334: Work Hard, ENDURE, & Keep Hammering, w/ Bowhunter Cam Hanes.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:34 - Bowhunter, Cameron Hanes. 3:30:41 - Final thoughts and how to stay on THE PATH. 3:48:55 - 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 334 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  We were sitting by a thick section of reprod, a logging term for young timber, when I heard the high pitched bugle of a male elk. The 15 foot tall trees shifted like the parting of the seas and a massive bull stepped out onto the logging road. I was leaning on my knees, trying to look invisible as the black horned six by seven bull bore holes through me with his eyes. He was in bow range and when I decided that I should try to kill him, the thing I'd been practicing to do for months, I realized that it felt like my arms were asleep and my heart was beating out of my chest.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if I can even pull this bow back. The bull stood there only 40 yards away from me. There was no question I should be able to kill him. I'd shot thousands of arrows at this distance all summer.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  I pulled back the bowstring and released.

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  The arrow missed the bull, shot behind his butt. That meant I was about seven feet off my mark, which was ridiculous. This was what I'd call shitting the bed. My first bow shot of my life at an animal couldn't have been much worse. I didn't get another opportunity that day, but something was ignited inside me.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  I'd never had any real ambitions or goals for myself, but something changed. Now, all I knew was I wanted to kill a bull. So, right after that first day hunting debacle, I became obsessed and hunted for the next 18 days straight, determined to succeed. That's right, 18 days straight. Finally, on September 13th, 1989, I killed my first bull.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  The first animal that ever died from one of my arrows was a small, young spike bull. Granted, it wasn't anything like the giant six by seven I blew it on, but it didn't matter. It was my first bow kill and my first bull elk. Truth is, I didn't deserve a big bull yet. I hadn't paid my bow hunting dues. And, size aside, I didn't know many guys who had even killed a bull with their bow. So my spike bull accomplishment still felt special. It was almost a three-week grind, but it was worth it.

• 2:43Jocko Willink?

  Some people lived their whole lives never finding their true passion. I was 20 years old when I first tasted bow hunting success and that marked the time I discovered my purpose. Suddenly, I had something in my life to focus my energy on. I quit college and quit about everything else just to be able to bow hunt more. I'll never forget where this journey began and how long it's taken to hammer away at a dream. We all have to start somewhere. Nobody is born great at bow hunting. The average success rate on hunting a bull elk with a bow is about 10%.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  So that's one kill every 10 years, or one guy out of 10 who is going to have success. That's never going to be good enough for me, never was, never will be. Average sucks. Nowadays, I earn success on virtually every hunt in every state, every year. So I expect to be 100% when the average is 10%.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  That said, I didn't wake up one morning great at bow hunting. I have worked for more than 30 years to get where I am today. It's not talent, it's drive. It's not raw ability, it's endurance. Hunting is my passion and being successful at it is what fuels me every day to get better than the day before.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book which is called Endure. How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering. And if you haven't figured it out yet, this is a book written by an individual named Cameron Hanes. Cameron Hanes is one of the most highly respected and successful bow hunters in the world. And in order to get there, in order to get to that level of expertise and ability, he has lived a relentless life of utmost discipline and unmitigated focus.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  And I guess since he's got this book and he's written some other books that he's an author, and I guess since he trains hard, he's an endurance athlete. And I know that he represents brands and I know that he's founded and runs businesses. But first and foremost, he's a bow hunter, one of the best in the world. And we are lucky enough to have him here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and some of his lessons learned along the way and how they apply not only to bow hunting, but to life. Cam, thanks for joining us, man.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an honor to be here. Thank you, guys.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  That's a... That first one, huh? That first shot was a... The first shot you took was a miss.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Oh, it was terrible.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Do you know what you did wrong?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, I just was wrapped up in the moment. Adrenaline was going crazy. You know how it gets coursing through your veins and you... It's kind of a new experience and so intense with that bull coming in and the reprod spreading. Like I said, I could see the tree shaking as it came down and I'm just like, "Holy shit, what is going on?" And then that bull... And I'd been watching the bull because I was up there the night before on Friday night, Saturday morning, the season open. So I've been watching from about, I don't know, mile and a half away or a mile. So I knew the bull and I knew what we were, you know, what the focus was and it was a big bull and I knew all that from afar, but once,

• 6:38Speaker 01

  once he gets in his, in his showtime. So I think I just hammered that trigger of my release and probably peeked, you know, when I shot and just missed. It was brutal. It's rough.

• 6:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, we'll get to some of the, some of the more of those experiences and I'm sure you'll, I'm sure I'll share some of my very limited experiences, but definitely can get kind of crazy out there.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, that's why we love it though. That intensity.

• 7:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll get to those kinds of things. You know, it's, I think the term I, that you use with me, is it can be heartbreaking. And I was kind of surprised, you know, the first time I went, I went hunting, I thought that no, no one told me that it was like a 10% success rate. I kind of thought like, hey, you just go out there and you know, when you're used to shooting with a rifle, like, hey, you know, you shoot at something. First of all, you can shoot a lot further away. And second of all, when you shoot it, it's easier to hit it where you want to hit it. And it has so much force in a bullet that it's going to cause some massive damage and, you know, shit dies.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  It's not so easy with a, with a bow and arrow.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  No, a lot more variables and then it kills by hemorrhage. So whole different thing. Shock, muscle bone broke apart with the, with the gun. With archery, it's hemorrhage. So it's where you hit that animal.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's, let's, before we jump into where you're at now, let's go back a little bit to the beginning and where you came from and where you grew up. Going to the book, this book, freaking awesome. Order it, order it right now. We're going to cover a little bit of it today. So many stories in there, so much detail. It's just an awesome read. So let's go to the book a little bit and talk about where you came from. You say here, the biggest legend around Eugene Oregon, when I was a kid. Oh, wait, what's it, what's the stress on Oregon? How are you supposed to say it?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Oregon.

• 8:44Jocko Willink?

  How do, how do, how are you supposed to not say it?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Oregon.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  There you go. I'm danger close on that one. Oregon, alright. The biggest legend around Eugene, Oregon, when I was a kid, was long-distance Olympic runner Steve Prefontaine. But for me, it was my dad. Bob Hanes was Superman in my eyes. In a town known as Tracktown, USA, my dad excelled at the sport. He earned a full-ride scholarship at the University of Oregon in gymnastics, and after flunking out there, earned a full-ride at Oregon State for track, where they wanted him to pole vault and high jump.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a freaking athlete. If you're gymnastics and track.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, uh, he was a beast. And he just grew up, that's all he did, track, you know? Junior Nationals, I had his scrapbook, so I'd like always just look at his scrapbook and headlines and all these things and just a great, great athlete.

• 9:46Jocko Willink?

  Beast.

• 9:48Jocko Willink?

  You say he and my mom, fast forward a little bit, he and my mom Linda Brown met at South Eugene. I never forgot something she told me when I was five years old. "Your dad's legs are so muscular, they're as hard as this wood table." She said as she pointed out our oak coffee table. Little comments like that made him seem larger than life. We covered a book on this podcast. It's called Wooden Leg, and it was about, it was about an Indian. And his, his name was Wooden Leg, and the reason they called him that was because he could just like, go and just keep going.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:25Jocko Willink?

  So, got them genetics.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so, yeah.

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  Going a little bit more forward again, on May 30th, 1975, Steve Prefontaine died in an automobile accident. Earlier that evening, Steve had won a 5,000-meter run at University of Oregon's Hayward Field. He was only 24 years old. The place where he crashed on the winding, narrow Skyline Boulevard is now known as Prees Rock. Four years earlier, another car accident happened only 10 minutes from Priest Rock. Nobody got killed, but it might have helped tear a family apart. It's one of my earliest memories of my parents when they were still married. In fact, it's one of my only memories. I was four years old and I woke up hearing my mother yelling.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  I went to find her, standing by the door, heading into the garage, talking loudly and frantically to my dad. When I stepped to her side and followed her eyes, I noticed the side of my dad's car was damaged as if he had just hit another vehicle. I didn't know this at the time, but my dad was an alcoholic. Thankfully, Bob Hanes was able to walk away from this accident. Not long after that, my parents divorced. So that's what, that's what was going on when you were, uh, that's like your earliest memories or really you say your only memories of your parents being married?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then, you know, then they were divorced and I'd go back and forth, so I'm, but them together, that's about, that's about it. One other night, my dad, he, once college was over, he'd play softball and he came home one night, I remember his, he must've slid in the base and he had a bunch of blood running down his knee and I was, I remember sitting there and watching TV and looking at that. So those two, that's about it. That night after the softball game with blood and then when he was, you know, drunk and hit a car.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  You go through, in the book, you know, you talk about the, uh, you know, your mom, she's, well, I mean, she's got to care, kind of carry on with her life, right? I mean, she starts dating other guys, uh, eventually she gets married to who ends up being your stepdad. How old were you when that happened?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  I think five.

• 12:41Jocko Willink?

  And what, what did he do for work?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  He drove roller for the paving company.

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Sounds like he was a bit of a boozer too.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yep, definitely. Definitely had drinking issues and then, you know, he wasn't my dad, so I hated him.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  I don't think he liked me, definitely didn't seem like it. So, yeah, it's, you know, whatever it happens.

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  That's just the way it seems to go, doesn't it?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 13:09Jocko Willink?

  With the stepdads.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, but it's a hard, it's a tough job for them.

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  They're coming in, they're-

• 13:18Speaker 01

  The, the woman better be pretty hot. If they're gonna have to deal with these friggin kids, that's all I know.

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  And there's two of you. Is there two of you?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  So it's you and your brother, right?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, my younger brother. He's a couple of years younger. So yeah, it's, my mom, my mom came with some baggage.

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, instant fam- we used to say in the SEAL teams, like when a guy would meet up with some girl or start like seriously dating a girl and maybe even get married to a girl that had a couple, it's like instant family.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  You know, you don't get any, like a normal, normal, getting married, you have like the honeymoon period or whatever.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:49Jocko Willink?

  Two, three years, just you and this girl, but no, you got instant family.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  I know.

• 13:54Jocko Willink?

  What are you doing on Saturday? You're freaking doing yard work and like, there's no honeymoon period.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  No, I know, it's rough.

• 14:01Jocko Willink?

  Rolling straight into it.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:03Jocko Willink?

  And then you got young Cam who hates you.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Definitely. And, you know, I have, since my dad wasn't around, I, I just had this vision of my dad. And from what I heard in the scrapbooks. And so then this guy who comes in.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  What, who the fuck are you? What have you done? Drive roller? You know, so it's a tough hand. It's like, it's no win for sure for him.

• 14:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you got some crazy stories in here. I had to pull this one out though. I don't even know why. This would kinda struck me, cause it seems like this kinda shit happens, uh, to, to everyone in some way, shape or form. You got this going on. When I was in third and fourth grades, my mom worked with and became friends with this lady at the phone company. I remember her being very pretty and nice. They went out on weekends, leaving Pete and me with the woman's teenage sons to babysit. My stepdad had a Harley and so did the husband of my mom's friend, so they would go out on road trips or maybe just out for the night. While it was a long time ago, I don't remember all the details. There are a few things I do remember that might always haunt me.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  The teenage brothers weren't the greatest babysitters. They used drugs and made me and my brother fight in front of their friends. They'd yell and scream and treat it like entertainment, coaching us on how to hit each other hard. Whenever there was blood, the boys yelled louder and got even more fired up. Pete and I didn't like it, but I don't remember having a choice, or maybe it was a way for us young boys to try and earn approval from the older boys. The brothers watched us at our house as we had a pool table and they got, then they and their friends had something to do as they acted crazy and got drunk and high during those stressful nights. They made me smoke pot so I couldn't tell on them. How old were you?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Third grade.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 15:52Jocko Willink?

  We do whatever they said, so I smoked pot and then they put shaving cream in my mouth as they said it'd mask the scent of pot. The younger brother did most of the communicating with us and said if we told on them, they would tell my mom that I smoked pot too. If I hadn't already learned that life wasn't always going to be fun and loving, I did then. My young eyes were open to the fact that there were people in this world that you could never trust and that would hurt you for entertainment. That's freaking crazy.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  And you go on to say that the one brother, uh, one of these two brothers ended up dead of a heroin overdose. And the other one tripped out on some kind of drugs and killed one of his friends.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, uh, took mushrooms that not long af- I mean, during that whole time and, um, thought his friend was the devil, I think is what it was and ended up killing him when he was 15.

• 16:50Jocko Willink?

  Damn. So this is a, this is a rough scenario you're, you're living in right now. And how often are you getting to go to your dad's?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Uh, my dad was, you know, he's having issues of his own with drinking and, you know, he'd have girlfriends and, um, I think he worked at a, he was a bartender at the Black Forest. It's a tavern there off of Lamont and Eugene and so, yeah, he's, you know, he's young too.

• 17:21Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Shit, you know, when you're 20 some years old, you don't want to have to take care of some kid. So.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  So it's pretty much mostly, most of the times at this point is spent with your mom.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 17:37Jocko Willink?

  You go through more stuff about that. I'm going to fast forward a little bit to middle school.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  Middle school, you're, you're trying to, trying to make things happen. Even in middle school, you got a paper route, you're doing strawberry picking, uh,

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  you got, you, you put this quote in here. You said during this period of my life, with all the time to be in my own head, and that's when you're out picking strawberries or you're out delivering papers, one constant thought came to my mind. This sucks.

• 18:08Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty heavy for a freaking middle school kid.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember because at that time, the the local papers every day, so I'd have to get up at four and in, you know, Oregon, especially the Lamma Valley there. I mean, it rains a lot, especially in the winter, dark as shit, four in the morning. I'm out there loading up my little canvas bag. You put papers on the front and back. It's kind of strung over your shoulders and then I'd just ride my bike to the houses and deliver, but I'd have to get that all loaded up at the paper box. It'd come and drop the papers off like at two in the morning. I'd go out there at four and get all that and it's pouring down rain and I'm just like, sucked. I mean, it was, you know, I know lots of people have paper routes, but yeah, given everything else. And then at that

• 18:56Speaker 01

  time I had moved in with my dad because I hated my stepdad so much. So I was, and I didn't miss anybody but my brother, basically. We'd kind of been in it together. And so I'd live with my dad, my, my step, or I mean, my brother would stay with my mom because he didn't really know my dad that well because he's so young. And, and yeah, so it was like, given everything else and then that's situation. Yeah, I felt like a lot.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit more. You say, since my dad was some legendary track guy, I decided to attempt to follow in his footsteps. During one particular track meet, I was excited to see my stepmom Candy come and watch me, knowing that she was going to tell my dad how I did. He wasn't there himself, but his spirit loomed large like it always did. It was really hard to get his attention in athletics since he was gone traveling around with junior national teams. You couldn't do regular shit and be celebrated. I knew I had to make my mark, so I decided I would do it in the 800 meter race at that meet. When the gun went off, I took off as if it was a 200 meter dash. I ran like Steve Prefontaine, going out as hard, going out hard and refusing to let go of the lead.

• 20:14Jocko Willink?

  For a short while, a very short while, I raced at the front. But by the end of the first lap, I was dying. I still remember the guy who won the race, Greg Suter. He was a natural track guy who won all the time. He looked like a runner, tall and lean. I was the short legged kid gasping at the end of the race and finishing last. I was thankful my dad hadn't accompanied my stepmom to the meet. This was my normal. I just didn't have it. That's what I grew up with. Life has always been a grind.

• 20:52Jocko Willink?

  Coming out of the gate hard. Eight, eight hundred meters. I heard somebody talking about eight hundred meters. And they were saying like, there's people that run, you know, everything from a 5K to a marathon. Like that's all, that's all, uh, what's the word? Sort of fun stuff that people do, but there's no one that goes out and like, hey, we're, hey, you guys, we're running an 800 this weekend because it sucks so horribly.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the half mile, basically a sprint. It's tough. Especially when you're not, you know, I just was just a kid, middle school kid, wasn't born to do it.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  So is this like sixth, seventh grade? What grade is this?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I think that was probably, I'd say seventh or eighth.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:37Jocko Willink?

  And you got your ass beat. And did, did, did once you, once did you feel like, you know? I mean, this is the kind of thing, that's the kind of thing that sets kids like just off in the other direction. Did you feel any of that? Did you still keep doing track?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Uh, no, cause then, then my dad moved to Portland, so I moved up there, which is a much bigger city than Eugene. And, uh, then I didn't even get a chance to compete at anything. Cause if I wasn't good at a smaller school, I'm not getting anything. So I remember up there, I-

• 22:07Jocko Willink?

  You were a small fish in a small pond. When you got to the big pond, you were like a minnow.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Oh my God, it was not even, I was, I might as well. I didn't exist as far as the school goes.

• 22:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just like, nobody knew me. I, I never made one friend. I mean, it was, I remember having.

• 22:27Jocko Willink?

  For laughing.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:28Jocko Willink?

  Am I an asshole?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:29Jocko Willink?

  Maybe a little bit.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  It's, it, it's just, I'd be laughing too. It's like, I remember I had zits all on my chin. You know, I'm like, God, so I did mow lawns. I took, oh, my dad lived in a pretty good area. He opened this record store in downtown Portland. Like collectible records. That's what he loved to do. And so I would be out in Beaverton, which is out of Portland, and I would go and mow yards and get, get some money that way. Nobody's giving me money. And, uh, yeah, I mean, my brother would come up. I remember one time he came up to visit and he didn't, didn't like going up there, but we played one-on-one football. I was better than him because I was two years older. So it was like, that was my, that was glory. To me, that was glory.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Like reliving the one-on-one football match with your little brother.

• 23:23Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you do end up doing your first hunt with your stepdad. What was, what was that all about?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  That was, uh, they, you know, he grew up in a real small town in eastern Oregon, Echo, Oregon. And, um, so they would do this big deer camp. So it's a tradition every year. They'd have a deer camp where they'd have a wood stove and, and a big, you know, like an outfitter's tent. They'd play cards and drink and, you know, that was, that was rifle deer hunting. So like I say in the book, you know, I got handed to my stepdad for even taking us over there because I guarantee his brothers, which were just, they're all badasses, pretty intimidating. Like ranch guys, you know, big ranch, they had a big ranch outside of Echo, Oregon. And, uh, then we got they, these kids, you know, Greg's stepsons.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  They're probably like, what, what is this? You know how guys are, they don't want kids around, right? And, uh, so I did, me and my brother were out and I saw these deer coming up the hill. And, uh, thought I saw a spike horn on one of them, which made it legal. So it was, because it was a buck, had to be a buck. And I shot it. My, my brother said, you shot a doe. And I'm like, no, I didn't. I didn't know for sure. I was like, pretty sure I, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure. After he said that, I was like, oh my God. So how, you know, what's the biggest screw up you could do is shoot some illegal animal, right? So anyway, it turns out it was legal and I got it. And that was my first deer and I was 15.

• 25:00Jocko Willink?

  And did you get like the, the rush? Did you, did you enjoy that?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't remember that part. I just remember. Maybe I finally did something good, like, like get approval from, from the man. So.

• 25:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, now despite everything, and like I said, I skipping through a bunch of the book, um, there's more detail in here. But you eventually say this, it's easy to use your childhood as a crutch. Instead of seeing it as a chisel. There are a lot of divorces out there. So that means a lot of kids come from broken homes. I always hear people say, my family is so dysfunctional, using it as an excuse or something. But it's not really a valid excuse because everybody's family, family is dysfunctional in some way. There are so many crutches people want to use to justify themselves. But for me, you have to eliminate every single one of them. Get rid of them all. Then tell yourself it's up to you.

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  What are you going to do now that you let go of all those crutches? I could blame alcoholism on a shitty childhood, but I don't. Blaming others is an easy way out.

• 26:12Jocko Willink?

  Solid advice.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:14Jocko Willink?

  You gotta take ownership of what's going on in your world.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Stream ownership.

• 26:18Jocko Willink?

  That's a good call. That's a good idea. Yeah, that's, uh, you know, I was just talking to some people this past, past week and I was saying, isn't it crazy? I said, I wrote this book, sold a lot of this book. And what we wrote about in this book is, hey, you should take responsibility for your actions. That's the main underlying premise. And isn't it shocking that people almost treat that like a novel idea?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  It's like, wait, let me jot this down. Say that again.

• 26:48Jocko Willink?

  And, and the thing that I was also explaining this group of people said, it's really heavy. When you start to look at your, you know, you look at your life, you look at your health, you look at your business, you look at your family, you look at your relationships and you look at all those things that are messed up in all those areas. And when you say all those things, all those problems in my business, my life, my health, all those things are my fault. That's really a heavy weight to bear. But it's also extremely liberating because if it's all your fault, you're the one that can fix it. You're the one that can get your business back together. You can repair the relationships. You can get yourself healthy. Like you can take control of all those things and that's the exact same thing you're saying here.

• 27:31Jocko Willink?

  When you're just blaming your childhood or your parents or your alcohol, the alcoholism, all these other things. Then you just become a victim to those things and that's not, what can you change? You're just a victim. You're, it's happening to you. And you need to go make things happen yourself, not let them happen to you.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:48Jocko Willink?

  Definitely one of the underlying themes in this book you put out.

• 27:53Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit to high school, which you, you started getting into as a freshman entering a new high school. I had no confidence and zero success to point to or build momentum off of. Life got worse after I decided to live with my dad when he moved to Portland. Suddenly I found myself in this big school. I didn't want to, I didn't want to attend where I didn't know anybody. I struggled in my classes. I earned mostly D's as a freshman. I ate like shit and wasn't active. So I started gaining weight and to make matters worse, acne became an issue.

• 28:26Jocko Willink?

  Basically you're a teenager too, in a way. It's just gonna happen.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there was like some studs, like I'd see this, I'd see the studs and like they didn't seem like they had zits. And they didn't seem overweight or, and looking down at the floor as they walked by everybody. So it wasn't everybody.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  That's a, that's a rough one.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:52Jocko Willink?

  You said this though, uh, fast forward a little bit. Soon I realized things had to change. That the situation in Portland was dire. Feeling alone and isolated caused me not to give any effort in school or make friends. My grades were all D's. I was overweight and insecure. So I moved back with my mom for my sophomore, junior and senior years. I knew it hurt my dad, but I was miserable and felt desperate. I then attended Mohawk High School in, what is it, Markola?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:16Jocko Willink?

  In Markola. It was a small school in a small town. Markola was a logging community with a lot of guys working out in the woods. I loved growing up in a small town, but like many others from humbling, humble beginnings, I carried low expectations and no dreams. I wasn't looking down the road. The change of schools didn't help me because even though I never did my homework and I wasn't considered smart, I also wasn't dumb. I began to get good grades. I ended up getting straight A's when I was a senior. It's a freaking dramatic change.

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  I got so lucky because I joined the military and just got like put on a path. This is what you gotta do.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now that structure is important.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  Freaking so good. Uh, now you, you ended up playing football. And do you think that impacted sort of, you start playing football, you start having some structure and discipline around that? Does that help your grades? Are you wanting to get good grades just to play football or anything like that?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I mean, I don't know. I just had a little, I felt, uh, smaller school, maybe it's back in the small pond again. So I felt a more confidence and then, um, playing, you know, building a bond with people like the other guys on the team and on our, my road, we lived on Windling Road. So there's a bunch of good athletes that live there. So we'd get together and play basketball or football. And so just that, just competing, I think, I think competition is what, is what life, I mean, that's kind of a mistake I, I felt for a long time I made with raising my own kids.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Is I learned right there that life is competition and competition is what made me like, hey, I got, I have to go one-on-one with, we used to do these drills like football, one-on-one. You try to get over this line. They try to get over this line. It's just whoever, can you stop him or he can, can he stop you? So I realized those, those battles, that's what makes especially a man is like, we gotta compete. That's what we're here for. So. When I, I kinda skipped ahead, but um with my kids, I like, no, you guys, life is gonna break you. If you're not built for this shit. So then I thought, well, maybe did I push them too hard to compete? So it's like, you know how life is, you're like one, all one way or all the other.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  But anyway, I was learning how to compete there and, and it gave me confidence.

• 31:43Jocko Willink?

  And at, you start running then too.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:46Jocko Willink?

  And, and you had a buddy, Donnie Manila, is it Manila?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, Manila.

• 31:50Jocko Willink?

  And you guys are sort of, sort of, sort of best friends scenario and he's, he's the quarterback?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:55Jocko Willink?

  And you're his wide receiver?

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:57Jocko Willink?

  So you guys are bros out freaking.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  Practicing and trying to get in shape and getting after it.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:05Jocko Willink?

  You, you talk about the fact that you're, you kinda had to be self-sufficient. I mean, this whole time, which is definitely good.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it was tough at that time, but it's good for any, any person. Eventually you're gonna have to, you know, take care of yourself.

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, going back to that competition thing, I know in the SEAL teams, we always joke around like if you're with another SEAL, whatever you're doing is a race. Whether we're, and sometimes it can get pretty stupid because sure, it's cool when you're running or it's cool when you're shooting, but then it's like, hey, we're gonna go drink.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 32:39Jocko Willink?

  Let's see, you can do better, you know?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, not as great to win that one.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not, not a great one.

• 32:49Jocko Willink?

  You also end up going to your grandma's house. Which seems like, I'm like, oh, that's, that's quaint, but it's a 20 mile bike ride you gotta do. So it's a 40 mile round trip. And what, what are you doing up there?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Uh, she lived in town, so she lived by Hayward Field. I lived in the outskirts on this, in that small town. So I would ride there on this old two lane road all the way into town and then I would hang out, watch MTV, go up to Eldon's Market. She had a tab up there, so I'd go buy stuff. Uh, go down to Amazon pool, just kinda play basketball, hang out, but that was like my, I could get away from my stepdad. My dad could swing by because it was his mom, so I could see my dad maybe. He still lived in town, but um, I don't know what he's doing. And so it was kind of a, you know, she'd give me make saltine crackers with butter on them. Pretty good life.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  Living the dream. And then what? Your other, your other? I guess maybe your mom's side had a ranch?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  They had a ranch in eastern Oregon.

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  And you went out worked on that?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I did. My grandpa was a horse trainer and super tough. He's, you know, he left home, I think he lied to get in the service when he was 15 or 16. And one, you know, was in the military, just tough, tough dude. And he got into horses. He did rodeo when he got out of the service and then started training and breeding horses. So I'd go over there and work and he had, he was tough, tough guy.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever do rodeo?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  When I, when I watched that, like, I don't like to get injured, right? You know, I mean, none of us like to get injured. When you get injured, you know, you feel like it's horrible and you feel like the whole world's falling apart. And I feel like the biggest wimp when I get injured because I'm always like, okay, you know, like my, I've jammed my finger and I, my grips, now you feel like just like, and then you know, guys that, you know, have lost legs and they're driving on. But man, when I watched rodeo people, how, how are they not getting majorly injured every freaking time?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  They're durable.

• 35:02Jocko Willink?

  Damn. Yeah, that and I watch, you ever watch rugby?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, those guys are tough too.

• 35:07Jocko Willink?

  I went and watched a rugby game like a year ago and same thing, every play I was shuddering and you know, so you know, a lot of times you get that feeling when you watch a sport, you're like, I could do that, you know, you're like, oh yeah, I'll do that. If I trained hard, I could get in there, you know, you're, but I was watching this rugby game going, I actually don't want to do that. I actually do not want to do that. These guys are impact every single time. So you're out there, are you, and this is like typical ranch stuff where you're learning the like extra hard work is getting after it?

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, just get up early, get all the horses fed and watered. I would, because he had racehorses, so he bred quarter horses and I would, I would go and. Warm them up before the races. So it's called a jockey boy. And so I'd get on there and to do that, I had to know horses. The horse can tell whether, you know, the person on them knows what the fuck they're doing, especially horses that are all wound up for the races. It's a, it's that was pretty intense, but I like doing it.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to get comfortable on the horses? Was that like your introduction to it that that summer?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  No, I'd, I would ride every time I went there.

• 36:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  So you kind of grew up doing it?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then when I worked for him, he, uh, I'm trying to think, I think he paid me, seems like it was a hundred and for some reason I had seventy six a month, but then I had to pay for all my own stuff.

• 36:40Jocko Willink?

  Like food and water?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, I remember he took me to, uh, to buy clothes, like jeans and a, and a cowboy hat and things like this. And that came out of a hundred and seventy six. I thought he was hooking me up, but no.

• 36:54Jocko Willink?

  Grandpa Bob's got a different way of.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  No, no, he was, yeah.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  So you learned a lot from him and, and I'm a fast forward a little bit. You say, I learned something else from Grandpa Bob. I was taught that tomorrow is not guaranteed. My mom's mother drove her car over from their ranch in eastern Oregon to visit, to visit and go to my homecoming football game on Friday. Late Thursday night, the sheriff's department called and told us that Papa had died in an automobile accident. It was very painful to hear this since Grandpa Bob was a huge part of my teenage years. The following night, the homecoming game was tough to get through, but I had a good game and made some difficult cat catches. Papa taught me to give everything you have each day and the only thing that mattered was winning.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  When a horse wins, the trainer, the jockey and the family get to take a photo in the winner's circle. Anything less than that is a failure.

• 37:56Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  And that was, was that your senior year then?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  That was junior.

• 38:03Jocko Willink?

  Junior year.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Junior year, yeah.

• 38:08Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, you graduated earlier, you graduated when you were seventeen years old?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you get a job at Safeway.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I kinda forgot this part of the book, but my, it was weird. My family moved when I was seventeen, so they, they were gonna go to Arizona and, uh, I just said, "I'm not going to Arizona," and so I stayed and they moved. They only stayed there two weeks, but they, they moved back, but I never moved back home.

• 38:38Jocko Willink?

  What, what'd you get, like a place to stay with your buddies or something?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  No, I stayed with my girlfriend, so she was a senior too, so we're, it's kinda, kinda sounds odd. I mean, right now, if I imagine my daughter, like us moving, my daughter's a senior. I couldn't imagine just, "Hey, good luck, keep in touch."

• 38:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and by the way, moving with some other high school senior.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  I know, anyway, so I stayed, they moved back, I never moved back in, and then I ended up getting a job at Safeway 'cause I wanted to wait my Manila.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  Manila.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  He was a year behind me, so I wanted, I needed, we were gonna go to, try to play college football together. So I worked for a year in between waiting.

• 39:16Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you end up getting to Southern Oregon State?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:20Jocko Willink?

  And you try out for the football team?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  You say, "After I try, after trying to make the team, I redshirted for Southern Oregon State, meaning every day I practiced against the starting defense. There were definitely some beasts out there on the field. I definitely wasn't one of them. It was fun, especially since there were some elite athletes on the field who eventually made it to the NFL. The irony of college was that throughout my high school years, I never drank even one beer. All I cared about was sports and grades. I knew I wasn't an elite athlete, but I still tried my hardest, especially because I wanted to impress my dad. What I learned at Southern Oregon was that even though I wasn't good enough to play college football, I knew how to party. I drank a lot of beer and eventually went back to Eugene with this new mastered skill."

• 40:10Jocko Willink?

  So, so you didn't drink at all growing up?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  And then you get to college and it's just like the stereotypical freaking, you could just go get it.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know how if you're on the football team, you can go to any party, you know, always girls, always, you know, we had this dorm that was Aspen Hall was just football players. So there's always girls there. There's like a, like a big open shower and there'd be guys and girls in the shower. It's the same as like, I'm like this, I'm not, I don't know what heaven is like, but feels like it should be like this. So anyway, it was, it was a lot different.

• 40:53Jocko Willink?

  One of my buddies in the SEAL teams played football at University of Texas. And obviously it's like a religion down there. And I was like, hey, what was it like, you know, being on the football team down there? And he goes, like a jolly green giant walking the earth.

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  He said, you, he said, he literally could do anything he wanted to.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, you know, one, he never bought a beer, you know, it was like the seas parted when he showed up. He said, it was freaking ridiculous. So how long did you stay there for?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Just a year.

• 41:22Jocko Willink?

  So one year.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, one year. But yeah, I mean, so it wasn't like Texas, but for that little, that was Ashland, Oregon, for that little town.

• 41:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  It's kind of a big deal if you were there.

• 41:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  And what made you stop? What made you decide to not go to college anymore?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  I just didn't have money. So nobody's paying. I had financial aid and I was getting money. And so it was about 5,000 a year living down there and, and I was a walk on, so I didn't get any scholarship or anything like that. So I just didn't have money.

• 41:52Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:54Jocko Willink?

  Did you have any vision?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause I think a lot of kids just go to college. Cause that's like

• 42:00Speaker 01

  You're supposed to.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  What you're, what it is.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just like, that's, that's like the normal chain of command is you, you gotta get your college degree. You know, so we tell, I told, told my kids, Tanner, who's in the service, he, he tried. That's my oldest one, but I went through first and you know, told him, no, you're gonna go to school, you're gonna get a degree and I could tell shit's not happening. So, but anyway, I fell into that trap too. No, you go to, go to college.

• 42:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, especially you go there for a year and you're like, what am I even doing here?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, like getting drunk, whatever, spending money. Why, why am I even here?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got decent grades. I mean, I, I took creative writing. So it was like, I always liked writing. So at least I did that.

• 42:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's an interesting thread that's throughout the book is you're, and obviously this book is sort of the apex of that journey. But yeah, the fact that you were always kind of into writing.

• 43:02Jocko Willink?

  So you get, you leave college, go back, going back home. And now you're working, you're working in a warehouse for $4.72 an hour, according to the book.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  That's right. I was working part-time, going to, going to Lane Community College. And, uh, you know, my, my truck, little Toyota two oil dry was just full of beer cans all the time because we'd just go up in the woods and build a fire at the rock pit and drink. And I mean, I would go scout deer. I always liked taking pictures. So I'd go look for bucks and bulls and try to take pictures of them in the mornings, but then I would, you know, drink for the weekends and the afternoons.

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You say in here, it wasn't like I was letting anybody down. No, nobody expected anything from Cameron Hanes. So I didn't expect anything out of myself. No.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Thankfully, Roy kept on me and kept encouraging, encouraging me to bow hunt, telling me it's way better than hunting with a gun, that there were less people and that I would enjoy it. Roy got me started, but the only way I could build confidence in anything was to go out and do it. Soon I focused my energy on bow hunting. Like athletics, it provided a challenge.

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  I found the perfect thing to work hard at, something that challenged me that not everybody was good at. When I was successful at bow hunting, it gave me a lot of confidence. For a young man, having confidence and getting positive reinforcement in anything was a powerful spark for change in my life. Here's the truth. I'm an average guy who has experienced above-average bow hunting success over the past three decades. One thing is for sure, if I can do it, anyone can. I came from nothing and had no one pushing me or even believing in me. For this reason, my story proves that. In bow hunting, the most average person can achieve the grandest of dreams. Footnote, there's a lot of, a hell of a lot of hard work in between average person and dreams on that one. So how did you know Roy? Roy Roth?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  He went to Mohawk. He was a year ahead of me. So he was, and then his wife was in my class. She was like the brain of the, of the class. I think she could have got valedictorian, maybe. So that was Jill. But yeah, so we, but we didn't hang out because he, I just did the, the football, basketball, baseball. He had a trap line and would always be in the woods trapping. He did play, he was good at football and baseball, but no basketball. But we didn't really hang out or anything. But he, he was always the guy, if I had a hunting question, I'd be like, well, I'm just gonna ask Roy. He was like the best in the school. And so he, from there, we kind of built a relationship when I was still rifle

• 45:50Speaker 01

  hunting. And then he inspired me to buy a bow and, and get going down that road.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  You say I run into a lot of people who are new to bow hunting. They get a bow, go on a hunt, and they discover it's just too difficult, so they quit. I understand. I missed 16 deer the first year I went bow hunting, so I've been there. What if I had given up after the first year? There's the question once again, what if? Here's the reason why bow hunting is both exciting and excruciating. It's difficult and frustrating as hell, especially when you're used to hunting with a rifle. People become used to the ritual of seeing an animal in rifle range, and then boom, it's over. It's done. You've made the shot. The animal is dead. With a bow, being in bow range doesn't mean anything. Even if the animal is in rifle range, when you're bow hunting, the hunt has just started.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  Moving from rifle range into bow range means you're moving into the animal's red zone. And that ups the challenge immensely. In bow hunting, there's no guarantee it's going to work out. For me, I never liked to fail. I didn't want to be a failure with the bow. So after that first year of killing the spike bull elk, my second season behind the bow, I killed a Pope and Young three by three blacktail, a raghorn five by five bull, and a bear with a $200 bow and using $30 binoculars. I could only afford to hunt in Oregon instead of traveling anywhere out of the state. I bought three tags and filled three tags. The second year of bow hunting wasn't just memorable for me, it was monumental.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  You came out of the gate. Mm-hmm. Going hard. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was, I finally found, because as you, you know, we've kind of went through this journey. I wasn't good, really not like a natural at anything. It's all work. And then I got to bow hunting and I'm like, well, I can work hard and then have these, what I considered a very, you know, pretty high, above average, um, maybe excellent results. And I didn't know anybody killing a bull, buck, and bear with their bow. That was like, that was like a, we'd lump those all together in one word, bull, buck, bear. And if you could get that done with your bow. That's freaking badass.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it wasn't happening. So I felt really good. That was just my second season. So it gave me a lot of confidence. How many arrows were you shooting in the off-season getting ready for that? Were you, were you kind of obsessed out of the gate? Yeah, yeah, I shot way more then than I do now. Yeah, I mean, I just shot for hours. Mm-hmm. Yeah, loved it.

• 48:34Jocko Willink?

  How'd you get the feel for like the hunt part? The wind, was Roy teaching you that stuff?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  No, that was just, you know, rifle hunting, you don't really need to know that, but I was in the woods a lot, you know, whether I was hunting or going with somebody. So I was learning, you kind of, hunting is all about, well, not all about, there's a lot of different things that you got to read the country, you got to read the animal behavior is a big part of it and learning their tendencies and then what you can get away with when they see you. And so I would, as I said, you know, I would go out and take pictures a lot too. So I was out trying to get photos and then hunting all the time. So I just was naturally just learning more, all these reps, all this time in the, in the mountains. So then when it came time for, to actually try to kill something, I had a big advantage

• 49:26Speaker 01

  because I had just been out there, the time spent, you know, and it just felt pretty natural, but I still had to learn about the wind, had to learn about when an arrow hits an animal and you're reading the blood trail, where that blood's from, the injury you've caused the animal, you know, how to trail that thing, whether it's hoof marks in soft soil or rocks overturned, different things, ferns would be kind of indicate the direction of travel. So you had, still had to, a lot of woodsmanship goes into successful bow hunting. So I had to learn that and that just takes time.

• 50:03Jocko Willink?

  Were you going with anybody? Were you primarily, like that first year where you got the bull, buck and bear, was, was anyone going with you?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  My brother went sometimes. I think when I killed that buck, he was there too. And then the bull, let me think, no, the bull, I was by myself, bear by myself.

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:27Jocko Willink?

  I guess the reason I'm kind of pausing here is, like I said, me being an amateur hunter and having been guided on hunts by experts.

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  Or sometimes even multiple, sometimes I've gone out with both John Dudley and a guide with me at the same time. So there's like two people that are experts.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:47Jocko Willink?

  And the amount of information that they're feeding me. The amount of things that are going on during a hunt.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  Is, there's so much going on. I mean, the reactions, the animals, the wind, the terrain. Like, all those things are going on. I've had, when I've hunted, I've had people, you know, feeding me that information, you know? And for you to be out there on your second season, pulling that off, that's freaking impressive, man. And I don't, and the other reason why I'm kind of like diving into this is because I said, oh, how many arrows did you shoot?

• 51:27Jocko Willink?

  And shooting the arrows? Yeah, you gotta be able to shoot the arrows, but there's so much more to it.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  That I didn't want to make it sound like, oh, hey, if I shoot a bunch of arrows and I can hit that target at a freaking 60 yards, I'm gonna be good to go.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  I think hunting, it's like when you're driving somewhere and if you're not driving, not really paying attention. You know what I mean? I feel like hunting can be like that too. If you're not making the calls, you can have people telling you, just like you can have somebody drive you down here. If somebody's driving, like, if I had to repeat how I got to right here at the studio today, I took an Uber, so I don't know. But when you're hunting, when you're making the calls, that it might be a rough go, you might fail a lot, but you're also learning more than I think. You have some great mentors on the hunt, but I think it's hard, that's a hard situation to learn that firsthand experience also.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Because you're kind of, you're doing what they say.

• 52:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? So for me, it was, it was hard, but it was a big advantage to learn that on my own. Make those mistakes on my own, and, and it just. I think being by myself so much as a kid, I was fine being by myself. I liked, I was used to being alone my whole life, you know, really. So just being out in the woods, that just, that was an easy transition. Now I'm, I'm by myself, but I'm doing something. I'm not by myself, you know, uh, you know, staring at the wall, eating Cheetos.

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, uh, again, just to reiterate, the, the amount that goes into pulling this off is re- is ridiculously hard. These, this is a freaking challenging, challenging thing to do. So I just don't wanna, don't wanna short sell it at all.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I mean, there's still hunts now, even after all these years where I'm like,

• 53:28Speaker 01

  I wonder, I'm like, how have I ever killed anything with an arrow? I mean, it just seems, it feels impossible on some of these hunts. Cause it's not just getting close.

• 53:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, you find the animal, that's okay. Now we're, now we've started something, or at least we got a target, right? But then so much has to go right. And then if you're trying to film, as you know, I think you, you know, some of yours has been filmed and other guys are there. So it's like, there's however much, you know, three guys, that's three times the noise, three times the scent, three times the movement. It's tough. There's, there's a lot of shit that can go sideways.

• 54:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  And it does, and so again, what I was, my point was sometimes I wonder myself, I'm like, I don't know how I've ever done this. It feels, feels like it's just not gonna happen.

• 54:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, you've made it happen a lot. Um, get into your third season. You say, I was invaded by, invited by Wayne Endicott to join him in the country he had hunted since he was a young boy. Wayne owned the bow rack. And I only say it like that because it's kind of like legendary, even though I've never even been there.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  Uh, the archery pro shop in Springfield, Oregon opened in 1971. Wayne Roy Roth, Dwayne Levitt, right? Jeff Brooks and I ventured toward the legendary Steens Mountain and.

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  There you say this, "My shot was perfect, a thirty-five year, a thirty-five yard quartering away shot, the arrow went into the last rib and stopped at the far side of the shoulder, meaning I only had one hole, the entrance from which to leave blood. I was using Thunderhead 125s, which are good, tough heads that did the job. That one perfect arrow put the bull down quickly, even though I had scant blood trail to follow. The Roosevelt Bull was a big-bodied beast, though, and his heavy hooves scarred the soft soil deeply. I followed his fresh, deep-cutting tracks for fifty yards down the hill before pulling back a wet fur

• 55:34Jocko Willink?

  bow, revealing the fallen beast in a tangle of fireweed. This dark antlered five-by-five was my best bull to date. I remember every detail of these hunts like they were yesterday, hence the saying, "The beast is dead, long live the mighty beast." Bow hunting had gotten in my soul. At that time, I had no idea how I would end up directing my every step through the journey of life.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  Check. Despite my growth and success in bow hunting, I was still going nowhere in my life. I was twenty-two to twenty-three years old. It's such a good contrast, like you're kicking ass out in the woods.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:17Jocko Willink?

  And yet, twenty-two to twenty-three years old, living with four guys, drank beer all the time, one of my roommates got two DUIs in three weeks, both while driving my truck. I was glad I hadn't, I wasn't driving those times. It was just a matter of luck, more, more a matter of luck than good decision-making. I just never got caught. I wasn't living healthily and still didn't have a real sense of purpose. I wasn't accountable for anything or anybody. I felt shitty all the time. A wake-up call arrived when I crashed my truck one night while driving drunk. I was driving too fast and flipped the vehicle, rolling it. The roof was crushed all the way down to the top of the seat. The truck was totaled. Of course, I didn't remember a thing. Damn, just straight blackout driving.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:59Jocko Willink?

  I could have easily died or killed someone. Did I wake up? No, not yet. Did I see some connection between me walking away from the crash? And my dad walking away from his? Was I following in his alcoholic footsteps? My life had become a living, living with a bunch of guys, just partying, basically working during the week, going to clubs on the weekends, just drinking at the apartment or on the lake. It was a great life.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, those, I would, usually on the weekends, I would get up and go, we lived on the second floor of the Chase Village Apartments, and I'd go out and look and see if my truck was there. And I, I was, I had driven my truck and I'd have to go see. So if the truck wasn't there, I'd go back in and I'd be like, where's my truck? Oh, don't you remember you left it at Scandia days or whatever the hell? It's like, no.

• 57:51Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  So it was just, you know, just being an idiot.

• 57:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:00Jocko Willink?

  You say the same year I killed my first bill in 1989, I wrote my first hunting article, Bulls, Bugles and Botches for Western Bow Hunters. So you're, you're getting a writing pretty quickly out of the gate with this. It's cool in the book, you got a bunch of the articles clipped out.

• 58:19Jocko Willink?

  So you're on this kinda, well, I'll use your word, loser path.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:26Jocko Willink?

  I use, normally I wouldn't say that, but you got it in the book. You say, being a loser isn't cool. But you know what's worse than that? Being a loser dad. When Tanner, our first son, was born in 1993, something inside of me switched. They say parenthood changes everything and it did for me. Suddenly I wasn't just on my own. Now I was affecting other people's lives. I gotta be an example.

• 58:49Jocko Willink?

  Alcohol was poison. I had seen what alcohol did to my dad, ruining what he could have been something incredible. And I was seeing it do the same thing to me, so I stopped drinking. Alcohol wasn't going to help me in any area of my life, especially with my hunting. I'm not judging anybody else, but for me, I had to quit drinking.

• 59:08Jocko Willink?

  So Tanner coming along is really the seems like from the book, it's the catalyst for real change in your life.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and you know, people always say, and maybe it's true for them, but they say, well, you know, uh, I don't know that there's this thing like if your father's an alcoholic, then you have a greater chance to be an alcoholic and like this keeps this this whole thing going, right? And then people learn from it, this and that, and it all sounds good. I didn't really, I knew all that. I didn't really care. Even when Tanner was born, I felt different and I was like, okay, I, this isn't just me being a, a twenty some year old guy just going to the clubs. That's what it feels like everybody does. But then with the kid, but then still I didn't, it, I was like, well, I should, I probably

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  shouldn't be a dipshit like this, but I still was. I still, I'd not drink for a little while, then I'd, you know, whatever, go, go back out. Um, you know, Tanner was around, so my wife, we were just in our twenties, you know, mid twenties and, uh, I wasn't, I was still doing stupid shit. And then, so it wasn't just like right when he was born, it still took a while.

• 1:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  And I still was still fucked up. Um, you know, I mean, I would still drink and drive. I remember leaving the Oregon football game, I'd driving over all the cones and this cop jumped out, told me to pull over and I was just, why am I driving over the cones? I don't know. It's halftime, been drinking the, for the, for the whole game. And, uh, I had to do a, a walking test, like a DUI test there with everybody leaving the Oregon football game, you know, and somehow I passed. I have no idea how, but I, I never got a DUI. But the point is, it's like, it still took a little bit. It wasn't just a light switch. I still, you know, I hadn't run, run a marathon yet, so I hadn't really tapped into like dedication.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  I was having success with the bow. I was having a little thing, I still didn't have a great job.

• 1:01:19Jocko Willink?

  What was your job at this time? Were you still?

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  I was still in that warehouse. So I worked at that warehouse, I was part time, then I quit school and I got full time. And guys would kind of listen to me, so they made me a lead and I worked there for nine years and then by kind of by the end of that nine years, I was starting to figure things out a little bit and I got this job, same job I have right now at Springfield Utility Board and it was like, you know, like we're here in San Diego, San Diego Water and Power, whatever it's called, that's always a good, good job. And for me, for somebody like me, a job at a municipal utility, it's about as good as it's going to get.

• 1:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  It's, you know, people are always going to need water and power. I'm going to have a paycheck, good benefits. It's like, okay, this is.

• 1:02:13Jocko Willink?

  That kind of total stability.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I could provide for my family. I still felt like a kid, but I'm like, God, I'm supposed to have all these, you know, these pay all these bills and have cars and have this house and do all this, but I didn't feel like, I, I don't know, it just felt like still like a lot for me. And so I, I ended up getting the job on the construction crew at the Springfield Utility Board and yeah, so I started there at, at like $7 an hour. I'd moved up at, at the warehouse. I was, they promoted me to supervisor the same day I gave my notice and quit because I got hired at the utility. But so I was making like 13 there and then I had to go back down to seven to start at the, at the utility

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  board. But yeah, so just trying to get it figured out.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  Back to the hunting a little bit. You say in the book, it's been said that life offers two paths, one easy and one hard. As Roy and I entered the unforgiving sanctuary of the Eagle Cap Wilderness for the first time and witnessed the awe inspiring Wallawa, how do you say that?

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Wallawa.

• 1:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Wallawa Mountains in northeastern Oregon, it was obvious that we had chosen the latter. We were always drawn toward the more difficult path. To us, harder was always better.

• 1:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Talking about Roy a little bit here. Bow hunting in general is hard. There are lots of tough men who do it, but it's not easy. The mountains can break even the toughest man. Roy Roth is the toughest human I ever met and ever seen out in the mountains. Hands down, Roy was the toughest bow hunter I'd ever seen, and he always carried the best attitude. I learned so much from him. He is a big part of the reason I am the person I am today. As a kid, I always knew Roy was good in the woods. We would, he could always get to the best fishing holes before the rest of us. We nicknamed him Gazelle Roy because he was big but moved like a gazelle. He was a great athlete. He played football and he was really good at baseball, playing third baseman. From the moment Roy told me I should start bow hunting, we connected and hit it off.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  From then on, we started hunting together and we just clicked because we had no limits on how much misery we could suffer to chase success.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  So you guys roll out into this, uh, this mountain wilderness area and, and, uh, you, you encounter another hunter who tells you guys about this spot where Billy Cruz used to go. What's, what's the legend of Billy Cruz?

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Billy Cruz was just a badass. Started Oregon Bow Company, which was the bow I shot at that time in Junction City back there in, uh, in Oregon. And so I actually didn't know Billy Cruz. I knew of him and seen his pictures. Well, this dentist that was in the wilderness, he's like, I said, you know, we've just, we've came from this trailhead way back here, something like 20 miles away. I said, we just want to get away from people. He's like, oh, okay. He goes, well, um, I can send you to a place that nobody goes. He goes, it's, it's, you know, too rugged for horses, too steep for men, all this stuff. And he goes, the only person that ever goes there is Billy Cruz. And, uh, that sounds good.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  You and Roy are like, check.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was awesome. And so.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  That was, but also I kinda, I, I did learn something from that too, because what I was I had learned at that time, and it's been proven over and over again, is rugged country like that, if men who spend a lot of time in it, die often. It's just part of the, the mounds are so unforgiving, and Billy Cruz died back there, and he died in a plane crash, but it's like if, while he's scouting elk in those mountains. And I just, it just gets proven over and over again. It's like, you know, people go and they get a taste of the mountains, they come back, but the longer you spend there, the more you're kind of, you know,

• 1:06:18Jocko Willink?

  You're just playing the odds.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  You're rolling the dice. And, but in the meantime, we did go there and I ended up hunting back in that same country for many years. Roy moved to Alaska after that first season, but yeah, it was, it was amazing. We never saw anybody back there. Super rugged.

• 1:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Uh, this is kinda cool. You, you say you're, one of your favorite books of all time is Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Dr. Saxon Pope, written in 1923. And you call out a couple of parts. On page 181, it reads, "We also began preparing ourselves for the contest. Although habitually in good physical condition, we undertook special training for the big event. In this case, he and Young were preparing for a grizzly bow hunt." Pope continues, "By running, the use of dumbbells and other gymnastic practices, we strengthened our muscles and increased our endurance." Regarding the back country hunt, he writes, "We were there to win and nothing else matter,

• 1:07:19Jocko Willink?

  mattered." Adding later, "We, we were trained down to the raw hide and sinew, keyed to alertness and ready for any emergency."

• 1:07:31Jocko Willink?

  Seems like that could be like the root of you saying, hey, I can get in freaking better shape for this shit.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's a hundred years ago.

• 1:07:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  And those guys knew that at that time that, hey, we need to be out our best to be in these mountains and, and get animals killed with an arrow.

• 1:07:48Jocko Willink?

  Hundred years ago, these guys are freaking.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Training.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Training.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  Did you like make that connection?

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  No, no, I, cause when I started training, so hunting, the, the hunter community, um, is steeped in tradition, obviously. The tradition isn't guys like Saxon Pope and Art Young. It's guys that, like, maybe my stepdad, who they're just getting away.

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  God.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Going to deer camp. They're not, we're not training for this. You know, this is kind of a vacation.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  So when I first got into it, and I started doing this running and doing this thing like, hey, I need to be a little better. I got a lot of pushback from the hunting community itself. Like saying, you know, you don't need to run a marathon to kill an elk. But I know this guy and that guy, and they kill animals all the time and they're overweight. And Roy was actually over, you know, he's a big dude overweight, but the difference is he was just so much tougher and better than most guys. So they, but they'd use that as an example of why you don't need to be in shape. And I'd be like, well, okay, you're not Roy, first of all. And, um, but I got for years pushed back and still probably still do, I just don't pay attention to it. But people, hunters just don't wanna, cause it kind of puts the onus back on them like,

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  God, do I have to take this shit more serious? What do I gotta do here?

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  So, like you said, Roy moves to Alaska.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:09:21Jocko Willink?

  And you go, it's, it's pretty, not funny is not the word, but you can't find anybody else really to hunt with.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  He must've been one of those bastards, just like strong and can just carry his weight, it's no factor.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  No, he, I mean, there's a, I can't remember if I talked about it in there, but one time we were on Prince of Wales Island. Here's his attitude wrapped up. To hunt Prince of Wales for a black bear, you need a boat. It's all on the island chain. You gotta go to open water sometimes.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Uh, there's tides coming in and out. So there's, there's the water is pretty dangerous out there, but we had boat motor problems and without a boat, the motor running right out there, it was not only dangerous, but you couldn't get anywhere. So he's like, I'm gonna take this motor off and, and go, go into town Craig, Alaska, which is there in Southeast Alaska and, but it was about 15 miles on the water. And he had this little like 10 or 12 foot raft that he had to put a piece of plywood on, put the motor on and kind of lay down and kind of hold the front of it. Cause to get on step that, that it was coming up, you know? And so he would have to lay and he did 15 miles all the way

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  in there on a Sunday, bought this new motor for 4,000 bucks and all the way, oh no, he got a ride on a, actually a big ship. And I could see him, I would see him coming the next day and I'm like looking and I'm like, I think I see Roy on there and they're like towing this little raft, tied to a rope behind it. And I'm like, so anyway, it was what, and he did this at midnight when he took off. He's like, well, no, we, this is what we gotta do.

• 1:11:01Jocko Willink?

  And just by himself?

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  By himself. And went in, bought this, you know, $4,000 motor, brought it back out. We're back in business, killing bear. But that, that, whatever it took.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  That's the attitude right there. Well, hey, oh, this isn't working. Here's what we gotta do. Whatever it takes to make this happen. Most people aren't like that.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No, that's, that's next level.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Jocko Willink?

  You say then, after he moves to Alaska, for the next 12 years, I ended up hunting in the sprawling, unforgiven eagle cap wilderness, most of the time on my own. My entire existence seemingly revolved around preparing for just one crack at the wilderness, bulls and bucks where Billy Cruz had walked. I learned more about myself on those solo hunts than I could have in a lifetime in the everyday world. One of the things you learn, you talk about, are you willing to bleed? In most cases, it takes some blood to achieve your goals. The farther you go, the fewer who will be able to go or be willing to go with you.

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  I knew that if I could get back farther into the wilderness, I could find better hunting. I could get away from other hunters if I was in better shape. And if I was mentally stronger, I could outlast anyone. This is sort of like this. It's, it's really cool to read the book and there's so many good details in here to see your evolution as you're

• 1:12:23Jocko Willink?

  kind of pioneering this attitude of like, oh, I can just outwork and go further and I'll end up being alone out there.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I want.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  That's, that was the only way I could up my odds. You know, now, now we get to go hunt some great country. You know, money can get, get you that opportunity. Or knowing the right people can get you that opportunity. So that ups your odds a little bit. It's still very hard. You know, as you know, still very hard, but you'll earn opportunity. So, but for me at that time, the only way to earn opportunity was, you know, I had no advantage. I had no money advantage. All people in the regular society, they're smarter, more money, more connections, more whatever. I was down at the bottom. In the mountains, I'm like, okay, I call the shots back here now. All those advantages you have on the outside

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  don't mean shit back here. Now, if I'm in better shape than you and I know this country better and I'm willing to, to work harder than you, this is, this is my country. This is, I call the shots. I, this is my domain.

• 1:13:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm laughing and smiling over here because all the money in the world isn't going to carry your ass up that freaking hill.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  No. And that's the first time I ever felt like, you know, because I hadn't felt like shit my whole life, you know, as far as,

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  I don't know what, where I stood in, on, I guess, the ladder of success. And now all of a sudden I'm like, wait a second, this is different. It felt different. The challenge for me at that time was try not to be, I was, I mean, I was selfish because it's a

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I found something that like for me was good, but now I had family at home. So I'd be back there all the time and I'd be like, should I be back away from my family? Cause it wasn't like a job. And

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  Were you making any kind of connection towards what it could turn into?

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Or just use just meat?

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  No, I was just, you know, this is just what I wanted to do. So it was like a selfish thing. Cause people can justify all the time. Well, I gotta do this for work. So I gotta travel for work. And it's like, it gives us, it's easy to say, well, you know, people have to do that. We're providing for the family, something like that. I'm gonna sell an article for 50 bucks and be away from my family for 10 days. That doesn't pencil out. But it's just like, I felt like that's

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  what I needed to do. Cause when I wasn't doing that, I was at home, I was miserable. Then I felt like maybe I wanted to go drinking or maybe how am I getting this? You know, like a buzz, I guess, but.

• 1:15:03Jocko Willink?

  I used to get home from work at like six o'clock, maybe seven o'clock at night. Walk in, put my work bag down, pick up my jujitsu bag and go to jujitsu for two hours. And I did that every night. I did that every night. And I remember sometimes where my wife would be looking at me with

• 1:15:27Jocko Willink?

  with just like a combination of anger and um, and lack of understanding, like not like, like what, like, what, are you serious right now? Like this is what you're doing? We got three kids and you're, you're home for nine minutes and you're gonna leave.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:46Jocko Willink?

  And I did that. I did that every night. And um, you know, when I, when, what was interesting was my wife eventually realized that if I didn't do that, I had, I would, I would be a bad, I would be, I wouldn't be happy. I would be like, like not, not have a good attitude about stuff.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause I felt like that was what I needed to do. And yeah, there's, I unfortunately, I never really thought about it as being selfish until you just said that right now. I guess I realized that even at the time, but I always kind of.

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  Kind of rationalize this thing where I'd kind of relate it to my regular job where I'd say, "Well, hey, you know, I need to be able to do this in case I'd end up in a situation where I gotta use this stuff in combat." And that'd be kind of my rationalization. And I'd even try and rationalize that to my wife sometimes, but my wife's not an idiot. And she'd be like, "Hey, listen, you, you, you got freaking a rifle, a pistol, and two knives, and you think you're gonna have to choke a person on the battlefield?"

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:56Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, it's, I, I think it is, you know, you have some, uh, some like primordial urges as a, as a human, you know, to fight or to hunt. Like, it seems like it's almost caveman brain. For me, it got really focused on fighting. For you, it got really focused on hunting. Both those are total primal instincts to have, you know? So, here's an example. You got the book of how you're living your life. On Friday afternoon, I'd leave work around 4:00 PM, driving through the North Portland, through North Portland, arriving at 1:00 AM at my Eagle Cap Trailhead. I'd load up my pack and start walking. Try to

• 1:17:39Jocko Willink?

  get 12 miles or so in by first light. I wouldn't sleep. Get back in there by first light Saturday morning, be able to hunt or scout until Sunday. Then I would hike out and drive home Sunday night, being back at work on Monday morning. Two nights, no sleep, two days scouting or hunting. If it was the season, it was worth it. These trips gave me the confidence to do my long solo hunts. I was testing myself, passing each test. What, what caught me, what caught me on that one was like, this isn't even hunting season. This is, you're just going out there to scout and get to know the terrain.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, it's a-

• 1:18:15Jocko Willink?

  Your wife is pissed.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, and I, so it kind of is frustrating a little bit. And I don't, at that time, I wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna prove all these people wrong. I mean, kind of, I was proving people wrong, I felt like. But it was more like I just felt like I would needed to do that, or I wanted to do that, maybe to be selfish. But now, people see like where you are now, and you write a book, or, you know, you're teaching leadership, and, you know, there's like, people see everything, like you get a lot of attention because now you're somebody. But it was the dues you paid going to, every night you'd go to training after work, or if I do that-

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  The reason why you get to here is because you you had all that sacrifice. You made all those sacrifices for time and for work. And it's just like, I wanted to ask those people, what the fuck are you doing? What your word, I mean, what where have you sacrificed? Yeah, of course, it's easy to be envious of this. When you're like, oh, you got this many followers and you're sponsored or this or that. It's like. Yeah, that's what about all the grind? And the grind where I would be back there and I'd be like, I shouldn't be back here. And I should be at home. I should be being a dad and I should be this or that. And then I'd be like, well, you can. And you kind of alluded to it. You can justify almost anything. And I'd be like, well, no, I'm not going to be happy if I'm back here and I'll be a better dad when I get home and.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  I'll be, you know, I'm showing my my kids. And when I got a little older, I'd be like, well, I'm showing I'm an example for my kids and showing them what hard work can lead to.

• 1:19:49Jocko Willink?

  I 100% use that. I want 100%. As a matter of fact, I told I.

• 1:19:56Jocko Willink?

  I would tell like other SEALs, you know, if they would say get worried about, hey, you know, I'm going on deployment again. I'd say, listen, man. Guys have been going on deployment for thousands of years and leaving their kids at home. And that's the example that the kids see, you know, that the dad's going on deployment. By the way, when you went on deployment. Back in freaking whatever, five hundred years ago, your deployment was seven years long.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  Your deployment was five years, even World War Two. In World War Two, you went, you left for war. In 1941 or 1942, and you came home when it was over.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:34Jocko Willink?

  That's some commitment.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Jocko Willink?

  So, because guys will get, the reason that this would get brought up was guys would get worried about primarily, they'd be worried about like their sons. Hey, you know, I feel like, you know, I'm leaving my son too much. And I said, hey. The moms have been raising young warriors for thousands of years.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  That you don't need to worry about that. They're they're going to look at you and think, hey, this is what this is what I'm supposed to do.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Jocko Willink?

  So they'll figure it out. But I. That sometimes that justification would kind of turn into some rationalization for me. Traded jujitsu on a Thursday night after I'd been freaking traded all week or whatever.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  Well, and the dads have to be gone for the moms to be able to use the wit to your dad gets home.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  That that's how they raise those warriors.

• 1:21:23Jocko Willink?

  Uh, speaking of all this, I'm a worker. The truth is, I've always worked really hard because I've never really felt like I had a ton of natural skills or talent. It would feel unnatural for me not to have a regular job. I feel like such a life is reserved for someone who's a star, and I don't think I got that. So I grind it out. I grind it out at training and I grind it out at work. Not taking a day off is my only edge. I can't just say, you know, today I'm not gonna run. I've sacrificed enough. No. That's what everybody does. Everybody has an excuse. Everybody has a reason. You can always come up with a reason not to go after a challenge. So I've learned to never care what the excuse is. It's never valid.

• 1:22:04Jocko Willink?

  That's my attitude and that's my edge. It's how I've built endurance and fostered resiliency. There are no rest days in my schedule and that's is the reason I excel.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  I think it's like no factor.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  No factor. Well, people say like, oh, you take rest days. I'm like, life, life gives you rest days.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, you get the freaking broken water heater and all of a sudden you're dealing with that. Or, you know, you get a travel day where it's like, hey, I'm gonna be traveling at whatever time and then the plane lays over and you're in the airport for four hours and you're layover and like, okay. Life is gonna give you rest days.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:42Jocko Willink?

  I don't take them voluntarily. It's not happening.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Well, I have a hard time, like even yesterday, uh, you know, Rihanna went out and Evan was out skydiving and Andy was out there too. And, uh, I was, I paid to actually go and I'm like, I actually want to go on a run. So I did 14 miles here, went up to the top of the hill over here, ran along the beach and just would rather work instead of skydive. So I, I don't know, maybe I missed out on something, but it's, uh, I just don't, I feel better. I don't know. I just don't feel good unless I've sacrificed. You know, sweated, worked. So I can go to bed at night and be like, well, got it done today.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we just had a guy on the podcast named Andrew Huberman and he's a neuroscientist.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I love him.

• 1:23:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  He's a stud.

• 1:23:38Jocko Willink?

  But he, one of the things that he was, one of the points he was making is that. Free dopamine. Dopamine that you don't earn is like the worst thing in the world. So dopamine that you get from your, uh, from your phone.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Jocko Willink?

  Dopamine that you get from a chocolate chip cookie. Dopamine that you get that you didn't have to earn is like the worst thing in the world. And that's probably what you feel is you probably feel like if you don't earn that dopamine, it doesn't feel right.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean. And then people always say overtrain or you've heard all the sleep thing. People love talking about, are you getting enough sleep? And, and, uh, I don't know, I just, I just don't, I don't care about any of that. I mean, I'm going to train every day. I'm probably not going to get enough sleep, but it's like that, that is the only edge.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Just to, to sacrifice more. It's the only reason why anybody knows who I am.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  Hard work.

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  By the way, this whole time you're writing for, uh, for bow hunting magazines, local magazines. Uh, you get rejected. You get rejected by bow hunter magazine. You, you write about that there, which is, I mean. That's what happens, right?

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens. Then you say, I decided to write my first book, bow hunting trophy blacktail. There was never any grand plan. One day I decided I wanted to write a book and I wanted it to be badass, hardback, full cover.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  So you do that and you have to borrow a bunch of money to get the thing published?

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  It's like, what 50 grand?

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was 50,000. No, I, cause the book was like over $10 each because it was full color. For like glossy paper and I didn't know anything about anything. So I made, uh, 5,000 of them, 50,000 bucks. I had. Like maybe two hundred dollars of it. So I borrowed, I think fifteen thousand from my grandma, uh, ten thousand from my other, from my in-laws, my mom, I think fifteen. Anyway.

• 1:25:50Jocko Willink?

  What year was that?

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  That was ninety-nine.

• 1:25:53Jocko Willink?

  So like the internet isn't even around yet. You can't even sell this thing on the internet, really?

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  No, no. You needed to have a magazine.

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  How long were those freaking boxes of books sat, sitting around the house for?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Years, years. I mean, we moved them a couple times. I had a whole spare bedroom filled. Cause it's five thousand books and they're heavy too.

• 1:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that is not fun.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  No, and it took, you know, I-

• 1:26:16Jocko Willink?

  And your wife's like, dude.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:26:19Jocko Willink?

  You spent fifty grand and now we got one less room in our house.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  I know. It was like, was not penciling out, if this is a business plan, hey, what's your business plan? I never did that one time. I never even knew how much the books were gonna be until they said, well, here's what you owe us. So the, I'm like, no, I'm writing a book. I don't, uh, I will self-publish it because nobody said the market's not big enough. Cause it's just black-tailed deer, which is just on the west coast of Oregon, Washington, California and B C. And, uh, so, yeah, it took forever just to even make that money back. But I paid everybody back. Took a while.

• 1:26:54Jocko Willink?

  What'd you sell the books for?

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  I think-

• 1:26:57Jocko Willink?

  Like twenty bucks?

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  I think twenty-five.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then five shipping. So it was like maybe twenty-nine ninety-five with everything. Yeah.

• 1:27:05Jocko Willink?

  And packing them up yourself.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, I know. Yeah. It was, uh, yeah.

• 1:27:12Jocko Willink?

  One thing that's awesome about this story though, is I mean, your story, your life is that you took, just took something that you love to do. And just all in. Like that's what, that's what you're doing.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, I mean, I don't, I don't know, I don't know why, how it's worked like this, but it's just been my journey, but- Like I've never been like, well, I want to meet Tiger Woods, so I'm gonna try to golf. You know what I mean? It's like everything I've done, I've met a lot of amazing people only through what I do. It's never been like just to meet these. So I've, I've been able to train with Olympians and do all this thing. Just because it's like, no, they're helping, you know, I care about this to build endurance. So I'm going to run with an Olympian to see what I can learn from them. Or to train with these, the, these biggest badasses or to, or to lift weights with these studs. You know, Mark Bell.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  I have those chances to interact just through my thing. I'm not, I haven't changed anything that I do. It's just what I do, but it's, it's stay intrude of, I'm a bow hunter. And my Instagram bio just says bow hunter. And because of that, I've met, I'm sitting here with you guys. I mean, how incredible is that? I mean, it just doesn't seem real.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  That's funny because I'm thinking the same thing over here. I'm like, hey, this is freaking awesome. You did end, eventually you got into bow hunter and um, your first, your first thing that you wrote, and this was in 2009, was called Bleed.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah. Now we get into this little section of life, I'm gonna fast forward. I started running just for the test to push myself up to 2,000. The most I'd ever run was a 10K. Then one time I entered a 7.3 mile race in Salem, Oregon. And guys thought I was crazy for running that far just to get in shape to hunt the black tailed woods around home. Then I ran a half marathon. Then in 2003, I ran my first marathon and finished third overall. Your first marathon, you finished third overall? That's freaking legit. This was about the time I really began to notice that my physical condition could pay, play a huge impact hunting in the woods. This was where I could improve my game.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  And it wasn't like that was a Boston marathon. I got third in. It was like a pretty small marathon in, in the gorge. So it was from the Dallas to Hood River, but I did get third.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  Still.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah. Uh, since that first marathon, I've complete competed in ultra marathons, when in peak shape prior, just prior to Bow season, I run at least 20 miles a day. I've ramped it up in effort to gain not only physical but mental strength and it's paid off in many years of consistent success.

• 1:30:01Jocko Willink?

  You could do the Bighorn Trail Run. That's your first ultra.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  Which ultra is anything over a 26.2.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Jocko Willink?

  You got this for your, yeah, you've been writing your whole life, kind of, and it shows in this book, awesome stories. You say, I led the race until mile 24 or 25. The problem was the race didn't end at mile 24 or 25.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Jocko Willink?

  Thirty-two miler.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  I finished second overall with a time of four hours and 53 seconds. It was a great day to be alive. On almost all the races I run, at some time or another, I want to stop and throw in the towel. Similarly, on many tough hunts, I want to quit and go home to the good life. So why don't I quit? What resides in me to keep going? Maybe it's because I don't want to let people down because I'm a regular guy coming from a small, a regular small town who dared to dream big about being special and finding some success in life. Maybe I've always felt like proving people wrong. As I started running marathons, I realized the connection between endurance racing and hunting because in both disciplines, you're facing huge barriers that make you want to quit. No one's going to judge you if you quit a hunt. Most people would fail on a hunt. The same goes for an ultra marathon. Not many could call you a failure if you didn't

• 1:31:14Jocko Willink?

  last to the finish of a long ultra because most people you know likely wouldn't even toe the starting line. But to me, failure feels, feels like all those people who've doubted me over the years were right. I can't have that.

• 1:31:32Jocko Willink?

  So now you've got the full on connection between the better shape I'm in, the better I can hunt.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, I just, I mean, I noticed that I was just at, I had a big advantage over people. I could see people get fatigued. If I was with somebody, I could just, it was just different. And I'm like, I learned that if the hardest thing you've ever done is that hunt.

• 1:32:00Jocko Willink?

  That's bad.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  It's not good. You're gonna, you're, cause you're gonna, you'll fuck up so much. You have to be on such, I mean, precision and making good decisions. It's a, you have to be at your very best. So if you're fatigued, or if you're thinking about home, or all these different things, um, it's taken away from where your focus should be, you will fail. And I just, I noticed that, or I realized I need to be at my very best, even at the end of a long hunt. And how it made sense to me was that at the end of a long hunt, instead of being diminished, you should be better because you're getting more dialed into the mountains. You're understanding the animals and their habits. You're getting more mountain tough.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  And so if you weren't fatigued, or have any of those things for, with time that comes in the mountains, like that wears on people, if that wasn't wearing on you, by the end of that hunt, you were going to be at your very best. And I killed a lot of animals at the very end of the hunt. So.

• 1:33:02Jocko Willink?

  Uh, at one point, the Oregonian newspaper ran an article and the headline reads, "Beau Hunter Beats Armstrong."

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Tell us that story. It's in the book, but give us a, give us a background on that one.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I knew, so Lance was retiring from the Tour de France, and he had won seven straight. It's that next year.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Was, let me think. I think that was in 2006. He ran the New York Marathon. And I'd been a big Lance fan. You know, this is before all the whatever people want to say about PEDs and all that. It's before all that. So he was just like had overcome this and he was like a hero. He's still somebody I look up to just because he was the best, the very best of what he did. So he was running this marathon, the New York Marathon, and it's my first year running it. It's uh, it's kind of hard to get into. It's a big race. And so I thought, well, I want to try to be the greatest endurance athlete of all time. And so I ended up, I beat him there. It was in 2006.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  And then we ran together actually a little for half the race in Boston in 2008 and I beat him there too. Of course, it was like a one person. He didn't even know who I was. So it wasn't like this is a Cam versus Lance head to head. He was, you know, he was a superstar. I was just some dude. You know, it's like if LeBron James goes to open gym and somebody, you know, somehow travels and gets some hook shot to go in, they dominated LeBron. So it's kind of like that. He didn't know.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  It's like, it's like beating someone at open mat or you're like someone passes your guard at open mat. They're like, hey, you know, I crushed Jaco's pass this guard. I didn't even know that we were, you know, I was just out there having fun. We're rolling.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Right. So, so I was the guy who passed your guard. And Lance was you.

• 1:34:58Jocko Willink?

  And somehow it makes the cover of the Oregon. Your Jaco's guard gets passed by Bo.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. It was so unjustified, but it's, hey, I just, all I cared about was there is that it just referred to me as Bo Hunter.

• 1:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's badass.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  It's, it reminds me of, you know, and just everybody, everybody loves the movie 300. But do you remember when he's like, well, you know, what's your profession? What's your profession? That's such a great part. And then, so I don't have, that's what I do is Bo.

• 1:35:29Jocko Willink?

  Now, did you talk to him during those two races? Didn't one of them, you ran with him for a while? And you were like, talking, right?

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah. Who knows if he'll remember? I think we did send him a book, though.

• 1:35:40Jocko Willink?

  But, but, oh, I was gonna say, sir, you're not connected now?

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  I'm supposed to do his podcast.

• 1:35:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  But we've never talked about this. Like, me, he and I, but...

• 1:35:49Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna be like, I let you win.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  I don't know, he'll be like, what? I don't even know who you are. But what I remember, this could be a version, you know how you can, you tell something, a story to yourself so many times? It's like, it never happened, but it's like, now it's like, I remember Roy told me this one time. He's like, we went on this moose hunt. And I've been like, yeah, I've never, I've actually never had a shot at a moose. And he's like, you, you blew it on a giant bull. And I'm like, when? He goes, remember on the river in the pouring rain? And you hit low on that giant bull on the other side of the river? And I was just like, oh, my God. That, I had totally blocked that out of my memory. I had turned, I had made this truth in my head that I'd never shot at a moose.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  No, I just didn't want to remember when I blew it. I had definitely shot it on and blew it. So, anyway, who knows if this Lance story is kinda like this? But all I know is, we were running and I was running behind him. And I was hurting, just dying, like, 13, mile 13 of the race. And I remember, it's behind him, he had this gold singlet on, like he always wore, cause like a call to the tour. And I was looking at his calves and I was like, God, he's probably just feels strong. He's not tired at all, not fatigued. And I was like, God, why can't I be an Olympic athlete? You know, he made the Olympics, too. And I just thought he was probably as fresh as can be. And I'm just this fucking 40-year-old dad dying. And I get up, I'm like, I'm okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go. I don't care how bad this hurts.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  I might just, you know, burst into flames, puke, throw up, collapse. Who knows what's gonna happen? So, I fight, fight, fight, takes me a while, and I get up beside him. So we're running side by side and uh he goes, he looks over probably because I was staring at him.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Maybe I was touching his arm. I don't know. But uh he goes, he goes, is this heartbreak hill? And I said, no, not yet. I said, it's still up here. He's like, oh, fuck, I'm dying. And I was just like, oh, I'm dying too. But I didn't know you were dying. So that gave me like a weird boost.

• 1:37:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  You know, this, this man god is dying and here I'm a regular man and I'm dying. So it's like, okay. So we kept going, kept going. And he ended up saying, hey, what's your pace today? And I told him, he's like, do you mind, who knows if this happened? I think it did. But

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  said, do you mind if I run with you? And I'm like, no, it's like, yeah, 250. So we ran together and yeah. It's just like, shared a few words. I remember people like Lance, what 10,000 times. I remember this one guy ran up by him and he's like, he goes, I had testicular cancer too.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Lance is like,

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  I mean, we're running this race and it's like, I don't even know how you're supposed to respond. You know, so it was just a weird, but I was right there for all of this. Anyway, we, I, I uh, I finished 12 seconds, I think, or something ahead of him in that race. But we had this connection.

• 1:38:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  So it's so much so, there is only reason why I maybe didn't make it up.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  Even though, even though we're saying that it was the race between you and you and him, but it was really only in your mind.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  When someone starts pulling ahead of you in a run, that's a thing, right? So like, at some point, you had to start pulling ahead of him, right?

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he had this, there's a mo- a motorcade around him. Cause the, the, the elites finished at probably two, maybe 10, two eight, two oh eight.

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  And we were back at 250. So um, they had finished. So then the story for the TV was Lance. Cause Lance was running Boston. So there's like this motorcycle and had a camera on it and all this stuff. And so, yeah, there's some overhead shots and, and we were on TV and my wife, you know, I had told my boys, this is in the book too, but I told my boys that, hey, I'm going to go to Boston and, and uh, I'm going to beat Lance Armstrong in the race. Again, Lance doesn't know anything about me. But anyway, they thought I was like, you know, just talking out my ass. They were, they were laughing. You can't beat Lance Armstrong because they'd been watching him on TV forever. And he was such a legend in the, in the tour, you know, he just, you know, cocky and blow by people

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  and just dominate and rub it in their face. And it's like, so it was like, you know, he had this, this thing about him and this aura. So I said, I was going to go back there, run with him and then beat him at the end. They laughed. And so then on TV, I'm running with Lance Armstrong. I have this camo top on that I cut the sleeves off of. He's got all his Nike gear. And there I am and we're running. And then so at the end, I'm like, well, I told, told myself, I'm not going to fucking run this whole way and not do what I said. So I took off and, and came across. And he had his own finish line. So he had to go veer over to the right. But um, the reason why I think

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  maybe I didn't make all of it up a hundred percent was because he finished and then he pointed at me. I like, I went over there and, and we shook hands and said, you know, good job. So we had a, he, whatever. So, and they got a picture. I can't remember if it's in the book or not. It is. But uh, yeah. So I mean, it was for me, dude, that was.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  That was, that felt like I was almost athletic, you know, at that time. I was like, this is, this, it would be like winning a gold medal, I thought. So it was.

• 1:41:28Jocko Willink?

  And you've got home and your kids, you told your kids, like.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  They saw it. No, they saw it. They were, well, True was at home, he's watching. And then here's how big a deal Lance was at the time. They announced it on the school intercom. That Tanner and True's dad beat Lance Armstrong in the Boston Marathon. So, you know, Eugene is known as, as a running capital of the world. You know, we have the Olympics, Olympic trials there all the time. So, running is kind of a big thing there. So to have, and everybody knows Boston, everybody knows Lance. So it was like, it was perfect storm.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  But it, for me, it was epic.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  When are you recording with him?

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. We have to schedule it.

• 1:42:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah. I was gonna say, if you get this podcast out, hopefully he won't hear this one before he gets you on, because otherwise he'll be like, oh yeah, I totally remember you.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know.

• 1:42:18Jocko Willink?

  He'll be ready for you.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  And he'll be like, no.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that did not happen.

• 1:42:27Jocko Willink?

  All right. So, uh, speaking of running,

• 1:42:31Jocko Willink?

  here we go. With over seventeen thousand feet of elevation gain, the Big Horn 100 was one of the toughest hundred mile foot races in the United States. It would be my first ultra over fifty miles. The previous year at the Big Horn 50, I finished third overall. It would be my first race where I would be required to run through the night. My wife was having second thoughts and tried to persuade me to reconsider. You said, I've already done a fifty miler. My goal is to find out exactly what I can do to find where's my breaking point.

• 1:43:07Jocko Willink?

  So at this point, you've done some fifty milers and now you're going for the hundo.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz in the ultra marathon world, it's.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Until you do a hundred, it doesn't even, it's like, I don't know, they don't even really count it, you know, like the 50K, which is 32 miles or the 50 mile, it's like, well, have you done a hundred yet? So that's like the barrier of entry for the ultra world. Yeah. And I hadn't. So that was my first one.

• 1:43:35Jocko Willink?

  And you say the Big Horn 100 is an out and back run consisting of 76 miles of single track trail, 16 miles of rugged double track Jeep trail and eight miles of gravel road with 17,500 feet of climbing, 18,000 feet of descent. So I looked at the map of this. I went online and looked, it looked like, so it sort of looks like you're going up and down mountains the whole time. Are you going on a ridge line or something? Or what is it? Or in and out of mountains?

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  No, you're, so it starts, you start pretty high and then you go, you go up to 9,000 feet, then you stay on the ridge, then you drop all the way down to maybe 6,000 feet and then you climb back at the 48 mile mark is a turnaround. And that climbs from 6,000 back up to about almost 10,000, probably nine something. That's a gradual climb up and then you reverse and come back.

• 1:44:28Jocko Willink?

  That's what struck me as very sucky when I looked at it. Cause I was like, oh, you know, it kind of looks like, cause they have a profile shot where they kind of just show you the elevation and it's up, down, it's basically up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, kind of descending, right? Up, down, up, down, up. You're kind of slowly descending. And, and then I read your book and I was like, oh, and there's a turnaround. So you go up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, and you're kind of descending and then it's up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, but going back up.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that there's a grind from, I remember this specifically from, I think 60 something to 82. And.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  So hard. It was so just, it was up the whole way and it's starting to get hot. And it's like you'd been running all night.

• 1:45:14Jocko Willink?

  And you said, uh, even 20 miles into it, you borrowed a camel back from somebody. You got that thing wearing holes into your back.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  I never trained with it.

• 1:45:24Jocko Willink?

  And you went out of the gate like pre Fontaine, just going hard as you could.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Went out, it's like the 800 meter back in middle school.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  It was, yeah. And, and I thought I was going to get it to turn around quicker. So I didn't have a headlamp. Cause I thought it was going to be there. I had my head, here's what I'm going to do. I'll get here at, you know, whatever it right when it's starting to get dark, but I didn't get there till about 11. 12 hours into the race. And so it'd been dark for a couple of hours. So I'm up in the snow. There's snow up there at the turnaround. And post hole in through the snow with no light. And I get to the turnaround and I'm just like, oh my God, this is brutal. So that was my first one. That is 48 miles down at 52 left.

• 1:46:07Jocko Willink?

  You say in here, uh, that that 48 mile turnaround, the Porcupine aid station is real convenient spot for DNFers. That was the official notation on the race results for runners who quit. DNF did not finish. I saw guys at Porcupine, tough guys, obviously. I mean, hell, to get there, they just ran 48 miles to the last 18 uphill to the tune of a 4,500 foot gain. Looking like they were on their deathbed, wrapped in blankets, being attended by medics. It was at Porcupine that many called it a race.

• 1:46:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. See, having been in the military for a long time, or I was in the military for a long time and we would be going out on patrols. And you pay really close attention to how much elevation you're going to gain or lose. You know, I mean, you're doing a map study. You're looking at the contour lines. Like you're figuring it out. So when you say 4,500 feet gain or a total of 18,000, that sucks.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's it and that that's what make it's not just the distance, it's the terrain too. And and on trail also, your body's like correcting all the time. You know, like on road, you'll see some elite marathoners and they don't even have abs. You know, they kind of almost got a little pot belly because you can get so efficient at running on a road. Uh, in the mountains, you are correcting all your cores, like getting taxed, your quads are getting taxed. It's a whole different type of running, but it's it's taxing.

• 1:47:40Jocko Willink?

  What what are you carrying on you?

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Uh, you gotta take some water usually and some calories.

• 1:47:45Jocko Willink?

  So that's it?

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:51Jocko Willink?

  You get to, you were trying to do it in how long? 24 hours?

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's always the goal. If you can break 24 hours in a hundred mile or you're legit.

• 1:48:00Jocko Willink?

  You're legit.

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  At 12:00 PM, I topped out at mile 82. I was at 25 hours now.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  It's not under 24.

• 1:48:12Speaker 01

  And I still had 18 miles left.

• 1:48:16Jocko Willink?

  By 3:10 PM, I reached the last aid station at mile 95. When I got to mile 95, Tanner was there waiting for me and ran the last five with his old man, that a boy. I told him I couldn't stop because of my knee and said we had an hour and 50 minutes to run five miles.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanted to, I definitely wanted to get in under 30 hours.

• 1:48:37Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  Being 29, so.

• 1:48:39Jocko Willink?

  And was Tanner just like, I mean, you can run, you can run five miles in 30 minutes.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he was, I think, 14 at the time and I kind of took him just kind of, you know how we we talked about, we always try to justify. So I'm like, well, if my son's there, it's like, I'm not really being selfish. So he had to stay in the hotel by himself for a whole day, 29 hours. I had somebody give him a ride to that aid station to go the last five and he didn't even really want to do five. But I was going pretty slow at that time.

• 1:49:14Jocko Willink?

  At 4:20 PM, 100 miles were in the books. Official time, 29 hours, 20 minutes. I was 100 mile ultra marathoner. I earned my first 100 mile belt buckle.

• 1:49:27Speaker 01

  Yep, that's what you get instead of a medal or a trophy or anything. You do get usually a belt buckle.

• 1:49:33Jocko Willink?

  Is that, is that just like out west or is that everywhere?

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. Maybe I'll, I'm not sure.

• 1:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:44Jocko Willink?

  Check, 100 miles.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit here.

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  You say, "In the final year of my dad's life, he reminded me once again how much I respected and admired him. From the moment doctors discovered a lump on his liver, Bob Hanes began his fight with cancer. It was an aggressive form of cancer, but he never gave up. For 18 months, he waged a war against it. "I'm going to beat it," he told me. Everybody who gets cancer says this, and sometimes they do.

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  So your dad, um, comes down with, with liver cancer. Um, you, you, you talk about that in here and, and as you're talking about that, you still are working your job, you're still being a dad and you're still training and you're still running.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  And you have a goal. And you say, "The most coveted award in the ultra marathoning world, world is the silver buckle awarded at the Western States Endurance Run. It's the most famous 100 mile race in the world because of its history and competitiveness. I earned my belt buckle in my second 100 miler by finishing in under 24 hours at 22 hours and 41 minutes. In my world, if there was ever a comparison to an Olympic gold medal, it would be this silver buckle."

• 1:51:12Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna go for this thing. On the drive down to where the race started in Olympic Valley, California, I talked to my dad on the phone and he didn't sound good. He'd been battling cancer for a year and a half, so I knew in my heart, he was nearing the end of his fight. As I ran, I took some solace in knowing he was following my progress live on the ws100.com website. At 3:41 a.m., I crossed the finish line in Auburn, California, and in doing so, earned my silver Western States buckle. I just logged a nearly seven-hour improvement over my first 100-mile race. I started out the race supremely confident, but during those 22 hours and 41 minutes of reflection

• 1:51:57Jocko Willink?

  while running, doubt crept in more than once. Through those struggles, I kept telling myself that my pain was temporary. In a few days' time, I would be healed up and richer from the experience. For my dad, there would be no healing. There would only be deeper and more debilitating pain and sickness than death.

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  I finished the race that Sunday morning. We drove home that day, getting home very late. I went to work the next day.

• 1:52:32Jocko Willink?

  I will never forget looking into Dad's eyes upon my return from the race and saying, "Dad, I wish I could give you some of my strength." "Don't give up on me yet," he told me.

• 1:52:45Jocko Willink?

  He still thought he was going to beat it. I will never forget his will to live.

• 1:52:51Jocko Willink?

  A handful of days after I earned my silver buckle in the Western States race, my dad passed on early in the day on July 5. The pain of losing him was much worse than any I'd felt before from the races, life, or anything.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, that, that was a definitely a hard time. That it's like a big transition because on July 4th every year, there's the Butte to Butte 10K in Eugene. My dad, his house, he lived with my stepmom Candy, pretty close to the course. So they would walk down to Dairy Mart and we'd be doing the 10K and run by him every time, every year, forever. And so I'm running that, that day, July 4th, 2010, the day before he died. And I was getting up there by Dairy Mart, no dad. And so he never missed.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  You know, it's like I said, running is so important, the Butte to Butte is the biggest race in Eugene.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  So it was, uh, you know, I mean, I knew, but people with cancer, it's just like, it's always this thing. I've known quite a few people who have it and everybody's going to beat it. And you just know, and it just, it's heartbreaking because they're not going to beat it. The chemo is gonna, you know, it's gonna take the chemo so long. So the, the cancer is held back for a while, but then once you have to stop the chemo because your body can't take it, then the cancer comes back harder. And it's like, everybody kind of knows the routine, but nobody wants to talk about it. But I knew. And, uh, so then not seeing him there that day.

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  And then, uh, you know, then he died that on, early in the morning on July 5th. And how'd you go over there and, you know, uh, it was, it was just a, you know.

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  When somebody dies at the house like he did, you have to have the funeral home or whoever the coroner or whatever come over. So he comes over and he's by himself. And he, my dad's room is upstairs and he's like, I said, how are you, how are you getting them down? He's like, well, could you help me? And so we had to put him in a bag and had to help carry him out. And it's like, uh,

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's one of those.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  You just never forget, never forget that. And so it's just death, um, this journey, you know, your dad not being around. It's like, it makes all the other, like I say in there, the physical pain. It seemed like nothing to me.

• 1:56:02Jocko Willink?

  What did your dad think about the, the freaking hundred mile races? Cause those weren't really around when your dad was running.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  No, he probably, I mean, he, he would act like he cared, but you know, he was more of a Olympic event person, pole vault, high jump, running. You know, the ultras are kind of like the, kind of a weird offshoot of that, you know? So he was probably like, well, for he'd probably think it was better than bow hunting because he'd never hunted. He was just an athlete his whole life. So he would say, you know, when I kill an animal, I'd lose brain cells. So he was like pretty liberal, South Eugene's a pretty liberal school in Eugene.

• 1:56:51Speaker 01

  Uh, and he was track coach there forever. So he never got the hunting part, but he, you know, so the ultras are probably a little better than hunting. He can celebrate those a little more, but still not quite as good as, you know, real track.

• 1:57:08Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. There's something I don't think like dads are ever impressed by anything you do. They're always just like, well, you know.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  That's a tough, that's a tough crowd.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a tough crowd. The old man's a tough crowd for sure.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:23Jocko Willink?

  I remember, uh, I was with Leif, who I wrote Extreme Ownership with, and we made the New York Times Bestseller List, right? And so, I, I called my parents, I was like, hey, um, you know, and Leif, Leif remembers this, cause I had him on speakerphone. I was like, hey, I just found out we made the New York Times Bestseller List. And, uh, my mom's like, well, it really, what really counts is how long you stay on there.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  Jeez.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, cool.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  That was your mom?

• 1:57:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was like, cool, later.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, good point.

• 1:57:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like, cool, yeah, my bust, you know, later, sorry about that.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:59Jocko Willink?

  Sorry to bother you.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just wanted to taste that thing. I'll taste the very bottom, just taste it, dude, one minute.

• 1:58:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go on record saying if, if your book doesn't, your book, it'll make it. I'm, I'm, I'm going on record as saying, it'll make it. It'll make it. Dude, the freaking, uh, the tour you're doing right now, it'll make it.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 1:58:27Jocko Willink?

  It'll make it. Um, yeah, and they're, you know, it's not based on sales, it's based on whatever their weird voodoo is.

• 1:58:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be the upset of the century if it makes it.

• 1:58:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, uh, you know Jordan Peterson's book, Twelve Rules for Life, have you ever heard of that?

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:45Jocko Willink?

  It's literally the biggest selling book in the past, I don't know how long.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:50Jocko Willink?

  It didn't make it.

• 1:58:54Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  That is, I don't know.

• 1:58:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they got their own little, they got their own things they're promoting over there.

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  Um, anyways, going back to this book, you got a whole section in here on a bunch of people. Uh, Courtney, how do you say her last name?

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  DeWalter.

• 1:59:12Jocko Willink?

  You got Courtney DeWalter, Michael Chandler, Conor McGregor, David Goggins. You talk about Jordan, Kobe, Brady, Tiger, Steve Prefontaine, you just got a bunch of awesome freaking athletes and studs. Um, that you talk about kind of what you take away from all of them. So that was a, a pretty cool section. And, and then like you said. You've gotten to meet all these people and freaking hang out with them and

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:43Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you meet Tiger?

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  No, no, no, and not, I just like their mindset.

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, Jordan, Kobe, Brady, and although you, you exchanged some, uh, some like social media with

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  Brady.

• 1:59:54Jocko Willink?

  With Brady.

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I have talked to Connor before, but all I ever said to Connor was, this is kind of, he's on his come up. And he was like really taking off and he was sitting there, I was, you know, Joe had the hook up for the seats, you know? God bless Joe in UFC, but so Connor was sitting there with his girlfriend and I go over there and I just said, I go, um, I said, how have you ever lost? Cause he had two, he has two, had two losses at this time. He was, I think he's cage warriors or whatever over there. And then came up and was on a pretty good tear in the UFC, but I was like, he has two losses. And I said, how have you ever lost? Cause you seem unbeatable right now.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  He's like, well, I was just young, just wasn't that good. So anyway, that was the only time I've ever really exchanged words with him. But, uh, yeah, and I never met Kobe, but I, I took a lot and, and Jordan, I haven't met him, but that mindset, you know, the winning mindset, everybody can take something from those guys.

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. How good was that, uh, documentary, The Last Dance?

• 2:00:59Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I loved it. Loved it, yeah.

• 2:01:03Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of dads, you know how, well, like dads never listen to anything that you say? So my dad's a sports fanatic, a sports fanatic. And I go, hey, you should really watch this thing, The Last Dance.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 2:01:18Jocko Willink?

  Like it's, I, I, I can't get him to watch it.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  He still hasn't?

• 2:01:23Jocko Willink?

  He still hasn't watched it.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  He's the one person in the world who hasn't watched it.

• 2:01:25Jocko Willink?

  He's the one person in the world who is a basketball fanatic, coached basketball.

• 2:01:30Speaker 01

  But because you brought it up?

• 2:01:30Jocko Willink?

  Refereed basketball. And I said, hey, hey dad, this is probably like the coolest thing that's ever been made about basketball. From a media perspective.

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:42Jocko Willink?

  You should really watch it. You will really enjoy it.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. You should have told him not to watch it.

• 2:01:47Jocko Willink?

  That's what I should have done. I should have told him it was stupid.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. They did such a good job. And Jordan's mindset. Oh, my God. How do you not? I love when he's like getting on the guys.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all those. And then the next, see, I grew up and you probably get, well, see, you're older than me, but by the time Jordan's time was here, I was already in the military. So I wasn't tracking as hard as I was, as I was in the eighties.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  When it was, you know, the Celtics and the Lakers.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  And me being from New England, it was like Celtics, a hundred percent all day long. And Larry Bird is like a god.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:30Jocko Willink?

  And then you have Larry Bird, because Larry Bird's attitude is savage.

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  Similar.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, the thing that they say about Bird, and they say this, and you can go back and forth and whatever, but, you know, that Bird wasn't as athletic as a lot of players in the NBA, but he was just such a hard worker.

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  That he was just gonna outwork you.

• 2:02:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And that's what he was gonna do. So my mindset was always like, I'm just gonna have to work harder.

• 2:02:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  Like Bird.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Like, and that, you know, my dad, when I played basketball, if I didn't come home with like skinned knees from diving on the floor.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And that was like a fail.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Well, yeah, me, me and Tanner, Tanner was a basketball player. And he, we had so many battles, because I was probably like your dad.

• 2:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 2:03:17Speaker 01

  And I would just be like pissed the whole time watching him play. He would score thirty two and a half one game. And I'm like, I'm like, you're not even playing defense.

• 2:03:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I am.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I go, you're not, you're not getting, I said, as soon as that ball leaves our hand from whoever you're guarding, it has to go all the way to the floor and all the way back into their hand. During that time, why don't you dive on it?

• 2:03:41Speaker 01

  So then he finally, like years later now, he watched some old tapes from, from high school. And he's like, God, Dad, because I can't believe how lazy I was on defense. And I'm like, no shit. We had, but we had so many fights about it.

• 2:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I suck. By the way, I note to, note to everyone, I sucked at basketball. I was a hustler, though. I would just hustle. I would steal, you know, I'd play, I would play D.

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that Larry Bird gave white guys hope. But what people, most people skip over is he was also like, what, six?

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  Six, nine.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  Nine?

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  So he's not like just a little white guy. He's, and he could shoot better than anybody.

• 2:04:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was a beast.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:24Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so you got that cool chapter. You're kind of talking about what you take away from all those, all those, uh, badass individuals. Then you got a section here. It's this beast mode. There are no rest days. As irrational as it may seem, in my mind, I'm not good enough to take a day off and I never will be. Running, training and bow shooting have always been a therapy of sorts for me. What I call my lift, run, shoot lifestyle is a means to an end. And that end is hunting. Preparation is key to achieve any goal. You cannot fall back on luck or talent. Those will leave you empty handed every time. You kind of made this point earlier and I knew this part was coming.

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Like you can't, you can theoretically not be in good shape and go out and you can kill a bull. It can happen.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  And I've heard stories from guides telling me that there will be people that show up to hunt that they really haven't really even sighted in their boat yet.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  I know, I know. It's, I couldn't imagine being a guide. I would hate to be the, I'd be like, I don't know how they just don't be like, what are you, what in the hell is going on? Because also to me, it's like it shows respect to the animal when you show it prepared. You know, when you're not prepared, you're, you're shooting an arrow, you can hit it in the guts, you hit it in the ass, hit it in the wherever. It's like you, you don't care about that animal's life so mu- so little or whatever, how I worded that wrong. But I mean, it's so in insignificant, you can't prepare for this hunt? That to me, I don't like that.

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Um, yeah. And then what, what you're saying like, that's another underlying theme in your book is like, sure, you can theoretically do that. But if you, everything that you can do to be a little bit more prepared is going to just up your odds a little bit.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Well, I would always think that I've always thought about things and, and percentages and numbers. And I'd always think even in basketball, so you could go back, because I played all these sports, but, and I try to get this to my kids and whatever, but it's like the, the, so you're in better shape. So your, your reaction time is probably a little quicker. So if you can get, and it might just be one finger hits that ball that, that slows that ball down enough where the next guy down the line to where that pass is going, the ball's going slower. So they could get to the ball, knock it loose, kick it to you, you could score whatever. All, and that started with the fingertip, which started with preparation, which started with the reaction time.

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  So it's like, I'd always say, you can't measure some of this stuff with these big, big factors and big numbers, but it's percentage wise, even if it's a 10th of a percent, that adds up. So the more I can do to add those percentages, I'm just going to be that much better.

• 2:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that one 10th of a percent, that might be the one 10th of a percent.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  That makes a difference.

• 2:07:29Jocko Willink?

  Success or failure.

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because also I've thought about this in terms of hunting where if that broadhead blade, so I shoot heavy poundage also, and people want to criticize this. You don't need to shoot 90 pounds or whatever. So I'm always thinking that if that animal reacts and it's spinning when that arrow hits, and because that force that arrow is greater where instead of kicking off the bone and go and say to the right, it pushes through the bone. Gets more penetration and maybe catches that one artery with one blade and that one blade cutting that artery because you have higher poundage, you were more prepared and you got the arrow more where you wanted it to. That artery would drip of blood that maybe you lost blood and then you found the one drop

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  that led you the direction where then you found the animal or more blood. But it was that one drop that did that. What caused that extra drop of blood, which can make all the difference in the world? And it's like, you can't tell me all the shit I think about and all the work I put in doesn't make a difference. Because you can't tell me that that's not immeasurable.

• 2:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:37Speaker 01

  That's, that's a difference.

• 2:08:39Jocko Willink?

  I was shocked the first time I was following a blood trail. I was with Dudley. The, the, you are literally looking for blood.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  That is the size of a, actually smaller than the size of a pinhead.

• 2:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:55Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I was like, holy shit. Like I'm, I'm following Dudley and he's walking and all of a sudden he's like, right here. Cause I'm following because I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

• 2:09:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:04Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I'm marking, you know, what we find. He's like, right here and I gotta get up and like basically get on my knees and go, oh yeah, I see it.

• 2:09:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:11Jocko Willink?

  Freaking skills.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's another, you know, when I was talking earlier about all the different skills that come into play. That's just to shoot at the thing. Cause then once you shoot at it, you gotta go find it. And there's a whole nother incredible skillset that comes into play there.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And sometimes it's not even blood. Sometimes it could just be fluid. Like if you hit back and maybe you hit guts, that's not going to bleed. There's not a lot of blood in the guts. So, but it might just be clear fluid. So it's not even a red drop of blood, but you're like, hey, you're looking at, you know, kind of doing a little autopsy. You gotta know, you're like, what, you smell it. Do you, the texture, then that leads you to blood. But yeah, it's a lot to it.

• 2:09:59Jocko Willink?

  A freaking hard game.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:01Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you say, I'm not even the best bow shot. But I want to be. There are guys in my hometown pro shop. The bow rack. Yeah. That are better shots than me, but I do work very hard at it. The key to my success is to throw hard work at everything I do. I can't scout elk every day. So I lift, run, and shoot. Yeah, I just like, feel like that's moving that needle in the right direction.

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  You got a story in here that is really just lays all this out.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, do I deserve to be here? I dreamt of hunting the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation for decades. Located in southeastern Arizona and encompassing eight, 1.8 million acres of land. San Carlos produces what I believe are the most amazing elk in the world. The reservation allocates only a handful of tags each year because the densities are low and they manage this country for trophy bulls. This means to hunt there is very expensive. Altogether, a hunt like that costs upward of $70,000, which is more than I've made annually for nearly all of my life.

• 2:11:17Jocko Willink?

  Compare that to the tag from my first out of state elk hunt in Wyoming, which cost 1,100 bucks.

• 2:11:26Jocko Willink?

  Nobody wants to have to write a check that big and have nothing to show for it. So there's a lot riding on me making the perfect shot. Bow hunting, the biggest, most coveted elk in the world adds to this pressure. You can't stop thinking about all you've sacrificed and the years you've worked to pay for this opportunity. To me, that money essentially could affect the quality of life provided for my family. All this stuff starts weighing on you. That was why I kept wondering whether I deserved the honor to be at San Carlos. One of the many incredible hunting opportunities I've been blessed with over the years. I felt like I didn't belong or didn't really deserve the chance. I'm not sure why this is, but I know this perspective keeps me focused on capitalizing and being appreciative of the experience.

• 2:12:11Jocko Willink?

  My goal was to live up to the expectations of being respectful, a respectful bow hunter and celebrating these special elk mountains appropriately.

• 2:12:20Jocko Willink?

  Two words that come to mind are the ones Maximus says at the start of the battle in Gladiator, strength and honor. Bow hunters need to be strong mentally and physically, but they also need to show honor. Honor is, to me, the attribute that makes bow hunting so special.

• 2:12:40Jocko Willink?

  So, this, this is, ta-talk about like, what, for someone that doesn't understand hunting, what does it mean to go into this Indian reservation where they have limited number of elk? They're trophy elk, which means they're monsters.

• 2:12:58Jocko Willink?

  And they can only allow so many people to hunt. And because they can only allow so many people to hunt, and because the elk are so monstrous, they are gonna charge money for it.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a supply and demand. This place, like, years ago, 20 years ago, there'd be a video, VHS tape out and it'd say, you know, giant bulls of San Carlos. We used to watch it at the bow rack. And these bulls seemed surreal how big they were, not even the same species from the elk that we've, we'd hunted, you know, giant bulls, 400 inch of antler, which is, which is huge.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  So, this was like a legendary place. And then, because of the money, that eliminates a lot of people.

• 2:13:43Jocko Willink?

  Pretty much everybody.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  Pretty much everyone. But the, the thing with, with there, it takes more than money, because there's a lot of guys with money, a lot of dickheads with money. The, the tribe isn't gonna deal with a bunch of dickheads. They don't have to, because they have the biggest bulls in the world. So, I remember this guy sent me this message a while ago, and it said he, you know, how do you get to hunt San Carlos? I sent a- I sent an email and I guess my $20,000 isn't enough for them, you know, I'm like, well, I can already tell you're probably just a dumb fuck, you know, so.

• 2:14:23Speaker 01

  He could, he could have, you know, offer a million, he's probably not going to get a chance to hunt there because they're not going to deal with that. So you have to be respectful, which I, I'm always respectful, but also I value what it means to hunt there. And then also I've sacrificed a lot to be able to have that money. And then still that wasn't enough. Still it took Kip Fokes is who got me the first opportunity there. And he had hunted there one year and they could, they could tell what type of guy he was, he cared, he's trying to do his, his best. He didn't have the greatest hunt, but he paid his dues and, and put in the time there.

• 2:15:02Speaker 01

  And then this other tag came open and he said, well, I got a guy, you know, Cam, I think, you know, if we could give him, get him an opportunity here, I think he'll buy that tag. So that's how it happened, but it takes more than just money. It takes a lot of things come in.

• 2:15:19Jocko Willink?

  And Kip Fokes, just for a little intro, he's a, uh, one of the founders of Under Armour and, uh, well, he was a freaking college athlete stud, his damn self.

• 2:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:29Jocko Willink?

  Playing lacrosse and, uh, and then really was a huge part of the driving force, but behind the operations at, at Under Armour.

• 2:15:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:15:38Jocko Willink?

  And then was the driving force behind the Under Armour hunt.

• 2:15:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:15:43Jocko Willink?

  Stuff. And now he's one of the driving forces behind Origin Hunt, FYI.

• 2:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, he's definitely found, that's his niche. I mean, he's such a hard worker and he's cares about it, cares about, for whatever reason, that apparel, that just building clothing is like his jam.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  He loves it.

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  So you say this here, Kip Fokes, one of the original founders of Under Armour and a good friend of mine was there with me and he was the one who had given me this opportunity at San Carlos as I headed out to the best elk country in the world for two solid weeks. If need be, I was confident, but to think I'd even get a chance at a once in a lifetime bull like this seemed completely far fetched. So you're out, they identified, do they, they tell you, hey, we got a bull here that you might be, because they're scouting bulls all the time. Yeah. And they find a 400 inch bull, that's their estimation, it's a 10 by 9. Yeah, that's crazy. That's insane. It was, yeah. And you nickname, or they nicknamed the, the, the bull, Tight Bull, because he had like a narrow rack with 10 by 9 but narrow.

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm. So, again, you go through some of the details here, I'm gonna pick it up, you got a guide named Chris. Chris and Kip were behind me over a little spine ridge about 40 yards away. All good so far. The still unseen bull screamed a bugle. And by the way, right now, go onto YouTube and Google Bull Elk Bugling and crank up the volume and then press play. Yeah. Because it is, it's freaking primal insanity when you hear those things going off. It is. So, the still unseen bull screamed a bugle. He was close. I estimated where

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  he'd come out of the timber and looked for shooting lanes. It was a mess. The burn had burnt trees and brush everywhere. I got nervous that once he entered the burn, I wouldn't have a clear shot. I had seconds to make a decisions. At the moment of truth, a bow hunter makes certain decisions that impact success or failure. The line between the two is razor thin. I glanced at the tree I was leaning against and noticed some good limbs to climb. I quickly surmised that I'd increase my potential shot opportunities if I climbed up the tree. Since I had been set up on the shady side of the tree, my movement would be much less noticeable in the shadows. Scaling the tree as quickly as I could, I

• 2:18:17Jocko Willink?

  climbed 10 to 15 feet up in the air and set up to shoot. This elevated position opened my shooting lanes greatly. Seconds after getting set in the tree, the bull ripped a bugle, answering Chris and exposing himself. It was Tight Bull 30 yards away.

• 2:18:35Jocko Willink?

  While we were in his country, we had no idea he was the bull coming in. I took one quick look at his 400-inch 10 by 9 rack, recognized what bull he was, and directed my focus on getting a good arrow in him. Chris Cow called the tight and tight bull closed in, heading straight toward me and ultimately stopped directly underneath me. I slowly eased my bow back. The bull noticed movement or sensed or heard me, probably thinking mountain lion, if you could have asked him, and he became spooked, running back toward the timber. He stopped at just under 30 yards, quartering away, as I frantically tried to get position to shoot while balancing on a burnt tree limb 15 feet up.

• 2:19:22Jocko Willink?

  When tight bull stood, staring back at me, trying to piece together what was happening. I had to act fast. My sight was set on 30 yards, which would work, so I quickly readjusted while trying to stay calm. I settled my sight pin on his vitals, but there was one small limb covering his chest, so I raised up on my tiptoes in the tree and picked a spot. It was crunch time. For a bow hunter, this is the most critical moment to master, as adrenaline speeds through your body and your heart races. If you can't remain under control, success will be tough. If you can, releasing a perfect arrow is just another part of the process.

• 2:20:04Jocko Willink?

  If you put in the work, you'll crave crunch time because it's your chance to shine. Bend that bow back, anchor in, pick a spot, and send a razor-sharp broadhead on its way. The arrow flashes toward the bull and lands home, as you knew it would because you've worked too hard to fail. After following a short blood trail, you find your bull and respectfully kneel by the amazing animal that gave its life to you. The bull's memory would be celebrated when his antlers eventually adorned your wall and his flesh nourished you. I quickly let an arrow go toward the biggest bull I'd ever seen. I felt confident in the shot on release, confident about the work I put in,

• 2:20:49Jocko Willink?

  confident the arrow would strike where I'd visualized it would. Perfect.

• 2:20:55Jocko Willink?

  But that's not what happened. The arrow flew off the mark, hitting the bull high into the right, striking the top of his shoulder blade. A high too far forward shot is about the worst shot you can make on a big bull, since it's high and forward of the lungs, which is where you want the arrow to hit. The bull is protected by heavy muscle and bone, so an arrow that strikes here will typically only wound the bull and not cause death. I felt sick to my stomach as he ran over the ridge, with what looked like half my arrow sticking out of his shoulder. How did I blow an opportunity I'd worked my entire adult life preparing for? My dream became a nightmare in the fraction of a second

• 2:21:40Jocko Willink?

  it took my arrow to leave my bow and hit the bull.

• 2:21:52Jocko Willink?

  That was rough. That is a savage game right there. Yeah. I mean, so it was 30 yards away. Yeah, just under 30.

• 2:22:03Jocko Willink?

  I feel like if I needed to like place a bet with my own life,

• 2:22:12Jocko Willink?

  and you hitting a target at 30 yards, I'd feel so comfortable with you taking that shot. Yeah. I mean, this is what you do. This is what you live for. Yep.

• 2:22:24Jocko Willink?

  And that's what makes this freaking, uh, this game so crazy. Yeah, it's so tough. I mean, being up in the tree was a different, had some different factors in it. Uh, having that limb come across where, you know, you don't, your air, the sight that you're looking at, the line of sight you're looking at, your arrow is below that. So trying to figure out where your arrow is, and that's going to cross into your line of sight and then hit the animal. It's going to cross into your line of sight, go above your line of sight and drop in. Because I've learned that before, where I've hit tree branches that were above my line of sight. Exactly. So trying to anticipate that, because I didn't know that bull was going to come underneath me, and then spook and be there and have that limb there. I didn't know any of that was happening.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  So having to try to calculate all that in the heat of the moment, as a bull's standing there, you know, nostrils flaring, eyes wide, figuring out, thought it's just going to get jumped on by a lion.

• 2:23:20Speaker 01

  And how, and I'm like, here's the bull. This is a bull we've been looking for, the tight bull, the 10 by nine, the 400 inches is it. And then you do the best you can. And I screwed up.

• 2:23:33Speaker 01

  It just, it wasn't my best shot. And with all those factors in there, is that, did I do the best of those, the options? Maybe, but that didn't help us because the arrow was, the arrow ended up going in, breaking off, and then I had 13 inches of arrow that had, that had, or broke off, there's a little blood on the shaft. So 13 inches. And, you know, the last thing you want to do there, when you're getting a once in a lifetime opportunity, it's your first opportunity there to hunt that country, is woundable. Because on a hunt like that, and any hunt, even at, you know, like where you've been in Utah, if you draw blood, no matter where

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  you hit the animal, that's your animal. So I, if I wound this bull, and even if it doesn't die, I'm paying for it. 70 grand. So

• 2:24:31Jocko Willink?

  And you wounded the animal.

• 2:24:33Speaker 01

  I mean, which is the worst, because I put, money aside, I put that much pressure on myself anyway. This is what I do. This is what I've geared my whole life for. So I don't, even if it was $1 or 7 million, I wouldn't have any more pressure. It's still like, all this, this is, this is my purpose. But the money, when you're thinking about your family and the sacrifices they've made for this, then that just makes it worse.

• 2:25:00Jocko Willink?

  And just so everybody knows, elk are not human beings, obviously, but the reason I say that is because they're so freaking tough.

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Like you take, you put a 13, you put a broadhead into a human being, 13 inches, they're gonna die.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:19Jocko Willink?

  Like anywhere in their torso, they're gonna freaking die.

• 2:25:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Especially with, I mean, maybe if you get them to surgery or something. But elk. There's crazy tough what they can survive.

• 2:25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I mean, imagine how tough you would be if you slept outside for 365 days a year on rock and dirt and in weather.

• 2:25:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:39Speaker 01

  Be pretty, pretty tough.

• 2:25:40Jocko Willink?

  And then in order to get a girlfriend, you had to freaking go and like ram heads.

• 2:25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:45Jocko Willink?

  Fight like a bunch of other dudes that had giant spears coming out of their head.

• 2:25:50Speaker 01

  Right, right. So it's like they're, they're built for that.

• 2:25:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:54Speaker 01

  They're built to endure whatever. An arrow, if it's not perfect, yeah, it's gonna wound them. They're, it's probably gonna, I don't know how they feel pain, but they're gonna, they'll, they can get a long way. They can go a long way, survive a long time.

• 2:26:09Jocko Willink?

  And they get stabbed with.

• 2:26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Fighters. Yeah, they get stabbed with antlers. So this is sort of like a, a bad antler wound, but that's what they deal with. That's what they contend with.

• 2:26:19Speaker 01

  Actually cleaner, you know, like a broadhead is a cleaner cut. And you know, you know how a clean cut can heal.

• 2:26:27Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  You know, so a puncture is, is one of the worst things you can get for an injury. So an antler puncturing, yeah, I mean, they could overcome a, point is they could overcome an arrow wound.

• 2:26:40Jocko Willink?

  And they do all the time.

• 2:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:26:46Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, the tight bull was a regal animal. I respected greatly, but I failed to deliver the perfect shot. I fucked up the shot from less than 30 yards. I climbed down the burnt tree and slipped off my boots with just socks on my feet and not hard sole boots. I could feel the ground better, which would allow me to sneak forward silently and see what kind of blood I had to track. As I followed the sparse blood trail, my fears were confirmed. The bull didn't bleed much at all, a few drops, which is what you'd expect, given that shitty shot. Eventually, the light blood trail stopped altogether.

• 2:27:27Jocko Willink?

  I was devastated. Not only did I let myself down and my family and friends and followers, but I felt like I let the Apache tribe down as well. This bull was so unique and so incredible and I had made a poor shot on him. He deserved better. Now I had to go and tell the head of hunting for the tribe that I had made a poor shot. Kip, Chris and I hiked miles back to the truck.

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Nobody said much. I shook my head and started at stared at the ground, a pit in my stomach.

• 2:28:02Speaker 01

  It's a bad feeling.

• 2:28:03Jocko Willink?

  Dude.

• 2:28:07Jocko Willink?

  This is like, my hands are sweating right now.

• 2:28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, uh, and like I said, I mean, obviously I'm, I'm like a complete amateur in this game. But even when I put myself into your shoes as, as uh, much of a perfectionist as you are, and as much as I know you wanna, you know, get the good shot. And then here you are and that's, that's, that's what I could say about like being in the camps that I've been in. Everybody knows exactly what just happened. Like everyone knows, there's no hiding.

• 2:28:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just a, you know, you wanna make a good shot. You want, you wanna do your job essentially. And your job is to, to uh, be, deliver a merciful kill of the target animal. So anything other than doing your job is tough. Especially in that circumstance. Um.

• 2:29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's my first opportunity to show, you know, what I was capable of in that environment in front of that, the tribe and it didn't feel good.

• 2:29:18Jocko Willink?

  What a freaking rough game.

• 2:29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I remember the first, the first time I shot a bull, I had shot a shitty shot.

• 2:29:30Jocko Willink?

  Hit it in the leg, luckily hit an argory, but you know Dudley and I tracked it until dark. We still didn't find it. We're walking back. I mean, I just, I feel absolutely like horrible. And I feel like horrible because I wounded this animal. I feel horrible because I let Dudley down who like invested time and effort into me. To, to give me this opportunity to do this.

• 2:30:02Jocko Willink?

  And on top of that, quite frankly, I didn't even understand that this happened.

• 2:30:10Jocko Willink?

  I didn't, I thought I was like the only person that this had ever happened to. And that's why when I got back to camp.

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:17Jocko Willink?

  I sat down with you and Dudley and Joe and we're kind of sitting there eating. And you must've just looked at my face, felt like you better like help me.

• 2:30:29Jocko Willink?

  And you basically told me like a couple of stories and you were like, hey, man, you know, like this happens, you know?

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  And it does. And, and you know, you talk to the guides up there and it's, you know, there's a decent, it's hard to kill a, a, an elk with one shot. And it happens instantly. It's, that's a tough shot.

• 2:30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like one of those things though, that uh,

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  nobody wants to talk about really, but and it does happen. And it's like, you know, me and Roy, we'd call each other on the phone and it'd be like, how'd the hunt go? Did you kill? There's only one of two answers. Nobody gives a shit about anything else than yes or no. So in a, in a hunting camp setting like that, yes, it happens, but like I know how the guides talk and how just, not, not there specifically, but just anywhere. And it's like how that would be summed up would be like, you know, cam wounded.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  Nobody needs to, anything else doesn't fucking matter. Did you kill? No, you wounded.

• 2:31:41Speaker 01

  That all the you can justify, you can explain, it doesn't matter. So it's like just summed up like no matter how how people talk or make you feel better or whatever. It doesn't really help.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  And that's why this this game is is freaking challenging.

• 2:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:00Jocko Willink?

  And but here's the thing, that's why it's so rewarding.

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, and so I we I probably sound pretty negative right now because it is hard as hell, but that's what makes it so rewarding.

• 2:32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  That's what makes it so awesome. When you pull it off and you get it done.

• 2:32:16Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here before going to bed that night, Kip and I talked about tight bull. What do you think the odds are that we're gonna get him? Kip asked 20% I said. It's not good. A high shoulder shot on a big bull like that. I fucked up. Well, shit, he muttered. I had a hard time sleeping even for a second that night. And it wasn't the first time I've had heartbreak in the mountains. I remember more than once blowing it on a big bull, times when I should have gotten a kill and screwed it up. And it has haunted me, crushed me.

• 2:32:56Jocko Willink?

  The next morning, we got up and headed out at first light to where I hit the tight bull. Mark and Dan Stevens, Chris's uncle and cousin, joined us to lend a hand. If need be, we all walked to a ridgeline a mile or more away from where I had shot the bull. As I scanned across the canyon with my optics, I spotted something that I couldn't make out. What am I looking at? I asked the guys by those yellow quaking aspens to the bottom left of them. What am I seeing? That's your bull, Chris said. He was bedded. I studied intently through my binos and I didn't see him move.

• 2:33:30Jocko Willink?

  Is he dead? I asked Chris Cow called and right when he did, the bull moved his head. Fuck. He's not dead, but he's hurt. All right, I told him. Let me go down and get this mess cleaned up. As they stayed there, I made a big circle around to the other side of the canyon where tight bull was bedded. It took me over an hour, maybe even two hours as I wasn't taking any chances with the wind and went very wide.

• 2:33:56Jocko Willink?

  When I was a couple hundred yards from the three Quakeys, which were my landmarks, I slipped off my boots and continued on slowly and silently and just my socks. As I neared where Tight Bull should be, I looked through my binoculars over to Kip, Mark, Dan, and Chris, and saw them motioning with their hands. With hand signals from a mile away, they were telling me that the bull was going up the hill. When I neared the Quakeys, I spotted him slowly making his way up the hill. He was stove up, but I needed to get another arrow in him or risk losing him. It was going to take a very long bow shot to make that happen, but I got a good range on him and I knew exactly the distance. I already had an arrow knocked, so I quickly dialed in my sight and drew back my bowstring. Settling my pin on his ribs as he quartered away, he would take a couple extra steps

• 2:34:40Jocko Willink?

  and stop, regather himself, and take another couple extra steps. I waited at full draw for him to stop. By this time, I was completely relaxed and felt rock steady. Pulling my bow hard against my back wall of my draw, I cheated the pin up a couple inches on his body as he moved a yard or two further up the hill from when I had ranged him, and slowly squeezed the trigger of my release. The arrow arced high, covering the long distance before dropping home, sinking into his ribs as it angled toward the bull's lungs. This time, my shot was perfect. I hustled up the mountain as fast as I could in my socks, knocking an arrow as I went. He hadn't gone far from where I had hit him, and though still on his feet, now his head was down.

• 2:35:22Jocko Willink?

  He was, he was quite a poke, 92 yards, but I was in kill mode as I came to full draw and released. Again, the second long bow shot also hit him perfectly. The bow went down, and after a few kicks, died quickly. A wave of relief washed over me. And then you, you get to him. Sitting beside the dead Tight Bull was a bittersweet moment of relief. My mind was conflicted. I had succeeded in achieving my goal, but knowing I had ended the life of a truly majestic animal to do so brings a hint of melancholy. There was also a solemn sense of pride that comes with knowing, once the bull hit the ground, the ending of his life would help sustain me and my family for months.

• 2:36:06Jocko Willink?

  I took a moment to give reverence for the life of the animal I killed. Thanks for the nourishment, beast. Your flesh will fuel me, and your antlers on my wall will ensure your life is honored as long as I live.

• 2:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Got it done.

• 2:36:28Speaker 01

  Got it done.

• 2:36:29Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know, there you are the next day making a shot at 92 yards, another shot at whatever 90, probably 94, 95 yards, both perfect shots.

• 2:36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the first one was, the first one I think was actually 107. And then the second one I had snuck up a little bit and he didn't go that far. And so he was 92 in the second, but the first one was a little over 100.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And just so everybody knows, like, most people want to shoot no further than 50 yards, I would say. And I think 40 is really what most people feel very confident in. 50 is out a little bit further, but 107, that's a long shot.

• 2:37:12Speaker 01

  It's a long shot. Yeah. I just wanted to get, you know, I, in my head, that animal had suffered all night. And, uh, so I wanted to just do what I should have done the first time and, uh, just close the deal.

• 2:37:31Jocko Willink?

  It's an interesting parallel with jujitsu. Like in jujitsu, you go and train and you, you get tapped out by people. And you keep coming back. And like, if you never got tapped out, to me, if I never got tapped out, I would probably not come back as often.

• 2:37:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:37:49Jocko Willink?

  If bow hunting was easy, it wouldn't be so rewarding.

• 2:37:54Speaker 01

  Right. Wouldn't be the draw. Yeah. And it's like, if that, to me, that's the only thing, only reason I've ever stood out in life. So it's like, I feel this is what I was supposed to be good at. I'm, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is my thing. So to fail,

• 2:38:15Speaker 01

  it's like feels differently to me also.

• 2:38:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I was going to say that earlier when you were like, well, it's a lot of money and there's a lot of pressure from, you know, wanting to do the right thing. And I was like, oh, and your campaigns.

• 2:38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, like this is. You you carry it's like when the Gracie family does jujitsu, right?

• 2:38:35Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 2:38:36Jocko Willink?

  They're carrying their their family name, which is a which is kind of a rough thing.

• 2:38:40Speaker 01

  Oh, that's hard.

• 2:38:41Jocko Willink?

  When you're the Gracie family is huge.

• 2:38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:38:44Jocko Willink?

  And there might be some kid that's fourteen years old that started training two years ago, but he's part of the Gracie family.

• 2:38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so you have, you know, that's your name.

• 2:38:53Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 2:38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, uh, they when they they were watching from the ridge, you know, where we first saw the bull. And so they said that me making those two shots to kill it made up for. So they they had I'd already let everybody down and then like, okay, well, that got me back to zero.

• 2:39:15Jocko Willink?

  That got you leveled out again.

• 2:39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:17Jocko Willink?

  Did anybody get video of it?

• 2:39:18Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no, not from that far. Nobody had anything. Um, yeah, we have never really had a camera crew there.

• 2:39:25Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:27Jocko Willink?

  The camera crew you were talking about earlier like that adds another dynamic when you're doing this stuff.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:39:33Jocko Willink?

  That must really bother you.

• 2:39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I I don't like hunting with anybody.

• 2:39:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 2:39:41Speaker 01

  Even on these guided hunts and they they already they all know this, but I don't. I just want to do it, you know, I don't need help. If I screw up, I want it to be me screwing up. But so then then when you have a cameraman there, you know, that there's always somebody to blame. So the cameraman is like the worst job ever because anything, any mistake, it's like, you know, oh, they saw the camera or they heard you or whatever. But when it works out, like I've had.

• 2:40:09Jocko Willink?

  Camera slash blame guy.

• 2:40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I've had some hunts that I'm so thankful we have footage.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:40:16Speaker 01

  You know, but there's that it's kind of rough waters there for a while.

• 2:40:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:21Speaker 01

  Till you get it done.

• 2:40:22Jocko Willink?

  It is pretty. I mean, I have some good footage, uh, from last year.

• 2:40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:27Jocko Willink?

  And Dudley was with me and Dudley was filming, you know? I'm probably the only person in the world that gets to have John Dudley as my freaking cameraman, but he'd already killed and he was like, hey. And, you know, he got a freaking good video of the, you know, the end of this. Actually got the setup and everything and it's and I'm I'm real happy and I will say that like, uh, Like review and tape for anything, like any sport.

• 2:40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can watch and be like, oh, yeah.

• 2:40:56Speaker 01

  Break it down.

• 2:40:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I know. I remember, I think your shot, was it, was it a little back of the lungs?

• 2:41:04Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:41:04Speaker 01

  Like, we're wondering if it was liver?

• 2:41:06Jocko Willink?

  It was like one lung, one lung and liver.

• 2:41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that. So that's, that is good to know because a lot of times it happens super fast. So being able to have that footage to review can actually help in the recovery.

• 2:41:22Jocko Willink?

  Right before that, I had shot another bull in Colorado. And that one, I really would have liked to have that on video because I think you can help me with this. So the bull was at 51 yards. And I was on my knees and he was walking, you know, from right to left. And quartering away a little bit. I don't know what's that called? Like a thing away or something like this, you know, so he's not.

• 2:41:56Speaker 01

  Slightly quarter.

• 2:41:57Jocko Willink?

  Slightly quartering. And so he's quartering away. So I, I thought, okay, I'm going to aim a little bit back. And then I was waiting for him to stop. He stopped. And so I, you know, started, let it go. My arrow went and it was like he took a step. It was, this is what happened. He was looking at us. So I was waiting for him to look away before I let the arrow go.

• 2:42:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:42:27Jocko Willink?

  So he started to look away. I, I started pulling back, let the arrow go, but he wasn't just looking away. He was taking a step.

• 2:42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:35Jocko Willink?

  So I hit him further back than I wanted to. But in reviewing it in my head, I thought, okay, so if I'm going to be aiming at a bull, I should cheat a little bit in the direction that he might take a step. Or is that a bad call?

• 2:42:50Speaker 01

  We, I wouldn't.

• 2:42:52Jocko Willink?

  Just, just go with the stationary.

• 2:42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you don't know for sure. So you don't want to cheat. Then they don't take a step and then you, you know, you're like, overthink it almost. Yeah, it's hard to predict what they're going to do.

• 2:43:03Jocko Willink?

  And we, I mean, I did recover that bull and, but you know, it took a while and it took some expert, uh, tracking to find. Again, I was very lucky. I had Dudley with me and the guide up there helping out.

• 2:43:18Jocko Willink?

  But man, they're tough.

• 2:43:19Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:43:19Jocko Willink?

  I mean, he went, he went down and up these three hills.

• 2:43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:26Jocko Willink?

  That were not fun. You know what I mean? They're not fun. And he had an arrow freaking sticking in him.

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Um, yeah.

• 2:43:39Speaker 01

  It's a, yeah, I, I think almost, I've seen, you know, I talked about my dad or whatever, but I'm sure you guys know that that will to live is pretty strong. Even for humans, we're not as tough as animals, but still people can really hold on. And it's like when you're, that life is leaving like it, so an animal or I, I say anything. I've heard, I've heard even people say, oh, caribou hunting is easy. They die easy. And I'm like, I don't know anything that dies easy. I don't know anything. So especially something as tough as a bull elk that's, that's born and bred in the mountains.

• 2:44:20Speaker 01

  It's just like their will to live, just like anything's, anything that's alive, there's that will to live. That is just incredible.

• 2:44:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And they're freaking, like when you said born in the mountains, you see them go up a hill.

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:36Jocko Willink?

  It's insane.

• 2:44:37Speaker 01

  No, they'll, they'll go up and over a ridge. You'll try to do the same thing. It'll take you an hour.

• 2:44:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:42Speaker 01

  And they do it in minutes.

• 2:44:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's freaking crazy to watch.

• 2:44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're, but one thing that humans do have over animals, almost any animal other than maybe a wolf is endurance. So those bulls can put distance between you and them quickly. But if you can stay on, it's, it's hard finding country that, that would allow this. But that's like in Africa, that's what they do. They stay on these animals. And then they get, the animals get exhausted before the humans do. So we, we have, you know, endurance is, that's our, pretty much our only advantage.

• 2:45:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I would caveat that by saying some humans.

• 2:45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Maybe not everybody, maybe not the woke ones.

• 2:45:30Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you got a, some crazy stories in here. Uh, here's a story.

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  With Roy in it. Roy stared in the face in danger, in the face of danger and didn't blink. This happened during brown bear hunt we had gone on earlier in July that year. We'd had a big snow, a big sow brown bear that turned into a problem. She saw us from about 130 yards away and started running full speed right at us. Roy readied his three, his dot three, five, seven.

• 2:46:01Jocko Willink?

  Gonna get some, that he'd brought as backup. And I knocked an arrow. Not sure what an arrow would do to a charging brown bear, but that's all I had.

• 2:46:12Speaker 01

  Does that say three, five, seven, or three, seven, five?

• 2:46:14Jocko Willink?

  It says three, seven, five.

• 2:46:15Speaker 01

  Oh, three, seven, five. No, that's right.

• 2:46:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  No, three, fifty, seven. I was like, well, that'd be a pistol. I was like, I hope that isn't three, five, seven, three, seven, five.

• 2:46:24Jocko Willink?

  Three, seven, five, yeah.

• 2:46:24Speaker 01

  That's a magnum. That's what he had. That's a brown bear gun.

• 2:46:28Jocko Willink?

  He's, uh... Roy said, if she gets to our side of the creek, I'm gonna have to shoot her. She crossed the creek without hesitation and ran toward us. At about 20 yards, she stopped and stood up aggressively, huffing and staring us down, head rocking side to side. We were standing in the wide open in knee-high grass, so there was no mistaking. We were humans. We were giving her a chance to make a better decision since we didn't want to kill her unless we absolutely had to. "Get out of here," we hollered. It didn't matter. The brown bear dropped down and with deadly intentions and ears pinned back, she charged. Roy fired a one-shot and stoned her at close range, mere feat from us.

• 2:47:12Jocko Willink?

  I couldn't help uttering a loud and inappropriate cuss word, "Fuck." I was mad that we had to kill another bear. I had killed a nice boar already, and we were on a high after that awesome success and sweet footage of my perfect bow shot. Now we had killed, now we had had another killed, which we didn't want. Despite the fact that we were in grave danger, that aspect never even entered our minds. After I cussed mad, shaking my head, Roy said, matter of fact, "Dude, I had to." I replied, "I know. It just sucks." A typical response might have been, "Oh, my God. We could have been killed. Are you okay? I'm shaking." But I knew I had a partner, but I knew the partner I had in Roy. He shared the same type of confidence I had. He was never rattled and always in control.

• 2:47:57Jocko Willink?

  I knew in 10 lifetimes, I'd never find another partner like Roy.

• 2:48:05Jocko Willink?

  Good times.

• 2:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, that was a bummer. Uh, she had these, uh, full grown cubs with her. So they'll stick around sometimes. They don't need to be with the, the sow, but they hang around for a while before they split off. So she had those with her and I don't know what it was, but she, I, I shot this boar. And she had heard something. I think maybe when the arrow hit him, he made a noise and because she had her, those full grown cubs and it was a boar. Boars will kill cubs. And so she heard that noise, didn't know what. So she came over and then smelled blood from my bear.

• 2:48:45Speaker 01

  Tracked that blood all the way out to where he died and it started tearing him up. She was, he, she was attacking him and hair and stuff is going everywhere. And I'm like, I go, dude, she's tearing up my bear. And so we're yelling at her and I go, I said, shoot out there. Not, not to shoot her, but just shoot out there, spook her. So he shoots nothing. And, uh, she didn't pay attention. Then she turned and looked and she saw us and we're about a hundred and thirty yards away and she just came, just sprinting. And it's like a bear, a big brown bear, like sprint into the grass at you. It's just like, oh God.

• 2:49:21Jocko Willink?

  You're knocking up an arrow.

• 2:49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, I don't know what I'll do, but, and so we didn't want to kill her at all. And it was just like the biggest downer. And even when I was, and this video, I think it's still on YouTube, but I'm sitting there with the, with the boar I killed and Roy's in the background. He's like looking, cause those full grown cubs, they're still 400 pounds. They're not really cubs. They're, they're yearlings. But, uh, they're, they're back and forth and he's looking at them. He's just shaking his head because it was just, you know, they obviously were going to survive. They're old enough to survive, but it was just a downer. We're not trying to kill a sow, you know?

• 2:50:02Speaker 01

  And, uh, we ended up calling fishing game on the satellite phone, saying what happened and which happens a lot up there. That's, it's called defensive life and property. You can kill bear if your life's at risk. And we had to skin it out and take it back in and do the paperwork and do all that. So we did all that, but it, it's not that it was, you know, legal or anything like that. It was all, this is all legal, but it's just. We just didn't want to have to kill another bear. But, um, yeah, we were in those situations quite often, which happens, you know, they, they say, we have a greater chance of who knows what, getting struck by lightning than being attacked by a grizzly. Not if you're hunting grizzly all the time. If you're hunting grizzly all the time, it's like 75% chance

• 2:50:44Speaker 01

  you're gonna get attacked. So we were used to it, but it's still, you know, it's pretty intense.

• 2:50:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, the bears, they're, their bears are psycho. Is that, is that, is that an accurate statement?

• 2:51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, grizzlies have a different, that's a brown bear, which is a, you know, a grizzly too, but, so I would, I killed another bear up there. There's a limit, there's so many brown bear and non-resident can kill too. But we had this bait set up, which was legal this year, that, that we were hunting is 2015. And the, the black bear would come in and they would just be pretty docile, not wound up at all, pretty relaxed. Then a brown, like the big boar that I killed, the brown bear, not, not that one described there, but a different one. It would come in and it would just be rocking back and forth, just like, kinda like possessed.

• 2:51:42Speaker 01

  And it looked like a dinosaur, cause it was nine foot six tall, you know, it's just a, but on all fours, so it looked really tall. And rocking and just like scanning all around. And you're just like, oh my God, this thing is insane.

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they seem like psychos.

• 2:51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:51:58Jocko Willink?

  And they kill their babies.

• 2:52:00Speaker 01

  Aggressive, so aggressive.

• 2:52:02Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And they're freaking huge.

• 2:52:05Speaker 01

  And so strong.

• 2:52:10Jocko Willink?

  All right. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Uh, I was in Colorado bow hunting with Kip Fokes and Mark Womack. I spotted and stalked a big Colorado whitetail. I hustled toward the buck as quietly as possible. He saw something a few times, but I was staying pretty low, crawling mostly. We figured he thought. It was another buck. So while I closed in on him, he started coming my way. He came pretty fast licking his lips and even stopped to make a scrap in the sagebrush at 60 yards. He started to skirt me a bit, so I figured it was time. The shot felt good, but it was a touch low. And he was quartered to a tiny bit. I felt it was good enough to kill him, so Mark and I backed out, planning to come back at first light to recover him.

• 2:52:54Jocko Willink?

  That night before, before bed, we reviewed the footage and concluded dead buck. Looked like the liver, but you never know. I climbed into my bed that night with excitement and belief that we would find the buck in the morning. Sleep wouldn't come. However,

• 2:53:10Jocko Willink?

  at 11pm, my cellphone rang. It was Trace. Roy's been in an accident, she told me. She didn't know all the details about what had happened, so I knew I needed to call Jill, Roy's wife. I phoned her and asked what was going on. After a long pause, Jill said, Cam, Roy's not coming home. Jill's voice sounded soft and tired. I asked, what do you mean? She said, he fell. He passed away.

• 2:53:42Jocko Willink?

  My stomach dropped and the darkness of the old farmhouse kitchen I stood in, there in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, felt darker and lonely. I couldn't believe her words. Right away, I thought of their children, Taylor and Justin and Ellen. Roy had fallen 700 feet from a cliff in the nasty country we hunted sheep in.

• 2:54:04Jocko Willink?

  He was on Pioneer Peak, the exact same mountain where I had killed my ram in 2008, and where Roy had killed rams since. Now, in 2015,

• 2:54:18Jocko Willink?

  the mountain had won.

• 2:54:26Jocko Willink?

  In this, uh, this chapter of the book is called Legends Never Die.

• 2:54:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:54:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a hard time even thinking about this still without getting choked up.

• 2:54:44Speaker 01

  I just, you know, there's people that, that come into your life that, uh, I don't know, he's just one of those guys who always believed in me and we had,

• 2:54:56Speaker 01

  you know, it's like a, you go through hard things with people and I know it's, I can imagine it's like this with the military where you have, it's like a brotherhood, you know, because of what you've went through. And so that's how it was with, with, uh, Roy and I in that, in that regard.

• 2:55:14Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 2:55:17Speaker 01

  I don't know, we had a lot, a lot of big plans, a lot of things were going good for us that we talked about and dreamed about for our whole lives. You know, he's becoming an outfitter up there. He's like a legend up there. People would talk about Roy and Alaska. It's hard to be legend, a legend in Alaska. There's a lot of, a lot of legendary people. But he was earning that name and, uh, so yeah, felt,

• 2:55:44Speaker 01

  I don't know, it still feels, I mean, I'm still upset about it, still mad. Cause you know, we had so much left to do.

• 2:55:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know a lot of times you'll, you'll post pictures of him and whatnot and, uh, you know, it reminds me, you know, you're talking about the military aspect of things and I mean, I still post pictures of my friends that, that I've lost and I can tell by what you write that he still is pushing you, even though he's not here and you know, you can go a little bit further and you can be a little bit more Roy tough as, as you put some of those things and that's the same thing I think about, you know, the same thing. Hey, I mean, I got guys that died. When they were way too young, way too young.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56:36Jocko Willink?

  And they don't have the opportunity to carry on and the opportunity that to do the things that I get to do right now. And even if that thing is just getting up in the morning and going for a workout, like that's a gift, you know?

• 2:56:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:56:55Speaker 01

  Well, I wouldn't, Roy started me with bow hunting. I mean, I wouldn't be here. It's like normally after I would do something like this, I would call Roy and we, you know, this is, this is all part of our thing, our, we did it. And, uh, you know, that's, that's a reason why, I mean, I picked that picture on the cover of the book. That's from our last hunt and, uh, it was a moose hunt two weeks before he died and, uh, you know, I mean, it's just, you gotta get by, you gotta, you know, if you wanna, they say it might be cliche, but you know, people die twice when they, when their life ends.

• 2:57:38Speaker 01

  And then the last time somebody mentions their name. And so just like you bring up the guys that you know, that, that you've lost. I'm always going to honor Roy. I'm doing it right now. This is what I'm doing. I'm doing it in the book. Because without him, I wouldn't be here. And, uh, so, I mean, I,

• 2:58:02Speaker 01

  yeah, it's just, it's tough. I mean, I still, Jill, I'm still in contact with Jill all the time and,

• 2:58:11Speaker 01

  yeah, just, I don't know, life changing.

• 2:58:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:17Jocko Willink?

  Um, and again, I, I, you put so many cool stories and details about all that, that is another reason just to, to get the book and, and learn some of those things and keep saying that name.

• 2:58:32Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to close out, you know, obviously I'm not reading the whole book, but I just wanted to close out with one, one section here. Towards the end of the book, you say, "Many years ago, I decided I was going to work hard every day on being the very best bow hunter I could be. Along with taking care of my family, that is my purpose in life. Everything I do is prioritized around this drive and this dream. I start at 5 a.m. and finish at 8 p.m. every day. I give it my best. I have gratitude for the gifts and opportunities I am given. I enjoy the journey. Steve Prefontaine was right. To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. That's exactly how I look at it. Bow hunting can be a struggle. It's hard and very competitive.

• 2:59:16Jocko Willink?

  It can be very cutthroat. But so can life. Life can be tough and beat us down. We experience loss, a loved one, or a family member, or a job, or a dream. We battle our own demons and dependencies. We all take hits and get beaten down. That's when we have choices to make. Only you can choose not to hesitate. Only you can keep moving. Only you can climb over snow and ice and tough footing and steep rugged country. What dream do you hold that you're not going to let go of? If I can do it, anyone can.

• 3:00:00Jocko Willink?

  But you will have to earn it. You will have to endure. You will have to keep hammering." So, again, if you're listening to this, get the book. Let's make this thing a freaking bestseller. Just to spite the people that don't want this book to be a bestseller. So many things, and like I said, there's a bunch of things that I didn't cover in here, and... As you've said about the book is and it clearly isn't. It's not just about bow hunting. It's not just about bow hunting at all. It's about life and it's going to do a ton of things to help people.

• 3:00:46Jocko Willink?

  Get through whatever they're getting through and be on the right path in their lives. Some of the things we didn't cover in this book, I just wanted to keep hammering. So you, according to the book, you do talk about this, but Bob Fromm, who's a San Diego kind of legend. Archery guy hunter. He runs performance archery here in San Diego and he used to call you Cam the Hammer. Is that where that originated from?

• 3:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know Bob?

• 3:01:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know how he's charismatic and always just talking is like kind of cool. So he'd say, you know, call me and say, "Hey, what's up, Cam the Hammer?" So just him. He was kind of a legend to me too. You know, he was on a magazine called Western Bow Hunter and he seemed like he was on the cover all the time. And so he made bow hunting cool. Surfer.

• 3:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 3:01:37Speaker 01

  Longer hair, kind of good looking guy. He's like a pretty badass.

• 3:01:43Jocko Willink?

  And then you got a section in there, Rogan, talking about Rogan. How'd you, how'd you meet Rogan originally?

• 3:01:51Speaker 01

  On a, he sent out a tweet. So I went and did his podcast in 2014 and then I took him a bow. And if you know him, it's like, once he gets into something, it's all the way, right?

• 3:02:03Jocko Willink?

  Watch out.

• 3:02:03Speaker 01

  So then I said, "Well, let's go, let's do a hunt." And a good first hunt is a bear hunt because it's usually close and I could, I could, you know, be there with them and.

• 3:02:12Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if I agree with that, bro.

• 3:02:14Speaker 01

  Well, it's just the shot distance isn't, less can go wrong. It's adrenaline. Yeah.

• 3:02:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. There's really one major thing that can go wrong, dude.

• 3:02:24Speaker 01

  Well, that's, yeah, that's with the tracking and the wounding and all that. But if you do things right, it can be pretty high percentage of chance of success. So I thought, let's go on a, on a bear hunt. And it's funny, he killed a bear. We got a picture of it and I remember we were up there and I'm like, I go, hey, uh, I put up a, posted a picture of you and your, and your bear. And he's like, yeah, I know. I've heard, heard all about it already. Cause it's like bear. And then if you're like a celebrity type and then killing a bear, it's like, oh, I thought people think they're endangered. You know, because

• 3:03:00Jocko Willink?

  No, people think they're Winnie the Pooh.

• 3:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, or endangered or both. And so, yeah, he was kinda, you know, that's where he really was dri- The point was driven home about hunting and animals. And there's a negative connotation with it, obviously. People who don't do it or don't understand it. Anyway, so that was in 2014.

• 3:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you, uh, that's another part of the book that we didn't really talk about. I mean, you explain all that stuff. You explain how hunting works and how conservation works and how animal management works. And if you just let these animals go, like there's some species that'll get completely wiped out and that'll off balance everything. So all the stuff is so tightly controlled.

• 3:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Um, that it's actually what keeps the environment in balance.

• 3:03:48Speaker 01

  Well, I saw this very popular, he's like kind of an animal rights activist. He's got millions of followers. He posted this video of this leopard attacking a man in kind of like a city, right? And he said, he goes, see, this is what happens when humans encroach on animals, animal, uh, like habitat. That's what he said. And I'm like, well, no shit. That's what we, that's what we do everywhere. That's why animal numbers need to be managed because that's, that's what cities are. There used to be animals here. Now there's a city.

• 3:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:22Speaker 01

  So as a city grows, we're encroaching. So you can't have the same amount of animals that were here, you know, 20 years ago. If there's less habitat. So that's where that whole balance and the biology and the carrying capacity of the land come in. But yeah, it's, and hunting funds all that. That's the key point with, there's kind of a catchphrase, hunting is conservation. Well, it's just because hunting pays for that habitat enhancement in the studies and the welfare of animals.

• 3:04:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And Joe wrote the foreword to this book, which is awesome. Uh, did a great job of that. And you know, like, uh, I guess people sometimes, I guess they might get jealous of Joe Rogan. Because he's got so much, uh,

• 3:05:06Jocko Willink?

  Popularity, but man, he's good at shit. Like you were just saying, like he's freaking good at archery. He's good. People are like, you know, what do you really know about fighting? Dude, that guy fought. That guy's a black belt in jujitsu.

• 3:05:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:05:21Jocko Willink?

  And then they think that doing a podcast is easy.

• 3:05:25Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 3:05:26Jocko Willink?

  And doing the way he does a podcast is easy. Talking to people off the top of his head for two, three, four, five hours, like crazy.

• 3:05:35Speaker 01

  No, I listen to a lot of shitty podcasts that those people think podcasting is easy. But Joe does make it seem.

• 3:05:43Jocko Willink?

  He does.

• 3:05:44Speaker 01

  It's so, it's so hard to make a conversation interesting. And, you know, the first time I went on there, I'm like, so do you have a, like, questions or he's like, no, no. He's like, oh, we're just gonna, just gonna bullshit. Most of the time, if guys just sit down just to bullshit, it's gonna be awful.

• 3:06:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people think that other people want to hear you bullshit.

• 3:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, if I want to do that, just go to a restaurant and sit in the booth next to you and listen to you talk about freaking what you're gonna get grocery shopping today.

• 3:06:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:06:14Jocko Willink?

  Cause.

• 3:06:15Speaker 01

  Or usually it's about some kid's T-ball coach who, Timmy, should be playing more, starting, but it's just whatever.

• 3:06:23Jocko Willink?

  How long was it between when you got him a bow and he went hunting for a bear?

• 3:06:32Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, a few months, probably.

• 3:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:06:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't remember when I went down there, but we went spring bear hunting. So it was about this time of year in 2014, I believe. Yeah, I can't remember, but a few months, you know, he was confident in shooting, you know, because he probably did it 20 hours a day because he's pretty obsessive.

• 3:06:51Jocko Willink?

  And now, uh, we're actually kind of unified now in a way because we got you, Joe, Kip, me, Pete Roberts with this new, uh, venture, Origin Hunt.

• 3:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Making American-made hunting gear, clothing.

• 3:07:14Jocko Willink?

  That's a kind of big step for you going into founding a company and moving in that direction. How's that feel?

• 3:07:25Speaker 01

  Feels incredible. I still feel like the, the small town guy making $4.72 an hour, working part-time at a warehouse. And now you say founding a, a company. It's just, again, this is all, all this journey. And the, the whole point to all this, I think, in the book and everything else in my story, is that just staying, staying on the path, staying on the path. And over time, who knows what's gonna happen? You couldn't have told me back when I was a kid, getting drunk and punched at parties because I got a, I'm a smart ass, that, do you know someday you're gonna be doing this? I'd be like, you gotta

• 3:08:07Speaker 01

  be talking about somebody else. Cause there's no way. So it seems surreal. But, you know, you make these relationships and these decisions, and you keep working and working and working. And after 30 some years, like this, how this journey has been, who knows what's gonna happen? And I, I was thinking about this yesterday as I ran on the beach. I saw this kid down there, um, fishing, you know, and I'm like, what if this kid, like, I couldn't imagine if I lived here, would I, what would I do? How, would I have stood out in anything? I don't know. But mate, I was wondering, what if that kid, he's down here fishing by himself, and, you know, made the decision to come down on a Saturday morning and hey, let's see what I can do. What if that's gonna lead him, maybe he's gonna be the most well-known

• 3:08:51Speaker 01

  fisherman in the world at some point. But you can't tell from a glimpse into, you know, when you're, when you're young, you don't know what your life's gonna hold. You don't know, and then you have kids and you want them to be special in their own right. And this, all this journey, that's all the book is about. It's just like, you know, stay true to yourself, keep working hard, endure, and who knows?

• 3:09:14Jocko Willink?

  Next thing you know, you'll have your own, uh, line of hunting gear.

• 3:09:18Speaker 01

  How exciting is that? I mean, you see the, you see the how fired up people are?

• 3:09:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 3:09:24Speaker 01

  I mean, it's amazing.

• 3:09:25Jocko Willink?

  Excited about it. Cause I've been saying, and as I've said every time I talk about this, there's no more patriotic group of people than hunters. And hunters don't want to buy stuff that's not made in America.

• 3:09:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:40Jocko Willink?

  And they don't really have many options right now, and they're about to have options.

• 3:09:44Speaker 01

  I mean, I think if anybody could be half as excited as Kip is, that'd be a pretty damn good start. He's like going through, he's always, you know, loves the videos of trying the stuff on and bending over and talking about the cuts. And it's just like, and this guy has, I don't know how much money, a lot of money.

• 3:10:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:04Speaker 01

  From when Under Armour went public. And he doesn't have to do this. So it's like, you know, it's just passion and it's, it's what he loves.

• 3:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:10:14Speaker 01

  And so how could you not be excited for that?

• 3:10:17Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, and he doesn't have to do this. And originally he reached out to Pete.

• 3:10:22Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 3:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Just to, cause he saw what we were doing with Origin. He saw that we were just making freaking gis, jujitsu gis in America and thought that was cool.

• 3:10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:32Jocko Willink?

  And probably, probably also thought, man, I better help these jackasses out.

• 3:10:39Speaker 01

  Maybe so.

• 3:10:40Jocko Willink?

  Cause he's, I mean, he has grown up doing that.

• 3:10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:44Jocko Willink?

  Literally from college on. And I mean, when he rattles off kind of the stats of like, you know, I opened 38 factory, you know, like it's, I forget what the numbers are, but it's incredible. I mean, think about how big of a company Under Armour is.

• 3:10:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:10:57Jocko Willink?

  And he was, he was running that on the backside for all those years and built it. So he's definitely been a huge help to Pete. Pete Roberts is the other owner who, he's like the manufacturer from our team, you know? And he's done an incredible job of build something from the ground up as well. And so this, uh, We so we kinda had the ingredients. Well, let me rephrase that. We had some of the ingredients, right? We had, we had Pete who knew how to make stuff in America, right? That's part of the ingredients. We knew I could get the word out about it. Kip has the, the actual experience to get it done and the design experience.

• 3:11:42Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, we needed somebody that was legit, that actually could say, this is what we need. This is how it needs to work and who else, you know? Why not just, why not just throw a freaking, uh, a, a 200 yard archery shot out? See if we get a bullseye and we've pulled it off.

• 3:12:03Speaker 01

  Well, it's, I mean, it's an honor to be involved for sure because it's, it's gives me so much pride just to know and we're doing something that could make a difference. You know, it's like that's, that's our whole point to life is are you, what are you doing? This is gonna make a positive difference. And, um, I feel like this is, you know, it's causing a ripple effect. And, you know, bringing those videos, it's like, it's like, I saw one the other day. Origin put up and I think it was, is it Dax?

• 3:12:31Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:12:32Speaker 01

  And talking about, you know, he feels like he's just a small part of the machine. But, but talking about bringing American manufact- or manufacturing back to America. It's, it reminds me, I watch this old series called The Men Who Built America. Have you watched it?

• 3:12:48Jocko Willink?

  I have watched a few of those.

• 3:12:49Speaker 01

  Right. So it reminds me of that. It's like that, that type of effort and that vision, it starts there.

• 3:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:12:57Speaker 01

  And it's, it's when I see those factories and the working and the, and the workers and the people and the pride in it. And the, and I, I peep, like people like Dax, it's like, I, I don't know. Gives you butterflies almost. It's special.

• 3:13:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it really is. And it's, um, to Pete's credit.

• 3:13:21Jocko Willink?

  Pete got told this was impossible five years ago. You can't, there's no way we can manufacture gies in America. He got told that. Like everyone kind of, kind of looked at him like he was kind of crazy. And maybe they were right. And maybe Pete is a little bit crazy.

• 3:13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13:37Jocko Willink?

  But you know, just like you did with archery, he just kept at it. And kept trying to figure out, oh, how do you overcome this obstacle? What do you do in this situation? How do we get by that? And he, he built a great foundation and has great knowledge. And then you throw someone like Kip into the mix, who's done all that and taken it to the next level. Cause you know, Pete's a humble guy. He's not sitting around thinking he has all the answers. And so when you throw someone like Kip into the mix, who does have, he might not have all the answers, but he's got a lot of them.

• 3:14:13Speaker 01

  He does, yeah.

• 3:14:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, from, from the business side, from the manufacturing side, from the design side, he's got like a incredible amount of experience. So that's awesome. And then having you to give your guidance, which is really what everything's based on. It's like, what does this guy, one of the premier bow hunters in the world? What does this guy think this should be like?

• 3:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Then let, then we have, then we have something special.

• 3:14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, well, don't you think that that, like you mentioned Pete and being humble? Don't you think that that's a key ingredient to like businesses like this is ego? I see ego killing so many great opportunities. So the fact that he's humble and like, and says he doesn't have, he probably has a lot of the answers, but just being open to hearing somebody else. It's so paramount to a successful business. Ego kills so much that could have been special.

• 3:15:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, obviously I have a leadership consulting company. And when people, people always ask, well, what's, you know, what's the main problem that you see? And it is, the, the main problem that we see is ego. You know, I don't want to listen to your plan because I think my plan's better than yours. And I don't even want to hear your plan because I think my plan's better than yours. That's just all ego.

• 3:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15:26Jocko Willink?

  And, and to just be able to say, hey, you know what, Cam? I think let's try your idea. That sounds like it's, actually sounds like it's better than mine. Let's go with that. To have that open mindedness is what brings on, it is what brings on success. I mean, it's just like anything else. But you know, if you're doing jujitsu and you're like, hey, I already, I already know how to do an arm lock. I guarantee you get on the mat with Dean Lister or Jeff Glover. They're gonna be like, they're gonna be able to teach you something about that arm lock that you did not know. This is a move I've done a thousand times. Well, I've done it 10,000 times, maybe even 100,000 times. But if Dean or Jeff or someone that's an expert goes, hey, you should move your hips a little bit over here. You should hold the wrist like this. You're gonna learn every time.

• 3:16:10Jocko Willink?

  With, with, with bow hunting, you, you go, oh, how do you think we should do this? How, what can I, well, even more important, you know, when's the last time you said, you know what? I'll be good. My shots will hit. I shoot enough. I don't need to shoot today. That's a lack of humility.

• 3:16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, never, that never happened. Um, but I think it's, I do wanna say, I mean, having you say those nice things about me is like, it seems surreal to me. I think the key part is like, you say you have this consulting business, but you actually, you, you live it. It's not like you're just, a lot, I, I know a lot of people who teach, who don't follow that same principle, right? So I think that because Origin has been set up with this approach about, maybe your idea is better, maybe I need to listen to this, maybe, you know, whatever, just being collaborative. And it's, I mean, this is what happens. This is the kind of excitement that's generated and the, and the potential that's there with the right attitude

• 3:17:11Speaker 01

  and the key pieces in place. But you know, you see it. I see the key pieces in place and they don't work. They don't work because that, there's whatever, I guess ego or there's who knows what.

• 3:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you, you, the term I use, you have to be able to subordinate your ego, which means you actually have to be able to say, you know what? Pete, you will go with that. That, let's go with that. I'm good. And not be like, well, actually, I want to do it my way. Yeah. And here's the thing, if my way is better, then I should be able to articulate that. Right. In a way that you go, yeah, you know what? That actually makes sense. Yep. That yeah, I can't argue with that. Cool. Let's go forward. And that's what you need to do. Ideas shouldn't be driven by ego. They should be driven by what's the best idea. Right. That's how you make things work. And that's how we're going to make the best freaking hunting gear in the world. And we're going to make it right here in America.

• 3:18:06Jocko Willink?

  And we're going to bring back jobs and we're going to teach people skills. That's what's, that's what's amazing. Is we are, we have a whole group of people that now have a legitimate skill and they have a career. Some of the people that work for us, they, they already knew this, this skill, but now they're able to use it again. Cause a lot of the factories went overseas. Now they're able to use again. Some, some of these younger folks, they're learning it right now. I mean, we got a kid that knows, that knows how to make, you know, how to weave material. It was a lost art. And he grabbed it from, from, uh, the last guy that really knew how to do it, Lenny, who actually died, but

• 3:18:48Jocko Willink?

  that skill's been captured now. And now you've got somebody that's going to, that has a freaking awesome skill and contributing to the world and contributing to the economy and contributing to the community. And contributing to America. Like what, how awesome is that? Yeah, it's incredible.

• 3:19:04Jocko Willink?

  All right, um.

• 3:19:09Jocko Willink?

  Your family, just real quick. I just want to give props to your wife.

• 3:19:15Jocko Willink?

  Credit. I feel like, uh, sometimes my wife, you know, my wife, my wife married me when, or met me when I was an E4 in the Navy.

• 3:19:25Jocko Willink?

  I always tell her she married me for my money.

• 3:19:30Jocko Willink?

  I think I was making like $22,000 a year or something like that when she met me. Yeah. No prenup? No prenup. Yeah. She, she didn't want half of that.

• 3:19:41Jocko Willink?

  She was a little better off for getting off, so props to her and then Truitt, I met your son Truitt a few times. Seems like a stud. I know he, I know he broke Goggins pull-up record.

• 3:19:53Speaker 01

  He did, yeah.

• 3:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Has Goggins come back on that yet?

• 3:19:55Speaker 01

  He hasn't, no. It's a tough one because I, it even took Goggins three times to get it.

• 3:20:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:02Speaker 01

  You know, so it's like your body, you might want to do it, it doesn't mean your body's gonna hold up.

• 3:20:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:07Speaker 01

  That's a tough one with those little, you know, your, your grip and your forearms, small muscles.

• 3:20:11Jocko Willink?

  And your, and your hands just getting trashed.

• 3:20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:15Jocko Willink?

  Which sort of, and people ask that about SEAL training, they're like, it's all mental. And I'm like, well, not really. Because no matter how bad you want to be able to do that rope climb, and I always use rope climb, because rope climb, rope climb is, there's no gutting through a rope climb.

• 3:20:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Like you can gut through, you can, you can gut through much more of a rucksack march. Like part of that, oh, you can have, you can, you can have like a heat stroke and fall out.

• 3:20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:43Jocko Willink?

  But a lot of that is just like gut through it. You can gut through boats on your head.

• 3:20:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Like you put the boats on your head during Hell Week, that's just a gut check. There's no, if you, if you are a nineteen-year-old American male, you can, you can withstand and you can perform the physical activity of boats on your head, running around. But a rope climb?

• 3:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:06Jocko Willink?

  Your mind will not get you to the top of that freaking rope. Only your body will. So you, you're out there like, oh, it's a mental game.

• 3:21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cool. Climb that rope then. I really want to climb that rope. But if you can't do it, all the mental strength in the world isn't gonna get you up that rope. And then, uh,

• 3:21:23Speaker 01

  And then Tru got lucky that his body cooperated that day. That one day he chose. So this is like, yeah, anyway. But he did it.

• 3:21:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What is it forty two hundred?

• 3:21:34Speaker 01

  Forty one hundred.

• 3:21:35Jocko Willink?

  Forty one hundred.

• 3:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, Goggins had done four thousand thirty two. Yeah, but he was supportive the whole time.

• 3:21:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 3:21:42Speaker 01

  He was good. He, you know, he met true, so he was good with it.

• 3:21:47Jocko Willink?

  It's always, whenever you see somebody pushing harder, you know, like people say in jujitsu, like, I'm gonna get you one day, to me. And I'm like, I hope so.

• 3:21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:55Jocko Willink?

  And jujitsu works.

• 3:21:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:56Jocko Willink?

  If you work hard, that's what happens.

• 3:21:59Speaker 01

  Get rewarded.

• 3:21:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not gonna be mad at someone because they freaking, I'm actually gonna be stoked.

• 3:22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go train harder, train more. That's the way it works. And then your other son is in the army?

• 3:22:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:22:12Jocko Willink?

  A ranger?

• 3:22:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 3:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Rangers, did they make the connection while like he was going through, did they figure out who he was that you were his dad or was?

• 3:22:20Speaker 01

  Some of them, he wanted to be like.

• 3:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Low pro?

• 3:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like blend in, don't stand out for any reason, don't get any extra attention. Don't, nobody needs to know when your birthday is, obviously. It's like the worst thing in the military, it seems like, is if people know your birthday. So, yeah.

• 3:22:41Jocko Willink?

  And then you got one more daughter in high school?

• 3:22:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's graduating this year. She's senior.

• 3:22:45Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Awesome. Echo?

• 3:22:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:22:49Jocko Willink?

  You got any questions?

• 3:22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do, actually. How much does it?

• 3:22:51Jocko Willink?

  Are you ready to be a bow hunter?

• 3:22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I am. Oh, actually, which reminds me of another question.

• 3:22:56Jocko Willink?

  Wait, did I, did I go too hard in the paint on bow hunting is hard? Because it's hard.

• 3:23:02Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 3:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but it's challenging, but it's rewarding. Did that?

• 3:23:05Speaker 02

  It seems accurate from my position, which is very limited, by the way, as we all know. So that reminds me of a quick question. So you know how like, let's say a guy that I know has a crossbow. Are bow hunters and crossbows or crossbow guys kind of add odds a little bit?

• 3:23:22Speaker 01

  Crossbow isn't bow hunting.

• 3:23:24Speaker 02

  So, yes, then. So if I said hypothetically.

• 3:23:29Speaker 02

  That I have a crossbow. Would you be kinda mad at me? Would you be like, would I be like one notch lower?

• 3:23:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:23:37Speaker 02

  Okay, I understand. That was a hypothetical. Okay, and how much does an arrow weigh? Or is it, do they vary or whatever?

• 3:23:44Speaker 01

  My arrow weighs 540 grains.

• 3:23:46Speaker 02

  Okay, so there's, okay.

• 3:23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like bullet.

• 3:23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then the tips you can, you know what?

• 3:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, those, yeah, those can be from 100 grains or even smaller to, uh, up to 200 grains.

• 3:23:59Speaker 02

  And then you have what? Like the different, like a broadhead arrow?

• 3:24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:24:03Speaker 02

  What is that? Like the three blades, right? They're like blades on there or something?

• 3:24:06Speaker 01

  That's a broadhead, yeah.

• 3:24:07Speaker 02

  And then what other kind do you use or is that even a thing?

• 3:24:11Speaker 01

  Well, there's, there's a field tip that you practice with, so it has no blades. And then there's an expandable broadhead, which means it flies with the blades, uh, sucked in. And then when it hits something, the blades come out. They expand out to cut a bigger hole. And then there's a fixed blade broadhead, which is what I shoot where the, the blades are just out the whole time.

• 3:24:32Speaker 02

  And is that like what? Just the typical ones or is there like a vat? You know how like in bullets?

• 3:24:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's all kinds, you can get all kinds of broadheads.

• 3:24:40Speaker 01

  A lot of people are, a lot of, normally people don't use expandables for elk. Some people do and they work. I've, for one reason, in Oregon, fixed blade broadheads were the only thing that were legal until like a year or two ago. So that's all I've ever used. And expandables can cause problems if they hit heavy bone. Like that tight bowl story, with an expandable, I wouldn't have got that bowl. The, the, my arrow wouldn't have went in 13 inches. I wouldn't have been able to get another arrow in it the next day. So I would have lost that bowl with an expandable.

• 3:25:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and expandables also can hit, if you hit like a, maybe like a twig, which is already like you, you already got problems if you hit a twig.

• 3:25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:24Jocko Willink?

  Or something, but it can open those things up maybe early and now.

• 3:25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Like you can have more problems too.

• 3:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:31Jocko Willink?

  But the expandable.

• 3:25:33Speaker 01

  Cut a big hole.

• 3:25:34Jocko Willink?

  Can open a big hole. Like big, so.

• 3:25:38Speaker 02

  So we got field tip, expandable, and then broadhead, fixed blade. So is there like exotic, okay, so let's say.

• 3:25:46Jocko Willink?

  I know what you're saying. He wants to know if there's like a designer. No, he wants to know if there's designer broadheads.

• 3:25:52Speaker 02

  Or whatever.

• 3:25:53Speaker 01

  And what about Rambo?

• 3:25:55Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna say, like you got the explosive, you got the, you know, all these other ones or whatever. Like, is it like that with arrows or what?

• 3:26:02Speaker 01

  You know, there hasn't been an explosive. I've done some.

• 3:26:06Jocko Willink?

  There has to be.

• 3:26:07Speaker 01

  No, I did.

• 3:26:08Jocko Willink?

  Don't ruin this freaking whole life.

• 3:26:11Speaker 01

  There's a guy, Richard Ryan, and he used to, he might have been an original investor, or I don't, I can't remember. Anyway, he was part of Black Rifle for a while. And he, we did some trick filming with, with archery and bow shots and different things. Like I shot, I shot cheese off a mousetrap that he was holding. So we're trying to see if I can get the cheese off of it before the mousetrap got my arrow. So he held it and I shot it. But another one he did was, we put propane flame that shot up and then a paint can behind it. So the arrow would go through the propane flame, pull the flame, and then puncture the paint can, then it'd explode.

• 3:26:53Speaker 01

  And it's like a huge explosion. So I made a joke that was like, I was shooting a Rambo broadhead. But there hasn't been a Rambo broadhead yet, like in, I think it's Rambo 2.

• 3:27:05Speaker 01

  One of the greatest films of all time.

• 3:27:10Speaker 01

  But there has been one where they're shooting, it's like a 357 shell casing or shell on the end of an arrow. And it would, like, I think they killed some hogs with it. Like it'd hit the hog and then.

• 3:27:22Jocko Willink?

  Fire the primer?

• 3:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've never used one, but that's as close as we got to Rambo.

• 3:27:28Jocko Willink?

  I could see where, since I know Echo pretty well, I can see he's got all kinds, like he wants to have a, a selection of.

• 3:27:34Speaker 02

  The party mix.

• 3:27:35Jocko Willink?

  Designer, uh, broadheads, bunch of different ones, yes.

• 3:27:39Speaker 02

  So there's no twisty one? You know, like, I figure that would be a thing.

• 3:27:43Speaker 01

  The broadheads I use, actually the blades come off at an angle and I think it enhances because when an arrow flies for it to be accurate, there has to be helical on it. Just like rifling on a barrel. So that's what gives that direction. It's like a, so a muzzleloader, if it's just a ball, isn't very accurate, but that twist. So same thing with an arrow, same principle. The fletch on the back of the arrow is what gives direction to that arrow. Well, my broadheads come off at an angle and I think it enhances. So when it hits an animal, it's twisting as it cuts and I think it cuts a more devastating wound channel because it's going like that. So it cuts a hole instead of just slices.

• 3:28:31Jocko Willink?

  You gonna get some things for your crossbow, bro?

• 3:28:38Speaker 02

  I'm gonna look deeper into this stuff.

• 3:28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, right on. I like it.

• 3:28:42Jocko Willink?

  Cam, any closing thoughts, anything we missed?

• 3:28:45Speaker 01

  Uh, like I said, it's an honor to be here. I mean, I've, I don't feel worthy of sitting with you guys, honestly. Um, this is, I never thought I'd be here. I never thought I'd be here talking to you guys. You guys are larger than life for me and for a lot of others. We actually had this training at work, uh, not long ago and the trainer mentioned, uh, this Navy SEAL Jaco and he's like, and I was just like, God dang, I know Jaco.

• 3:29:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, this seems, you know, I used to reel earlier, but it does, it feels, I don't know, I'm just, I'm honored to be here. I'm honored that you looked at my book and you actually gave me advice when I was selecting a publisher.

• 3:29:31Jocko Willink?

  You use the same publisher as me?

• 3:29:32Speaker 01

  Same publisher, St. Martin's. And, uh, so you gave me some great advice there and you've been a resource and now we're partners and it's, uh, it doesn't feel like my life, but thank you.

• 3:29:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, right on, man. I, as I mentioned earlier, I feel the same way. Like here I am talking with the freaking world, world-class dude and, and it's just awesome. Um, so thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned and, and thanks for your encouragement. To me and so many other people, like there's so many other people, I know that you inspire so many people.

• 3:30:09Jocko Willink?

  To get on the path of bow hunting, but not just to get on the path of bow hunting, just to get on a better path in their life. And I think this book is going to do that even more. And as you said, it's an honor to be working with you, partner with you and to take, you know, this thing is, you know, talk to Kip, talk to Pete, I can feel it. This is like a rocket. It's like a rocket. You can watch the fuse. It's burning right now. September's coming. We're testing product. Like we're ready to watch this thing go Richter. So thanks for what you do and thanks for inspiring people all over the world.

• 3:30:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 3:30:49Jocko Willink?

  To keep hammering.

• 3:30:51Speaker 01

  Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

• 3:30:52Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:30:55Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Cameron Hanes has left the building. Echo Charles, are you ready to become a bow hunter?

• 3:31:03Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah.

• 3:31:04Jocko Willink?

  Not a crossbow hunter.

• 3:31:05Speaker 02

  No, no, no. So, yeah, so the.

• 3:31:08Jocko Willink?

  I was trying to think of crossbow hunting versus bow hunting and I was trying to think of what a good example would be. I kind of landed on surfing versus body boarding, maybe.

• 3:31:21Speaker 02

  That makes sense to me.

• 3:31:23Jocko Willink?

  No disrespect to body boarding.

• 3:31:28Jocko Willink?

  But something along those lines a little bit where.

• 3:31:32Speaker 02

  That makes.

• 3:31:32Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, let's face it. It takes more skill to surf than bodyboard fundamentally.

• 3:31:38Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:31:39Jocko Willink?

  But no, again, no disrespect to the spongers at the highest level out there getting after it.

• 3:31:45Speaker 02

  That the fact is I don't know, but it seems that that's the case. Yeah. So even like, um, yeah, okay. So I know a guy with a crossbow, you know, and he let me shoot it from time to time. And I have shot a bow before.

• 3:32:01Jocko Willink?

  When did you shoot a bow?

• 3:32:02Speaker 02

  Well, actually, the last time I did was about a week ago.

• 3:32:05Jocko Willink?

  Where?

• 3:32:06Speaker 02

  At Greg Train's house.

• 3:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. Greg Train's.

• 3:32:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, his was little, like his arms are a little shorter than mine. So it's like it wasn't, but then I shot one at the Origin Camp. One of the guys had one. Yeah.

• 3:32:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:32:16Speaker 02

  And I dig it. I'm with it, man. I made a bullseye too, by the way, but it's neither here nor there.

• 3:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:32:22Speaker 02

  Just naturally skilled like that.

• 3:32:24Jocko Willink?

  So then why'd you buy a crossbow?

• 3:32:28Speaker 02

  The guy I know has had the crossbow from before. Either way, yes, the bow seemed or has a lot more going on for sure. So I can dig how you'd say that. It's not, I was gonna think a gi versus no gi, but it's not that, because no gi, they're both.

• 3:32:44Jocko Willink?

  They're both highly respected.

• 3:32:45Speaker 02

  Yes. Respected and difficult and there's a lot to both of them regardless of perception.

• 3:32:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I found it. I think I found it. Skateboarding versus scooters.

• 3:32:59Speaker 02

  Scooters like the two wheel.

• 3:33:03Jocko Willink?

  So that's what your crossbow is, bro. You're on a razor scooter taking up room in the half pipe.

• 3:33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:33:11Jocko Willink?

  That's what's going on. Did I make, and I asked you this during the podcast, but it's so hard. Bow hunting is so hard. I hope I didn't discourage anyone from trying it and doing it. But you gotta recognize there's a lot going on, man. This is not an easy game to play. It's freaking hard.

• 3:33:31Speaker 02

  Oh, it's real hard. Actually, and you know, like even that, that opening that you opened with, like it made me physically feel probably a good element of how hard it is because I remember back, you know, like when I'm thinking, okay, the first time I ever shot a bow. I'm like, okay, this is like, dude, I gotta pay attention to all this stuff. And then I gotta aim in a certain way. And I like all this stuff. And then that's just my, there's probably not to mention like the 1,000 things that I don't know about. And then you want to mix that with actually going out and doing it with any animal.

• 3:34:00Jocko Willink?

  Any animal. It's, it's, it's crazy. And then you gotta learn about all these different animals because they all act different, by the way. Like a bear does this and a elk does that and a deer does something else. Like they all have different reactions. They all have different senses. So. And then you gotta, like I said, then once you shoot that animal, then you gotta go find that thing. If you got a shot that was good enough to make the animal bleed. So the thing is, yes, extremely challenging. Other side of that spectrum, it's awesome reward. Awesome reward.

• 3:34:38Speaker 02

  You asked, do I want to be a bow hunter now?

• 3:34:40Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:34:41Speaker 02

  Bro, kinda. Bruh, it, it, and here's the thing, like I think, and this is a natural, and this, it didn't start right now, though. I think right, right when Cameron Hanes, even John, John Dudley, when they kinda came, exploded onto the scene.

• 3:34:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:34:55Speaker 02

  Bro, I felt it then.

• 3:34:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, look at that guy.

• 3:34:57Speaker 02

  Kinda dope. And you know, you see other people doing it and them talk about it, kinda just kinda, um, exposes it in a way that, you know, I haven't been exposed to, and I'm sure a lot of other people, same, same deal. Cause I noticed a lot of people picked it up after that kinda started.

• 3:35:13Jocko Willink?

  For sure. I'm one of them.

• 3:35:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I feel it. I feel it. So yeah, I do kinda.

• 3:35:18Jocko Willink?

  Alright, well, good. Hey, uh, gonna need to get in good shape.

• 3:35:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:35:22Jocko Willink?

  If you're gonna do any kind of hunting, or if you can do any kind of living, by the way, just being alive, I recommend you be in good shape. Just like it pays to be in good shape when you're out on the mountain, maybe you could get that one tenth of a percent that's gonna make the difference. What's that one tenth of a percent in life? Let's think about that. So that means staying physically active, healthy, working out, pushing yourself. You know what that means?

• 3:35:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:35:47Jocko Willink?

  What does it mean?

• 3:35:48Speaker 02

  Well, it means a lot of things, but you know, so I, with my kids and you, and you guys kinda mentioned this before, right? Well, with kids, like they're watching you.

• 3:35:56Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:35:57Speaker 02

  You know? So sometimes they're gonna be like, oh, I see, you know, dad's doing this, this. So they might wanna try to imitate a little bit, just to see what, what the hype's all about, you know? And so my kids, in my very specific situation, like they, they'll start jumping in on the workouts or whatever. Start making little goals and stuff like that. And they have to endure.

• 3:36:18Speaker 02

  Things like DOMS or their DOMS, that's basically what it is, right? But when you're a kid, DOMS is like, you don't know what that is. You just think it's like just your body's breaking down.

• 3:36:28Jocko Willink?

  You're like, I'm six years old, I got DOMS, what up?

• 3:36:31Speaker 02

  No, not yet, until you explain it or whatever. But either way, you get soreness. It's not all like freaking bullseyes is what I'm saying.

• 3:36:40Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 3:36:41Speaker 02

  You know, you get some pain, you get some aches, get some good days and bad days is what I'm saying. Takes effort.

• 3:36:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, when you start feeling some of those bad days, maybe you need some more protein, right? Get yourself some milk, get yourself some joint warfare, get yourself some super krill, get yourself some jocko fuel, jocko fuel dot com. Make that happen out of the gate. We got new flavors on the energy drinks that are coming. All the flavors are new.

• 3:37:13Speaker 02

  Right, so again, you you mentioned that before we started recording and it's the way you said, okay, to clarify, they're not new flavors. They're the same flavors redefined or re mastered.

• 3:37:24Jocko Willink?

  Remastered.

• 3:37:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:37:25Jocko Willink?

  And even you could just say mastered. Because here's the thing, the initial flavor profiles, let's call them, they were based on my sense of taste, which my sense of taste, you know, not eat a bunch of sweets. All of a sudden I drink something with monk fruit in there. I'm like, whoa, you know, I'm used to drinking water.

• 3:37:46Jocko Willink?

  Right, so I'm used to you put a little monk fruit in something and I think I'm, I think I'm having a freaking a dang Coca-Cola, right?

• 3:37:56Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:37:57Jocko Willink?

  With a with a little tiny one tenth to one percent of some monk fruit in there. I think I got a Coca-Cola, I'm like, yeah, this tastes delicious, this is so sweet.

• 3:38:04Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:38:04Jocko Willink?

  I was wrong. So we've adjusted so that they taste even better. Kind of hitting the shelves right now, depending on where you're at, depending on, yeah, depending on where you're at, but as you're hearing this, it's time to start getting back into the game. If you didn't like the original flavors, we made them all, they taste, here's the thing, we're gonna win on taste now. Before we were winning on this is good for you, everything else is poison and it's actually gonna kill you.

• 3:38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:38:35Jocko Willink?

  You, we weren't winning on that.

• 3:38:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:38:37Jocko Willink?

  And and winning on that, but you also got to win on taste. So now we're gonna win on taste, we're winning on on all fronts. So there you go.

• 3:38:46Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:38:46Jocko Willink?

  Jaco Fuel dot com.

• 3:38:48Speaker 02

  I will second that being someone who has tasted the new flavor. I will agree with that.

• 3:38:54Jocko Willink?

  Wait, flavor or flavors? Cause I've tasted all the new flavors and they're all.

• 3:38:57Speaker 02

  Well, I just tasted the mango. So, no, no, the mango and the orange. So, yes.

• 3:39:01Jocko Willink?

  They're freaking delicious.

• 3:39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:39:03Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you can get the drinks at Wawa. You can get all the stuff at Vitamin Shop or you can get it all at Jaco Fuel dot com. Check some of that out. And if you watch the video version of this on our YouTube channel, Jocko Podcast, you're probably gonna see Cam Hanes. You go, what's Cam Hanes look like? And then you're gonna go, whoa, what's he wearing on his upper torso?

• 3:39:24Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:39:25Jocko Willink?

  You heard us talk about Origin Hunt. So Origin Hunt is coming. If you want to check into that, or if you want to check into whatever, American made, just a pair of jeans. You want to check American made pair of boots. You want to check American made tee shirt, American made beanie, American made wallet, belt, whatever. If you want to bring manufacturing back to America, you want to support America, you want to support freedom, if you're anti slave labor, go to originusa.com and get yourself what you need.

• 3:39:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Don't get tricked. You, you can be anti uniquely priced labor.

• 3:40:01Jocko Willink?

  What's that?

• 3:40:02Speaker 02

  Same deal.

• 3:40:02Jocko Willink?

  What's this?

• 3:40:03Speaker 02

  Uniquely priced labor.

• 3:40:05Jocko Willink?

  Is that what they call it? Like a euphemism for slave labor?

• 3:40:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:40:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, are you serious?

• 3:40:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the, the, what do you call the?

• 3:40:11Jocko Willink?

  The euphemism, the buzzword.

• 3:40:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, the one that sounds good, you know?

• 3:40:15Jocko Willink?

  That's a euphemism.

• 3:40:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:40:16Jocko Willink?

  This sounds good.

• 3:40:18Speaker 02

  Yep. That's exactly what it is.

• 3:40:19Jocko Willink?

  Uniquely priced labor.

• 3:40:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:40:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:40:20Speaker 02

  They in fact.

• 3:40:21Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, there's a freaking kid working for a dollar a week.

• 3:40:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:40:25Jocko Willink?

  In cancer causing conditions.

• 3:40:27Speaker 02

  Forced to, by the way, forced to.

• 3:40:30Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, this is America. This is America. We're not, we're not doing that. We got American made stuff. Support it. It's originusa.com. This is America.

• 3:40:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:40:45Jocko Willink?

  Likes saying that.

• 3:40:48Speaker 02

  You kind of sounded like Pete right there when you said it like that.

• 3:40:50Jocko Willink?

  Does Pete say it like that?

• 3:40:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Huh, I haven't heard him say that.

• 3:40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, not to mention jujitsu stuff as well on there.

• 3:40:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, yes.

• 3:40:56Speaker 02

  American made, let's face it.

• 3:40:58Jocko Willink?

  Training jujitsu.

• 3:40:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were doing, you know, what do you call it, spring cleaning? You know, I was observing, but it was going on at my house and, you know, I, my wife brought out all the gees that I have to kind of organize or whatever. And, yeah, I saw the comparison, you know, the chronology.

• 3:41:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh, gees?

• 3:41:17Speaker 02

  Apparently, I didn't know, but.

• 3:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Are they in the garbage now?

• 3:41:20Speaker 02

  In the garage on the floor.

• 3:41:22Jocko Willink?

  So you're heading to the garbage?

• 3:41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 3:41:24Jocko Willink?

  I am so happy I don't have any other gees anymore.

• 3:41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of worthless. No, you know, no offense, but, brother, kind of worthless now.

• 3:41:31Jocko Willink?

  Kind of, it shows you how malleable the human mind is.

• 3:41:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:41:36Jocko Willink?

  Because we all just thought that's just how it's going to be.

• 3:41:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Just a, just a wearing the most uncomfortable thing on your body while you're trying to be athletic and move around? No reason for that.

• 3:41:45Speaker 02

  No reason for that.

• 3:41:46Jocko Willink?

  No reason for that. OriginUSA.com.

• 3:41:48Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, if you want to represent while we're on this path, it's hard, it's a hard path, as one might say. Um, but hey, you want to represent, go to JacoStore.com where you can get your apparel, other apparel. Discipline equals freedom. We've got some new Discipline equals Freedom, standard issue, by the way.

• 3:42:05Jocko Willink?

  What, back to old school?

• 3:42:08Speaker 02

  I don't want to go into too much detail, but it's a basic design, Discipline equals Freedom. And there's certain layers on there that you'll probably notice, we'll say. If you have a keen eye, you'll notice the layers. Nonetheless, we've got some new stuff on there. Anyway, if you want to represent, that's where you can get it, Jaco Store. There's also the Shirt Locker, which is your subscriptions shirts, shirt every month. Good design.

• 3:42:32Jocko Willink?

  Unique.

• 3:42:33Speaker 02

  Unique, creative, fun. In fact, this last one, I'm not going to tell you what it is, maybe I will, but it was one of the, you know, every once in a while, you'll get one where people will actually go out of their way to send you messages with them wearing the shirt and say, hey, you knocked it out of the park with this one. I got that this past month, or this current month.

• 3:42:54Jocko Willink?

  Wait, have I seen it yet?

• 3:42:55Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 3:42:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so it's not released yet?

• 3:42:57Speaker 02

  No, it's released, so now everything's live. So the first of the month, you, I don't care if you sign up on the first month, or you, your order is on the first month, it's that month, it's all current. So, yeah, it's this month, what is it, May?

• 3:43:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:43:10Speaker 02

  That may sure, very high esteemed. Either way, um, yeah, jocko store dot com.

• 3:43:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and if you can subscribe to the shirt locker, and you can subscribe to the podcast, allegedly, go, go out there, leave a review, or whatever they say to do.

• 3:43:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:43:29Jocko Willink?

  Uh, jocko underground dot com, we're doing a lot of Q and A on that. We're also addressing some of life's,

• 3:43:37Jocko Willink?

  some of the aspects of life that we can gain an edge on that maybe we weren't thinking about.

• 3:43:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:43:41Jocko Willink?

  Right, so that's probably a good thing to pay attention to. The reason we have that is there's strange things going on in the world. There's censorship, people are getting banned, shadow banned, the whole nine yards. We don't have any control over the platform that you're listening to this on right now, but we do have control over jocko underground dot com. So if you want to help us out there, you can sign up for that. It costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. If you can't afford that, we still want you in the game. You can email assistance at jocko underground dot com. We have a YouTube channel. You can see what Cameron Hanes's awesome looking sweatshirt. He took it off after a while because it is warm.

• 3:44:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:44:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so about halfway through, we had to take a little break. And, uh, he had to, he had to take her down.

• 3:44:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't want to let the aesthetic value, uh, diminish because of the functional value. See what I'm saying? If it's not cold, or if you're not enduring the elements, you might not need that. So I'm gonna put that on the side.

• 3:44:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so there you go, uh, YouTube channel, check that out. Psychological Warfare.

• 3:44:47Jocko Willink?

  I think I said we were gonna make another one of those like three, four, or five years ago.

• 3:44:51Speaker 02

  At some point in history.

• 3:44:53Jocko Willink?

  Flips on canvas dot com, Dakota Meyer making cool stuff, got a bunch of books. Hey, the book to, to, to invest in right now, Endure by Cameron Hanes. Forward written by Joe Rogan.

• 3:45:06Jocko Willink?

  Freaking great book. Lots of knowledge in there. Like I said, it's not just about, it's not just about bow hunting. Bow hunting is the vehicle for lessons to be learned. So, check that out. Only Cry for the Living by Holly McKay. There's a book, we, we covered it on this podcast. You might want to check into that book, A Raw Account of War, that Holly, who is a badass, risked life and limb to go and capture stories on the ground in war. So, check that out. Final Spin. Leadership Strategy and Tactics. You got all the books I've written. If you want them, go get them. Echelon Front. Just got back from Battlefield out of Gettysburg.

• 3:45:55Jocko Willink?

  Powerful. Next up in August is Little Big Horn. We're going to go do the lessons learned. Walk the Battlefield at Little Big Horn. So, if you want to check that out, we have a muster coming up

• 3:46:08Jocko Willink?

  in Denver. Anyways, if you want to come to an Echelon Front event, go to echelonfront.com. Check out the events there. Also, if you need help in your organization, we can give you leadership help. That's what we do. Also, the Academy online. Look, you know, you gotta go to the gym?

• 3:46:27Jocko Willink?

  If you want to stay in shape?

• 3:46:28Speaker 02

  I do, yeah.

• 3:46:29Jocko Willink?

  Leadership's the same way. You don't just, you just go, go to the gym one time. Now, you're good.

• 3:46:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, not to mention, actually, it might be kind of the same thing, but not to mention where. So, I've been in this game for a while, been around you for a while. And there's stuff, like, within the last one month, actually more than one thing, by the way, that hit me in a different way to make me realize it. And it's stuff you've been saying in one way or another for the whole time, years, by the way. And then you'll say it a certain way, or you'll interact with someone a certain way, and be like, oh, that's what he meant. Oh, that's how, you know, so you'll come across things that'll be revelations over time.

• 3:47:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, extremeownership.com.

• 3:47:14Jocko Willink?

  Is about life. It's about how to do better in life in a bunch of different ways. So if you wanna, by the way, if you've got a question you want to ask me, just go on there and I'll be live on a Zoom call. And you can ask me whatever you want. We'll work through it. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, if you want to do good, you want to provide some medical treatments for for service members, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also check out Heroes and Horses.org. I've been making the mistake of calling it dot com, it's dot org. I was texting with Micah the other day and he's like, you know, he's kind of like, he's kind of like,

• 3:47:59Jocko Willink?

  he goes, appreciate the support, it's dot org. So, sorry, Micah. Sorry about that. And hey, don't forget you can find Cameron Hanes. He's on Instagram. He's

• 3:48:13Jocko Willink?

  at Cameron Hanes. And he puts up a lot of awesome stuff. Puts up a lot of awesome stuff. He does a lot of stories. So if you want to check that out, give him a look. As far as Echo and I go, we're both on Twitter. I've been on Twitter. Like I've been, you know, back in the game on Twitter. It seems like it's moving in the right direction a little bit more. It was kind of getting a little sketchy for a while. So I've been hammering on Twitter a little bit. Echo's there. I'm there. We're also on Instagram. We're also on Facebook. Echo's at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocka Welling. But, once again,

• 3:48:49Jocko Willink?

  watch out. The algorithm. The free dopamine hits you're getting. The dopamine without suffamy, suffering. It's bad for you. Watch out for it. Don't let it hit you. And uh, thanks once again, Cam Hanes, for coming on. So many lessons to learn. And we appreciate it. And it's an honor to be working with you now at Origin Hunt. And of course, thanks to military personnel, active duty and veterans that protect our way of life around the world. We are forever indebted to you. And also thanks to our

• 3:49:26Jocko Willink?

  Police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all the first responders, you make incredible sacrifices to keep us safe here at home and we are grateful for what you do every day. And to everyone else dispersed throughout Cam's book are a bunch of short sections and I didn't cover, I don't think I even covered, uh, very, I've covered a couple of them today. Might, actually, no, I don't think I covered any of them, but they're these short little sections that provide some insight into Cam's mindset that I think will be helpful to anybody that's trying to get their mind right. Here's one of those little sections. It goes like this. You make

• 3:50:11Jocko Willink?

  a good shot this season? Nobody cares. Work harder. You miss this season? Nobody cares. Work harder. You got a promotion at work? Nobody cares. Work harder. Your dog died? Nobody cares. Work harder. You won the Super Bowl? Nobody cares. Work harder. Nobody really cares about your goals. Nobody cares about your excuses for not achieving. Recent success? Yesterday means nothing. Recent failure? Yesterday means nothing. Give all you have

• 3:50:51Jocko Willink?

  today. What you've accomplished in the past means nothing. We don't rest on laurels. It is time to work. And with that, until next time. Zeko and Jaco, out.