scream about how offended we are. Like, that's become like a a moniker of a good thing.

• 18:04Jocko Willink?

  You know what's interesting as as, uh, you know, before we started recording, you know, we're just talking about kind of life and the dames and and, uh,

• 18:13Jocko Willink?

  if there's one thing that you never do in the teams ever is show anyone that you're offended by anything that you're saying to you. Because if you allow that to happen, you know, you're just gonna get torn apart. Whereas it seems like I hadn't I hadn't thought about from that perspective, the the all the rage in the public right now is if you can possibly get offended by something, then it's you're you're the you're the best thing in the world if you jump up and down and point to the person that offended you and why you were offended. And and the more offended you are, the better off.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  The aggrieved victim status is supreme these days. And that's a and that's more of a serious problem than than I think most Americans are giving it credit for. Like, it's a really bad thing because you're changing. You're changing our heroes. And when I say heroes, I want to be more specific. And I outline this in the book in greater detail. I don't mean like Jaco is my hero. I don't actually, and I personally, when people ask me about who I look up to and my heroes, I will tell them attributes of people that I think are respectable. I don't think you should have one person that you look up to. I don't think that's totally healthy. And that's not what I'm talking about in the book. I'm talking about hero archetypes.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  You know, and an archetype is a broader set of ideas or attributes that we sort of recognize collectively. Okay, that's more of a psychological term than anything else. And there are certain hero archetypes. You know, like Navy SEALs have a hero archetype. And we write about that in our SEAL ethos. It's such a beautifully written ethos. And I have the entire thing written in the book because it perfectly demonstrates what we believe we should be. Not what we should do, but what we should be. And that's a really interesting thing. And I note that you look at a corporate ethos. And if you go to people like corporations' websites and you read them,

• 20:10Speaker 01

  they're usually something like, "We want to be the number one manufacturer on the West Coast." It's like, that's not who you want to be. That's just something you want to do. If you write out an ethos of who you want to be, you can reach that level of elitism. You can surpass mediocrity. So that's important. The important thing is here is that we have societal hero archetypes that we look up to. Jesus is a hero archetype. Superman is a hero archetype. Real characters too. You know, I can name a thousand. Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan. All of these people embody certain attributes that the American people think this is good.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Okay, and we generally agree on these things. I tell a whole story in the book about about when I was at Disney World, or was it Disneyland? No, it was Disney World. And I was at the Star Wars land. And I was watching this really cool thing happen where they where they let these kids do Jedi training. And of course, like in typical Disney fashion, everything is really well run. The actors are absolutely amazing and they're teaching these kids, you know, how to work their swords and all that. But they're also teaching them really cool things like just little Jedi lessons. Like, like, will you let your emotions be driven by hate and anger? You know, like really simple lessons, because we look up to the Jedi as like a hero archetype.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And so there are certain things that are just viewed as good. But that's changing. And I and I find that to be an extremely dangerous thing. Because we're elevating the aggrieved victim, the person who talks about being offended the most and who screams the loudest, we're elevating that person to a higher level in our society. And that's dangerous. You're flipping cultural norms on their head. And you do that at your own peril. You know, and, you know, cultural foundations based in thousands of years of trial and error and wisdom, those are important. They're more important than people realize and like, that's, that's, that's frankly what the first, I guess, what that that particular chapter is about.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  The perspectives chapter, you know, they're all related, of course. But the perspectives chapter, and the reason I bring up my mom, and the reason I tell that story, and then subsequent stories of, of other guys that we've lost, is because you need to, it's healthy to go through life thinking, you know what, somebody has had it harder than me. And I'd like to live up to their memory. I'd like to live up to that hero attribute. The hero, or the hero archetype of my mother. And I'm not lying, she never complained. She just, she never did. And if she did, I didn't hear it as a kid. And so.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  When you're living in blindness and not sure whether you will see again, it's healthy to have that in your head. And I say, you don't have to, you don't have to experience a bomb in your face to get some perspective, but you can read about it. And it's like you said earlier, in a world where we're so connected and we can see everybody else's story of hardship, you would think that we would have more perspective. But it seems that the opposite is true. And first step to reversing that trend, I think, is to at least realize it.

• 23:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we recently had on Rose Schindler, who was Auschwitz survivor. And I got many, many, many messages and comments coming back saying, yeah, I'll put myself in check. You know, I don't have it that bad. So, and you know, we've had many people on here that have been through some really hellacious things, whether it's prisoner war camps, just devastating situations. And it is, it's, it's, if they weren't hearing it here, I get the feeling sometimes that if people weren't hearing it here, they wouldn't be hearing it. They wouldn't be hearing it. You know, they'd just be thinking that everyone is living better

• 24:12Jocko Willink?

  than they are. And they're the ones that are in the worst possible situation in the world.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  We've got, yeah, and that's a, you know, I don't want to bring it too much to politics, but it is, it is, it is one reason that we, that we have lurched into this conversation about socialism. Because fundamentally socialism is, is an ideology that pits people against each other. You have to believe that somebody else is oppressing you and that they have it better than you for you to embrace socialism. It is, it is envy. It is, is the ultimate sin manifested into a political ideology. Not the ultimate sin, but it's one of them. And that's, I'm always looking for the deeper reason as to why something is happening. And it is natural for, for people to want to believe that something outside their own power

• 25:01Speaker 01

  is affecting their lives. Because if it's you, if it's your fault, if it's you who has to step up, that's harder. It's much easier to believe that there's something else.

• 25:11Jocko Willink?

  It also is an assault on your ego when you look at yourself and you say, well, I guess I'm the one that messed this up.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And that's, that's a devastating psychological consequence when your ego is hurt that way. It is.

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I wrote a book about that called Extreme Ownership.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  It's a good book.

• 25:31Jocko Willink?

  Again, it's, it's one of those things where, you know, you wrote this book as, you know, as you're saying, like a cultural philosophy, you know, Leif and I wrote Extreme Ownership as, as leadership principles. But, I mean, it didn't take but two seconds for everyone to say, oh yeah, what you're talking about is, you know, easily transforms into a, into a cultural philosophy of taking ownership and responsibility for what's going on in your world. Absolutely. There's no doubt about it. And you find yourself in the lot and light. And look, do people get cancer? Yes, people get cancer. Do horrible things happen to people, to families? Yes, absolutely. How do you respond to those things is the question? How do you take ownership of what you do next? And, and that's the, that's the big difference. And if what you do next

• 26:15Jocko Willink?

  is, is, you know, say it's out of my control and I can't do anything and you're, get the mentality that you're a victim of what's happening around you, that means you're not going to make any changes to transform your life and move in a more positive direction. It's just the way it is. And, you know, I think, I think one of these things that happens with, you know, these ideas behind socialism in America, and again, it's, it's like crazy that we would be sitting here talking about this, anybody that.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  Anybody that reads anything about history knows that this is just not good. But you know, it comes across always as, um, hey, well, what we want to do is help everyone out. That's what we want to do. We want to help everyone out. And, okay, if that's like the core belief, and this is where I think sometimes we could do better, or, um, you know, someone like myself could do a better job explaining to people, look, if you care about other human beings so much, if you want to help as many people as possible in this country, the best possible thing you could do is allow the market to flourish, allow people to build businesses. That's what you, that's what changes people's lives. That, that's what helps, not

• 27:27Jocko Willink?

  gi- giving them a handout and making them reliable or reliant on the state. That doesn't help anybody. It helps them for a week, you know, it helps them for that pay period. But it doesn't help them transform their lives into something more positive.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  One, one way I explain that exact sentiment is to ask someone to imagine how they would raise their kid if they loved their kid. You know, would you give them whatever they want? Would you, would you tell your kid that whatever they do wrong, it's not their fault, somebody else made them do it wrong? Would you tell them that there's no consequences for their actions? Would you tell them that if they do an hour of chores and their sibling does three hours of chores, that they deserve the same reward? Would you teach them any of these things? There is no liberal who would teach other kids these things. They don't, because they love their kids and they want their kids to be successful. But that's effectively what we're teaching, what we're saying that we should teach our citizens.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  And so I ask people, why don't we treat our citizens the way we treat our kids as if we loved them? Because that's true compassion. It doesn't mean we don't have a social safety net, right? And that's always the counter argument. It's a disingenuous counter argument.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, the counter argument to that is, look, with your kids, and this is a, this is an example that I use when I, especially when I'm talking to businesses. So I say, listen, like, what will be with a startup, right? That's grown from, you know, they were 10 people, then they're 100 people, and now they're getting to that threshold. And I say, listen, at some point, you're gonna have to put some discipline on what's going on inside of your company. You're gonna have to have people come to work at aligned times. You're gonna have to have them eat lunch at certain times, not just one. You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to have meetings that are scheduled. And look, when you've got a company of 12 people, you can get away with all that stuff. And it's great, there's money coming in and everything's, but as soon as you start to grow, well, you have to start to have discipline inside your organization.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:24Jocko Willink?

  And so the example I give people is, I say, listen, have you ever met a kid that, when he's, when he's born, look, when, when, when a child is born, you give them whatever they want. You gotta keep them alive, right? There's your social, like, you have to give them food, water, milk, you have to get, you have to feed them, you have to take care of them. If you continue to do that when they're three, four, five, well, by the time they're 10, you actually now have Satan for a child. Because this kid is totally out of control, demanding, doesn't, not only is totally demanding, but doesn't know how to do anything for themselves. Can't make themselves a sandwich, can't tie their own shoes, they can't do anything. So what you have to do is you have to let people fend for themselves, you have to let kids brush up against the guardrails of failure.

• 30:09Jocko Willink?

  You, you have to do that. And yes, you have to do that with society as well, in my opinion. And that's what, that's what, the thing, the argument that I don't hear back at people that are saying, hey, we should give everything away for free. Is, listen, for that, we don't have enough to give away everything for free.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:28Jocko Willink?

  The best way that you can take care of the most amount of people is to allow freedom, allow individual freedom, allow people to pursue goals. Allow people to pursue business, allow people to grow things and hire people. That's how you, that's how we all win. It's so, it's crazy to me that we still have these discussions and it's also, um, yeah, it's, it's crazy to me that we're having these discussions right now.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  There's like this, there's like this belief that they subscribe to, which is, if only politicians weren't so mean and corrupt, you know? There's all these things hidden that we could just give you, but they don't want to. And I'm always like, does that really sound right? Does that really sound like that's, that's correct? That was just all just extra money just hidden in the, in the, in the treasury that we could just give out, but we don't want to? That everybody, that we have all these luxury apartments that we could just give out, you know, because housing's a right or whatever? Or that, or that there's just enough doctors and hospitals to take care of everyone? And they're just kind of waiting around? Like not, you know, I mean, like, come on?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's not, if some, if it sounds too good to be true, it most certainly is. And again, it doesn't mean that we don't want to keep striving for a, you know, broader access to healthcare. Doesn't mean that we want to keep, don't want to keep striving for a, a more efficient social safety net. Not saying that. But the, but the lurch to the, to the progressive left and socialism is, it's, it's based upon this idea that, that we're keeping something from you. And it's just not true. It's based on this idea too, that, that, that, where do I want to go with this? It's, it's, it's kind of like a, a, a constant escalation of crisis.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  And it's, it's, it's not surprising that we got there. Okay? And this is what I mean by that. If you're a progressive, you're, you're generally wanting more, well, progress, right? Change for the sake of change itself is often the case. And you have to promise more things than you did last time. Right? Because fundamentally, it's, it's, it's based in this sense of compassion. You know, giving people things from the government. They don't think very much, they don't think much more about what that does to the foundation of the creation that you talked about. It's just giving people more things. And it's almost like they relied on conservatives for the last hundred years to at least, to at least be an obstacle to their, to their worst instincts. Right? Because conservatives are the ones who say, okay, hold on.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Like, think of the second, third order consequences of that. Think of what that does to our foundations. When I say foundations, I mean foundations of a free market system that creates all this wealth in the first place. Like you can't, you can't just, you can't remove the legs of the stool. If you want to improve the stool, I get it, let's work on that. But don't remove the legs of the stool, it'll just fall. Same with our political foundations, same with our cultural foundations. There's three groups that are very important. We could, I could go on for hours about this. But, but I'll, but I'll try and stay on top, on, on, on this line of thought here. And so you promise more things. And you promise more things. And eventually, you're like, running out of things to promise. And you've got to be bolder and bolder and bolder.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  This is how you get socialism. Well-intentioned liberalism always leads to socialism. It takes years, but it happens. We're at that point now. Okay, like, the, the, the, the well-intentioned liberals, maybe the, the, the smarter, you know, Democrats that Republicans have often worked with, who, I think, always overpromise, but know full well that their Republican colleagues will, will sort of measure the, the policy. And I don't think they believe it themselves, frankly. But they've created a generation that does believe it. This is where we're at right now. The AOCs of the world are true believers, and they've got a lot of followers. This is what happens when this, this lie of compassion gets told too many times.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  A generation starts to actually believe it. And thi- this is the situation we're in now. This is why 70% of the millennials, um, surveyed will say they would vote for a socialist. Now, there's good news and bad news associated with a number like that. They don't always define socialism correctly, which is good.

• 34:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, true. And also, I was, I was having a conversation with someone about this the other day. I mean, in 1968, how many 20-year-olds would have said they would have voted for socialism? It'd probably be, probably be 70% as well.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:00Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  There was a socialist candidate, and I can't remember the name right now, but I just saw this quote, and it was so interesting, because that socialist communist candidate back then, in the 60s, basically said what I just said. You know, you, you, you've got a, I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of, "The, the, the elements of liberal policy are there to eventually create the fabric of socialism for us." It's like, it's, and that is exactly what happens. It happens a little bit at a time. And here, here's another way of thinking about it that, that I help people understand. Okay, so you want to raise the minimum, minimum wage. Okay, and you want to raise it to 15 bucks an hour, 20 bucks an hour. Um... And that's fine. There's guaranteed that you will lose jobs when you do that. That's guaranteed, okay?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  And so you lose jobs. And depending on how much you raise it and the cost of living in that area, you'll lose a certain number of jobs. Okay, well, the well-intentioned liberal in government who wants to control the economy says, "Well, we don't want to lose the jobs." "Okay, we'll just make people hire more." "Just make the employers hire more people." "Okay, fine. So you make them hire more people, but they still have to pay that minimum wage." "Well, their costs haven't changed and their overall budget hasn't changed." "So now what?" "Well, then they have to raise prices." "Right? Raise prices drastically." "Well, now there's hyperinflation and that's not good." "And also, the poor people can't afford the things that they want to buy, so that's not good." "Okay, well, just make them lower the prices." "Okay, we're going out of business." "Okay, just take over the business." "So now you own the means of production."

• 36:31Speaker 01

  "And I'm not saying it happens that quickly, but that's how it happens." "Like, there's a logical line there where that well-intentioned first step of intervening in the markets has consequences, and eventually, if you want to control it, well, you have to really control it." "And then you're in a really bad place." "Because then you're actually controlling production." "And when you do that..."

• 36:51Jocko Willink?

  Then you're in a place called Venezuela.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that isn't turning out so well.

• 36:56Jocko Willink?

  All right, little tangent right there.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Well, it's actually, I go into this huge discussion about the minimum wage in the book.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Not because, because it actually relates to mental toughness, because the way I relate it in the book is

• 37:13Speaker 01

  part of being, part of having fortitude, part of being mentally tough, is having the ability to think through some questions before you react emotionally. Very simple. And I'm pretty sure, I think that example is used in the chapter called "Be Still." And I mean that quite literally, just be still when you hear something that is emotionally triggering or you disagree with. Think about this notion that there might be another side to the story, like, just maybe. If you just ask some questions. And at first, again, the minimum wage, it seems like the right thing to do. Like, "People should just get paid more. I want them to get paid more." "They should." So I just give the arguments in there, like there's economic arguments and there's geographical

• 37:56Speaker 01

  arguments. By that, I mean, you know, why would you have a federal minimum wage? It's the same for the entire country. When in San Francisco, the rent is $3,500 a month and in Lubbock, Texas, it's $700 a month. You know, does that, that really quickly makes the case against a federal minimum wage, not saying that each city can't do their own thing. And I go into the economic arguments of who's actually working at minimum wage jobs. The point isn't to make the argument against the minimum wage. The point is to get you to understand that this issue, like many, many other issues and questions, has many, many layers to it. And if you stop and you think, or first assume those layers exist, right? Then the next step is look into the layers and there might be more to

• 38:40Speaker 01

  it. And when you do that, you are exhibiting mental strength. You're exhibiting the ability to not react, but to just ask questions. And like I have a feeling, just a feeling that the people really angrily waving those $15 minimum wage signs have not looked into the arguments.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  But they're passionate.

• 39:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's really, um, you know, at our factory up in Maine, you know, this is a classic thing. Like sometimes you need more people to load boxes. And who do you get, who do you, who do you get to load boxes? This is an unskilled job. Like, hey, we just need you to move boxes. It's not even loading boxes, it's moving boxes from here in the warehouse to where they're going to get loaded on trucks to get shipped out. You know, you know who wants that job? A kid that's 16 years old, that, you know, needs gas money, and he's gonna work that job two hours a night, whatever, and make a little bit of cash on the side. That's cool. We can afford to do that at our business. The minute you say, hey, instead of paying that guy 10 bucks an hour, you gotta give him 16 dollars an

• 39:45Jocko Willink?

  hour. Well, now it's guess what? We're gonna take, we're gonna just take some of our other labor and have them fill in, you know, half an hour here, half an hour there. And all of a sudden, you've eliminated three jobs.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  The overall budget of the business does not change just because you change the minimum wage. But there's this like belief, and again, you know, it's, I'm always amazed by how little thought gets put into some of these, you know, feel-good policy, uh, policy proposals. Like, as if there's no second, third order consequences to these things. And like, you just, you have to think through that. We just have to.

• 40:18Jocko Willink?

  That would be nice. Um, all right.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Let's get back to the book.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to take you back to the book. You just, you just debriefed the entire book. We can just end now. All right. So here we go. Uh, awake now in Longstool. I could not move. I was beaten and for the moment physically broken. I was riddled with shards and debris under, under the skin and deep within. I was swollen badly, suffering from a thousand small cuts. Everything burned and itched, though oddly enough, I don't recall any pain in my eyes. I said before that I woke up unable to see, but this was not entirely true. I could see, I could not see my surroundings true, but I was certainly seeing. I was surrounded by constant hallucinations, the result of my optic nerve

• 41:04Jocko Willink?

  still communicating erratically with my brain. The hallucinations were lucid. And all followed a pattern. I was in Afghanistan. I was with the guys. I was in an Afghan village, mud walls and compounds. There was an Afghan man sitting next to me. There were piles of weapons in the corner. I'd lived my previous experiences. I lived my previous experiences over and over again. I knew it wasn't real. I was hallucinating, but not delusional. If I was awake, I was seeing these images. If I was lucky enough to fall asleep and dream, never more than 30 minutes, then I would wake up and still, wake up still inside the visual reality of the dream. That sounds insane.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  That was, that was, that was insane.

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  Now, was some of that, was some of that drugs that you, were you on? Were you on, um, any drugs that were giving you hallucinations?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  Or this was just all your optic nerves communicating?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  And there's, there's some, um, I researched this, you know, later in life and there's, there's some history of this happening to, to people who go suddenly blind. Um, that that optic nerve was continued to do that. It couldn't have been drugs. I mean, the, the only drugs I was on were painkillers and that wouldn't, wouldn't have that effect. Um, there was just some weird things. That was, it was, it was so weird. And, uh, and, and kind of terrifying and it just, it just, it amplified the whole experience because I knew it wasn't real.

• 42:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Um, I knew it wasn't real. There was, but I would, I would always see them there and I would talk about them. And so, you know, the, the stranger stories are from my, my friends. There was a couple of seals who, who came to me with Lance, to Lance Stool, which was. It is such an enormous blessing, you know, you can't even describe how important it is for somebody in that state to just have somebody they know, or at least somebody they kind of trust. It doesn't even have to be a team guy you know, it could just be somebody who understands you, just there. And I remember this old Afghan man sitting next to me, and it was always like a weird blue light, like it was, it really was like a dream out of the movies, you know,

• 43:11Speaker 01

  where, like, and his face would be kind of melting. I just remember that very specifically. I don't remember all the hallucinations, but I, and I always remember piles of weapons. It was really like we were, I was remembering the moments, which were so many, because we would always do two to three day ops on that particular deployment. And so we'd hole up in some compound, and it would, you know, it's like, all the guys are just in this tiny little room together, shooting the shit, and our weapons are kind of strewn throughout, and that's what I would see. I would just seeing that experience all the time, and the mud walls. And one particularly weird dream, I, and I think I do describe this in the book,

• 43:50Speaker 01

  it's, I was, I was like, I was in a third world country, and like in a department store, you know, like going through a very crowded department store, not with people, but with clothes, like they're, like they're, you know, because in like, a lot of these countries, they just, it's not like Walmart, you know, where you can comfortably walk through things, like they pack too much stuff in, because they don't have that much space, but they got a lot of stuff, and they pack it in there. And I'm just like, trying to move through these clothes, and it's like musty, and the lights are fluorescent, like, again, like, this is just a very third world country kind of scene, you know, I couldn't say where it was, but I've been to a lot of third world countries, so my mind is used to this sort

• 44:33Speaker 01

  of visualization. And then I woke up, and I know I'm awake, but I'm still there. That's what really sucked, to not be able to leave the nightmare. Like, I was literally living in a nightmare. And we always use the word literally wrong in our modern day society. I'm not using it wrong, I was literally living in the nightmare. And like, it was inescapable, and that, that's what sucked, because like, you just couldn't, you couldn't shake it, and that's, that's, it was just a horrible place to be. It finally went away, when a nurse, an astute nurse, an observant nurse, just realized what was going on, and she started asking us about it. And my wife is just like, kind of exasperated at this point. Well, she wasn't my wife then, but she was, um, you know, fiance then.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  And, um, she was just, you know, exhausted and like, just trying to deal with this. And I think it was like, I think it was like right after my first surgery, or maybe right before. I don't remember. Um, but she was just like, how, how long has this been going on? And we're like, uh, the whole time? Like, ever since I woke up, you know, so days, maybe a week, I'm not, I'm not really sure. Um, and she's like, that's not good. You should, I mean, her response was like, you will have irreparable PTSD if this continues. You know, because like you just, living in a nightmare is not a great place to be like, it's just, and, uh, and so she shot me up with a bunch of, uh, Ativan, which was like, it's, it's a hard anti-anxiety drug. And then, then it got really weird.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Then the hallucinations changed. They didn't go away right away. They changed to Christmas. So I was like in a, I was like in an, like a, like a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Christmas world.

• 46:17Jocko Willink?

  This is what you're seeing?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  Even though you can't see anything, this is what you're seeing?

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's very-

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  Christmas world.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  It's very vivid. It's not like when you close your eyes and imagine things. It's like, it was vivid. Um, the Christmas world was cool.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  Like that was-

• 46:31Speaker 01

  That's cool. Yeah. It was more relaxing. It was like, it was happier. Um, and then it went black. And then black, black was the best. That was, that was good. It was like, you wouldn't, you would never think that you'd be happy to be blind. But like, that was, that was a good, it was necessary. I could finally take a nap.

• 46:54Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here, Tara, this was your fiance at the time. Tara was there when I finally arrived in Bethesda and never left my side from that moment on. Most of my family came up to see me, as did many friends. They were far more worried than I was and their spirits were low. This was most likely due to the fact that they were mentally coherent enough to sense the pessimistic expectations of my surgeons. The doctors did not think I would see again. They said so many times, and I simply didn't believe them. My optimism, my self-deception, and my belief that the coming surgery on my left eye would work and that I would see was nothing less than a delusional gift that allowed me to keep my sanity.

• 47:38Jocko Willink?

  Though I am not one for overt expressions of faith, I will say this, I genuinely believe God's strength was working through me then. He was allowing me to believe something impossible. I prayed and my family prayed and we believed. We believed that the military surgeons would pick through a pierced and shrapnel-ridden eye, remove the most minuscule shards and debris, and then restore my sight. We did not have good reason to believe it, but we did.

• 48:13Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting that you call this self-deception and delusional, that it sounds like everyone else was just like, "Hey, man, you know, this ain't gonna work."

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you should really stop saying that. That's exactly right. It was a necessary self-delusion. And again, I was like, I don't know why that was, and that's why I say it could have been, had to have been God. God saying, "You know, I can't, I'm not gonna save your eye for you, bud. We're relying on surgeons to do that, but I'll at least allow you to believe that it's possible, because otherwise you're gonna go nuts." And again, it's, I think my, you know, whatever you want to call it, post-traumatic growth afterwards is a function of being able to live through the experience a certain way, because it's terrifying to think that you

• 49:04Speaker 01

  might not see again. That's terrifying. And, you know, and I'm again, because that chapter is called Perspective from Darkness, there are other veterans who immediately lost both eyes. They had no chance of seeing again. That's hardship. I didn't have to deal with that, you know? Somebody else has had it worse than you. Always remember that, even when you get blown up in the face. Yeah, the doctors, and that continued. It wasn't just being able to see anything again, it was being able to see well again. I was demanding, I was demanding the first surgery, so the first surgery for my left eye. My right eye is gone. My right eye was gone in Kandahar. They happened to be an ophthalmologist there that they nucleated the eye right away.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  They do that early on so that your body will focus on the eye that's, you know, possibly savable. But the right eye was so screwed up and I wish I had pictures of it and that's kind of gruesome, but you know. And people don't want to take pictures of you and that because they're like, oh, that's not good to take pictures of you. But, but, uh, you know, keep in mind that the person might want those pictures later on. That's something people don't realize.

• 50:15Jocko Willink?

  We had Kirstie Ennis on and she got, you know, she got in a helo crash in Afghanistan and, you know, she's a beautiful girl. And she had pictures of her face where 50 cal, like the way the helo went down. I mean, it, it did some massive damage to her face and she has pictures of it. And you look at the pictures and you, you can't believe that, you know, she was able to recover the way she did. It's amazing, but, um, you know, she's a marine and I will say that she's much aligned with your feelings on this. I think she's pretty stoked that she has those pictures of herself all jacked up.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  I wonder who took those pictures though. Was it the kind like, oh, after they got into like the medical?

• 50:57Jocko Willink?

  You know what? Actually, I think it was. I think it was, if you remember her story, there was some, uh, really good plastic surgeon. Like a British plastic surgeon, female plastic surgeon that I think was probably like, oh, I'm going to document this.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. See, so there's a difference between that and then like someone being like, hey, wait guys. And bust out their phone and start taking pictures like.

• 51:17Jocko Willink?

  Which is what you would think a team guy would do. And a team guy would obviously go, oh, cool. Check out Dan's other eye. I'm going to get some snaps of this.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  And we got some, you know, so I've only got one picture, but it's a good week out. I mean, it's not, it's at least a few days. Like it's, there's some healing that has taken place. But I look, I look bad. Like it looks like a shock. It looks like I got hit in the face with a shotgun. That, that's what my face looks like. I could show it to you right now if you really want to see it, just so you can react to it on the.

• 51:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, bust it out, Brad. Let's see what up.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  I've never posted it because it's a little, it's a little too gruesome for, for posting.

• 51:53Jocko Willink?

  You gotta blur it out. Give the option.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, the, um.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Well, now I kind of lost my train of thought. Where were we at?

• 52:02Jocko Willink?

  So you get the, you get the surgery, um, in the book, you talk about they, they removed, um, the broken lens.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  Some copper wire that was in there.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  A bunch of other debris.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  So.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  The hallucination stop. And then, then you're six weeks, they gotta put you in a position for six weeks to recover.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Right. Um, so there's a couple of things that happened here. That's the picture.

• 52:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, damn.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  That's about a week after. So there's, there's some healing there, but it's not looking great.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's rough.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  So.

• 52:40Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right eye's gone. Left eye has a, has a cataract, um, meaning the lens, which is in the middle of your eye is, uh, is destroyed. Cataracts are a pretty normal thing for older folks to get, you know, just basically means the lens has kind of, I don't know what the right term is, but it kind of clouds over. You need to replace it. Um, in my case, it was trauma induced. So it's a bunch of fragments burst through the eye and, and destroyed the lens. You can kind of look at a lens like a window. All right. And this is an important, uh, way of thinking about it because if it clouds over, if that window's just, you can't see through it anymore, we'll just replace the window pane. But if the blast destroys the window, then you're trying to sew a new window pane onto basically the curtains, which are like the scolial of your eye. And that was

• 53:24Speaker 01

  sort of the, the situation I was dealing with. So the first miracle was they removed the lens entirely. So, okay. So that thing's out. Cause I remember this, I think, I think it was in Landstuhl. I sort of remember them shining a really bright light in my eye just to see if I could see light. And I could see some light. And when they did that, what I saw was like darkness, but there was like a light, almost like we're in this room right now. And there's this bright light above our heads. It's kind of like that, but everything else was like a cloud, like, like being like on an air, like imagine you're like going through a cumulus cloud as you're taking off. Like that's what it looked like. Very odd and strange. And, um, again, so the first miracle, this, and about, you know, maybe a week later, when I finally got back to Bethesda, we did the surgery, they removed

• 54:08Speaker 01

  the big copper wire that had really been destroying my eye. So that's good. And, uh, so we kind of start to see some blurriness after that. You know, which is kinda what I see now. As I look at you now, I'm wearing a contact. And without, if I took this contact out, I wouldn't recognize you. I don't, I wouldn't know, I wouldn't run into things necessarily, but I can't see anything. You know, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I, it's like, you know, 21,000 vision. It's, I can't really see anything. It's just, it's just blurry. Can't see close, can't see far. Can't find my glasses if I lose them. The glasses I do have are like that thick. That's what I wear at night. Or on airplanes, or, you know, if I don't feel like wearing a contact.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  So, that never goes away. But, at the time, I wanted it to go away. Like, I wanted to be like, "No, just make the eye better, doctors. Why can't you just do that?" "'Cause I got a, I got places to be, okay?" And they're like, "Yeah, do ya?" You know, I was like, "Yeah, I mean, I was like, 'Okay, so you just did this surgery, remove the cataract. Now, I want a new lens, so that I don't have to wear like contacts and glasses, 'cause I don't look cool in these glasses, right? I'm not a fan." And, uh, you know, I don't really have the contact situation yet, and, and I actually wouldn't for two and a half years it would take to get a really good contact that's actually comfortable. And so I was like, "Just, just do the surgery." And they're like, "Well," and I'm, they're like, "We really shouldn't." And I was like, "Okay, what's the, how much do we have to wait to do the surgery?

• 55:38Speaker 01

  You know, what's the, what's the minimum time? "'Cause I need to have it as soon as possible, because, you know, I gotta get back to the platoon. I've gotta, I've gotta go back." And, uh, they're like, "Well, I mean, I guess technically, six weeks." I'm like, "Six weeks it is." And like, I couldn't see them at the time, but they're looking at each other like, "What the hell are you talking about? Like, this isn't, you don't understand what your situation is." Like, they, they were just, I mean, and, and my wife tells me all this now, 'cause I couldn't see them. And I couldn't, I wasn't self-aware enough to gauge people's reactions. I was in, you know... Totally different state of mind. I was on a lot of painkillers and drugs and so, you know, and, and, and just like full on SEAL mode, like get the job done, must get back to platoon,

• 56:21Speaker 01

  kill bad guys. And it's just like, wasn't making sense to people. Like they were just like, I don't know what's wrong with this guy. And so they just kind of humored me, I think. Like they were just like, yeah, sure. And we'll definitely, we'll definitely do that. But they wanted no, and they had no intention of doing it for good reason. And then, and then what you're talking about with the six weeks blindness, that occurred later. So these miracles happened and like we saved my eye and that was, that was really exciting. Um, then they, you know, but they're, but they're looking at it every day and they, they do this one test and they see this hole in my retina. So that's not a big deal because it's just, just a hole, you know, it means there's some blind spots. And as I look at you, I can kind of see the blind spot. It's like right in my, it's

• 57:04Speaker 01

  annoying, but I deal with it. It's annoying when I read, frankly. The problem with that is your retina, the anatomy of your retina causes that hole to expand. There's a film, there's like a, it's like a membrane on the back of your retina that creates tension. And so anytime there's a hole in your retina, that means the hole will just expand slowly. So it's macular degeneration. This, again, this happens with older folks quite a bit. Um, the way to fix that is remove the membrane. We're not really sure why the membrane's on there in the first place. And so you just remove the membrane and then, uh, you're good. All right. But, and that's fine. That's actually a pretty normal surgery, but for me, it was a really high risk surgery because, you know, my

• 57:45Speaker 01

  eye is so fragile. And so they worried about the retina detaching. Luckily it did not. Um, you know, because, well, who knows why? Again, God's intervention. And, uh, but you do have to be face down for six weeks to recover from that. So that was just, that just sucked.

• 58:01Jocko Willink?

  You had to lay face down the entire time for six?

• 58:03Speaker 01

  You have to lay it face down because what they do is they, they inject this gas into your eye and that creates a bubble, which creates tension. So, and if the bubble is meant to be pressed up against your retina to keep it in place.

• 58:18Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  The only way for it to press up against your retina is for you to be looking down. And so you just look down. I mean, it just sucks. You just have to be facedown. It doesn't matter how you're doing it. Just lay down or walk facedown or whatever it is, but just make sure you're facing down for six weeks. And you're blind the whole time.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Most of the time they'll do this like one eye at a time. So if somebody can see still, but you know, I'm not a one eye at a time kind of guy anymore.

• 58:49Jocko Willink?

  Damn. Um.

• 58:53Jocko Willink?

  You get past that. You say, when the six weeks were over, I sat up. And I was not blind. Moreover, with the help of a truly remarkable contact lens from Boston Sight, to which the Navy referred me years later, I was eventually returned to 2020 corrective vision in my left eye. That's the story of being blown up. I can't say I recommend the experience, yet even as it was happening, even in the moment after the blast, I had to admit it could have been worse. I still had my legs. I had my arms. I had 10 fingers and 10 toes. My brain worked even after a severe concussion. I was still alive.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  It is impossible not to constantly think of the many veterans who have sacrificed so much more. Impossible not to think of SEAL Petty Officer Second Class Mike Mansour, who threw himself on a grenade while on a rooftop in Ramadi in Iraq, 2006, saving his teammates. Impossible not to think of Air Force Master Sergeant John Chapman, who fought all night against the Taliban, coming in and out of consciousness from his wounds, eventually succumbing to them on that Afghan ridgeline, but only after earning the Medal of Honor for saving 23 service members. Impossible not to think of my platoon members and dear friends, Dave Warson and Pat Feeks,

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  who were killed just two months after I was evacuated from Helmand. Impossible not to think of their loved ones, who'd been expecting them home a month later.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Impossible not to think of the eight men whose initials are tattooed on my chest in remembrance.

• 1:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Charles Keating, the fourth.

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  Patrick Feeks. Dave Warson.

• 1:00:43Jocko Willink?

  Brad Kavner. Brett Mary you.

• 1:00:48Jocko Willink?

  Kevin Ebert, Brendan Looney,

• 1:00:53Jocko Willink?

  and Tom Falk.

• 1:00:58Jocko Willink?

  This is the simple reality.

• 1:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Others have had it harder than me. Many, many others. From that darkness comes realism. From that realism comes gratitude. From gratitude comes perspective.

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  A healthy sense of perspective is an antidote to outrage. It is an antidote to self pity, despair, and weakness. It's not a cure all for your mental state when faced with adversity, but it is sure to dull the edges of your worst tendencies toward mental breakdown.

• 1:01:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  That's the, um, that's the perspective that you and I already talked about today. That perspective that it would be, seem like it would be very helpful for people to think about.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  It is. And, you know, I'm using extreme examples, right? Not everybody can relate to that, but they don't have to. And I don't, I don't want you to go be in a terrible situation just to earn some perspective, right? Like, but, um, just the simple reminder to yourself that it exists, like, somebody else has had it harder. There's a comfort in that, I think. Um, and it is an antidote to self pity. Self pity is a gateway to the outrage culture that I think we see all around us. And, uh,

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  self pity is a gateway to the, the socialistic tendencies, I think, that we've been seeing as of late. And you can avoid these things with, uh, some perspective and gratitude. And, um, You know, it's, again, it's hard for anybody in the teams to ever feel sorry for themselves when you know, because you know of these guys. And you know some of those guys I listed, of course. And, you know, if there's ever a reason you need to get up in the morning, not at 4:30, but like, like later, you know, at a normal human time, then, then the boys who wish they could get up, you know, that's a good reason, because they would like to be able

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  to get up, and they can't. And their widows are really wishing they would get up too, and they can't. You know, and the, man, I swear, I mentioned unsung heroes, but the widows are the heroes of the SEAL teams. I have yet to meet the wife of one of those guys who fell into self pity and despair. I have only met, I only know ones who have overcome with the greatest grace. It's just amazing. I've watched these, watched these women just serve as the most ultimate example, mothers as well, you know, that I know you know. Like Debbie Lee, for instance.

• 1:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  It's just, it's just incredible to watch that fortitude. We just, we just couldn't do it without them.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so always one of the things about, about Mark's mom, and Leif and I talk about this a lot, is, you know, when, when we called her from Iraq to talk to her and to console her, she was consoling us, you know, she was, wanted to make sure we were okay. She wanted to make sure we were handling things. She wanted to know if we needed anything. You know, that was her attitude out of the gate.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Jocko Willink?

  And that shows you, you know, the kind of people that you're talking about, you know, someone that's, that's taking their own personal worst nightmare that any, you know, any parent could ever have of losing their kid, and immediately saying, well, what can I do for you guys?

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. It is unbelievable. These...

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  You know, uh, it was recent friend, good friend I lost was, was Chuck Keating the fourth. And, um, you know, his, uh, his wife started a foundation in his name. His dad as well, and, uh, his family's just been incredible. But that's not, that's, that's, that's not the exception, like, that's been the rule.

• 1:05:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  From what I've seen. And, uh, it's so much harder to be the family left behind, uh, than it is to, to be us, I think. You know, we go and we, we choose to do this thing overseas and we're doing it with our brothers in arms and we love it. And, um, we know what's coming the next day. We, we're in control to an extent, to the greatest extent we can be. But our family is not. Their, their, their life doesn't change, except that we're just not there. And they don't know what's happening. And then they get a call, and I don't actually go into the detail on my wife's experience on, on the perspectives from darkness, but, but, you know, she gets a call, and so her only consolation is that it's a call and not a guy at the door.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  But, you know, it's, it's a call that she's getting before 6 a.m., you know, before she, her alarm goes off to go to work. And, and then there's, you know, the very typical kind of, uh, lack of exact information given to her. She's not sure what my face looks like because they're, because they don't know what my face looks like. They're not sure if it's still there, if my head is still there, like, there's all this misinformation getting to her.

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  Enough, enough information to just plant seeds of absolute horror.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  It's horrible. And guess who, but, but you know who the, who, you know, who went there first? Was the Looney family.

• 1:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, it's, it's, it was, it's Amy Looney there, cause, you know, who just lost her husband,

• 1:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Uh, two years earlier. And, uh, she's the one there consoling Tara. And, um, It's just, uh, that, that's the type of community that the SEAL teams is blessed with. And, um, you know, it's, it is, it is a true blessing and it's unique. I, I wish it were broader. I wish we could say, you know, I, I talked to other friends and other, and other communities. Um, that, that doesn't seem, it's not as good and I wish it was. I wish, we should all strive to just, to, to take care of each other in that way.

• 1:07:44Jocko Willink?

  So, rolling into your next chapter, and I, I haven't made my caveat that I always make. I'm not reading this whole book right now. And so when it skips around, it's because I'm not reading the whole book. You have to buy the book so that you can hear the whole thing. And, and we're just, you know, you and I are going off on a bunch of tangents and, which is awesome. But, you know, the book that has so many great details in it and the stories are so clear and they're real personal too. So, you gotta buy the book to get that.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Gotta buy the book.

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  You gotta buy the book. So, uh, the next chapter, which you mentioned earlier is called, "Who's Your Hero?" And I'm going to jump to this part right here where you talk about the SEAL teams. It says, "The SEAL teams, like any, like many military units, are relentless in the pursuit of establishing hero archetypes. Doing so is extremely important when the goal is to create a monoculture that operates as a mission-oriented team. This is a community with a very deep sense of who we want to be. We talk about it all the time and we beat it into our trainees."

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Jaco specifically beats it into our trainees.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  I, I did some of that.

• 1:08:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, here's some of the things that will be beaten into you. You will be someone who is never late. You will be someone who takes care of his men, gets to know them and puts their needs before yours. You will be someone who does not quit in the face of adversity. You will be someone who takes charge and leans when no one else will. You will be detail-oriented, always vigilant. You will be aggressive in your actions, but never lose your cool. You will have a sense of humor because sometimes that is all that can get you through the darkest hours. You will work hard and perform even when no one is watching. You will be creative and think outside the box, even if it gets you in trouble. You are a rebel, but not a mutineer. You are a jack of all trades and master of none.

• 1:09:37Jocko Willink?

  And then you go into the official ethos, which you mentioned earlier.

• 1:09:43Jocko Willink?

  I was debating if I should read this and I think I'm actually just gonna read it.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  It's a good ethos.

• 1:09:49Jocko Willink?

  So, here we go. "In times of war or uncertainty, there is a special breed of warrior, ready to answer our nation's call. A common man with uncommon desire to succeed. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America's finest special operations forces to serve his country, the American people, and protect their way of life.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  I am that man. My trident is a symbol of honor and heritage bestowed upon me by the heroes that have gone before. It embodies the trust of those I have sworn to protect. By wearing the trident, I accept the responsibility of my chosen profession and way of life. It is a privilege that I must earn every day.

• 1:10:39Jocko Willink?

  My loyalty to country and team is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans, always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others before my own.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions regardless of circumstance sets me apart from other men.

• 1:11:22Jocko Willink?

  Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast, my word is my bond.

• 1:11:33Jocko Willink?

  We expect to be, we expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders, I will take charge, lead my teammates, and accomplish the mission.

• 1:11:45Jocko Willink?

  I lead by example in all situations."

• 1:11:50Jocko Willink?

  I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up every time.

• 1:12:05Jocko Willink?

  I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.

• 1:12:16Jocko Willink?

  We demand discipline. We expect innovation. The lives of my teammates and the success of our mission depend on me, my technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to detail. My training is never complete.

• 1:12:34Jocko Willink?

  We train for war and fight to win. I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of combat power to bear in order to achieve my mission and the goals established by my country.

• 1:12:50Jocko Willink?

  The execution of my duties will be swift and violent when required, yet guided by the very principles that I serve to defend.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  Brave men have fought and died building the proud tradition and feared reputation that I am bound to uphold.

• 1:13:08Jocko Willink?

  In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my teammates steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed.

• 1:13:17Jocko Willink?

  I will not fail.

• 1:13:24Jocko Willink?

  So that's the SEAL ethos. And interestingly, I don't know if you, do you know where that came from?

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  No, I was actually, I just thought about that in the last three seconds. I was like, I would love to be a fly on the wall as this was getting drafted.

• 1:13:38Jocko Willink?

  So it was written in 2005. A bunch of us went to San Clemente Island. I would say there was maybe.

• 1:13:48Jocko Willink?

  Ten or fifteen, uh, yeah, probably ten or fifteen team guys that went out to San Clemente Island and made this and made the, uh, the other like shorter one. The little, the little short SEAL ethos and it was actually part of what was driving it was in response to before, I think it was before, what year did you get to the teams?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  I started BUDS in 2006.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay, so in like 2003, 2004, there was a platoon that just, there was a platoon commander that dyed his hair, he was overseas on deployment, dyed his hair, uh, blonde, had a pierced earring and, uh, was selling drugs to his platoon.

• 1:14:40Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just a total disaster. And then there was a bunch of other, you know, look, as you know, as we know, like, we're in the news a lot. And there's spikes where we're in the news for some, for some negative things. And so there, there was a couple of other really negative things. That was kind of the, the peak was this guy dealing drugs inside of his own platoon and the platoon being a total disaster and getting disbanded and sent home from deployment. Uh, by the way, this is like during a time of war. So, you know, the admiral who, you know, was a great guy, said, look, we need, we need to do something about this. And that's what, so we went out and the,

• 1:15:22Jocko Willink?

  and this is what came out of it. Um, I'm looking, I still remember some little things like, there were some things where I was, you know, a little bit more, I wanted, I wanted them to be a little bit more aggressive on some things. Like, I, I remember, I remember I got shut down. One of the lines that I was like, no, it should be destroy your enemy. Like, that's what we do. And it didn't make the cut. I think it was in, I think it was this part right here where it says, I stand, I stand to, I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of combat power to bear in order to achieve my mission and the goals established by my country. My version, it was to achieve my mission

• 1:16:01Jocko Willink?

  and destroy my enemy or destroy the enemies of our country or something like that. And I got, I got the reins pulled in on me. There was, there was quite a few, but you know, I did all right. I mean, we got some discipline in there, right? We did, we did pretty good.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  I would love to see what the Jaco version would be.

• 1:16:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  You wanted to go more aggressive? No way. Like, that's impossible to believe.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, and it's interesting, and one of the reasons that, like, a lot of the the discussion around it, and there were some great, and there was a bunch of great guys out there. I mean, it was like, the Admiral pick guys to go out there was pretty awesome. A great crew of people. And at the time, you know, it was 2005, like, we didn't really have as much combat experience as we have, you know, now, which is just awesome. But

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  my attitude was like, listen, we're not writing this for O5s, right? We're not writing this for SEAL Team commanders or Commodores. Like, this thing should be leveled at. The point of aim, point of impact should be an E5 team guy. Look, I know that this guy that was a, was an officer that had this bad platoon, but like, that's, that's who, not who we're naming. We should not have those problems and like, that's, yes, we gotta handle that, but this should be a, point of aim, point of impact should be an E5 team guy. That's, that's, needs to understand the ethos and go, hey, I need to do the right thing. Because, by the way, if you're in a platoon and you got squared away E5s, they'll destroy that. They'll, they'll crush that officer that's doing dumb things. They'll, they'll kill him.

• 1:17:27Jocko Willink?

  Or not kill him, literally Vietnam frag style, but they will get him removed, you know? And, you know, that's what will happen. So, yeah.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  And I think it hits that pretty well.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, it does pretty good. It does pretty good.

• 1:17:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a great ethos and it was awesome to, to, to be out there when this thing was getting written. And then see it, you know, it, it, it's always interesting to be a part of things like that, that you don't really know, like, I mean,

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  you don't really understand what you're doing at the time. You know, you're just trying to get the job done. You're trying to do a good job, but you don't always know what the impact's gonna be later. When you, when you do something like that. But yeah, it was an honor to be out there and make that happen or help make that happen. Again, there's a bunch of people out there. I was, I, I may very well have been, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say I was the junior guy, but there, because there was, you know, there was a a bunch of master chiefs out there, a bunch of badass master chiefs too. So, yeah, it was cool.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  And it's just, it's so important, and I'm gonna stop jumping ahead on the book now that I understand what we're doing. Cause I've already, I already hit this part.

• 1:18:34Jocko Willink?

  Should've pre-briefed you, I guess.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the, it's so important for an organization to understand who they wanna be. And that was the whole reason I put the SEAL ethos in there. Because there's a deep cultural mindset that is beaten into us, you know, quite literally. There's the more high-minded philosophical approach, which is the SEAL ethos. But it does a good job of relating to the lowest level guy, too. But it goes way beyond the SEAL ethos. I mean, there's so many other lessons that get repeated, like mantras throughout training, throughout BUDs, about who you are. Like what it means to be a guy who wears the trident. Like what that really means.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  And this is simple stuff, you know, and I listed some of it earlier, right? Like, just don't quit. Just be on time. Like, work when no one's watching. You know, it's like just really simple stuff, but it's like, it's who you better be. And you better be funny. Like, you know, that's actually part of our culture.

• 1:19:35Jocko Willink?

  Part of being a good team guy.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  You better have a really sick sense of humor. And like, you better go after each other, but it better be funny. You know, like, it's gotta actually, and like, we rely on that dark humor in a really fundamental way. That I think is maybe, maybe a side of us that isn't as prevalent in all the books and all the movies. But like, I like to think we're pretty damn funny. I mean, I've been on Saturday Night Live, so obviously I'm funny.

• 1:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, a thick skin and, you know, the ability to verbally spar with people 24 hours a day. From the moment you report into work, the moment you show up until, and any mistake that you make, you better, you know, you, you throw a shot on a, you know, while you're shooting, you throw a shot and hit something that you shouldn't have hit or whatever. It's, just sign up for ridicule, cause that's what's about to happen.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  It's the greatest thing. It really is.

• 1:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you got a bunch of stuff in here that's, you start talking about traits. And, you know, again, it's what you're talking about. Some of the traits that you, must be someone that can take a joke. Um.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  These are very simple.

• 1:20:44Jocko Willink?

  You want to be productive. You want to be someone that makes progress every single day. You want to be someone who identifies a goal and sticks with it. Again, you know what I like about these is just going back to the earlier conversation. If you think about how you would want your kid to act, these are good things. This is how you want your kid to act. You want to be, you want to be seen as reliable. You want people to ask things of you because you have a reputation for getting it done. Reliability is an element of fortune. You want to be, you want to have the ability to delay gratification.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  A mentally tough person can avoid the next cupcake and save it for later after earning with some exercise. You want to be even tempered. You don't ever want to lose it. Emotions don't drive your actions. You want to be humble. You have confidence, but not overbearing. Uh, you want to be someone that internalizes someone else's point of view before speaking at them. Like, these are the kind of things you're talking about. And, and you, you, you say this, the question is, how do we become the heroes we want to be? My answer, sanctioned intellectual property theft. That's how. No one has a patent on good habits. You can steal them. Identify your heroes and emulate the character traits that make that person more successful than you currently are.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  And this, and this gets into, this, I love this. This is one of my favorite chapters to write because I love psychology. You know, Jordan Peterson's one of my favorite thinkers out there.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  There's a lot of psychological references in this chapter and, um, and in another one too, but especially this one. And hero archetypes, and I already, I already hit what I meant by hero archetypes. And that, and I just think that's so important. You have to have a visualization of what you're looking up to. You have to look at yourself in 10 years and think, okay, that's, that's how, how, how would that person react to this situation? I should react that way now. Like, you know, and it's hard and this isn't supposed to be easy. And when I say sanctioned intellectual property theft, it's like, look at the attributes of people you respect. You know, like, what are they doing? Like, if you want to get to where they're at, just copy them. This isn't, this isn't rocket science.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Um, you know, this is, and any, any of your listeners are like, well, yeah, that's why I listen to Jaco.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  You know, yeah. And what's cool is, and you and I were talking about this earlier.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  This idea of sanctioned intellectual property theft, you know, extreme ownership. Is this is personal response that I did? Did I make up personal responsibility in the form of extreme ownership? No, I didn't. I didn't make up the, you know, discipline equals freedom. Did I, am I the first person that ever said, you know what? If you have discipline in your life, you'll have more freedom. I mean, it's in the Bible. Like, these, these aren't things that I.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Old ideas are the best ideas.

• 1:23:29Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. And, you know, maybe I worded them a way that was easier for people to understand or came at it from a different angle or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, this stuff's out there. And these are, these, these traits that you're talking about are just, as you were saying earlier, it's like, oh, we want your kid to not lose their temper. That's what you, you want your kid to be reliable. These are really basic things. And yet, if you don't identify them, which is your point, if you don't identify them. And you know, that's what in the Warrior Kid book, so I read in these kids' books. Well, one of the things in the Warrior Kid books is first his uncle, who's a SEAL, teaches him all the different codes.

• 1:24:10Jocko Willink?

  All the different warrior codes from, from ancient times till today, to the Ranger Code, to the SEAL Code, they're, they're in the book. And then he says, you need to write your own code. And that's what he does in the book, writes his own code of what it means to be a warrior kid. And that's what he lives up to. So same thing you're saying here.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, and, and then again, to the discussion about hierarchies and why that's kind of an important way of looking at this because, and also why I say you don't pick a person to be your hero. You pick many, real or imagined characters who, who excel in a certain hierarchy. And that, that's an important thing to define. There's different types of hierarchies, like some people excel in a jujitsu hierarchy. If you want to be good at jujitsu, copy this person. Okay. But you don't listen to everything they say because they might be all screwed up in some other way.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  This is, right? This is, this is a fact.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, but like. You know, follow this leader, like there's something about that leader that I like. And that there's something that makes me want to follow them. What is it? I should identify it. I can start to emulate those behaviors.

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  One note I made in, in, in your book here is, uh, when you said, when you said to do that, I have plus bad examples. And in my latest book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, I had this beautiful situation unfold where I had a horrible officer that we had a mutiny and got him fired. And then the guy that took over was the best guy ever and super humble, gave us ownership. I mean, it was just awesome. But I learned probably as much from the egotistical guy and seeing how we all reacted to him and seeing how we didn't want to listen to him, we didn't want to follow him, as I learned from the guy that was a just fantastic leader.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:25:59Jocko Willink?

  So I look at, you know, hey, here's, here's, I, I was always pulling the good things from people, but then also looking at people with negative examples and saying, okay, I know not to act like that.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  The villains.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  And if you've got heroes, you gotta have villains. And it's, um, and, and I guess the point of that chapter is, is yeah, to remind people of what some of the good attributes are and, and to, and to, and to think consciously about identifying those attributes, identifying yourself as the hero you want to be and then living up to that. So that's, that's part of it. But, and, but the broader cultural conversation is the fact that outrage culture is largely this product of the fact that we have, we have started to look at the wrong hero archetypes. We have started to elevate attributes that are not heroic at all, um, into a heroic

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  reality and, and it's, it's not good. And that's sort of, that's the second part of the chapter, the wrong heroes. And it's, it's, it's what we talked about, this aggrieved victim status.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  The, the loudest person on the internet, the snarkiest person on the internet, the one owning the libs or the cons, you know, it's like that one gets the most likes. Like it's, it's passion over sophistication. And these are not good things. I understand that it's entertaining, right? Um, I understand the temptation, especially on social media, but it's really detrimental to our larger conversation. You know, why should the fist banging activist, you know, you know, speaking truth to power, whatever the hell that means? Why should that be the person we listen to just because they're mad? Like why, why does anger beget? Some kind of credibility. It doesn't make any sense, but that's how we're acting as a culture. It doesn't make any sense, though.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  And like, I just want us to think through that. Like, that's the whole point of the chapter. And we'd be better off if we started to, to, to kind of rediscover the heroes that have gotten us through thousands of years of civilization. And again, the oldest ideas are the best ones. If, if, if people have been talking about certain heroic attributes for thousands of years, there's a really good chance those are good ideas. Because they've lasted. And they've gone through trial and error. But, uh, but like every generation, you know, you gotta, when you have to teach those ideals. And, and then as a young person, you have to stop and think, maybe there's a reason it's like this. Maybe I'm not the first one to think in revolutionary terms. You know, like, just maybe.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Like, there's a reason your granddad is telling you it's this way.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  And it's not because he's just stupid and out of touch. Like, just stop. And like, let's think about that as a possibility.

• 1:28:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's, it's weird with this. I, I, I would love to try and trace back the roots of this because one thing, like, one, one time we were on this podcast, we were talking about something and somebody asked a question on a Q and A. And I, basically, what I said was, and I think you turned it into a clip, Echo Charles, is I was saying like, hey, you gotta stifle those emotions. But don't let those emotions out. What are you kidding me? Like, you can't let that show. And the reaction from some people was, you know, that's horrible. You should never stifle your emotions. They'll, they'll, it turns into these, whatever, the, the mental problems and all this stuff. And I'm like, people took what I said to the extreme, which clearly, um, I don't really believe in anything extreme.

• 1:29:21Jocko Willink?

  That's why I wrote the book called The Dichotomy of Leadership, right?

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Except extreme ownership.

• 1:29:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, interestingly, you know, extreme ownership can be taken too far. And you can have people in leadership positions that go to an extent where they wanna own everything and they don't decentralize anything and it becomes a problem. So that's why we wrote The Dichotomy of Leadership, because you have to find balance in everything. So with this idea of stifle your emotions, look, oh, if you lose a loved one, I'm not saying you need to, you know. Act tough the whole time. No. And also as a leader in any position, if you're walking around completely stoic with no emotions, you won't attack, you won't, you won't, you won't connect with anybody. And so you don't have any personal connections with anybody. That's not a SEAL platoon. If you're in a SEAL platoon and you have no personal connection with your guys and

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  your platoon, you're not a leader. They don't respect you. They won't follow you.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  And I've seen that kind of leader.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  It doesn't work.

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't work. So when I say stifle your emotions, I'm talking about your little petty emotions that you're getting spun up about something.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:23Jocko Willink?

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  And, and, and, you know, and especially in my business and like of politics, like you realize quickly, you've got to define what you mean in very clear terms because everybody's first reaction is to totally take it out of context or, or just assume the worst of what you meant. Assume the worst of intentions. I go into the great amount of detail about this in the book too, because that, that's, that's a, that's a big marker of outrage culture is this, this need, this like desire to be like, just assume the worst of what you meant. Oh, stifle my emotions. Okay. Just walk around like robots. Of course that's not what you meant. You know, like let's, let's be gracious with how we understand each other. Just like, just a, just a tad. Be a lot better off.

• 1:31:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next chapter, it's called no plan B, which is, you know, got a little counterintuitive sound to it because as a SEAL and as a human being, you're always like, oh, you know, you gotta have a plan B in case something goes wrong. Here's your premise behind, behind this. You don't entertain the plan B option because when you do, you're entertaining failure. And in entertaining failure, you will embrace it. Ultimately, the no plan B mentality isn't about keeping you from doing something. Rather, it's about embracing a positive goal as your only choice. It's about enabling you to do something. It's about clearing the paths to your goals, to your achievements, to your tasks and your responsibilities. So.

• 1:31:50Jocko Willink?

  Explain your idea behind no Plan B.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  So, this started out as I was thinking about how not to quit at BUDs. And anytime I'd ever been asked that question, I would simply say, "Well, because I never had a choice. Because I just didn't think about BUDs as a choice. I didn't think about it as an achievement that I would, you know, hopefully make. It was just like, okay, I just have to do this because that's just, I just have to." You know, and I think most of us who made it through BUDs just had that mentality, like, "Okay, I just have to do another boat race and then, man, this really sucks. Like, I really hate this, but I just, I don't have a choice." You know, like-

• 1:32:28Jocko Willink?

  There's no other option.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  There's something liberating about that mentality. It's the only mentality you can have, and it is truly a no Plan B mentality. So, and I explain that in the book. I'm like, "I don't mean no contingencies. Obviously, you have to plan ahead." But, no Plan B is fundamentally about not quitting. And not quitting needs to be defined rather carefully, you know, and I point out, like, changing directions in life could seem like quitting. It's not necessarily. Like, "You're not a good artist. Just stop. Like, you're just not good. It's time to change directions, man." You know, and that's okay. Like, that's okay. That doesn't, like, you know, and I go into a much deeper conversation about

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  living with purpose. Ultimately, what I mean by living your Plan A and not living your Plan B, it is about living with purpose. And purpose is something only you can tell, really, if you're living up to it or not. It's hard to tell from the outside. But you know. You know if you quit. Like, you know if you just didn't do the right thing to live up to your end goal and execute the millions of smaller tasks that you need to execute to live up to your end goal. And I think this is also the chapter where I really go into some deeper discussions about one of my favorite quotes from St. John Paul

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  or Pope John Paul II, which is, "In America, freedom is, it's not the right to do what you want, but the freedom to do what you ought." I'm screwing up that quote a little bit, but the point is this. You live with ordered liberty. Ordered liberty means we live with a purpose. Like, we have, with freedom, and with that freedom, we have a responsibility to live as we ought to live. And then we have to define, okay, what is living how we ought to live? Like, that's a whole other discussion. And this is why religion is so important. This is why religion is such an important foundation. Our Judeo-Christian history is a very important foundation of our culture. Even if you don't believe in God, you have to admit that we get our morality from this place, from the Ten Commandments.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  And, uh, that matters. Like, it, it matters in a really deep way. Um, our morality, you know, our, kind of that sense of absolute morality, and where our laws come from, and where this, where this notion comes from of what it is to do the right thing. Like, how do you define the right thing? Again, we've already talked about this. If it's based in thousands of years of wisdom and trial and error, there's a good chance that it's right. Okay? Not, not a guaranteed chance, but there's a really good chance. Even if it doesn't feel good, or it doesn't feel nice and compassionate, it's real, and it, and it creates a sustainable society. And ultimately, sustainable societies are, should be our end goal.

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  Our outrage culture is, um, is counter to a sustainable society. It is, it is chaos manifested in our, in our words and our actions.

• 1:35:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, uh, you, you say here, "Pure freedom is chaos, anarchy, and moral decay. Freedom to do what you like without any moral compass can quickly result in the temptation to indulge in habits that may feel good momentarily but are wholly detrimental to yourself and others. Pure freedom detached from a higher sense of purpose results in, at best, an overindulgence, lack of discipline, unfaithful relationships, and some drug use. At worst, it can result in the total deterioration of a society." And, and you know, this is, I think it was actually Jason Gardner.

• 1:36:07Jocko Willink?

  When before he was out of the teams, but he, he, he was listening to the podcast and he was hearing me talk about, I, I think he was hearing me talk about the gulags or, or just something. And he goes, hey, discipline equals freedom. That applies to societies too, doesn't it? And I'm like, yes, it does. If you have total freedom, everyone do whichever you want. Well, then you, you, you're destroyed and you end up a slave to, well, you end up a slave to any number of things. Whereas if you have discipline inside of society, which is called law and order, and you follow those rules, well, then you actually end up with more freedom, which is what we try and do here.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, discipline equals freedom is the, the simplest way of putting that because it's, it's very true. And um, it's been true for a very long time.

• 1:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Indeed, indeed. Uh, next chapter, again, I'm jumping forward here. Next chapter. This is the chapter.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  People gotta read the book. They want more. There's a lot more in there.

• 1:37:01Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's a ton and it, and you know, you do, I, you, you give a lot of um, almost academic level backup. So you give some like common sense stuff. You give some academic and you talk about the psychol- psychol- psychological viewpoint of things, some historical references. You do a great job of balancing out what you're saying and showing multiple examples from different aspects. So that's why there's, that's why the book, you have to read the book to get all that information. Um, the next one is called uh, Be Still. I gotta read this little section. In the SEAL Teams,

• 1:37:40Jocko Willink?

  our first exercise in training, the mind to be still is drown proofing. And yes, it is, it is as ridiculous as it sounds. As legend has it, and it may indeed just be legend, drown proofing originates from the story of an American POW in Vietnam as the Vietcong transported him along the Mekong River. They decided they'd have enough, had had enough of him and threw him overboard. But this was not some. Magnanimous gesture of human civility. He was not being released for good behavior. They expected him to drown. It was reasonable expectation. His hands were tied behind his back and his feet were tied together. Visualize that for a, for a second. This creates quite the predicament, especially when you are trying not to drown. He had to figure out how to swim to shore.

• 1:38:25Jocko Willink?

  And as the story goes, he did just that. Ever since then, a key element of SEAL training involves drown-proofing us. Making sure that we too can jump from a boat with our hands and feet tied. And then you go over the multiple ways to do this. And you say here, uh, to do this, it requires that you do not panic.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  While instructors are yelling, don't panic.

• 1:38:50Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's, you know, you talked about that as being, um, sort of one of your first lessons in learning how to be calm. And not freak out about stuff.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's such a necessary part of, of military training. And drown-proofing is an excellent way to do it. Not, not because we actually think that might happen. Like, how unlucky would that be?

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  That'd be unlucky.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  Or lucky and it's, it's like, wow, okay. You're like, this is just like training, you know? They put a weight on you though, you're screwed or, you know, there's a lot of ways to tie you up. Anyway, not the point. The point is not that you're preparing for this specific eventuality. The point is, is that you, you have a set of skills and you better implement those skills. While the fear of drowning is, is all around you. And of course it gets worse than the drown-proofing gets into dive comp or, or pool comp. Which is, uh, my, it's probably my least favorite thing in BUDS.

• 1:39:44Jocko Willink?

  When I got to BUDS, I had no idea what it was. They had a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, uh, movie poster up, but it had, it was crossed out. It said BUDS Pool Comp Massacre. And they had like drawn a regulator on a person getting murdered by, uh, Leatherface. Yes. Yeah. So I was like, well, I wonder what that is, but yeah, sure enough.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Sounds great. Yeah. Sign me up, you know?

• 1:40:06Jocko Willink?

  I failed.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  I failed pool comp, my first, my first go at pool comp, I failed and I was.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  Recycled to the next class?

• 1:40:15Jocko Willink?

  No, I mean, I, I, we, I got to retest again on Monday. So we took pool comp on Friday. And then we got retested on Monday if we failed. I failed.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, I failed first couple of times too. I ever, I don't, very rarely do you make it through the first time.

• 1:40:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, I was not happy.

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  What's pool comp?

• 1:40:33Jocko Willink?

  Pool comp is they put an old school dive rig on you. So like the old school scuba tanks and this thing called the, what's it called? A dual hose regulator?

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  That's what I call it.

• 1:40:42Jocko Willink?

  There's a hose that comes in that brings the air in and there's one that you blow out. And they put you down on the bottom of the pool and they just start to just mess with you. They rip your regulator, they rip your mask off. And then they start tying knots in your regulator that you have to then untie underwater and you have to follow all these proper procedures to get everything back on. Meanwhile, they're slapping you in the head. They're grinding your face into the thing, uh, into the, you know, the pool deck. And it, it's, it sucks. And eventually they tie something called a whammy knot, which is a knot that you can't get out. And so they tie this whammy knot and then you have to go to proper ditching procedures, which means you take your rig completely off. You try.

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  You have to attempt to get it to work. If you can't get it to work, you take off your weight belt, you lay it over your rig. And then you look at your instructor, you give them the thumbs up and then you do a proper free swim or ascent. And if you mess up any of these, and there's procedures for everything. If you mess them up, then you fail. So. But it's, it, dude, it's, it's, it's no joke. Like they come down and freaking hammer you.

• 1:41:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, man.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  And then they always, they always get you as you have exhaled.

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, for sure. They're watching the bubbles.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  And then the wave, and then the wave, they call it a surf hit. Like, so they're simulating this wave, this amazingly complex wave that somehow ties your hoses in knots. It's like. Isn't true. That's not real. Okay, like, there's no wave like that. But it's not the point. You know, it's same with drown proofing. The point is not to prepare you for this eventuality. There is no way in hell that your hoses will ever be tied in knots. Mostly because you'll never use a rig like this that actually can be tied in knots because this rig is not, it's just for training. So that's not the point. The point is the procedures. The point is, you're drowning. Will you still calm yourself and work through procedures? That's the entire point of the exercise.

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  If you panic, you are going to fail. And there's physiological reasons for that because you're using more objects or freaking out. And there's psychological reasons and they're just the instructor. These instructors are seals. They don't want a guy in the teams that's going to be on a dive with them that's going to freak out if something goes wrong. Because stuff goes wrong when you're diving. So, that, that, you know, from your perspective was a, was a, the initial recognition of like, hey, I better be calm.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:03Jocko Willink?

  Be still, as you say.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, the reason I say be still because I was thinking of, um, the patrolling acronym that we use.

• 1:43:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Sills.

• 1:43:13Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  You know, stop, look, listen, smell. And, uh, that's, that's exactly what it sounds like. You stop because you've, you've, you've done something to the environment. Maybe you landed with a helicopter. Now that's actually, you know, I don't want to give too much away in the book. But there's a really great intro to this chapter, everybody. You gotta buy it and know what it is.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  And so you stop and you, you've created a disturbance. So stop and look around. Just chill and look around. And then keep moving. That's Sills. Sills. We just, that's what we say. And it's a patrolling tactic. It also kind of sounds like still. And it's kind of the same meaning.

• 1:43:50Jocko Willink?

  Same idea, for sure.

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  That's why I named the chapter Be Still. And, um, and then you apply that to your life. Because I, I understand that not everybody is going to be thrown overboard with their hands and feet tied. But if you are, I go into great detail about how to overcome that particular predicament. Um, it is possible. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of methodology there. It's much easier than you think, um, as long as you don't panic. So. And uh, this is another chapter called do something hard. So hey, you know what? Your do something hard could be drown proofing and everybody can do this. Do it with a buddy though. Do not, do not do it alone.

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Do it with a buddy. For sure.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  That's the worst thing.

• 1:44:30Jocko Willink?

  One up, one down.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  Luckily, it's hard to tie your own hands behind your back without a buddy. So um, the uh, the point is this. It's again, old lessons. Count to 10 before you react. But that's fundamentally what this chapter is about. And we have had a habit lately, given the um, given the extreme nature of our uh, kind of immediate gratification that occurs with social media, to react very quickly and wildly about things. Um, our media reacts unbelievably quickly and wildly about things and it is, it is a disservice to our country. It is, I mean, I, that's an extreme statement, but it is true. It has gotten out of hand. And it's, it's so bad that I felt the need to write this book. Um, our media does, but, but we're, but again,

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  their media is feeding off of us. We have to do better as individuals. We have to, to say like, that's not going to work on me. You know, that, that, that, that quick, over the top reaction is not going to work on me. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to feed into it. I'm not going to reward it. That's, that's our duty.

• 1:45:34Jocko Willink?

  You have to not click on clickbait headlines.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I can't help myself. I'm going to click on the click, but I'm not going to react to it, right? So that's, you know, and even for good practice, go ahead and click on it. See if it makes you mad. And if it does, do it again.

• 1:45:49Jocko Willink?

  It's incredible when you, when you click on a clickbait article, um, and I'm talking mainstream news media. And you go, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened. And then you click on it and you're like, wait a second. That's not what happened. I just got click baited. Don't let it happen.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  And the problem is, actually, see, the problem is, is that people don't click. The problem is.

• 1:46:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they just read the headline.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  And I go into a lot of detail on that. Actually, I give some example. I could give examples every single day. I just kind of chose some random ones for the book.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  But an example might be, the examples I use in the book are regarding something like environmental regulations, because this is a very emotional topic for people. When you hear the Trump administration repealed 12 Obama-era environmental regulations, here's what you're thinking, and be honest, this is what you're thinking. You're thinking black or green sludge oozing into a river. You're thinking black smoke like emanating from a factory all of a sudden, while, you know, these corporate fat cats count their money and birds are falling out of the sky. Like, this is what you're thinking. If you're being, like, this is the visualization that occurs. But is it true? Nobody asks the second question. Is it true? Yeah, what does this actually mean? Or what does it mean? Or like, why would they deregulate that?

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  You know, why was it put in place just a few years ago? You know, I mean, like, what kind of regulation was it? You know, is there a good reason for it? And then I go into, basically, a case study on something called new source regulation, and we don't have to talk about it now, but it's, I basically write a case study on this because it's important. Like, there's, there's, there's good examples, and there's, and there's, there's, and then the headline about that particular regulation basically said, you know, Trump is removing air pollution regulations. So again, your mind goes to those places I just talked about. The article itself kind of gives both sides, like, actually not a bad article, and this is usually the case, in my experience, because I, you know, do this every day.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  In my experience, the, the writer, the journalist is, not always, but a lot of times, like, actually kind of gives a balanced article, but the editorialized headline is terrible, totally misleading. You know, their, their own article debunks the headline. And you're like, what the hell is going on here? Okay? Now, a lot of that's oftentimes because the journalist is not the one writing the headline. Okay, so that's, it's a whole different story.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  And then you look into it, right? And it's like, okay, well, it turns out, yeah, they wanna, they wanna make it easier for factories to, to update their systems or, or power generation plants to update their systems. They don't wanna have them go through this new source review regulation, which is extremely costly and unpredictable. And environmentalists say, well, that's just, that's, you're just giving, giving away to corporations, right? You're deregulating them. But it's like, well, no. As it turns out, if you wanna put a carbon capture addition to your power plant, which means capturing more pollutants or carbon dioxide, then you can't. You can't have to go through this extremely costly new source review. Well, maybe we should stop that, you know? And that's, and that's the background, you know?

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  I can go, I can go to a lot more detail on that, but just one example. I could think of an example almost every single day. Like, the headline just isn't what you think, you know? Let's, let's, let's bring it back to coronavirus. So, the headline is, you know, the Trump administration screwed up the coronavirus tests. Like, South Korea is testing 20,000 people a day, and we've only done, like, you know, 10,000 tests or something. And by the time you're listening to this podcast, that reality has changed drastically. But in our current moment, that's what happened in the last couple of months. And there's some truth to that. Like, America was behind on tests. But who's actually at fault? Ask the question, right? And then look into the answer from some different sources.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  Because the truth is, FDA never approved any South Korean test. For all we know, those tests aren't very high quality. There's different kinds of tests. You know, they might give false positives or false negatives. That stuff matters when you're trying to control an epidemic. You know, it would be easy to just buy the South Korean test. We don't do that. Not because Trump said we don't wanna do it, not because Trump isn't taking it seriously. Hell, it's not even Obama, okay? It's actually none of their fault. It's just our system, okay? Our system is in there for, for, for a reason. Like, we have a very strict system from the FDA on what kind of tests can be used for, for stuff like this. Now, that exists for a decent reason. For instance, if, if, if people remember the, I think it's called Theranos?

• 1:50:28Jocko Willink?

  The uh

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  The lady who has to fake the fake cancer test.

• 1:50:31Jocko Willink?

  That's absolutely called Theranos.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  You're very sure of this.

• 1:50:36Jocko Willink?

  No, I tracked on that big time because there's a, it's a very interesting case study.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, you're in the corporate.

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for about a million different reasons. It's a really interesting case story. And just that.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  They faked a cancer treatment.

• 1:50:48Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't just cancer. It was like, hey, you can identify literally hundreds and hundreds of problems that you could have medically from a single pinprick of blood.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:56Jocko Willink?

  Which was just, just completely.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Not true.

• 1:51:00Jocko Willink?

  Not true. Just not true.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  Now, going into more detail, that particular lab was federally regulated and qualified under a certain type of regulation through CMS. But they, but not through the FDA's regulations. Okay, so eventually they were caught, right? And that's what it's for. Like, that's what the regulation is for. So, it's still annoying, right? We should have more tests for the coronavirus available. But our system was not designed to make that happen quickly. It should have been. I'm not saying there's not room for some lessons learned here and some change. And we will make those changes, actually. Um, the administration frankly, already has. So, but the only way to do it is to get the private sector involved and to give them the flexibility

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  to do the test and then to, and then to streamline the FDA's testing of that test so that we know it's actually a decent test. You know, there was this, the point is, right? Like, stop and think and, and wonder. Be curious. Like, is, is it true that a test is just a test? Like, of course not. Like, there's all different types. Some are swat, you know, I mean, it's, some are labs, some are test kits, like, some are more accurate than others, like, that, is it possible that it's more complicated than the headline is telling you? Is it poss, is it, is it just a little bit possible? You know, and, and again, when I say the media does us such a disservice, it's because it's so, you know, you should have somewhat of a combative media against government. You know, their, their, their point is a check and balance

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  against government. But you would hope that their purpose would be to educate. And um, that I, I believe that has changed radically. I, I believe they no longer view it as, as their, as their um, duty to educate the public. It's, they, they, they only see confrontation as their duty. And I don't find that to be a, a good service to the American people.

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  I would say that is an accurate statement.

• 1:52:59Speaker 02

  The news does that or has been doing that a lot, though, even like regular local news. They do that where they'll and but it's not, you don't click on it, but it's the same concept when they say, is your cellphone killing you more at 11, you know? So it's like, that's the clickbait right there, see what I'm saying? They've been doing that for a long time. Yeah. And then, yeah, then you then you listen to it because you're like, dang, it might be killing me. You listen to it and then it's like, oh, yeah, you know, someone dropped their cellphone and it like made them, you know, do something that killed them.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  Turns out to be like totally innocuous.

• 1:53:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Debunks the headline.

• 1:53:35Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of headlines, next chapter. Sweat the small stuff. This chapter, this is the chapter where I gave you permission to complain. Permission to moan and groan about the nitty gritty, small but annoying ankle biting inconveniences we face in our everyday lives. Permission to gripe about even your smallest troubles, grumble about long lines at the drive through and whine about the imperfect weather. I'm actually going to encourage it. You're welcome. Okay, don't thank me yet. There are certain ground rules. One, sweating the small stuff is okay, but exercise your complaints lightheartedly. Seek out humor in your whining, be humble, be self aware. Two, if you're, if you allow yourself to sweat the small stuff, and I think you should,

• 1:54:20Jocko Willink?

  then you must also force yourself to be detail oriented. Three, if you allow yourself to sweat the small stuff, then you must try your hardest not to sweat the big stuff. What are you talking about here?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Well, it actually kind of goes back to what you got to. I had to restrain myself from moving to this chapter when you said it before. When you, when you got a bunch of criticism, right? For saying, don't be emotional about stuff. And people are like, well, you can't tell me that. And that makes them emotional ironically. But, but in your, in your reaction was, okay, I'm not saying be a robot. You know, I'm just saying like, don't let it get the best of you. And so I really wanted to be like, oh, my God, it's like my chapter about sweating the small stuff. Because, because every time you're told, you know, oh, don't sweat the small stuff. And I'm like, well. I don't know about that. Um, I think there's some venting that has to occur.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  And, uh, and I think we take it a little too far in the SEAL teams.

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  I mean, we complain about the smallest of things, but there's like, but I, and I examined that, like this chapter is about examining that truth. Why do we do that? Are we a bunch of divas? Yes, yes, but like that is, then that is true. Two things.

• 1:55:38Jocko Willink?

  That is affirmative.

• 1:55:38Speaker 01

  That two, two things can be true at once. We can be divas, but there's also a deeper reason and value to it. As long as you do it right. And I try to exam, I try to really examine that carefully in this chapter about what the right way is to complain. And like, I try to set some ground rules, like be funny. Being funny is a decent way to do things. Um, it can't be too serious. Like there's a difference between complaining about how crappy the coffee is at the command. And complaining about the actual command atmosphere to your guys. There's a, there's a big difference as from a leadership perspective, there's a difference there. Like one can be kind of funny and just like, oh yeah, stupid, whatever.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Coffee's crap and the, the building's stupid or whatever. Like the same things people, the gym isn't hard enough. There's not enough weights. Cause I'm stronger than whatever, you know, typical dumb team guy complaints. There's a difference as a leader, especially.

• 1:56:36Jocko Willink?

  Those are legitimate complaints though.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially. Yeah. No, I complain all the time. Like, oh, I guess, I guess we're out of 45 pound plates, you know? My deadlift.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  But, uh, the, um, just big, as a leader, especially a big difference between that and being like, our CEO is messed up. Like that's, that's.

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  This is one of the things I talk about leadership strategy and tactics is like, if you are just whitewashing everything. This coffee is fantastic and it sucks. You, your guys are starting to look at you going, okay, wait a second.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  You're not real.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're not real. And you think that you, you, you're not questioning, you're not pushing back against anything. However, like you said, if you come down and you say, our commanding officer is an idiot. That's going to be problematic. So you gotta. You gotta be careful about what you're complaining about to your point complaining forms some level of bond, right? That's one of the things that we do in the teams. Like, we're gonna complain about the freaking birthing that we have and the this, that, and the other thing. And it's like, okay, cool, cuz we're all on the same team, we're all complaining about it. But if somebody starts complaining about things that matter at a more strategic level, now we got a problem.

• 1:57:45Speaker 01

  The other part of the don't sweat the sweat the small stuff mentality is the detail oriented part. This is really important cuz one being detail oriented is an element of fortitude, I would argue. I think rather effectively. And I wrapped it into this chapter, though. And you could probably wrap the detail oriented mindset into many of the lessons in this chapter. But I put it into this one because if you're sweating the small stuff, then by definition, you are concerned about small things. And it's not self evident to me that being so chillax about all the stuff is a virtue. Now, we sometimes see that as a virtue, like, like the big, and I know, like, the dude from the big Lebowski. That guy doesn't care about anything. But is that good?

• 1:58:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, other than bowling and white Russians.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  He was pretty passionate about those things. That is true.

• 1:58:32Jocko Willink?

  Another Caucasian Gary.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  But, um, but you know, it's like, you know, you're that, that, that cool kid in high school who just like lets everything roll off their back, you know, it's like the cool surfer dude. I, I got it. There's, I'm not saying there's no value in that. But it's not self evident to me that that's what we should aspire to. Because it's not obvious to me that, that they're a highly productive people. Maybe they are, not saying they can't be. But if you're not concerned with small things, there's a pretty decent chance you're not concerned about bigger questions in life, about bigger elements of personal responsibility. And you might not be that motivated to, to move up the hierarchy that we talked about. And so being concerned with the small stuff is, is a habit.

• 1:59:19Speaker 01

  It's an Aristotelian, in the Aristotelian sense, we build good habits that, that are, that are meant for a higher purpose. That's what makes them a good habit. We do it because it is good. And so that's the deeper thing here. Yeah, complain a little bit, like, like especially, you know, on the way, on the way here, we're going down, uh, is that Midway Drive? And, um, San Diego has often had this problem and I've complained about it for a very long time, which is that the lights are not synchronized. They're not synchronized for traffic flow, the way like New York City is in Manhattan. Those are well synchronized lights. One of my biggest pet peeves is the lights are not synchronized because it's a solvable problem.

• 2:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Mightn't too, by the way.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  To synchronize the lights, you know, as a city manager or a mayor or however the system is. And I was like, as I was going from red light to red light, trying to get to Jocko's podcast because I cannot be late because I just wrote in my book that I gave him, "Don't be late."

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  That would've been funny.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  I was like, "These damn red lights." You know, and so my wife is like, "I am so sick of hearing you complain about the..." She's like, she hates this chapter because she's, she's so used to the SEAL Team culture. She's like, "Why'd you even write this? Like, don't encourage this." I'm like, "I'm trying to encourage it to the right extent," you know, and it, because it is, I am walking a fine line.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:00:45Speaker 01

  And we're trying to, we're trying to reverse some, some commonly held beliefs. And it was a fun chapter to write. It was one of my favorite ones.

• 2:00:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and obviously you just met me, the dichotomy of this is if you get so focused on little things, then you are wasting your time, you know? You're wasting your time. The mats on my personal home gym are dirty. And people say, "You're, that's, you need to clean your mats. What kind of discipline is that?" I'm like, "Look, I would have to spend an hour a day cleaning those mats to make them look clean, maybe even more than that. I don't. I don't care. It's my garage gym. There's chalk on the floor and sweat. That's the way it is. I'm not worried about it."

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, that's a really good point, too. And it's, it's, well, it makes, especially makes sense in the, in the context of the dichotomy, right?

• 2:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  The balance. And like, and I, and I, and I hope that what I write there... Helps people understand that there is a balance. You know, it's, it's don't, it's, it's, it's, it's operating in that gray area so that you can focus on the big stuff. Because, you know, seals like to complain about wet socks, like a lot. Like it's a, and I go into great detail about this. And we avoid wet socks that, uh, you know, to an extreme extent. But when it, when things get really hard, you know, we, the complaining seems to stop. When things are really serious, um, we understand and have some perspective about that. And we, and we act accordingly.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  And, uh, and I think that's perfectly relatable to regular life. You know, it's, it's why we go, it's why we go and do happy hours after work. You know, you're just, you're, you're blowing off some steam in a healthy way. It's why people go see a therapist. Like you're really just, you're really just complaining to the therapist for an hour. And that's, that's necessary.

• 2:02:40Jocko Willink?

  Venting. Echo says.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, it's like you're just kind of letting that steam out so that your, your, your holding tank of emotions doesn't explode in somebody's face. And that's because that's how you lose an eye.

• 2:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Next chapter. The right sense of shame. In America today, we too often look at personal failings as things to overcome, move past or forget. Sometimes we should do one or all of those things, but we should also do something else. Learn our lesson. The list of public figures who run headlong into self-inflicted failure, personal, political or otherwise, and then reemerge shameless without having appeared to learn a thing is long. Don't get me wrong, I'm no opponent of redemption, far from it. I certainly believe there should be space for reemergement, reemergence from public scorn. I believe redemption is a trademark of an enlightened society.

• 2:03:38Jocko Willink?

  One of the most, one of the more detestable social trends now is mocking, is the mocking of redemption and the dismissing of the idea that it is possible or even desirable. In place of a system of repentance, justice and mercy, we have a culture of mindless fury and outrage culture.

• 2:03:57Jocko Willink?

  So you you you talk about this sense of shame, which is like a really important thing. And I I looked at this from a team guy perspective. The amount of shame, like for instance, if you forget a piece of gear, you I I when when a guy in one of my platoons or my task unit made a mistake, I almost never had to do anything other than simply, very quietly acknowledge that that that I saw.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Let him know you know.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  And they would be crushed. The shame would just drive them to never make that mistake again. That's what you're talking about here, that we've kind of lost that in a sense.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Like in a huge sense.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  In a huge sense. And then the other side of that is like, hey, just because you forgot something doesn't mean I go, I don't want you in this platoon. You're a piece of shit. You can get no, no, no, no. It's like, it's okay. Hey, you made a mistake. You own it. You admit it. You tell me what you're going to do to fix it. And then we're back on the level and I'm, you know, we're ready to move forward, which we don't have. And then, of course, you go into this whole episode that took place with a comedian whose name is Pete Davidson is his name.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:05:10Jocko Willink?

  So this is this guy. This guy is on Saturday Night Live one night and he says, they put a picture up of you and they put a bunch, a bunch of politicians up there. And then they put a picture of you up and and this guy, Pete Davidson says, this guy's kind of cool. Davidson cracked Dan Crenshaw. You might be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno. The audience howled, or as the audience howled, Davidson jumped in with a quick aside. I'm sorry, I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  That happened.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that happened. I wanna, and most people know that story by now, um, in pretty detail. I do give some behind the scenes, never before heard, uh, elements to that story.

• 2:06:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's good detail.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Which is why you gotta read the book.

• 2:06:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  But, um, the, why is that in the shame chapter is the question, I think. Um, I also, I wanna hear your perspective on that whole thing too at first, cause you told me a minute ago that.

• 2:06:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, from my perspective, it looked like this.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Like, this, this, just to be clear, like during the election, when it all happened, cause I was on your show last time, well before this ever happened.

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  No one knew who Dan Crenshaw was back then.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Jocko Willink?

  When, when you first came on.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Except all of Jaco's listeners.

• 2:06:34Jocko Willink?

  Well, then they did, but I'm saying like, when you first came on, no one really, you know, you, you, you just started your campaign.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  That was early.

• 2:06:41Jocko Willink?

  And, um, yeah, so it was early and, uh, but now, all of a sudden, man, overnight, everybody knew who you were cause of this. And what happened was, from my perspective, was people, people started hitting me up on social media like, are you gonna, uh, you know, denounce Saturday Live? And, uh, you know, what did you think of this? And then they put the little thing in there and, you know, of course, my kinda gut was like, kinda funny. You know, I was like, like, my, my response was like, kinda funny? I don't know, that, that made me laugh. Uh, but here's the thing, luckily for me, I'm always behind on Twitter, like, I'm not quite caught up.

• 2:07:21Jocko Willink?

  And as I finally started where I was like, okay, I'm gonna respond to this, right around then, and I was like, man, what do I, I'm like, thinking to myself, I don't think Dan is like, crying over this. I don't think he's at home going, I can't believe that some comedian made fun of me. Like, I'm thinking about, and but people are acting as if you were outraged. They were outraged for you. And, you know, God bless them. It wasn't like they're bad people. They were just offended by it, right?

• 2:07:49Speaker 01

  It's like what we do now.

• 2:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they were offended by it and like you and I both know, I'm like, hey, man, that's something that probably has been said to him a hundred times in a platoon space somewhere, you know, like, they're gonna make fun of you for everything. So anyways, uh, when I finally responded, it was like,

• 2:08:08Jocko Willink?

  I think Dan can handle himself or something and I quoted you saying, hey, uh, whatever your thing was like, hey, I'm not outraged. It's fine. He's literally a comedian. And once again, I'll use the term literally in its part. The guy is literally a comedian. He's supposed to make fun of things and make people laugh. He's not doing political commentary and it's not a personal attack on you for just to, just to attack you as a human being. He's trying to make people laugh. Uh, so that was kind of my perspective.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  It's funny how like when you're in a position like you are and, and I am in, you know, people like, they hit you up on social media. It's almost like this challenging, like you better do this or I'll never, never like you again. Or if you don't do what they want, I liked you, but now, now I can't, can't trust you anymore. It's just funny how that works. So that's one element of it. But the, yeah, the, the hitman in a porno thing was pretty funny. Like that was, that is, I don't think that even pissed off anybody to be honest.

• 2:09:07Jocko Willink?

  It was the, it was the, the next.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  It was the next comment, which was, yeah, I mean, it was very dismissive.

• 2:09:13Jocko Willink?

  It was actually the whatever.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:15Jocko Willink?

  It was actually the whatever.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. If he hadn't said that, he wouldn't have received any backlash.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  If he would've said, I'm sorry, I know he lost his eye in war. It would've been like, you know what? Okay, cool.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:26Jocko Willink?

  And then he said, or whatever.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. And it was a very dismissive tone and, um, now, okay, so, but why is that in that chapter? Um, and it's because of this. So, the, the, the point is, is that the Saturday Night Live story was a story fundamentally about showing the right sense of shame and reaction to that. So, cause it could've gone a lot different. Like I could have asked Jaco to be like, denounce them for me. And they'd be like, okay, fine, Dan, jeez. You're being kind of a bitch, but you know,

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  and I could have actually stoked the outrage and just like played the aggrieved victim. And, uh, if, by the way, if you read left wing media these days, they'll say that's all the things I did. It's, it's actually absurd how they rewrite history.

• 2:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. It's insane. Like the, the lies that occur from left wing media are, don't get me started. I've already started, but okay, so that but that's not what happened, right? I was like, my line was something along the lines of like a, you know, in this, in this life, like try hard not to offend people, but also try really hard not to be offended. So, you know, it's kind of sucks what he said, but now I'm not going to ask for him to be denounced or I don't want, I'm not demanding an apology. Be careful not to demand an apology. I don't care if they apologize. It's like, my life goes on either way. That's sort of how I stated that. And, uh, no, he shouldn't be fired. People ask me, like, should be fired? Like, no, like, why? You know?

• 2:10:53Jocko Willink?

  And I'm remembering now, you also said something along the lines of, look, I'm not really offended, but you may have offended other people. Like you, you, you kind of took a stance for other vets that have been wounded, especially guys that have been more grievously wounded than you.

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  That was the important line I had to walk on that entire reaction. Because that's legitimate.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Totally legitimate.

• 2:11:14Speaker 01

  You can't kind of, you can't forgive the guy right off the bat. You have to acknowledge that he was screwed up. And, um, but on the other hand, you can also acknowledge that, that he may have made a mistake, like he may have misspoke, like it may have been sort of ad-libbed, you know? Cause that is a very highly scripted show, but after working with Pete Davidson, like he kind of goes off the rails sometimes.

• 2:11:39Jocko Willink?

  And you mean on the show or in life?

• 2:11:41Speaker 01

  Both.

• 2:11:42Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:11:43Speaker 01

  Obviously. But, uh, but, uh, you know, so it's like, you know, always that it's kind of going back to be still like, is there a chance that there's more to this story? Um, is there a chance I don't have to act like an aggrieved victim? I don't feel like an aggrieved victim, so maybe don't act like it. And so that gave, that gave SNL the space to invite me on the show. If I had Ridley Stoked, the outrage mob, um, why would they invite me on the show? You know, cause now, now I've put them in a corner. And, uh, and so you can see this going that way. And this is how it usually goes, right? This kind of extreme sense of shame must be showed. And the extreme sense of, or the extreme outrage results in an extreme sense of shame.

• 2:12:27Speaker 01

  And so we've miscalibrated how we feel shame in this country. And that's a problem for our culture. And the reason Americans liked the whole SNL moment with me and Pete was because it was the right balance. So the right sense of shame is about finding the right balance of shame. Cause it seems like we have these like two options and I opened up that chapter talking about all these politicians who run headlong into failure and then like reemerge untouched or unrepentant at all. There's a lot of examples like that, okay? And I try to have bipartisan examples, by the way. Cause I did want this to be readable to people other than, you know, my conservative fanbase.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  And, um, and the point is, is that, yeah, those politicians are bad people for basically feeling no shame. At the same time, our culture has given them no incentive to feel any shame. Because the outrage mob is so severe and so unrelenting and so unforgiving that there's no incentive to actually react the way you should react. And so you end up just not, either not apologizing or apologizing profusely. And like I actually, in the book, I actually, actually analyzed this with some bell curves and graphs that I drew. Cause just to like illustrate this visually for people. So you just have to buy the book to see what I'm talking about.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  Um, and, but the point is, is like, we need to get back to the middle ground where it's like, I'm kinda sorry, but I'm not really sorry. You know, and there's some good examples of that. Like I used Ellen DeGeneres as a great example. Cause she took all this heat for like, you know, hanging out with George W. Bush at the Dallas Cowboys game. She didn't apologize. She wasn't like, you know, I didn't, she could have done like the extreme apology. I didn't realize how much pain I would cause the LGBTQ community. She could have said that, right? And you've seen other celebrities do similar things, like similar apologies. It's like, you've got nothing to apologize for. Nothing.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  And she didn't apologize. She she just kind of explained it. She kind of just put people in their place like, hey, like, it's cool to hang out and be friends with people who you disagree with. And that was it.

• 2:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Novel idea.

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  It was it was and it was it was a she diffused the situation rather elegantly. And I use a couple of other examples of some good ones, too, but that's what we have to be aspiring to. And

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  and we're not there right now. And then it gets into the the chapter gets into the individual sense of shame because this is that that's the cultural problem we have. That's the cultural outrage mob problem that I've just described. But there's a more individualistic sense of shame, too, about how you carry yourself through your daily life. And and how you have to feel bad about something if you're going to live your plan A. Like, you have to know what it is, and you have to understand right and wrong. You can only understand right and wrong if you understand what you should feel shame about. And then I and I get again into kind of a religious discussion here about like our morality and like how we actually know right from wrong. Like, this is a this is a deep thing to understand and how you should feel bad about certain things if you're going to live the right way.

• 2:15:38Speaker 01

  And again, we we do this meticulously in the SEAL teams. I think I have a story in there about just a debrief from a typical SEAL chief. And how that went, you know, we thought we did good. No, you didn't. And you're going to feel bad about it. And you have to make yourself feel bad about it. And that's that's that's the psycho that's the psychological reason that the psychological underpinnings of of this chapter is is you a SEAL chief or Jaco can make you know, he can let you can let them know that they screwed up, right? But the question is, do you feel bad about it?

• 2:16:20Speaker 01

  Most team guys do. Most team guys like it's just it's hard to feel like you screwed up. But in the other in the outside world, that's not always the case. A lot of people are thinking. Whatever, I shouldn't even be in trouble.

• 2:16:34Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, since I was in a position where a lot of times I was debriefing people and telling them that they screwed something up. And the reactions were from a good, this is the difference. You said most team guys, good team guys go, ah, man. I screwed that up. I gotta fix it. Bad team guys go, that didn't really matter. That wouldn't have, that would never happen real world. I would, you know, like they've got a million excuses. They don't take ownership of it and it just falls apart.

• 2:17:00Speaker 01

  They feel no shame.

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  They feel no shame. Exactly. They feel like it's not my fault. It's not on me. And.

• 2:17:06Speaker 01

  And there's a rationalization that occurs and um, you have to, the only thing you can control is your conscious mind. Okay. So you can, you can control the conversation going on in your head about how you rationalize that. And the more you rationalize it, the less likely it is that you actually feel the shame in your gut. Cause, cause at first you feel it, like you know it was your fault and you feel it, but then you rationalize it away. And eventually that rationalization kind of takes over and you no longer even feel the shame in your gut. And you're going down a very bad path at that point. And again, this, this, I try to relate this to very basic stuff in life, like, like, don't you feel bad when you're that guy who kind of leaves the shopping cart in a parking spot?

• 2:17:49Speaker 01

  Cause you should.

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:50Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:17:50Jocko Willink?

  You're a bad person.

• 2:17:51Speaker 01

  You're a bad person. You are. You are. Somebody's gonna hit that or it can't park.

• 2:17:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:58Speaker 01

  Or it's just a, it's not the right thing to do.

• 2:18:01Jocko Willink?

  You're just a bad person.

• 2:18:02Speaker 01

  You know you did it. You know who you are. You're out there.

• 2:18:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You say in here, we should feel a sense of shame for not training hard enough, for sleeping in too late, for eating that extra scoop of ice cream. We should feel regret after walking by a piece of trash next to a storm drain, knowing full well we'll go straight in the ocean. We should feel bad for not tipping that hardworking waiter. We should be embarrassed when we owe a friend money and they have to constantly remind us to pay them back.

• 2:18:28Speaker 01

  Hopefully the team guys are listening to that one.

• 2:18:32Jocko Willink?

  We should feel lazy for leaving our food tray on the table in a fast food restaurant, even though their trash cans are right there.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  You go on, you say, we should be, in short, be accountable for everything you do.

• 2:18:45Jocko Willink?

  It was why Commander Jocko Willink, Echo Charles.

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  Named Joe.

• 2:18:49Jocko Willink?

  One of my mentors in the teams wrote an entire book on the subject called Extreme Ownership. The premise of the book is quite simple. Everything is your fault. Be accountable, take ownership, take responsibility. From this responsibility, you will find freedom.

• 2:19:03Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:19:04Jocko Willink?

  It is liberating. Really is. It's liberating. The worst thing, the worst thing is trying to look and find who you're gonna blame, because then you don't have control over it.

• 2:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:14Jocko Willink?

  When you say, you know what, this is my fault, then you are free to go and make changes in your life. Free to fix things.

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  It's, it's the deeper discussion about why personal responsibility is a bedrock of our cultural, of our, of our culture and our cultural foundations. And as a conservative, we always say it. Like, I'm always like, ah, personal responsibility. And in speeches, I try to delve into that a lot deeper. Like, this is actually why, this is the argument for why it matters. And it's actually quite simple. Personal responsibility is empowering. And a lack of personal responsibility is disempowering. The other issue is, it's completely unsustainable for, for, for a society to engage in a lack of personal responsibility. It's unsustainable because by definition, if you're not personally responsible, someone else must be responsible for you. And that's fine if, like, you're an infant.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  Or, you know, you're in the, you know, it's a small segment of society, right? You can, you can, again, our, our government tries to take that into account. But if you actually encourage the undermining of the foundation itself, the undermining of personal responsibility as a virtue in and of itself, which is what's happening on the left. If you try to undermine that cultural foundation, you're creating an unbelievably unsustainable trajectory. Where it is, where, where we, we have more and more people who are, who are convinced that somebody else should be responsible for them and therefore take their own power. It's unbelievably disempowering and it's, it's, it's just, I, you wouldn't wish that state of mind on anybody except your worst enemies.

• 2:20:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's, again, it's not how you treat people you love.

• 2:20:50Jocko Willink?

  And it's one of those things that's tempting, right? It's short-term gratification. It's, it's, seems like the easier way to go. Because in the short term, hey, I just got this. And I didn't have to work for it.

• 2:21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:04Jocko Willink?

  That's the short term. And unfortunately.

• 2:21:09Jocko Willink?

  We know where it ends up.

• 2:21:11Speaker 02

  It's like a pyramid scheme.

• 2:21:16Speaker 02

  Think about it. See what I'm saying?

• 2:21:17Jocko Willink?

  I'm thinking about it.

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  I'm getting paid or whatever because someone got to do the work at the end of the day. But a pyramid scheme, it's like everyone's waiting for their turn to like get, get. And then at the end of the day, everybody crashes because, oh, who's doing the work? Oh, no, no, him. No, not me and him. Remember, we're not doing anything.

• 2:21:33Speaker 01

  That's right. I had to think about that for a second.

• 2:21:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's right. My initial thought was trying to put it together, but yeah, you're right. Because you're building it on everyone's going to get money.

• 2:21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:42Jocko Willink?

  At some point.

• 2:21:43Speaker 02

  Where's that money coming from?

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  It's basically the diffusion of responsibility is what you're talking about and sort of the tragedy of the commons as well. It's kind of a mix of all those things and it's not good. It's unsustainable.

• 2:21:57Jocko Willink?

  Next chapter. Duty, a sense of duty. My parents imbued in me a sense of duty to do that which has inherent value. You go on to say duty is ingrained in the human condition. Our great religious, our great religions are essentially based on a sense of duty to love God and live well. We have a duty not only to survive in this world, but to pursue a higher purpose. We are here for a reason and living for that purpose is our choice to make. It is the path to happiness.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  So again, we're starting to talk about, you know, the idea that you're going to find happiness in some short-term gratification is not true.

• 2:22:43Speaker 01

  Right. And this is, this, this chapter comes right after the sense of shame chapter because you have to understand what is wrong so that you can understand what is right. And that is, that is the darkness and the light and you have to live in both. And sense of duty is it's living your plan A. You know, and I say, don't live your plan B, no plan B. Again, that what I explained before, that that was about purpose. That's about living with purpose. And so we get into a lot more detail about what that is in this chapter. We talk about the great religions. We talk about why that's important.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  And then it's, it's a duty to live, and the book's about mental toughness. And so we bring it back into, it's a duty to live with that fortitude. And, and again, to feel bad, this is deeply intertwined with a sense of shame, to feel bad when you don't, to understand what that duty is and how to live within it. And I can't remember if I list the 10 commandments in this chapter, or the I think it's a different chapter. Yeah, but it's the same kind of discussion. Oh, no, it is this chapter. It is this chapter, okay. So, the, and then, and so that's when I get into a really long discussion about where our laws come from. So this, this kind of goes into political philosophy as well.

• 2:24:07Speaker 01

  And the, the fact is, is that the 10 commandments are the origins of our law. And I talk about how Moses, the portrait of Moses is in the House of Representatives, staring down at the Speaker of the House. And, well, along with 23 other lawgivers, but Moses is in the middle. Moses is the only one who's not in side profile. That's important because he was the original receiver of law. Not man-made law, but like absolute law. These things are true. It can't be argued with, they are just true. All right, like, Commandments 1 through 4 basically say, these are true. You can't argue with them, like, believe in God. And the rest of them are like, this is what you should do. You know, don't steal, don't kill, all that. And an atheist could say, well, I know that.

• 2:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't need the Bible to tell me that I shouldn't do these things. I know they're true. My counter to that is, how do you know? How do you know? Like, who told you? Who taught them? Where did, where did they get them from? How do you know they're true? And they can't answer that. They're, they're true because they do come from a higher power. They're true because they come from thousands of years of wisdom. And whether you believe in that higher power or not, you're still following it. And you can't escape that reality. If you start, if you try to, and if you start to believe that, that human morality is changeable, and that we can just choose that, to, to, to change some of those commandments, well, then you get the Holocaust.

• 2:25:35Speaker 01

  Like, it's, it's a short path, man. Like, it's a short path to the horrors of the 20th century. The secularism of the 20th century killed millions, tens and tens of millions. And because we untethered ourselves from absolute morality. It's a really dangerous path.

• 2:25:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when you you talk about that and you end up saying at a very basic level, this is back to book at a very basic level, this is a shirking of fundamental human duty and responsibility, a responsibility to what exactly? Politeness, open-mindedness and grace for starters. These are our duties to our fellow Americans, just the basics. If we lose those fundamental virtues, we lose our sense of unity. Without a sense of unity under an umbrella of common values, this whole great American experiment unravels. And as you just said, we've seen this before.

• 2:26:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Common values, exactly, and um, and they come from somewhere. And a large part of this book is about showing gratitude for your history, gratitude for what works. I like to say that, again, just being a conservative, conservatism is based fundamentally on things that work, not things that feel good, but things that work. And that's important, you know, doesn't mean we're always right, but most of the time, I think, at least the foundations are. And you can't just undermine the foundations of a society. And I see that happening more and more, unfortunately.

• 2:27:04Jocko Willink?

  You rattle off some of these duties. You have a duty to accomplish something every day. You have a duty to live up to your best self, the person you want to be, the hero archetype you admire. You have a duty to embrace shame and learn from it. You have a duty to be polite, thoughtful, patient. You have a duty to overcome your hardships and not wallow in self pity. You have a duty to contribute, even if your contribution is small. You have a duty to be on time. You have a duty to do your job, even if your job sucks. You have a duty to stay healthy, both for yourself and so you so that you do not become a burden on others. You have a duty to be part of the solution, not the problem. In other words, don't join the Twitter mob. You have a duty to try hard not to offend others and try harder not to be offended. And this is where you start broaching into what I was saying earlier.

• 2:27:47Jocko Willink?

  There is a selfish reason to live a life of purpose and responsibility. It will make you tougher and more successful. We aren't perfect and we won't always adhere to these basic duties. But I hope we can start to agree on what they are, feel some shame when we fall short and begin living our lives with purpose. This is the time-tested formula for a stronger people and more than that, a stronger America. This is what, this is what people miss sometimes, and I talk about this a lot from a leadership perspective. From a leadership perspective, if I'm a leader that tries to climb on people's back, tries to make myself look good, tries to always chime the line night on myself and find the best deal for myself, if I'm that type of leader,

• 2:28:29Jocko Willink?

  I might get ahead for a second here or there, but ultimately, I will not be in charge of anything. If you're the type of leader that takes care of your troops, looks out for the good of the mission, you, you look out for everyone above yourself, if you're that type of leader, look, you might take, you might take hits now and again because you're, you're propping up everyone else above yourself, but in the long run, this is the, this is the amazing thing. In the long run, you will absolutely be a more successful leader than me, who's over here looking out for myself. And, and that's a similar thing to what you're saying here, which is like, if you do these things, which seem like sometimes they'd be a pain, right? Getting up every day and being on time, taking care of your health, like all these things that maybe you don't feel, being polite to people, right? Sometimes you just want to do what I want to do.

• 2:29:15Jocko Willink?

  That ultimately, taking care of yourself and putting yourself as the supreme cause of your life, ultimately, you will be less successful than if you take care of other people, if you treat other people with respect, if you do your job, if you do those things that, again, on the surface, they seem like they might not help you. In the long run, you will absolutely win, absolutely. And when you win, your team wins, your community wins, your country wins. That's what happens.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  Right. And your, your individual actions and habits and tasks. That are inherently good, we have to, again, we have to kind of redefine what good is because we've forgotten, but that makes up the fabric of the larger culture. And if we want a successful culture that is not at each other's throats and not losing our minds because of microaggressions and offenses, then you've got to live within that. And yeah, treating other people to respect and doing things for others, again, very basic biblical teachings that are unfortunately being swept away, especially in favor of a, of kind of this sense of grandstanding and sense of morality where it's, it's more

• 2:30:28Speaker 01

  moral to demand that others do something for others. You know, like that's, I've, I've, again, going back to the problems with socialism, it seems to me, because some socialists will sometimes say, well, Jesus was a socialist. No, Jesus encouraged you to be charitable with your time and your money. Right? That's what Jesus said. He didn't say, stand on top of a hill screaming that other people give away their money. That's not, sorry, like that's, that's just, you're missing, you're deliberately misinterpreting the teachings of the Bible in favor of socialism. Um, like, there's a few other biblical reasons, I think socialism is, is not correct, but, but for our purposes on this chapter, that's, that's a big one.

• 2:31:09Speaker 01

  Sense of duty to, to give your time and your money and contribute that way. And it will make you more successful in the long run because building good relationships is a huge part of success. Uh, we forget about that sometimes. Jordan Peterson goes into a lot of detail in that particular element, which is, uh, it's kind of fascinating to, again, he's a big fan. And, uh, has he, has he been on your show?

• 2:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Three times.

• 2:31:35Speaker 01

  Three times.

• 2:31:36Jocko Willink?

  Yep. He was on before, he was on before, um, he was kind of popular.

• 2:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:42Jocko Willink?

  Um, uh, before 12 Rules for Life came out. And then he was on a, uh, two times after that. And yeah, they're they're some of the most popular episodes of the podcast.

• 2:31:53Speaker 01

  Until this one, of course.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:31:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:55Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:31:58Speaker 02

  That's interesting because a lot of people, they make that mistake how you're like, you have to have to do it. Because people make that mistake with extreme ownership, too.

• 2:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:32:08Speaker 02

  They're like, hey, if my boss would just get on board with this, this concept, you know, like,

• 2:32:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:32:12Speaker 02

  The problems would be solved.

• 2:32:13Jocko Willink?

  My team would just take ownership.

• 2:32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're not talking about your team. And same thing with relationships. I I've been using the percentage lately of ninety nine point nine percent of the things that I got done in the military and did in the military were based on relationships and not based on chain of command. So every time one of my guys, you know, had a mission, I didn't, this is how you're going to do it. No, it's like, hey, how do you want to get this done? Every time my boss came to me, they weren't like, hey, Chuck, this is what you need to do. And they're like, hey, here's what we got. What do you think? Everything was about relationships. Every, every, the extreme example was in the Battle of Ramadi, when we needed fire support from tanks who needed to risk their lives to go and get my guys, prevent them from being overrun in the field. Well, those tanks didn't work for me. They they didn't, they weren't a totally separate chain of command.

• 2:32:59Jocko Willink?

  And yet they would do it. Why? Because we had awesome relationships up and down the chain of command. And so, yeah, absolutely. Relationship building is, um,

• 2:33:09Jocko Willink?

  it's, it's, it's critical to every aspect of life. And the little tagline that I often tell people is relationships are stronger than the chain of command. Hundred percent.

• 2:33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:18Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:33:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next chapter. Do something hard.

• 2:33:25Jocko Willink?

  In Bud's, it's all about the next ten minutes. Sometimes it's about the next thirty seconds. If you're thinking about Bud's in its entirety, six brutal months, then the thought is simply too much. The men who quit are the men who look up at the day before them and see all the days to come. They are thinking, they're the men who are miserable and wet and cold and thinking about the hot coffee and girlfriend they miss. And suddenly, because they imagine the months long suffering they will inevitably face, they break. They are already using every ounce of endurance and fortitude to survive what's happening right now. Expanding their horizons to an infinite number of miserable right now's does them in.

• 2:34:06Jocko Willink?

  So you focus on the next 10 minutes and remind yourself that the instructors can't kill you, even if they're claiming otherwise. Thousands have made it before you. You can too. What's on the other side of those months and months of 10 minute blocks are over? Liberation, transformation, and meaning. So that's, that's one way to get through BUDs. BUDs isn't six months long. It's about four minutes long, right now.

• 2:34:35Speaker 01

  Lots of four minutes. Lots and lots of them. Or longer for some of us if we extend our time by breaking a leg. Or some, just not, not great. But also normal.

• 2:34:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, normal. A lot of people get injured. They get rolled back. They gotta go back over and over again. So how does this, how does this apply then to, you know, this is broad advice to human beings?

• 2:35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, because not everybody's going through BUDs. And, nor should they. And obviously, I'm using my own experiences here. Like, this was my transformation. BUDs, BUDs is a transformation for a lot of SEALs. It's what, it's what gives us confidence and it, it, you, you push your limits so that you way past what you thought were there, so that you're confident enough to break past more limits when they come, because they will come. And, you know, they came for me. Getting blown up. That was, that was a limit that I didn't quite experience, even in Hell Week. And it got worse, because things can

• 2:35:39Speaker 01

  get worse. But Hell Week and, and BUDs in general, and the mentality that we developed accordingly, at least allowed me to deal with it later. And so, doing something hard, it has a number of benefits. One is kind of a simple sense of preparedness. And the Stoics, I, I reference Stoics, Stoicism a lot throughout the book. And the Stoics are referenced in this one, because they, they believed in hardship as preparedness. So that's a very...

• 2:36:14Speaker 01

  That's a very practical reason to just do hard stuff. You know, if you're worried about being homeless one day, try sleeping on the floor sometimes. Like, try going a few days with, without the comforts of your home. So that if it did happen, you'd actually be prepared for it. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it, but like, that's what they meant by that. Simple preparedness. You know, if you want to be better at running up a mountain, run up a mountain. Like, it's, you know, so the act of preparedness. But there's a deeper reason why, why I think doing something hard matters. And it's the, it's the psychology of suffering. And so, this is a chapter that has a lot of psych references in it.

• 2:36:57Speaker 01

  I did a lot of research on this one specifically with a guy named Dr. Allison from University of Richmond. And the benefits of suffering are well documented. Psychologically and physiologically, physiologically speaking. Interesting research that I, I will go into now, but, because again, gotta, I want people to read it. I don't want people to come away from this podcast, but check, got it. You know, not buying that book now. Thanks, Jaco.

• 2:37:25Speaker 01

  So, there's, there's a lot more to it, but, um, the, the suffering has inherent value. And we've, we've created this society where we try to avoid suffering and risk at all costs. And there's, it's not self-evident that that's a good thing. In fact, it's pretty evident that it's a bad thing. We've become more fragile as a result. And again, there's good research that shows that we've become a kind of this, this fragile culture. We need to be anti-fragile. Hardship should make us stronger, not just that we're resilient to it, but that it actually makes us stronger. This is, this is fundamentally true. Again, I think the Bible talks about this, the, our psychological research talks about this. There's, there's evidence that, you know, again,

• 2:38:09Speaker 01

  Physiological pain, you know, working out, it changes your brain. It makes you better at memory. And if you're better at like, if your brain works better, I would argue that you're mentally tougher. So like there's again, so like start lifting weights, you know? And if you can't lift weights, like find something else that is hard. So again, it's not buds. And I'm not saying live through trauma either. Okay, like swimming with sharks is hard. Like, don't go swim with sharks. This is not, that's bad.

• 2:38:39Speaker 01

  But, and it, like, so I guess what I'm saying is don't put yourself in a dangerous situation where you'll have to live through a hardship and then overcome it. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying it has to be self-imposed and it has to be habitual. And there's value in that. And, um, and it could be simple, right? It could be taking a cold shower on weekends. Like, I'm just gonna, on weekends, I'm gonna take cold showers. It could be waking up at 4:30 a.m.

• 2:39:05Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like a good plan.

• 2:39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hate that plan, but, but that's, but that's like, but that's, there's a reason you do it. You know, and, and with a sense of discipline, you're on the path. Like, this is, this is what you do. And that, and it's different for everybody, but just find it. And maybe make it harder the next time, you know? But eventually, in your case, you would just be never, I guess, what would, what would that look like? Wake up earlier?

• 2:39:28Jocko Willink?

  No sleep.

• 2:39:28Speaker 01

  Now you're just in the middle of the night.

• 2:39:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, it's, it's weird. I'm thinking about, um, there'd be some times with team guys on operations where it, it goes, it goes past the normal everyday level of suck. Like, it starts to suck bad, whatever it is, whether it's a long, long insert, you know, patrol in, whether it's the heat, whether it's the cold, whatever that thing is, like, you will be, uh, I would say, one out of every eight. Just standard kind of operations that you go on one out of every eight. You're gonna have to go into into that zone where you look around at the other guys and you're like, yeah.

• 2:40:13Jocko Willink?

  You're like, yep, this everyone right here, everybody in this boat in this Zodiac. That is absolutely freezing right now. This sucks for everybody and you know what? It's just like, yep, we're gonna keep going.

• 2:40:28Speaker 01

  And it's like glorious and then you look back on it later and you're like, that was amazing.

• 2:40:34Speaker 01

  And it makes you better and it it it really, there's a spiritual awakening that occurs with suffering. Self imposed suffering.

• 2:40:41Jocko Willink?

  No doubt.

• 2:40:42Speaker 01

  And also not self imposed suffering. I'm just saying, don't go seek out the the what you know, what would be better to refer to as tragedy. Okay, I'm not saying seek out the tragedy, but also. And now I'm kind of, I'd be jumping into the next chapter because sort of leads into it, but then you're telling yourself a story about the tragedy. And there's still value in that. And again, this is backed up by research, like I did my homework on this. There is, whether you call it post traumatic growth or or kind of positive, I forget the other terms. But there's a, there's a bunch of terms, psychology terms that that that prove and demonstrate that people not only become more resilient, but. But even stronger after really hard occurrences.

• 2:41:27Speaker 01

  So don't run from it as a society, we need to embrace it.

• 2:41:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, no doubt in my mind and we'll, let's jump to the next chapter, but first let me close this one out because it's. Well, here's what you say. In the raw humanistic sense, without suffering, there can be no internal resilience to adversity. No proper preparedness for the future. Suffering controlled by you and for the right cause can be a building block for both spiritual health and mental toughness. In a liberty based nation like the United States, we are free to fail and to suffer. That fortitude is a welcome and necessary attribute. Rather than trying to erase suffering at every opportunity. We would all be wise to value it and seek it out.

• 2:42:15Jocko Willink?

  So go do something hard.

• 2:42:20Jocko Willink?

  And so this next chapter, which you were just alluding to, is called the stories we tell ourselves. You say, "You could tell the story of my life as a succession of hard times and heavy burdens. You could tell it as an array of kicks to the head interspersed with failures. My mom died. My leg broke. My eye got blown out. My active commission got taken away. My fellowship application got denied." All these things are factually accurate. They happened. I endured them. That is where a lot of people would leave it. These are things that happened to them from forces beyond their control. Leaving

• 2:43:01Jocko Willink?

  it here, leaving it there communicates a handful of ideas about someone. He's unfortunate. He's unlucky. He's beaten. He's a victim. That is not where people should leave it. Stories about burdens born on their own omit the most important parts. The responsibility of the individual, the reaction of the individual, the growth and maturing of the individual. The world does something to you because it will always do something to you. But once it's done, that share of the story is over. That is where your share of the story begins. That's the point where the story stops being something done to you and starts being about

• 2:43:46Jocko Willink?

  you. And you go into, you know, we talked about your mom dying, but you mentioned your leg getting blown. There's a lot of things that you, a lot of, what do you call them? Hard times, heavy burdens and failures that you talk about in the book that we haven't even touched. And again, that's why people get the book so they can learn those lessons and see what you went through there. But also see this, you know, this is now we're getting towards the end of the book where you're starting to tie this stuff together and say, "Hey, listen, you were in hard, you were in bad situations. How, what are you going to do in the face of those bad situations more poignantly? What is the story that you tell yourself?"

• 2:44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and strength throughout this book is a particular thread about victimhood ideology and how that pertains to outrage culture. I would argue that victimhood ideology is a tenant of outrage culture. It's not surprising that you feel really mad and offended and angry and outraged if you also feel like you're oppressed, if you also feel like you're a victim and you embrace that victimhood. This isn't all that surprising either. It's expected because, going back to the hero archetypes, we've elevated victims. Why would Jussie Smollett pretend and

• 2:45:08Speaker 01

  make up this story that he got attacked by two MAGA hat wearing guys in Chicago at 2:00 a.m.? Why would he make that up? Because we've elevated victims to heroes. Like, that's... Why does Elizabeth Warren claim the lies that she's claimed about being Native American? Or that she was fired for being pregnant? These are lies. They're well documented lies.

• 2:45:31Jocko Willink?

  You know what's interesting is, I'm just thinking of the... is it Jussie?

• 2:45:36Speaker 01

  Jussie.

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  I'm thinking about that guy's story. If you were to go back 20 years and someone was gonna make up a story, the story that they would make up would be, "I got attacked by two guys and I kicked their ass."

• 2:45:50Speaker 01

  Yes. That's a really important point to make.

• 2:45:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 2:45:54Speaker 01

  The way our... and that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like, that's our hero archetypes have shifted so wildly that the more likable story is getting your ass kicked and then complaining about it, as opposed to like, "No, I just whooped their ass." Like, that's a perfect point to make. And like, that's why I start the book with, "Who is your hero?" Because it's such an important concept. And in this case, it's like, okay, now that you know who your hero is, well then you should identify how you react to hardship. Not saying hardship doesn't exist. You know, when I bash victimhood ideology, I'm not saying there are no victims. It is possible that you truly are a victim.

• 2:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:46:39Speaker 01

  You know, but one that should be defined, like injust- the word injustice needs to be defined better. So that we can overcome outrage culture. And injustice doesn't mean things that aren't fair or things that you don't like. Unfortunately, that's how the word is used all too often. Injustice means somebody, someone else is truly infringing on your rights. Rights defined as life, liberty and property. Okay, injustice can be defined as, as, as, as your due process being taken away. Some, some true unfairness or discrimination being implemented against you. That can be defined as injustice. Okay, um, an outcome based on something other than your merit can be defined as an injustice. But, but victimhood ideology really turns these, it really strains these definitions.

• 2:47:24Speaker 01

  And, and I think people understand, know this intuitively, just watch the news and watch how people are reacting on social media. This is a really big problem. It prevents us from telling the right stories about injustice and then solving it and overcoming it. It's, we, we've been encouraged to live in the story of victimhood when something bad happens. And that may feel good, again, it goes back to what you're saying before, this sort of short. The, uh, the short-term thinking, it feels good in the short term, right? It feels like, feels like it's somebody else's fault and there's a, there's a comfort in that. There's like a warm blanket of self-pity that occurs and like that's comforting. But it's also, it's, it's, you could almost say quite literally killing you.

• 2:48:07Speaker 01

  Because it, it leads you down this path of despair that, that ends in not a good place. Um, if, if you always feel this, you're, things are out of your control and you're disempowered and then it, it literally cannot get better.

• 2:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, one of the questions that I get asked a lot when working with companies, um, they'll say, you know, what's the biggest obstacle? For having a culture of extreme ownership and it's really easy answer. The answer is, is ego. Because when something goes wrong and you have to say, hey, this is my fault. Well, that hurts your ego. And that's the biggest, uh, thing that people have to overcome. Now, the other thing that, that's interesting is, and, and you address this here. So the other, the other question I'll get asked a lot when it comes to extreme ownership and I've, I've kind of already mentioned it, you know, is, hey. If my kid gets sick, how do I take ownership of that? If I get cancer, how do I take ownership of that?

• 2:49:01Jocko Willink?

  If the market falls apart and we lose all of our money, I have to let people go, how do I take ownership of the, of the market? How do I take ownership of a natural disaster that occurred? Right? So there's get, I get asked that question. And the response is you take ownership of how you, how you respond to that occurring, right? When something bad happens and you, you, you, you, you go through the same thing here. You say, even if I was not totally responsible for what happened, I was still responsible for what would happen. And this is after you got, after you got removed from the Navy. I mean, they, they, they didn't kick you out of there.

• 2:49:46Jocko Willink?

  They forced you to retire, right? They forced you to retire. Look, you, you, you, that, that's, that's just happening to you. Like the big blue Navy is going, you're done. And you can't control it. And so how do you take ownership of that? You, you take ownership by how you respond to that. And what you say here is you try and find your next mission.

• 2:50:09Speaker 01

  Right. You can control the next step. There's another important point here that I, that I lay out, which is the way you describe your history. This is important as putting yourself in the right psychological framework. And we call those get to statements. Like I have to wear an eye patch or I get to wear an eye patch. You know, because it looks cool. So that's nice. Or I get to wear the gold Trident eye. Because it looks cool. But you can go much deeper than that. Like I, you know, and, and, and some of the, to an extent, this is self deception. Right? And, and you know that consciously going, going into it.

• 2:50:50Speaker 01

  Like, and, and because I use another example, like, well, I, I have to pay my bills or I get to pay my bills. Because it shows that I'm an adult and I'm living responsibly.

• 2:51:00Jocko Willink?

  I have to pay taxes? Or I get to pay taxes.

• 2:51:05Speaker 01

  That one's harder.

• 2:51:06Jocko Willink?

  That one stings.

• 2:51:07Speaker 01

  That one stings harder.

• 2:51:08Jocko Willink?

  Especially if you live in California.

• 2:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, guys, all you do is pay taxes.

• 2:51:11Jocko Willink?

  Yes, we do.

• 2:51:12Speaker 02

  But who doesn't pay taxes?

• 2:51:14Speaker 01

  And they're not even synchronizing the lights.

• 2:51:16Jocko Willink?

  Because if you get to pay taxes, that means that you've made enough money.

• 2:51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:20Jocko Willink?

  To pay taxes.

• 2:51:21Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 2:51:21Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:51:22Speaker 02

  So that's like one way to do it.

• 2:51:23Speaker 01

  In a sense.

• 2:51:24Speaker 02

  Or live in a different country, by the way.

• 2:51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and it's, you know, fundamentally, what you're doing there is finding the silver lining. Because finding the silver lining in a bad situation is fundamentally about telling yourself a different story about that situation. And so it's, it's not whistling past the graveyard, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not ignoring the actual hardship. It's just forcing yourself to have the fortitude to tell yourself the right story about it. That, that's, that, that's what the chapter is fundamentally about.

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um, it, it's one of those things you, you, you read through it and you go, yeah, this is the attitude that you would want a kid to have, you know? You close it out here, 20 years ago, I received a letter in the mail from Rice University. The letter might as well have been addressed, dear failure, because it was indeed a letter informing me that my services were not required at the prestigious school. I failed to get in. 20 years later, I became the US Congressman who represents Rice University. The path from that failure to my present day success was not an easy one. Many more obstacles and failures would present themselves every day, each against a small obstacle, against each small obstacle.

• 2:52:37Jocko Willink?

  I had to tell the right story in order to stay on the path to self fulfillment. Failure, like suffering, has intrinsic value and worth should we choose to confront it properly. Otherwise, the ultimate story of success, whatever that may be for you, will never get told.

• 2:52:58Speaker 01

  The, the other element here, and I don't go into this in that much detail, but uh, it's an answer I give when especially kids ask how to deal with hardship. And I, I like to point out that every obstacle is an opportunity. And that sounds kind of cliche, but it, but it's really not, it's true. I wouldn't be a congressman if I hadn't gotten my eye blown out. This is true. I would have stayed in the teams. I never would have left. I had no reason to leave. It was not, and I fought very hard not to leave.

• 2:53:26Jocko Willink?

  Best job ever. Why would you leave?

• 2:53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if I hadn't have been, there's so many things like I talk about, you know, got denied this cool White House fellowship. If I had gotten that, I wouldn't be a congressman. You know, so technically that's a failure, but you know, you also, also it's not.

• 2:53:48Jocko Willink?

  When did you, when did you go for that fellowship?

• 2:53:50Speaker 01

  Right after Harvard.

• 2:53:51Jocko Willink?

  Right after Harvard.

• 2:53:52Speaker 01

  Harvard was right after the Navy for one year, applied for that, didn't get it.

• 2:53:57Jocko Willink?

  You, you applied for the White House fellowship?

• 2:53:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:53:59Jocko Willink?

  And you didn't get it?

• 2:54:00Speaker 01

  Didn't get it.

• 2:54:01Jocko Willink?

  And then you're like, okay, cool. Can't beat them, join them?

• 2:54:04Speaker 01

  Well, no. So ran for Congress because now I control the funding for the White House fellowship.

• 2:54:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:10Speaker 01

  That's right. Naval Academy didn't let me in either.

• 2:54:14Jocko Willink?

  It's actually can't join them, beat them, I guess is what you actually did.

• 2:54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely didn't join them.

• 2:54:19Jocko Willink?

  You didn't get into Naval Academy either?

• 2:54:21Speaker 01

  No, didn't get in the, into the Naval Academy, rejected. I'm not going to defund the Naval Academy. But.

• 2:54:30Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 2:54:34Speaker 01

  But, no, I didn't get in. And what if I had? I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't have even made it to BUDS. You know, you could argue, you know, it's just different selection process. Like there's all these.

• 2:54:43Jocko Willink?

  You want to hear a little story that I tell myself? Whenever I get some kind of like little injury, even if it's like a, a more significant injury, maybe it's something that's going to make, take me out of, off my training schedule for a month, right? Hurt my knee, hurt my shoulder or something. I always tell myself that that was the greater powers way of getting me to not train because the next day I was really going to get hurt.

• 2:55:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:08Jocko Willink?

  The next day I was really going to get hurt.

• 2:55:10Speaker 01

  Kind of stuff all the time.

• 2:55:10Jocko Willink?

  So I'm just like, okay, cool. That's God's way of telling me I, I'm not supposed to train right now because otherwise I was going to break my neck or something. So we're just gonna, that's right. That's the story I tell myself sometimes.

• 2:55:21Speaker 01

  I think it's a, I mean, it's not a joke. I think it's a real, I believe in that kind of stuff, honestly. I, I do believe that some things happen for a reason. It's up to you to actually react to it appropriately. But I don't know. I actually do believe in that and I think that comes out in this, in this chapter to an extent.

• 2:55:42Jocko Willink?

  All right, next chapter, you went from the personal story, now we're talking about the story of America. This is, this is chapter 10. The individual stories we tell ourselves, not just about our hardships, but about who we are, combined to create our American story. Every one of us adds a small thread to the larger fabric of our culture. And as we change and evolve, so do our cultural norms. The American story itself evolves. This isn't a bad thing either. It is natural and constant throughout history. But something is changing for the worse. The American story itself is being threatened. Our cultural fabric has often changed and evolved, but it has never been irreparably torn.

• 2:56:28Jocko Willink?

  The closest we ever came was the Civil War.

• 2:56:31Jocko Willink?

  I suggest to you that the latest threat to our American story is outrage culture, identity politics, and victimhood ideology that it elevates. The threat is born of small beginnings, as big threats so often are. It starts with toxic, personal narratives wrapped in cheap cloth of victimhood, always looking to ex- to an external culprit to blame for real or perceived injustices.

• 2:56:56Jocko Willink?

  So this is the direction you fear that we are heading right now.

• 2:57:01Speaker 01

  I think we're there.

• 2:57:04Jocko Willink?

  So pessimistic.

• 2:57:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's just, um.

• 2:57:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you one thing.

• 2:57:08Speaker 01

  It depends on who you talk to, right?

• 2:57:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, I was gonna say, I was just, uh, like when I was, I was on with Ben Shapiro, and I just went up and talked to Candace Owens. And, you know, they live at ground zero for interacting with crazy people. I mean, and you're.

• 2:57:24Speaker 01

  I'm there.

• 2:57:25Jocko Willink?

  You're not quite as there.

• 2:57:26Speaker 01

  It becomes all you see, and then you get a little bit more pessimistic than you really need to be.

• 2:57:30Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. And, and you know, I'm really lucky because, you know, I work with a bunch of different companies all over the country, and work with every different type of company, and work with all levels inside of a company. So I'm not just out there only talking to the CEOs and the C-suite. I'm also out there talking to frontline troops, communicating with them, talking about what problems they have. So we really get to see, and everyone at Echelon Front, we really get to see the pulse of, not only of America over a large span, but at a bunch of different socioeconomic levels, and in a bunch of different industries. Whereas, I mean. Candace and and Ben like they go to they go to speak at colleges.

• 2:58:13Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of what they do, you know, and well, you're not going to run into the same type of people that I'm going to run into. That's working on a construction site or a manufacturing plant in Iowa.

• 2:58:26Speaker 01

  No, you're sure not. Um, I do the same thing. Um, I've been pleasantly surprised to be perfectly honest with you. Um, even when I go to colleges and especially high schools, I think the questions are good. Um, if there's disagreement, it's been, it's been good. Uh.

• 2:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, actually, now that you mentioned, I, I go and talk at colleges sometimes too, and you, and you mentioned, you know, you were talking about the kind of crowd that comes in to see. I mean, the kind of crowd that comes in to see Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro. Sure, there's people that want to see them that have like a conservative viewpoint, but they probably attract at least as many, if not more lunatics.

• 2:59:04Speaker 01

  They do, and it's, I, I've seen it happen less over time, also because, you know, Ben and Candace and Charlie Kirk, they, that is kind of what they're looking for because they want the debate to happen on camera. I, I personally, I enjoy it too. Like I want, I want people on the left to come and debate me. And I'm gonna, you know, that's what I want. That's, it's one of the reasons I'm doing it. Uh, if it's just a bunch of people there agreeing with me, then I'm not, I'm not ma- I'm not making a lot of progress. It's, it's really just a rally at that point and there's value in that too, but, but we are going there for the confrontation. Um, I just want it to be respectful and fact-based and, and, um, and it's not always that way.

• 2:59:46Speaker 01

  I've had some interesting experiences where it's just, it just devolves into an emotional ramblings, but, um, I've also had some really interesting, um, public debates and like, that's kind of unusual for a politician to do. See, that's the Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro model. It's unusual for a politician to do because we can get in so much more trouble doing it. Cause it's dangerous. It's, it's a, you don't know how that's gonna go.

• 3:00:07Jocko Willink?

  People setting up ambushes on you for a gotcha moment.

• 3:00:09Speaker 01

  Right, right. And so just be prepared for it and you'll be fine. Um, know what you're talking about, you know, it's like this. And so I do it and it's, um, but, uh, I enjoy it quite a bit. Um. So that, you know, but okay, but back to the original question, which is, are we, are we there as a culture? And the answer is kind of like, it's worse than it used to be. How about that? You know, whether, whether we're like, we're in a disaster area right now with respect to victimhood ideology and identity politics. It's a, that could be debated forever and it kind of depends on what your standard is. You know, like, well, what does it look like to be over the edge on that? Like, I'm not sure. I just know it's worse. I just know it's gotten a lot worse. And, um, other, and I, I, I reference Jonathan Haidt quite a bit in this book, um, one

• 3:00:54Speaker 01

  of my favorite authors. And his book, The Coddling of the American Mind is a great read. If you're, if you're really looking to examine how this evolved on college campuses, and they can really examine it down to the year, you know, about 2013, uh, which, and then they examine all the reasons for this, you know, this sort of outrage culture. And even then, though, they, they, they point out, it's, it's mostly at the coastal elite institutions. It happens a lot less on other college campuses where, listen, the reality is, most college kids just want to get drunk and, and, and like, get through their next class and, you know, that they're not super hyped up about politics. Social media, the fact, and those of us who, you know, live within the world of social media also makes us believe that like, and you do have, that it's a lot worse than it

• 3:01:39Speaker 01

  really is, and you do have to remove yourself from that. And so, you won't see me using examples in this book of people on social media. You'll see me using examples from leaders in our country. And like, big, you know, big, um, media companies like the New York Times, um, you know, really pushing these narratives. So I'm not getting my, my evidence for this problem from random commentators, even if I could count thousands of them, because it's like, what are thousands? A tiny, tiny, little itty bitty fraction of the United States. What matters is the leaders and how that's changed over time. So that's why I come at this and I say, you know what, there is a real problem here and we're there, because our leaders are talking like this.

• 3:02:23Speaker 01

  Like, this is a bigger movement than just some idiots on Twitter. It's bigger than that. And so that, you know, that's so, that's why I think it's such a, because if I couldn't find those examples, then, then I would argue that, uh, yeah, maybe I'm overblowing it. But, um, the, but, but victimhood ideology is a, it's here. Um, and I could, you know, from what you just read, the argument I'm making there...

• 3:02:51Speaker 01

  Unless you were gonna go on to something else.

• 3:02:52Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead.

• 3:02:53Speaker 01

  See, the argument I'm making there is that there's a series of steps that have led to this moment where we're telling a different story about of America. And I give an analysis of how it's victimhood ideology that's created this. There's a lot of elements, but victimhood ideology is a big one. It's because it first starts small, as I note there, it's of small beginnings, where you're blaming somebody else. Like, maybe it's your platoon commander who just didn't see the value in you the way they should have.

• 3:03:21Speaker 01

  Which, by the way, if you talk to modern military commanders, is a problem with, you know, a younger generation. Like, they're seeing these differences in how it is to manage troops. It's just, it's different, it's hard, it's not the same. Like, I came into the SEAL teams thinking, okay, like, I have to, I feel like I have to earn my way here. Newer, newer, maybe team guys, maybe not team guys, but definitely in the military, newer troops are thinking, like, they're owed more than, or they're, the organization itself has a duty to them, but not the other way around. Like, a duty to give them more responsibility and leadership, or whatever. But, but they haven't quite earned it yet. Like, more status, but without earning it yet.

• 3:04:05Speaker 01

  This is something we've, this is something, when I talk to leaders, and I'm curious what your perception is on this, because you talk to so many corporate leaders, and how it is to, to manage the different generations. And what that's like.

• 3:04:18Jocko Willink?

  Not only corporations, but also still talking to military troops. And there's always people, well, this is a question that I get asked all the time. And it's, you know, what's wrong with my team? And you can probably guess how I answer that. This is a leadership problem. And one of the things I fall back to all the time, so, I don't know that I can think of a more difficult workforce to deal with than being, than dealing with draftees in Vietnam, in the Vietnam War. People that did not believe in the cause, did not want to do the job, and, in doing the job, their life and limb was at risk.

• 3:05:04Jocko Willink?

  You cannot think of a more difficult workforce to try and deal with. So, I've read...

• 3:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Many, many, many, many, many books about Vietnam. I've interviewed many Vietnam veterans, leaders and, and troops. And here's the deal. Good leaders. Good leaders. And my, my, my first example is Colonel David Hackworth, who's like my, uh, my personal mentor, even though I never met him, but I uh, read his book many times and all of his books many times, but when he talks about the draftees and he was, he was in Korea and he was in Vietnam, he's a battalion commander in Vietnam. He was one of the most decorated guys ever. And when he would talk, and he was a complete lifer. This guy worshipped the army. It was the, he was in the military since he was 15 years old. It was all he ever knew.

• 3:05:56Jocko Willink?

  And when he would talk about his draftees and when he talks about him in his book about face, he loved his draftees and he loved his draftees because guess what? They would call, they would call bullshit when they didn't think he was making a good call. They would give him pressure against what he was saying to do if it didn't make sense. They would test him. They would push back. And as a leader, he thought, that's exactly what I want. That's exactly what I want is, I don't want people that, I don't want a bunch of robots. I had one of his company commanders on the podcast who retired as a general. Um, Muk, Mukiyama, General Mukiyama. Fantastic guy. And I asked him, and he was a company commander in Vietnam.

• 3:06:40Jocko Willink?

  And I said, what, cause I, this is, this question I hear all the time. I said, you know, sir, what did you think of your, of your draftees in Vietnam? And he, he said, I, I really couldn't tell who was a draftee and who wasn't.

• 3:06:56Jocko Willink?

  And so then you read other books and what it boils down to is, and most of the books, the other books that I read are like interviews with people. And if you have leaders that are not good leaders, guess what they do? They complain about the draftees, about how they, they pushed back, they didn't follow orders. People like William Kelly in charge of the My Lai massacre, what did he think? He hated draftees.

• 3:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause he's a shitty leader. And so when you talk to me about a millennial, the characteristics of a millennial. Uh, hey, they, they, they think they deserve stuff. They want to know why they're doing what they're doing. They want to have ownership of stuff. They think they deserve to be in charge of stuff. And I'm like, bring me that new guy. I'll take that new guy any day of the week. And I'll take that new guy and be like, okay, you want, you want to run stuff? You want to know, you want to know why you're doing what you're doing? Absolutely. You deserve that. That's decentralized command. You need to know why you're doing what you're doing. Perfect. You want to take ownership of stuff? Absolutely. You, you think you should be in a higher elevated position? Good. Let's get you there. So

• 3:08:01Jocko Willink?

  we, we can always complain about the junior generation. The freaking kids in the teams right now are way better than I was when I checked in as a new guy. Are you kidding me? They're way better. They're tough bastards too. It's not like they're just more tech. You know, some people will say, well, you know, the new generation is more tech savvy. It's like, yeah, they are, and they're tough as hell. So when we start talking about what the problems with is with our troops. What a good leader does is says, okay. There's these, I need to treat this guy with, I need, I need to make some maneuvers here to get this person on board with the program. Cause it's not like some young army guys like, I don't want to do a good job.

• 3:08:43Jocko Willink?

  It's not like some person at a tech company, some person that just graduated from college and went to a tech company. He's like, you know what? I don't want to do well here. Like, no, they want to do well. Now they might have some high visions of themselves. Cool. Whose job is it to put those visions into check? Whose job is to explain to them, listen, man, I'm glad you want to step up and run everything. That's awesome. Let me ask you this. Do you even understand how this, you know, how the economy of our business is working right now? Explain this here. Look at this, look at this spreadsheet and explain what this means. I have no idea. Okay, cool. Let's get you educated on this. Let's get you to learn this because you know what? I do want you to elevate. I want you to take over this company. That's fine. But you got to learn this stuff. So as a leader, we gotta, we gotta look at people.

• 3:09:29Jocko Willink?

  And this happens all the time and it happens within one platoon, you know, I guarantee you had guys in your platoon that thought they knew everything. And you had some guys that were like happy to be here and they're just humble. You get, you get all these guys, you get all these guys. And is there some little difference in the generations? Sure, there's always difference in generations. No freaking generation was as hard as mine, right? We always hear that, you know, the guys, when I got to the teams, it was like the guys from the seventies were like, oh, the guys from the eighties are weak. And then the guys in the eighties said the guys from the nineties were weak. Like, let's just keep going. How do we reflect things as a leader? Make adjustments when if my team is not performing well, I'm a hundred percent responsible for it.

• 3:10:09Jocko Willink?

  If my team has a bad attitude, I'm a hundred percent responsible for it and I'm gonna get it fixed. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm responsible to do that.

• 3:10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's a, that's a very nuanced. Look at this. I'm always asking this question because I am a millennial, you know, it's like. And it's hard to generalize a generation. You just can't, but, but you have to, to, there are stereotypes exist for a reason. So it's, it's, it's good for analysis to try and figure that out and. I don't, I don't know. I don't know where I fall on it because I see the, I see, I do see some bad aspects. It's and, you know, wanting more responsibility was maybe the, the wrong thing to, to hit on as, as a negative attribute. That's obviously a good thing.

• 3:10:56Speaker 01

  But it also, but sometimes it's accompanied by a, a not so humble belief that, that somebody is. Victimizing them and, and preventing them from moving up because of some kind of oppression and that's.

• 3:11:11Jocko Willink?

  And if I get someone like that on my team. Who's responsible for fixing that attitude? I, I can, I can promise you right now, we'll play the question game all day long and I do this, I do this with every level of leadership. I have people coming, you know, my team's all jacked up. Okay, cool. Who's in charge of your team?

• 3:11:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's right. You are. Or someone will say, my frontline troops aren't doing what I'm doing. Oh, who's in charge of your front, frontline troops? It's Bill. Okay, who's in charge of Bill? Mike. Who's in charge of Mike? Me. That's right. You're responsible for what's going on down there. And if there's attitudes that you don't like, man, you're responsible for it.

• 3:11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:45Jocko Willink?

  You are absolutely responsible for it. And if you're a good leader, you can get those attitudes to shift in the right direction. And generally, by doing exactly what we're talking about. When, and you and I were having a conversation earlier. It's like, if they understand why these decisions are being made, or why they actually need to learn some of these frontline jobs before they can move up the chain of command. If they understand that they have a path for mobility to, to increase their pay and increase their responsibility inside of an organization, they'll go, okay, cool. Thank you for telling me that. And now I'm gonna go get after it. As opposed to millennials suck.

• 3:12:23Jocko Willink?

  And I can't, and I can't, I can't deal with millennials. It's like, okay, cool.

• 3:12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I guess it's, I guess that's why I wrote the book. Right? Because, because I do see these things as problems and I don't see them in my team.

• 3:12:37Speaker 01

  My team's great and they're millennials or younger. So, obviously something is working there. Maybe that's because I hired the right people with the right temperament.

• 3:12:49Jocko Willink?

  And who's in charge of doing that?

• 3:12:51Speaker 01

  Well, me.

• 3:12:52Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. Exactly. So when you, when you meet someone that says, oh, I got these horrible people on my team. Have you tried to fix them? Yeah, but I can't fix them. Well, A, whose fault is that? B, who actually hired these people in the first place? If you, if you could sit down with someone and you interview them, or you hire them and then they're horrible and they have a horrible attitude and they don't want to be a part of the team. Great. You're not gonna be a part of my team.

• 3:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13:13Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna be a part of my team if that's, if that's what you bring to the table.

• 3:13:17Speaker 01

  And so, and so this book, I think, is like, what I'm trying to do is look at it as a broader cultural problem. Cause it is, it is. And

• 3:13:26Speaker 01

  And then try to give lessons to fix it, you know, because for all the reasons you just stated, it's like it's, it's, we had to take ownership of our culture as well. It's not just ownership of our team that we can, you know, you should, of course, and that you can control a lot when you're leading a team, but we've got to come together as a culture and be better. Cause as I, as I, the part you read, as an individual, you're an individual thread in the larger fabric of society and our culture is being transformed and not in a good way. And I hope the problem isn't as bad as I kind of make it out to be, but um, you know, worst case scenario, I'm wrong and, and things are going in a great direction.

• 3:14:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, even, I wouldn't say worst case scenario, you're wrong. I mean, clearly there are indicators of what you're talking about. And as you said, you're not talking about people on Twitter. You're talking about mainstream media organizations that, that proceed in this direction.

• 3:14:26Speaker 01

  And, and the analysis, cause I went off on a tangent, talking about millennials and the management issues with them. So the analysis I go into is, is it goes something like this. You believe in a victimhood ideology. You believe that somebody else is to blame. Maybe it's your team. Maybe it's your boss. Maybe it's your parent. Maybe it's your teacher. Whatever it is, somebody else's fault. Okay. You're, you're in that, you're living that story about yourself individually. That has expanded. It's expanded to groups. It's expanded to this sort of group on group identity politics. Not my fate is tied to an immutable characteristic that is tied to a group. Maybe it's race. Maybe it's gender. Maybe it's socioeconomic in nature. And by, by consequence, there is another group oppressing my group. Okay. So it's group on group politics.

• 3:15:11Speaker 01

  This is identity politics to the core. It's, it's the promise of more power from one group to another. Okay. You're telling somebody they're a victim and you're telling them that you're the champion of them against the oppressors. So that's the next thing.

• 3:15:25Speaker 01

  Then it evolves even more than that, it evolves into these kind of institutional conflicts. And so, it's not just a group that's oppressing you, that group is tied to a broader institution. Maybe that institution is the church, maybe that institution is, is some kind of, you know, cultural institution, maybe it's a merit, merits, maybe it's a meritocracy, that, to me, that's an institution. This notion that we compete based off of merit and that your reward is tied to how well you perform, or your talent, right? The meritocracy is an important institutional construct in our culture, okay? There's other institutions too, like the Supreme Court. Okay, when you're talking about packing the Supreme Court, you're talking about tearing down an institution.

• 3:16:08Speaker 01

  So there's government institutions, there's cultural institutions, there's social institutions. You know, the, the word institution is malleable in that sense. And it should describe a, kind of a cultural framework that we operate in, I think. Those come under attack, you know, because it's, it's the institution's fault. I talk about, um, uh, Thomas Sowell, he's an economist at Hoover Institute and Stanford. Amazing, amazing thinker and author. He talks about how the French Revolution was ba, the, led by Rousseau, it was, it was,

• 3:16:48Speaker 01

  it was based on this idea that the natural state of things involves no suffering, but that it is institutions that cause suffering. Well, that's a really interesting concept, it's like this belief that, that life is actually, that it is not, it is not natural in life to, to be oppressed, or to be, to go through suffering. It is not natural, what is nat, what it is, and it is the unnatural institutions, man-made institutions that created your suffering. Therefore, we must revolutionize those institutions, tear them down and build our utopia. This was how the French Revolution happened, this is how 17,000 people were dead in the next few years from the, from the terror that ensued.

• 3:17:29Speaker 01

  It is the thinking that led to Marxism and the horrors of the 20th century. All right, this is, uh, this isn't all that, um, controversial of a statement to make, it's just kind of how it happened. And that, that is how, that is how the progressive left thinks as well, that it, these, these, it comes from somewhere, like progressivism has a history, just like conservatism has a history. And it is a history based on this kind of your feelings are correct. If you feel something, it must be right. And you should, and the injustices against you are always manmade. And they're always come from an oppressor. They're never a natural part of life.

• 3:18:11Speaker 01

  Therefore, government is there to fix those institutions. And that's why you must proceed with the revolution. This is the thinking that occurs. Okay, so that ends up, once you've torn down the institutions, there's another ultimate oppressor, and it's the American founding itself. That's the story of America that keeps getting told. And that worries me a great deal. We didn't used to fight about that. The left and the right did not fight about the story of America the way we're fighting about it now. And it's become this question of whether America was even founded on anything good at all. That's the story being spun. And it stems from this individual victimhood, identity politics. And again, I'm not making this up.

• 3:18:54Speaker 01

  I'm not, because I'm looking at major leaders that say these kind of things. You know, I quote Beto. I quote Ilhan Omar. America was founded on genocide. Not that America committed genocide. That would be an accurate statement, you know? But America was founded on it. That implies a very different meaning. Saying that white supremacy is a problem is a true statement. Saying we were founded on it? That's a different implication. You're indicting the American founding itself. So what does that lead to? Well, it leads to popularity with burning the American flag. Leads to popularity with kneeling for the national anthem. It leads to popularity with attacking the Pledge of Allegiance as an institution in and of itself.

• 3:19:39Speaker 01

  It leads to the New York Times prioritizing a message that America is just okay on the 4th of July. Like, it leads, you know, I open up in this chapter talking about the New York Times going after the Apollo 1150th anniversary. Basically praising the USSR instead of America on this day. It's like, why is that? Why is that the reaction? Because there's this need to tear down the institutions of America at its core. Why is that? Well, because you need to tear something down at its core if you want to implement the revolutionary utopia that you envision.

• 3:20:22Speaker 01

  So this is the most political chapter by far, right? This is where I really delve into the differences, like the real deep differences between conservatism and progressivism, because I nail conservatives a little bit on this too, as far as the victimhood ideology goes. Like, it's a different form of ideology, it's a different form of victimhood, but it occurs, and it occurs up to the limits of tearing down institutions, okay? Conservatives have a very inherent distrust of government institutions, like, sometimes to a conspiratorial degree. But, we stop way short of actually bashing the founding of America. And then the solutions to this problem, which is what I really end the chapter with, I make

• 3:21:03Speaker 01

  a very strong argument against progressivism as a solution to these problems. Mostly because progressivism, at its heart, is a promise to end your suffering. And that is an inherently dishonest promise to make. For the reasons I just said again, that's the basis of the French Revolution. We can end your suffering because it's man-made. It's not natural. The natural state of things is for you to live in a wonderful utopia, prancing around in the trees, or whatever the heck they're imagining. It doesn't make any sense, because it's not real! And so, to tell somebody that you will end their suffering, to tell them that you can replace God with government, because what is religion fundamentally?

• 3:21:43Speaker 01

  It's like, Jesus took on the crucifixion, and the passion of the Christ is about Him taking on the suffering. There's a spiritual element to this. And that can't be replaced by a government ideology. Fundamentally, at its basic level, that's what progressivism attempts to promise people. And I also tried to define what I mean by the progressive movement very carefully in the book, because I don't want... There's a lot of people who identify as progressive because, you know, they just got back from a gay wedding, or they like to smoke some pot, or they like tattoos, or whatever, or they do yoga, you know?

• 3:22:25Speaker 01

  Like, I've defined that very carefully as social progressivism, like, in the modern sense, and like, that's just not what we're talking about here. I'm talking about the deeper, underlying politics and history of the progressive movement, and what it's fundamentally promising people. Talking about the role of government in your life. And, you know, because again, I want this to be readable to a lot of different people. But this is the most political chapter, by far.

• 3:22:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, one thing that, speaking of the tattooed, um, yoga, whatever person.

• 3:23:00Jocko Willink?

  I was a really rebellious kid, right? And I, I think at some point, um, there's gonna have to be like a, like a Republican with a mohawk and face tattoos. That's gonna come out and say like, hey,

• 3:23:19Jocko Willink?

  I have face tattoos. I like whatever genre of underground, subculture music. I don't want to conform to anything. And the best way to live that life is to actually support conservative values because conservative values support individual freedom and that's what I believe in.

• 3:23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:23:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and I think that's what's gonna get some of these, cause let's face it, uh, an 18 year old kid wants to be rebellious. Why? Because they trying to get out of the house, they're trying to show their dad that they don't need him anymore. Trying to show their mom that they don't need him anymore. So I'm gonna get a mohawk, I'm gonna get a tattoo on my neck and I'm gonna move forward into the world. And, and other kids look around and go, okay, that's how we're rebelling. But at some point, you go, actually,

• 3:24:10Jocko Willink?

  it just blows my mind that people say, you know, you go up to anyone and say, um, you know, do you want the government to be in charge of anything? You go up to someone with a mohawk and, and a, or whatever.

• 3:24:21Speaker 01

  And they're like, no way, man.

• 3:24:22Jocko Willink?

  No way, man. And then you go, cool. Why would you vote for the government to be in more, charge of more of our lives? I just don't think that connection gets made often enough.

• 3:24:32Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't. And I, I deal with this often and since I talk to most, not mostly, but, um, I'm, I'm a politician who does a lot more youth engagement than most politicians do.

• 3:24:45Speaker 01

  And so I address this directly, like, how do you, as a conservative young person, how do you make the case for conservatism to your fellow young people who kind of live by this kind of libertarian, and what you described as sort of libertarian, an extra rebellious libertarian, these people who kind of live by this notion of, you know, social progressivism and freedom, but fundamentally, they believe in a kind of republican form of government that is out of your life and, you know, fiscally responsible. You know, they live by this mantra, "Well, I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative," right? That's what people say. And then they vote Democrat, 100%. Like, almost 100% of the

• 3:25:27Speaker 01

  time. So it's a mantra that makes them feel good, but it doesn't mean anything to them. And, I mean, delving into this is like my life's work at this point.

• 3:25:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I feel so good for you. I'm so glad I don't have to talk about this stuff all the time. I'll do it once a year with you.

• 3:25:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's a super interesting thing. And you're like, like, why, why is your entire vote, your entire vote on a political party based on the abortion issue? I mean, it doesn't make sense. It's not a rational decision. I'm sorry. It's just not. Especially because that issue will not affect you, you know, because people will say this, and they've got like three kids, and they're like, well, and they would never get an abortion themselves. It's like, this doesn't affect you at all. You know, you can make a pretty good argument, this should be decided at the state level, and yet you are voting 100% because of this issue at the federal level. This is not a rational decision. And, or gay marriage. It's like, that's definitely not a rational decision, considering it's not even argued

• 3:26:24Speaker 01

  about anymore. Like, that's, the Supreme Court's done with that one. So, it doesn't, you know, it's really surprising to see how people think about these things. And so I guess, bringing it back to the book, my point is, I'm trying to distinguish there. I'm trying to distinguish this into a role of like what, into the conversation about what government is actually for, and how that manifests into victimhood ideology, how that manifests into the story about America. Because, again, I can make it, it's a very short path from victimhood ideology. And America as an oppressor to hatred of America itself. And I only, I only quote the big ones. I only quote, you know, Taylor Swift, because she's a cultural icon. You know, and she's out there saying,

• 3:27:09Speaker 01

  "If you're not a cisgender white male, your rights are being stripped away." That's a Taylor Swift quote. It's an amazing thing to say from one of the most successful, prosperous people in the world. Why would she believe that? What is happening that she believes this thing? That is so fundamentally not true? That is so easy to debunk? Why would she believe this? Why did AOC believe that she's, she's the next one I quote, which is like, what did she say? "My generation has never known American prosperity." How does that make any sense? I mean, it, it only makes sense in this context where it's good to be a victim.

• 3:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Wow, that's really insane.

• 3:27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. It only makes sense when you understand that the goal is to elevate victimhood. And then they use that, and then they use that to tear down the story of America itself. And it's a, it's such a dangerous path that we're on, that we want to revolutionize the foundations of our prosperity to such an extent. And again, the only way to justify, the only way to make people believe that their eyes are lying to them, that all the good things around them are just lies. The only way to make them believe that is to constantly, is to constantly hammer them with this crisis narrative. With this false narrative that people are trying to oppress them, or there's other people being oppressed, and you've never met them. But guess what?

• 3:28:33Speaker 01

  It's happening, and if you don't, and if you don't raise your fist against the injustice, then you're part of the problem, you and your white privilege. It's, this is happening at such an extreme level. You know, and it's, and again, the good news is, is like, people listening are like, "Well, I haven't seen it." Good, that's good, but it is happening.

• 3:28:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I mean,

• 3:28:53Speaker 01

  We gotta be aware of it.

• 3:28:53Jocko Willink?

  Like you said, there's evidence, big evidence, from, from real players out there that, that preach this and live this sort of life. It's kind of interesting, man, because we, on this podcast, very seldom talk about politics at all. And yet, people kind of know where I stand, and they kind of, you know, just, it's all good.

• 3:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, like you said, it is a real thing that is going on. It is a problem. And that's the one thing that I would say is very nice about your book is that it is a, first of all, it explains it and it gives some pretty good answers on how to move forward. And one of the things you do is you you close out with with an American ethos.

• 3:29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:29:43Jocko Willink?

  Set you set forth an American ethos in the book. Or what do you think you call it a drafter? You say perhaps it goes something like this and you and you spell it out. Pretty straightforward. Nothing that really anybody would sensibly argue with.

• 3:29:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:29:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, nothing that you could really sensibly argue with. And I'll let people get the book and and and read it.

• 3:30:08Jocko Willink?

  But you know, the last line of it is, you know, I will live with fortitude. You know, the name of the book is fortitude. That's sort of the last line of the American ethos that you you put forth.

• 3:30:18Jocko Willink?

  And that's a simple statement, right? It's a simple statement, but it's something that you can actually carry with you in every part of your life. And the way you tie fortitude into all these other aspects of how to deal with other people, how to react to things. That is what the book is about. And it really sets forth a

• 3:30:37Jocko Willink?

  a great path for people to go down to get their themselves, their family, their country into a more stable and productive and better place.

• 3:30:52Jocko Willink?

  So, um,

• 3:30:55Jocko Willink?

  I've read a tiny fraction of the book today. Whoever you what you should do is order this book right now. Now here's something that you haven't ran into yet, Dan. Your publisher, your publisher is, first of all, they're underestimating you. They're underestimating the people that want to hear this message. So they're only going to print X amount of books. They're looking at pre-sales. They're like, okay, we're only going to print X amount of books because it's an investment. It's a risk for them. And then what happens is the book comes out, people start to read it, it catches on fire. And then all of a sudden they're four weeks out from printing more books. So what people need to do right now is preorder the book.

• 3:31:36Speaker 01

  Preorder the book.

• 3:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Which makes the publisher then print more.

• 3:31:40Speaker 01

  Also, I should note. All pre-orders are getting a signed book plate.

• 3:31:45Jocko Willink?

  Dave.

• 3:31:46Speaker 01

  All of them.

• 3:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Ouch.

• 3:31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, my hand hurts.

• 3:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's not fun.

• 3:31:53Jocko Willink?

  So, order the book right now. We'll have it on our website so you guys can click through and order it.

• 3:31:57Speaker 01

  Well, I need to clarify that. You have to go to dancrenschobbook.com/preorder to upload your receipt so that we know you pre-ordered it and can actually get you the book plate.

• 3:32:07Jocko Willink?

  You know what?

• 3:32:08Speaker 01

  If you do that, you get the book plate. And I've been putting out that website pretty constantly.

• 3:32:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cool. I'm gonna take this as a personal challenge to see if I can break you. Get so many freaking pre-orders that you have to sign book plates for like a month.

• 3:32:21Speaker 01

  This, I mean, do something hard, you know? Sign 1 million book plates. Do something hard.

• 3:32:26Jocko Willink?

  That is nasty. You actually have a podcast now, your own podcast, which is called Hold These Truths.

• 3:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:32:34Jocko Willink?

  Tell us about that podcast a little bit.

• 3:32:35Speaker 01

  So, I'm always looking for ways to communicate. It's my job. I've gotta communicate the truth and the policies that I believe are right and the things we're voting on in Washington. So, I do that a ton on social media, as everybody knows that. And there's, you know, there's a different method of communicating for every platform. And one thing that you can't do on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter is have really lengthy conversations and deep dives into policy issues. So, I do that on the podcast. And, you know, it started because I'm like, you know, I get these five-minute conversations during hearings when I have a really interesting witness come and talk about something. And maybe I'll meet with that person later, too.

• 3:33:18Speaker 01

  And it's a really interesting conversation. And I ask some, you know, questions that I need answered. Why don't we record that? Why don't we dive into these things? And so, what you'll find from that podcast is a whole variety of issues, you know? One day it'll be about Iran or China. Another day it'll be about student loans. I've interviewed the previous head of the ACLU. We'll talk about free speech. We'll talk about, you know, does discrimination law make sense in these conditions? Like, there's some really fascinating deep dives. We'll talk about 5G. We'll talk about Bitcoin. I mean, a whole variety of things. Medicare for All, the environment, the Green New Deal, like, all of this stuff. And I'm talking to actual experts on the subjects.

• 3:34:03Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, it's your job gives you access to people that actually know what they're talking about.

• 3:34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They'll come and talk to me.

• 3:34:08Jocko Willink?

  And are you bringing on people that you don't agree with?

• 3:34:10Speaker 01

  Well, I've gotten into debates with some, for sure, especially ahead of the ACLU. We haven't, we probably could do more of that. It just started. So I'm trying to build up a library right now of just deep dives into certain policies. Where I'm kind of just asking the questions as a, because, you know, the, the way we went at this podcast too is like, I don't have time to prepare for it. You know, I'm, I'm too busy to take the time to really prepare a podcast the way you are preparing your podcast each time. It's, it's not, it's not feasible for me. What's more feasible is that I'm just a genuinely curious person, talking to another person who knows a lot of things. That I can take an hour out and do. And, um, I think it ends up being pretty good.

• 3:34:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:34:53Speaker 01

  And, uh, so, you know, um, yeah, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't had a full-on like debate on, on a podcast yet. And, uh, I haven't figured out how I would even structure that if we were to. Because I debate, I debate in my public life so often. It's like, you know, I don't know, I don't need to put it on the podcast either. But I bet a lot of people would like to watch it though.

• 3:35:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, I think it would be nice because you could be in a situation where they're not constrained by time. If you've got somebody else that was sane.

• 3:35:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:35:22Jocko Willink?

  That had a different viewpoint on this, that or the other thing where you could actually discuss and maybe make some mutual forward progress between, you know, coming to better ideas or more mutually agreed upon ideas. That might be nice. You are on Instagram at Dan Crenshaw TX, which is for Texas echo, in case you didn't know that. Facebook, Dan Crenshaw, at Dan Crenshaw. And you also have your website, which is Crenshaw for Congress. Is that where the book is as well? Or no?

• 3:35:52Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 3:35:52Jocko Willink?

  Where is the book?

• 3:35:53Speaker 01

  The book is Dan Crenshaw book.com.

• 3:35:55Jocko Willink?

  Got it. I like your branding. It's just like mine.

• 3:35:58Speaker 01

  It's my name.

• 3:36:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly. Now, um,

• 3:36:04Jocko Willink?

  Did I miss anything as far as like all this, all this stuff as far as getting in touch with you and all that?

• 3:36:09Speaker 01

  Um, no, I mean, it's easy to find me on social media. You have to keep in mind, here's some annoyances about how my social media works. On Instagram, I have one account. Okay, it's my personal account. It's uh, it's not really official. It's not really campaign. But the way the rules work, you have to generally differentiate between official and campaign, which is why there's two Facebook accounts, which is why there's two Twitter accounts, and you have to follow all of them to get all the information. Um, Instagram, if you're an Instagram user, it's a little easier for you. I just, cause I, I control that. It's my personal account. And uh, that's, that's why you just have to search for me a couple of times and then follow both. That's the only thing I would add.

• 3:36:48Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Now, uh, Dan, I know you're doing a lot for America, which is definitely appreciated. But I, I want you to know that we're doing our part over here as well in the private sector. We're working hard to make people better.

• 3:37:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:37:06Jocko Willink?

  To make the economy better and to rebuild the foundation of America, or at least one foundation of America, and that is self-reliance and our ability to create and build the best products in the world. Hundred percent American-made. Did I say a hundred percent American-made?

• 3:37:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:37:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, hundred percent American-made. In three years, I think it's three years, we've gone from eight employees to eighty. Uh, we are just getting warmed up. Little company up in Maine.

• 3:37:33Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:37:34Jocko Willink?

  My home state, my home region, I should say. I'm a New Englander.

• 3:37:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:37:40Jocko Willink?

  Cause I got time in Connecticut and Maine. But I, can I claim it a little bit? My home record is Maine.

• 3:37:45Speaker 02

  Yes, you can claim it.

• 3:37:46Jocko Willink?

  So up there, we got a little factory.

• 3:37:48Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 3:37:49Jocko Willink?

  We got a little something called Origin Maine. Tell us about it, Echo Charles.

• 3:37:52Speaker 02

  Okay, I will. Oh, by the way, uh, we are getting softer, by the way. As, generally speaking, as a group, we are all getting softer. That's why generation after generation, they say, oh, my generation was harder than this new generation. That's why they always say it.

• 3:38:07Jocko Willink?

  You're saying it factually.

• 3:38:08Speaker 02

  It's factually. And this is why, generally speaking, as individuals, there's variations in individuals, for sure. And even little micro groups, for sure, variation, but this is why technology, the whole reason for technology is to solve our problems.

• 3:38:23Jocko Willink?

  Is to make things easier?

• 3:38:24Speaker 02

  Make everything easier. Exactly right. And, and I'd say, I like to look, not like to, but I look at it as to solve our problems, which is making things easier for sure. So even like the caveman, right? When they invented the wheel, all these softies, they got the wheel now.

• 3:38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38:38Speaker 02

  You see what I'm saying? The guys before us, that generation, like our generation, we had to carry stuff.

• 3:38:42Speaker 01

  I mean, they're objectively harder. I think objectively speaking.

• 3:38:46Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 3:38:47Speaker 01

  And it's not a bad thing that we've made things easier, but.

• 3:38:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:38:50Speaker 01

  The whole, but you have to, it was just kind of the whole point of the chapter. Do something hard. You've got to, you have to, you have to make up for that.

• 3:38:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta make up for it.

• 3:38:58Speaker 01

  Artificially.

• 3:38:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:38:59Speaker 01

  Hardening your own life.

• 3:39:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And that's why this is like, your book is good. That's why what you say is good is because, bro, we can't, this is a wave. A wave of just easiness coming on us. And there's no stopping it. But individually, we can kind of like fight against not necessarily the wave, but the results of the wave.

• 3:39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39:17Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 3:39:19Jocko Willink?

  You can do something hard.

• 3:39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. So what you get though, what you will get inevitably is everyone with all their problems solved. And we're always looking for these little issues.

• 3:39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39:27Speaker 02

  Cause that's how, right? That's nature.

• 3:39:29Speaker 01

  Human nature.

• 3:39:29Speaker 02

  So now it's like, hey, that's some injustice right there.

• 3:39:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. It's a lot, it's a lot harder to complain about the injustice of your wifi in your neighborhood not being as strong as it's, if you don't got food on your plate.

• 3:39:43Speaker 02

  Exactly, right. Exactly, right.

• 3:39:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:39:46Speaker 02

  And, you know, and think about like your kids now, right? Where it's like, oh yeah, they gotta wear helmets now. See what I'm saying? Hey, you guys gotta wear seat belts now. Try getting to like a 1965 something.

• 3:39:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:39:57Speaker 02

  Bro, you're gonna die in that thing. It seems like it. You see what I'm saying? But that was just how back then.

• 3:40:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:40:02Speaker 02

  Now getting in your 2020, whatever Tesla, and bro, you can fall asleep behind the wheel. You're safe.

• 3:40:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:40:08Speaker 02

  Safe.

• 3:40:09Jocko Willink?

  They got you.

• 3:40:09Speaker 02

  No problem. Exactly right. All your problems solved. So that's how, you know, it's like, you know, the, all these groups of people. Minor, like very small groups of people, but they're super loud because they can be now. That's just how, like back in the day.

• 3:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Cause they're not out hunting down elk with a bow and arrow.

• 3:40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And not to mention the technology allows all this, you know? So, yeah, and they're loud or whatever, but you make a good point where it's like, yeah, if you go out and look for all these issues, it's like, it's hard to find them. But you're, how you say like Ben Shapiro and, and down there in ground zero. Oh, man.

• 3:40:45Jocko Willink?

  Karen is, Karen is better at ground zero.

• 3:40:48Speaker 02

  So it's gonna seem pretty bad. Nonetheless, yes. So yes, uh, keep up the good fight against the wave.

• 3:40:55Jocko Willink?

  Doing hard things. What hard things you got for us? Echo Charles, what can we do?

• 3:40:59Speaker 02

  Jiu-jitsu, hard. Daily hardships, all day.

• 3:41:03Jocko Willink?

  Daily hardships.

• 3:41:04Speaker 02

  You know, working out, fitness, jiu-jitsu, and

• 3:41:09Speaker 02

  I was gonna say fashion, but that's more your issue. That's hard for you. You see what I'm saying? Anyway, so when we do jiu-jitsu, what are we doing? Gi? We're doing gi, we're doing nogi.

• 3:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Nogi.

• 3:41:20Speaker 02

  If you get a gi, get an origin gi, for all the reasons you mentioned.

• 3:41:26Jocko Willink?

  We'll get you up to the factory up in Maine, Dan. You gotta go check it out. It's awesome. It's awesome. We literally bought the last, bought the last loom in Lewiston, Maine, from a 500,000 square foot abandoned factory that hadn't been used in 20 years, and all the other hundreds and hundreds of looms from that factory sent overseas. We're bringing it back. We had one loom. Now I think we got four looms. We're bringing it back.

• 3:41:51Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 3:41:52Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, the folks up there, these are folks that their industry was taken away from them. Their industry was sold overseas, and now they're back craftsmen, craftswomen. Sewing, making boots, making jeans, all in America. And every, like, every single part of those jeans is American.

• 3:42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is such an important, I'm gonna bring it to a little bit of politics and how I view this, and the need to to embrace some sense of American economic nationalism, which we've lost over time. And the rise of Trump, when people ask about how the Republican Party has changed under Trump, it's usually a disingenuous question. What they want you to say is that Republicans are racist, right? That's really what they're insinuating when they ask that question. Or that they're more racist now. That's not true. But there is some change, and this drive towards to a conversation about economic nationalism is actually part of that change. And it's been interesting to watch, and I think it's a necessary change.

• 3:42:56Speaker 01

  Because what Trump got was a lot of Democrat voters who had maybe voted Democrat their whole life, but they were part of a union. Culturally speaking, they identify a hell of a lot more with me than they do AOC. Okay, so they started voting based on that. But also, Trump finally talked about some things they were concerned about, which was like China. Okay, China taking advantage of us, NAFTA taking advantage of us.

• 3:43:24Speaker 01

  The reality is that's a nuanced conversation. It's not, it's not, it's different for every factory, to be honest. Sometimes it's the business itself that sucked. Sometimes it is Chinese dumping that occurred, alright? Sometimes it's just, it's a mix of things. But Republicans for too long adhere to a highly stringent free market economy dogmatic approach, which said if another country can make it cheaper, they should make it. Alright, that's just, that's economics 101, we're done. No more thinking about it. Well, that's, it's not that simple. Like, there's winners and losers here. Just because like tomatoes are now five cents cheaper for everybody doesn't mean that we're all better off.

• 3:44:08Speaker 01

  You know, we have thousands of farmers that no longer make tomatoes. Also, we don't make tomatoes. And now, by the way, again, let's bring it back to some coronavirus. We've got a real conversation in this country to have about medical device manufacturing and the supply lines of our medical industry.

• 3:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 3:44:23Speaker 01

  And computer industry and everything else. Like, there is benefit, even if it costs us more, there is benefit to having that here in America. It's a real benefit, not just the job, the manufacturing jobs are certainly some of those benefits, but there's a national security reason as well. And it's about time we have a more honest conversation about that as Republicans. Democrats will just be against Trump, no matter what. So like, because they don't, they're not really principled in this. They're mostly about seeking power for the sake of the revolution, and I could go way back into that again, but, and, and so, you know, I, we just, I think that's an interesting point, is where I want to end that. And so, I love what you guys are doing, I guess is what I'm really trying to say.

• 3:45:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, it's, and you know, we got this right now, again, you're talking coronavirus, we got 100% American supply chain. So, zero impact, it's zero impact, it's, it's just, it's, it's awesome. And yeah, you're talking about the, the Chinese are making a bunch of the, what, 95% of the pharmaceuticals or something crazy, there's a crazy number like that.

• 3:45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45:27Jocko Willink?

  That's not okay. That's not okay. And yeah, if you save five cents on something, that's not okay when when something happens. Even if it was, even if it was just a natural disaster that that caused problems over there, you know, no, no political anything. That's a real problem. And to have single source for life, life-saving capabilities, that's a bad plan. And hopefully, we look back at this coronavirus and we say, hey, I'm glad we got a heads up. I'm glad we got a free lesson, relatively cheap lessons learned.

• 3:45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45:57Jocko Willink?

  About this. So anyways, up in Maine.

• 3:46:01Speaker 02

  Doing it.

• 3:46:02Jocko Willink?

  We're doing it. We're doing it right now. We've been doing it. And we're going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to get out the best products. We're making supplements too. Supplementation, as as Echo Charles likes to call it.

• 3:46:13Speaker 02

  Sure, from time to time. So for supplementation, what joint supplements, very important, by the way.

• 3:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:20Speaker 02

  Joints.

• 3:46:21Speaker 01

  I should probably take some of those.

• 3:46:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, bro, what are you gonna do like if your joints don't work? Yeah, not much.

• 3:46:26Speaker 01

  You just get new ones?

• 3:46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, there is that technology, by the way.

• 3:46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:31Speaker 02

  Also, milk. Milk technically is supplementation, technically.

• 3:46:36Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 3:46:37Jocko Willink?

  Milk.

• 3:46:37Speaker 02

  It's more of a dessert.

• 3:46:38Jocko Willink?

  It's a dessert that happens to have a bunch of protein in it and probiotics, and it has no sugar, and it's super healthy, and it tastes delicious.

• 3:46:46Speaker 02

  Technology, man.

• 3:46:47Speaker 01

  I'm skeptical of the delicious part.

• 3:46:49Jocko Willink?

  That's what's crazy.

• 3:46:50Speaker 02

  I was too.

• 3:46:51Jocko Willink?

  That's what's crazy. That's what's crazy. That's what has got so many people officially on the milk train.

• 3:46:58Speaker 01

  I eat so much dessert.

• 3:46:59Jocko Willink?

  I will send you. What's what flavor of these flavors? Chocolate? Vanilla? Mint chocolate chip, which is my personal favorite. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and I know I can't call it that, but that's what it tastes like.

• 3:47:12Speaker 02

  Peanut butter chocolate, we'll say.

• 3:47:13Jocko Willink?

  Peanut butter chocolate.

• 3:47:14Speaker 01

  I'm a big fan of the peanut butter chocolate.

• 3:47:15Jocko Willink?

  And then here's the one that's kind of the creeper or the the what's it called? The creeper?

• 3:47:20Speaker 02

  No, the sleeper.

• 3:47:21Jocko Willink?

  The sleeper, the strawberry.

• 3:47:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 3:47:24Jocko Willink?

  So did you ever have strawberry quick when you were a kid?

• 3:47:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:47:27Jocko Willink?

  Did you like it?

• 3:47:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm not kidding.

• 3:47:32Jocko Willink?

  I'm not kidding. Strawberry milk tastes better than strawberry quick.

• 3:47:38Speaker 01

  Well.

• 3:47:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you, bro.

• 3:47:40Speaker 02

  It's like a competitor.

• 3:47:41Speaker 01

  Is it a liquid? Wait, can we back? Because my, my, my preference for flavor does depend on the substance.

• 3:47:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like, it's like a milkshake.

• 3:47:49Speaker 02

  Milkshake, yeah.

• 3:47:49Speaker 01

  Oh, it's like a milkshake?

• 3:47:50Jocko Willink?

  It's like a milkshake or a chocolate milk or a, or a Nestle's quick.

• 3:47:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:47:53Speaker 02

  Although you can make pancakes.

• 3:47:55Speaker 01

  Straw, what?

• 3:47:56Speaker 02

  You can make pancakes.

• 3:47:57Jocko Willink?

  You can put milk in pretty much anything.

• 3:47:59Speaker 01

  Okay, so based on the fact that it's more like a milkshake, then I would, yeah, then I would, I would say not the peanut butter. I do like peanut butter milkshake, but that's more of an ice cream that I'm, I'm favorite. Um, so can we have milk ice cream? Is that a thing?

• 3:48:12Jocko Willink?

  We, we have things in, in process for the milk ice cream. And did, did you have some at camp?

• 3:48:19Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so, yeah, we, we have milk ice cream. We need to move forward on our logistics. It's a heavy logistics. You know, you're talking about shipping frozen foods, etc. So we're, we're moving in that direction. We're not there yet. We're working on it.

• 3:48:30Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 3:48:31Jocko Willink?

  It's a, we have milk bars coming, which was again, totally ridiculous.

• 3:48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:48:36Jocko Willink?

  Totally ridiculous. Game changer stuff.

• 3:48:40Speaker 01

  So strawberry then?

• 3:48:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, we'll get to the whole line.

• 3:48:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, the whole deal.

• 3:48:43Jocko Willink?

  The whole line. So you'll just be, you'll become, sometimes you're gonna be in the mood for men, sometimes you're gonna be in the mood for, you know, strawberry.

• 3:48:48Speaker 01

  I've got a sweet tooth.

• 3:48:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:48:50Speaker 02

  Those milk bars, you're gonna, it's funny because you know how kids are the kind of the litmus test, you know? Like if they, if you give the kid like, uh, let's say back in the day, right? You got your diet shake. And then it's like, yeah, it's good. And you say, you should give it to the kid. The kid's like, bro, I don't like this. Like, you know, I, I dig it or whatever. They don't, just don't like. So my, and I have a video of this where my son, three, by the way, which is a solid little test group.

• 3:49:13Jocko Willink?

  Good, good experiment.

• 3:49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Because he doesn't have morals or nothing like that. So he's just like.

• 3:49:17Jocko Willink?

  He'll tell you the truth.

• 3:49:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I mean. Like he doesn't care about your feelings or whatever. So, yeah, I, I have a video of him chomping a milk bar. And I'm like, I, I didn't give him a milk bar. And he's like, oh, yeah, he just called the chocolate bar, whatever. And I was like, what are you eating? And he's like, yeah, it's frozen chocolate bar. And here's the thing, I put those in the freezer to hide them. And he went in there, seeked it out with motivation, obviously. You see what I'm saying? Taste buds is the number one motivating factor in this case.

• 3:49:43Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 3:49:44Speaker 02

  Anyway, so that was the test. That's milk bar though. I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

• 3:49:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:49:47Speaker 02

  We'll stick with the milk for now.

• 3:49:52Jocko Willink?

  All right. So yes, and by the way, all those things, the supplementation, the drinks, everything is available at originmaine.com, also at Vitamin Shoppe nationwide. There you go.

• 3:50:08Speaker 02

  Also, we will be listing Dan's book for easy availability, Fortitude, on our website, jockopodcast.com. Go ahead, click on the book section on the top menu. We have a book section there. That's by episode. So this episode, boom, you'll see, you'll see Dan's book there. Anyway, you can get it there. Also, we have a store. It's called Jaco Store. So you go jacostore.com, similar to Dan's book, or what was it called? Fortitudebook.com, dancrenschildbook.com?

• 3:50:38Speaker 01

  Dancrenschildbook.com.

• 3:50:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So to the simplicity, same. Jaco Store. It's a store from Jaco, Jaco Store, right? Dot com. Anyway, this is where you can get, what, shirts, hats, hoodies, many garments representative of the path.

• 3:50:55Jocko Willink?

  The path. Subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already, which if you haven't already, you might want to just do a full-on sort of systems check of your whole life. Otherwise, just, just subscribe. Check out Dan's podcast, which is called Hold These Truths, or you can just search for Dan Crenshaw and it pops up. Don't forget about the Grounded Podcast, where we talk about the most important things in life, all kind of related to another thing in life called jujitsu. Warrior Kid Podcast, we're gonna have one with Dan Crenshaw on it, by the way, so your kids can figure out how they want to be directed down the path. And don't forget about that Warrior Kid Soap from IrishOaksRanch.com.

• 3:51:42Jocko Willink?

  Black soap, which is magically turns to cleanliness on your body.

• 3:51:47Speaker 02

  Yep, counterintuitive for sure.

• 3:51:49Jocko Willink?

  It's called, yes, Dan. Question.

• 3:51:52Speaker 01

  I have black toothpaste.

• 3:51:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, activated charcoal.

• 3:51:55Speaker 02

  Activated charcoal.

• 3:51:56Jocko Willink?

  And it helps some sort of thing, right?

• 3:51:59Speaker 01

  I don't know what it does.

• 3:52:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but we know it's kind of looks cool, right?

• 3:52:02Speaker 01

  Stains my towels.

• 3:52:03Jocko Willink?

  We know that it looks cool.

• 3:52:05Speaker 01

  So, but it feels cleaner.

• 3:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:52:07Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 3:52:08Jocko Willink?

  So we got, we got soap that helps to kill germs, bacteria.

• 3:52:12Speaker 02

  Does not stain your towel.

• 3:52:13Jocko Willink?

  Coronavirus.

• 3:52:13Speaker 02

  All that, yeah. All day.

• 3:52:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, and that soap is called Killer Soap. And what that will do, it will help you and your family. Stay clean.

• 3:52:24Speaker 02

  Yo, sure does.

• 3:52:26Jocko Willink?

  Got a YouTube channel?

• 3:52:27Speaker 02

  Yes. Video version of this podcast. You want to see what Dan Crenshaw looks like? Good, good looking guy.

• 3:52:33Speaker 01

  Really good looking.

• 3:52:34Speaker 02

  You know, cool eye patch, new eye patch, by the way.

• 3:52:36Speaker 01

  It's new, yeah, just unveiled this one.

• 3:52:38Speaker 02

  Boom, you want to see what that looks like? We have a YouTube channel on YouTube, youtube.com, et cetera, you understand. Also some excerpts on there, by the way, if you don't want to watch the whole.

• 3:52:48Jocko Willink?

  If you don't afford to your friend and go, hey, hey, check out what Echo Charles said about this. And then they send him a four hour, what is it? Yeah, four hour video.

• 3:52:57Speaker 02

  Video, yeah.

• 3:52:57Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't help anybody.

• 3:52:58Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 3:52:59Jocko Willink?

  You're part of the problem at that point in life. Uh, we got psychological warfare.

• 3:53:06Jocko Willink?

  On MP3 platforms, if you need a little psychological here, you can get it. We got flip side canvas, Dakota Meyer, my brother, making cool things to hang on your wall. We got a bunch of books. We got Fortitude by Dan Crenshaw. We got Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. We got The Way the Warrior Kids Series. We got Mikey and the Dragon. We got Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. We got Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. Get every single one of those books.

• 3:53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, get them. Yeah, sure.

• 3:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy, what we do is solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com if you need help at your business, team, corporation. We got you covered. EF Online is online training for leadership, interactive. Check that out. muster 2020 Orlando, May 7th and 8th. Not so sure about that one. We may be getting some, uh, what do you think, Dan? What do you think the chances are?

• 3:53:59Jocko Willink?

  900 people.

• 3:54:00Speaker 01

  I mean, experts think, um, you know, this is a change in America life that'll last a month or two.

• 3:54:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:54:06Speaker 01

  And then we'll be on the downtrend. We can look at the numbers coming out of China and South Korea as perhaps a guide as to how the decrease in cases happens. Hopefully, we don't even reach the peaks that they did.

• 3:54:18Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:54:19Speaker 01

  Yet to be seen.

• 3:54:21Speaker 02

  Plus, you got social distancing slowing down the curve.

• 3:54:24Jocko Willink?

  Echo's basically, if you've been hanging around, Echo thinks that he's sort of a national hero right now because he's not, he's not shaking people's hands.

• 3:54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:54:33Jocko Willink?

  He's sort of taken on, you know, you were talking about the archetypical hero. I think we had Echo Charles over there. He's sacrificing his own.

• 3:54:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:54:41Jocko Willink?

  Hugs, his own hug or whatnot.

• 3:54:42Speaker 01

  Geez.

• 3:54:43Jocko Willink?

  He's keeping it real. Uh, look, if, if Orlando doesn't go down, we'll keep you posted, but then it's going to be Phoenix, Arizona, September 16th and 17th, Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th. And, uh, of course, we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion. If you need personnel inside your business that understand the principles that we talk about all the time, that we wrote about, go to EFOverwatch.com for executive leadership from the military. Go to EFLegion.com for frontline troops and leaders. That's what we do. And if you still want to interact with us some more, which is just getting kind of crazy. I mean, it's been a long time. There's a lot of hours, but if you need more, then

• 3:55:26Jocko Willink?

  we are on the interwebs. Dan, like I said, Dan is on Twitter and on Instagram, at Dan Crenshaw, TX for Texas, Facebook, Dan Crenshaw, website, Dan Crenshaw for Congress. Echo and I are also there on Twitter, on Instagram, and on the good old Facebook. Echo's at Echo Charles, and I am at Jockalik. Echo, any closing thoughts?

• 3:55:51Speaker 02

  No. Good to see Dan Crenshaw again.

• 3:55:53Jocko Willink?

  This time, this time as an esteemed member of Congress.

• 3:55:55Speaker 02

  Esteemed.

• 3:55:56Speaker 01

  Steamed.

• 3:55:57Speaker 02

  Big time esteemed, yeah.

• 3:55:58Speaker 01

  It's a lovely word. I really appreciate it. It's been fun.

• 3:56:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Little, little longer than we thought.

• 3:56:04Speaker 01

  We got a lot to say.

• 3:56:05Jocko Willink?

  Man, some tangential things, but all good. Hey, and, um, thanks for coming back on. You know, thanks for sharing your life story and your lessons learned, not just here, but in the book. And I know people are gonna, gonna thank you for the book, and I am gonna thank you and everyone thanks you for your service and your sacrifice.

• 3:56:26Jocko Willink?

  Not only on the battlefield, but now you know you're fighting a different kind of battle. And you know, you and I talk offline, I, and I've, I told you twice, once on the phone and once when you showed up here, I'm really glad that you have your job and I have mine. Um, your job is not one that I would want and, uh, not fun, but you're doing it for the right reasons. And I think everyone appreciates the fact that you're fighting a battle for the future of America. So that, so that America remains now and forever, the land of the free and the home of the brave. And the same goes to the rest of our servicemen and women out

• 3:57:04Jocko Willink?

  there. Freedom is not free and someone has to hold the line. And it is all of you soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines out there who keep evil and darkness at bay. And we thank you for that. And the same thing goes to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service. Same thing. Freedom isn't free. It takes sacrifice and thanks to all of you for what you do every day to take care of us and keep our country free. And to everyone else out there, life is a struggle. It's a challenge. It's suffering. And you're

• 3:57:49Jocko Willink?

  not always going to win. But even when you don't win, as Dan says, don't quit, don't give up, don't be a victim, don't take the easy path, don't squander this life. Instead, live with fortitude.

• 3:58:09Jocko Willink?

  By getting up every day and getting after it. And until next time, this is Dan Crenshaw and Echo and Jaco. Out.