442: Breaking Records and Saving Lives. With British Special Forces Soldier, Dean Stott

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• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 442 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. The phones are blowing up with requests for help. We've never said no to a family whether they can pay or not, said Dean. A former British Special Forces soldier and friend of Prince Harry has flown to Israel to help evacuate people within 24 hours of Hamas attacking. Dean Stott, who was a member of Britain's elite Special Boat Service, the Special Forces Unit of the Royal Navy, was on the ground in Tel Aviv almost immediately helping after Jewish friends asked

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  him to help. Stott, 46, and his team are helping people anxious about the deteriorating situation get to Ben Gurion Airport or leave via Jordan. His wife Alana is masterminding the operation from their home in California. Two years ago, the husband and wife team helped evacuate people from Afghanistan, and Stott evacuated the Canadian Embassy in Libya in 2014. "We know how to do extractions. You need to get in fast because you don't know if airspace is going to get shut down," Stott said from Jerusalem. "I saw it on the news, and within 30 seconds, we were getting calls from friends. We just got home from Disneyland. I was there in 24

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  hours and helping the first family."

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from an article by Ben Clerkin, published on October 13th, 2023, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack in Israel. And you may recognize the name Dean Stott. Dean was a British soldier, as mentioned in the article, a member of the elite commando unit, the Special Boat Service. We completed multiple combat deployments around the globe, until he was injured in a parachute accident and forced to retire. But while he did retire from the military in 2011, he was far from actually retired. And the following years, he built a business in the private security sector.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  Where he dealt with extortion, kidnapping, civil war, pirates, military coups. In two four, 2014, he planned and executed the evacuation of the Canadian Embassy in Libya, rescuing four diplomats and 18 military personnel. On top of all that, in 2018, he set two world records. The fastest bike ride of the length of South America and the fastest bike ride on the Pan American Highway. And he covered much of this in his book, outstanding book, it's called Relentless, which we discussed when he was on the podcast about three years ago, episode 270. So if you want to hear about his past, you can listen to that podcast 270, you can get his book, Relentless.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  But for tonight, Dean is back here with us to discuss some of his latest efforts, which include not only evacuating people from Israel, but also some new adventures into entertainment and assisting veterans and victims of human trafficking with mental health and a host of other trials and tribulations. Dean, you've been a busy man. Thanks for coming back.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  So, prior to the Israel evacuation, when you went in there to help out, 2021, Afghanistan, what did you guys do over there? Because I know you got some people out of there as well, like quite a few people.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we were, we were back at home and obviously everyone's seen everything unfold on the news. We were working with a number of agencies, you know, we had a lot of connectivity on the ground. I had an organization I was working with and they had a medical facility. It's been open for the last 10 years. And so we had the footprint, but we weren't really physically getting involved. You know, I was offering advice and then. I think we talked about last podcast, I was gonna do a challenge, I was looking at kayak in the River Nile. And while I was doing this, this training process, I got introduced to a gentleman called Jim Ross, who was like, uh, worked for Epic Kayaks, uh, one of the best kayakers in, in the UK, trains the, the GB team.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  His wife, Annabelle Ross, she was a ex-military, uh, worked with the UN. And she had a friend, and I need to get the name right, Soraya Paxad was this woman, she was a women's rights activist. And she basically set up the, one of the first underground schools in Afghanistan back in, uh, two thousand and, sorry, nineteen ninety-eight. Uh, yeah, and then in two thousand and one, when obviously the troops came in, um, it went to, to full, full scale. But she's, you know, back in two thousand and nine, she was listed in the one, in the Times one hundred most influential people, there's photos of her with Condoleezza Rice. And America turned their back on her, she was trying to get out and they wouldn't do anything about it.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  So she reached out to Annabelle, who knew obviously mine and Alana's story with the previous evacuations, and she said, can you, can you help us? So Alana, uh, and Annabelle were, were coordinating, and this lady Soraya said she, you know, she wanted to come out, so. Do you remember like when she contacted you? Yeah, I remember when Annabelle contacted me, it was literally, you know, WhatsApp and Signal. It is a great tool in, in all of these stories, whether it's Israel or Afghanistan, the amount of WhatsApp groups you had, so. She messaged and said, look, we've exhausted all our options, you know, can you, can you help? And so I put onto Alana, and then Alana started making some phone calls, uh, with the guys that we had on the ground. And, and some of the other agencies, and unlike

• 5:45Speaker 01

  the Libya evacuation, unlike the Israel evacuation. This was very much almost like a paper exercise, it literally was a box ticking exercise. Do you have a passport? Yes. Do you have a host nation? Yes or no? Um, if not, you know, where can we actually potentially take, take them? Do you have family in any other countries that we can take you to? Um, and so literally that, that's what it was, it was a, it was a paper exercise. And Alana managed to, um, get her paperwork. But the issue we had is she ended up turning up at the airport with nineteen gills, she goes, I'm not leaving without these gills, and so. There was a lot of dialogue back and forth. We were also having to communicate with the the British forces, the adjutant of the parachute regiment.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  We were also communicating with the American forces as well. And so. You know, looking at looking at it from an outside, you would have thought that the the US military and the UK military had had a lot of communication and crossover. A lot of the actual communications was coming through through third parties, whether it's private security industries or what. So we ended up in the end getting her out. What about the nineteen girls? And the nineteen girls, we got them out in the end. And in the end, their host nation wasn't the US, we got into Germany. So that really then started the whole waterfall effect, because as soon as people realised that we were we were back on the radar. We were getting phone calls all the time. And Alana and I were having to really just just stagger through the night.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Because as you can imagine, with the time differences as well uh from the US. So I think at one point, we had something like sixty eight WhatsApp groups. And we had everything from the the British Boxing Association telling me the Afghan boxing team were at risk. And so what you had here is, because it was on the world stage. You had everyone almost jumping at this opportunity to leave. There was those that were eligible to leave who had worked as interpreters for the UK and the US forces. But there was then, they, I think it was the wording that you were potentially at risk because of what you did or or the Taliban. So things like Soraya, you know, yes, she's at risk because, you know, these underground schools, Taliban don't want any of that.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  And so we were dealing with all sorts of requests. And at the time, as you would have seen, there was a lot of veterans who wanted to get involved. There was a lot of nonprofits now getting involved. I had everything from, you know, the Real Housewives of Orange County, but it wasn't really the Real Housewives of Orange County. But, you know, similar sorts of groups who wanted, who had funding um and wanted to help any way possible. Um. So it was great to see humanity, to see the amount of people wanting to get involved. But it then started to become a really messy situation, because you have to make sure that all that relevant paperwork is in place. Um. You can't just take people out.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  You can't just give them the wrong advice, tell them to go to the Pakistan border and things like that. So we were really trying to have to navigate that and sort of ease people's um.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  These people's minds, it was a difficult one because we had to say no to a lot of people. Because they didn't fit the protocol, they didn't have the right paper, they didn't have the host nation. And but other people were saying yes, without really understanding the nuances involved with these evacuations. So you have a thing called the FAW, which is the Federation of American Immigration Reform. And they are now investigating so many groups, nonprofits for human trafficking. Because people were just wanting to help, but not really understanding, you know, the aftermath. Um, so what we're seeing now, two years later, is a lot of people managed to get into Pakistan. Without passports, without the right paperwork.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  But there's an agreement between the Pakistan and the Afghani government now, is that they have two years to get their paperwork in place. If it's not in place, then they go back. And that two years is now coming up, and the Taliban know that. So there's a lot of people now who were helped by these groups, who really didn't understand what they were doing, who now are gonna end up going back. Um, so for us, for me and Alana, it was it was difficult because. And it was heartbreaking because we had to say no to so many, but we couldn't compromise what we do. Because like I said, this is just one country, we we've done it, we do it all over the world. So for us moving forward, I didn't want to be investigated for human trafficking. And as you know, Alana is an ambassador for human trafficking herself, so we had to be really airtight.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  What was your reaction when you saw Afghanistan going down like that after you fought there?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was it was hard to watch, you know, we've been there 20 years. You know, what was different about Afghanistan compared to the likes of Israel, Libya, Sudan, and all these other places? Is the fact that the other evacuations was was a crisis response. It's because there'd been an incident like the Hamas incident. We had a foothold in there for twenty years. It wasn't a surprise that we were leaving. And so for me, I think there was just that rush to get out before September eleventh. Um, I think it was disrespectful to the servicemen and women that had been out there. The servicemen and women that that had fallen, their families, and also disrespectful to the Afghans. You know, that that's one that stands out for me is now we went in there to help.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  And, you know, you look twenty years on, did we, did we make much of a difference? I think we may have done. Um, but I think they, it only took them nine days. Nine days to capture everything that we'd be taking in in in twenty years. You know, each province was falling, each city was falling. And so for me, I think it's it was disrespectful and it was handled very poorly.

• 11:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it certainly was handled very poorly. And to to make real changes like in a country like that, you've got to stay there for a long time. And, you know, we hadn't taken, America hadn't taken a combat casualty in, I think, eighteen months when we were there. So it's not like we were embroiled in some crazy combat. It was sort of a, a police effort that was going on. And really from the rear, just reinforcing what was happening and keeping a level of stability there. And everybody that had been there or have even paid attention to what was going on there knew that the Afghans weren't ready to handle the Taliban. It's the same thing that happened when we left Iraq.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  Everybody that, everybody that had fought in Iraq, when we left Iraq, everyone knew what was gonna happen. And yet still, we just walked away and it doesn't take a huge contingent. It's like when you're at a, hey, Echo Charles, you're a bouncer, right? You were a bouncer back in the day?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  No doubt about it.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  How many bouncers does it take to keep a club of three hundred, four hundred people, five hundred people under control? How many people, how many bouncers does it take?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Six to eight.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  Six to eight bouncers? And you can control six to eight hundred people? And why is that? Well, because those, you know, the person that causes problem. He knows he's gonna get dealt with by the bouncers. And so that's kind of what you have in these countries. It was like, yep, hey, we did, we're not, the bouncers aren't participating in the game, right? Maybe a little bit, maybe they shouldn't be, but they're not, they're not actively participating in the game. They're just making sure that the game is being played correctly and it's all good. And if someone gets out of line, they remove them. So that's kind of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. You had, we were the bouncers, the, the, the party was going on, we were making sure that it was, people were behaving properly.

• 13:26Jocko Willink?

  No one was abusing anybody, no one was getting harassed, making sure no one's getting out of control. And that's what was happening. And after a while, you can go down to three bouncers. And after a while, you can go down to two bouncers, but in terms of countries, that can take generations to get there. And we just, for some, well, I guess just for purely political reasons in both those cases, it was, oh yeah, we're gonna leave now. And, and we just left.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Just all, all bouncers.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, all the bouncers left. And by the way, there's gang members in there, like known, known gang members that are drunk. And maybe a little coked up and maybe they, they've been, you know, had a rough day too. So they got problems. They got like mental issues and but they're in there with normal people.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  And what's gonna happen to the normal people? Exactly what happened in, in Afghanistan? The normal people go, well, I guess the bouncer's left, so I'm just gonna do what this freaking thug tells me to do. Otherwise I'm gonna get my, you know, I'm gonna get freaking stuck with a knife.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  I think there's also the fact that you, they've underestimated their enemy. You know, you look at history, the UK been over there three years. Actually, when I was there, the Taliban, the Afghans hate the Brits more than the Americans. You know, we haven't been able to, to defeat them. And so, you know, I think it was a lack of respect. Yeah. For the Taliban, it was lack of respect for the Afghans. Um, but the other, the other failings as well is the fact that, you know. The, at the airport, they had a database of all the names of the people that had been working with the UK and US forces and they just left it. And so when they flew off, they just literally handed them back over. I, I say that like now, obviously, like the Taliban, we were actually using, working with Taliban agents during this whole process as well.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Because actually, at the time, the world was like, the Taliban didn't want there to be an incident during this, during this handover. Because they told the world, you know, we, we are better, you know, the Taliban from two thousand and one, um, you know, to Taliban two thousand and twenty one are two different people. That's the way they wanted to show to, to the world. So they didn't want there to be an incident. Obviously, it was ISIS K that, that, that came in and did that. So we were actually working with these Taliban, they were helping us. Um, you know, get people from safe houses, uh, which people don't, aren't, aren't aware of. And, and again, it was just the fact, cause the world was watching, it was so easy for the likes of ISIS K, you know, there was a hotel called the, the Baron Hotel.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  So you had the Abbey Gate where the incident was, um, the Baron Hotel was about a mile from the Abbey Gate. And, you know, it's almost like a processing center for everyone who wants to go out and they're just telling everyone to stay in that hotel and we're like, ah, so for us, we had alternative options with safe houses. Um, but again, the Taliban, they were trying and they, they were helping.

• 16:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  During this process, which people don't seem to understand. They think they're always the bad ones, but it was the ISIS K that took advantage of that.

• 16:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And the Taliban's like, oh, the bouncers want to leave? Cool. Yeah. Hey, we, we'll help you out. What do you want? You want some drinks on your way out? You, you, what do we need to do to get you out of here? Let's go ahead and, go ahead and proceed. We'll, we'll take over. We got this.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:29Jocko Willink?

  Of course, they're going to escort the bouncers out the door. Um. Where any, so, so as you're getting this, how many people did you end up getting out of there?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  There was over a thousand people we ended up getting out or assisting getting out and some of them as well, you know, a lot of them, a lot of them wanted, are, are even our clients. But there's a lot of security companies that, and I, I, I talk about the big five, probably the big five out there and they have. They're they're they're rubbing shoulders with insurance companies. And so when these big corporates, oil and gas NGOs, you know, want assistance, they they obviously listen to the insurance provider and says, you need to go with these guys, you know, the multi-billion pound industries. But I've seen it before, the failings in them, they don't actually have plans in place. And actually, one of the big five didn't realise they weren't actually insured for Afghanistan. And so when they pressed the button, they couldn't do anything. And so and I'm I'm talking some of the biggest names out there. And so literally,

• 17:22Speaker 01

  they then had to look at who else was available. And I've seen it in all of these countries to go to, the the biggest players always fail. It's always the smaller security providers. Um, yeah, but it's something that I it it riles me up. It riles me up because, you know, they are charging six, seven figure sums to these crisis management evacuation plans. And actually, when you scrape the surface, it's not actually in place. Um, and so for me, my advice to these corporates is, yes, when you have insurance, you know, challenged, ask questions to the security security provider, you know, ask them questions because they're, you know, these security companies, they have rotations. And, you know, another guy will come in in six months. Has he has he proven those routes? Has he pen tested? You

• 18:05Speaker 01

  know, I did one once for a client out in Colombia, a big mining company, and I sat down with the security provider. And because that's what we do, we sometimes come in and can help security companies. You want to come in and take over, you know, we're not that big, but we can offer our advice. And so I knew, I asked him for his um, his evac plan uh, from the mine. And, you know, he showed me this Google Maps, Google Maps. Um, I was like, okay, perfect. I said, well, let's, can we prove this route tomorrow? He said, yeah. I knew it was raining that evening. That road, that road was impassable. And so I said, so what's your, what's your secondary option? He said, oh, we we don't have a secondary option. And so, so for me, these are the things you want to be, these corporates, they don't actually read the terms and conditions, the small print. I mean, you soon realise

• 18:50Speaker 01

  actually. These security companies aren't responsible for taking them out. And so, yeah, there's been a lot of failings and errors and that was really highlighted during Afghanistan when one of the biggest providers really realized that they actually weren't insured.

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  So what's the name of your company that does that? So if I have a company and I have people overseas and I've got insurance, but this seems like a really smart thing to do and I work with a lot of international companies. If you're looking at your security situation, you know you have insurance, you know you've got a plan.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  But to have somebody, a second set of eyes come in and take a look at that plan and review it. That that seems like it would be a very smart thing to do. What's your company that does that? Where can people get that?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  So that's literally me and my, me and my wife, we don't actually, it's SCI, which is Stock Consultancy Inc. So we're very, we don't even have a website. Because literally it's all word of mouth. We managed to build up a reputation where people tend to come to us. It's been quite interesting because we are a husband and wife, some, some of these big organizations can be quite dismissive. And then actually they then end up coming back to us eventually. But with us, we don't need to have a huge company, you know, there was a, um. Back in two thousand and thirteen, when I, the Prime Minister of Libya asked me to come help. I've managed to upstand hundred and fifty SF guys from the world, around the world. So I can, we can upscale and downscale depending on what the task.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  So where we have the luxuries, in fact, we have a great network around the world and we would find the subject matter experts specific for that region. I wouldn't just have the same team deployed everywhere around the world because as you know, there's cultural differences along the way. So for us, that's what we do and we, we tend to come in, do it's like a security vulnerability assessment, see what it is you, you have. And identify where your vulnerabilities are, you know, it's not just in these corporates doing evacuations. We now work in family offices as well, you know, a lot of these family offices are unaware of how, how at risk they are, whether it's from cyber or, or from physical. And so, yeah, that's what we do is bring a team in and we will just design the team around whatever the, the task is.

• 20:54Jocko Willink?

  You know what red cell is, right?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you guys are like doing full on red cell in a way. Maybe not the physical part of red cell, but the mental.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, the mental side of a red cell. I don't know if you've ever seen, it's quite interesting. When we speak to clients, they tend to come to us with with problems. And I want to say we were like fixes, but it depends on how you interpret that terminology. But there's a, there's a, there's a show, actually, I think it's called Scandal. There's a woman called Olivia Pope, and she just basically helps, whether it's politicians, big corporates that are going. And this is very similar to what, what Alana does. Alana, behind the scenes, she's done a lot of forensic investigative due diligence. She has access to the, the free letter agencies, the dark web. So you tend to find it, I'll give you an example, maybe a company that's going to go public. You always tend to find just before a company goes public, some dirt comes out.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's corporate espionage. And so Alana and her team, and she has again, a great network. They will come in and try and, try and fix those problems. So when we, when we jump on these calls and have these meetings, I always say to the clients, because they see me front of house. They think they're getting Dean Stott. And I'm like, well, actually, it's Alana's going to be doing everything else. I said, if you see me, then it's all gone wrong. Because I've actually come to rescue you. And so over the years, and again, I, and we, we don't need a website. We're just literally getting referrals from people like, well, these people may be able to help you. But I had one once with JP Moore, Chase, Chase Bank. One of the directors, one of the head directors is like, well, why do I call you and I don't call this big security company?

• 22:33Speaker 01

  And I say, because it saves you one phone call because they all tend to call us anyway. So what I found in the security industry when I started out, there was a, there was the big five companies. And they would, I would get a phone call and I'd get a phone call from three of those big companies. And they would say, oh, are you available for Uganda next week? And I know that they're all bidding for that one contract. And then when they get it, they then come to you. And so there's a lot of guys out there like me, working on the ground, who actually do the work. And so with these big, the big companies, they tend to market up because they have, they have overheads. They have offices, they have staff that they've got to pay. And so the, the, the price inflates. And so why I explain to clients is, well, if you come to us, you take out the middleman.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  You know, and it's at least fifty percent reduced price and you're still getting the same product.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  But I think it's just that whole. Um, perception because they're multi-billion pound industries because they have some of the biggest insurance companies behind them. They think these guys are the best, but they then still go, you know, come back to us anyway.

• 23:37Jocko Willink?

  So was the, the people that you got out of Afghanistan, was that business? Or was that voluntary or was it a combination of both?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Um, that was a combination, combination of both. Um, for us, we, we actually, Alana and I didn't, didn't make a, a penny. They caught the, uh, organization that I mentioned that had the medical facility. They, of course, were having to make money. Um, but it's really difficult because it's a hard one. I, we, I think, you know, the Canadian embassy, I charged seven thousand dollars. That was it because that's all I needed to get them out. Um, you know, the Israeli, um, uh, the Israel evacuations, we, we didn't make a penny. And so for, for me, I don't like to take advantage of people's. Misfortune or, or being in, in a situation because not all of them could afford it. So, um, but what we can do on that reputation, now we get that, that later on.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  And so when some of the big corporates come, but don't get me wrong, if there's a big corporate and they have, they have deep pockets and. Yes, we would utilize that, but where we try and get people on. Out there for, for free is there's chartered flights and some of these charter flights are half, half full. And I'm like, what can we get these people on? And that's what Alana manages as well. She sort of navigates behind the scenes, finds out where there's seats available and we can get people out at, at no cost. Because those who have money can get out. Um, those who don't or, or don't have much money really struggling, they are just as at risk as, as the others as well. And that's where I try to, I try to distance myself from the emotion. I, I'm very good at actually distancing myself from notion.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  I don't even really know, that's why I've had to write down the people's names because I don't. It's not because I have no empathy. Um. When I'm on the ground, I I can't get emotionally uh connected to them. Because when it comes to situations, I don't want my emotions to to blur my vision on my my decisions. Whereas Alana does. Alana gets emotionally involved, which is, which is hard. You know, she's a woman, she's a mother, uh and everything else. So so she's like, yeah, we're getting them out for free. How are we getting them out for free? But she'll she'll work out a way. So if we can make money, then then of course, because we still need to pay uh the the boots on the ground. Um. But majority of times, we will try and and and minimize that cost. But I I get upset when you see

• 25:58Speaker 01

  organizations that fly in planes and they're charging five thousand dollars a seat. I'm like, you can afford that plane, you know, just get them out, you know, the P R itself would would benefit you.

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Jocko Willink?

  So moving to Israel, October seventh, how'd that go down from your perspective?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  So Alana and I had been invited to Disneyland. There's a place called, I I've never heard it, Club Thirty Three. It's like a private members' club within Disneyland. Yeah, I've I've never even heard of it.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles?

• 26:29Speaker 02

  No, no, I don't know.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  No? Oh, Google Club Thirty Three. It's like Walt, yeah, Walt Disney's little private members' club. So when you go to Disneyland, it has all these uh you see little thirty three on the doors and there's these hidden bars and restaurants behind the scenes and stuff. Yeah. I think I think it's actually some, I don't know how expensive it is. It's it's quite expensive to be a member, um but you have to obviously visit so many times a year and, you know, to maintain your um membership. And um so for us, we got invited as as friends. We never took the kids. Uh you don't queue for any of the rides and things like that. But we so Alana and I were in, October seventh, we're in Disneyland, of all places. And my phone started firing up.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  And I could see it was sort of unraveling in in Israel. It wasn't till the next morning I I woke up and we put on the T V. And it, you know, everyone now realized, you know, the aftermath of what what had actually happened on October the seventh. And I got a text off a a good friend of mine who's a big lawyer in New York, a Sri Lankan guy, and his his auntie and uncle were on a um. On holiday in Bethlehem and you know, the tour guide in Bethlehem is like, no, we're going to carry on with the tour and obviously he's like, no, I need to get them out. And so before I'd even turned around to Alana, Alana's already booked me a ticket to Israel. I was like, oh, she goes, I think you need to go out there, you know, because time is of the essence. We didn't realize, you know, we didn't know what was going to happen. We

• 27:57Speaker 01

  didn't know whether the airspace was going to shut down, which makes it more difficult to go in. But unlike, unlike Libya and Afghanistan and some of the other places, Mozambique and things, places we've been to before, I'd never been to Israel. And so I'd never actually ever been into the country itself. So whereas like Libya and Afghan, we had infrastructure in place, we had safe houses, we had security providers, we had drivers, we had local fixes. I didn't have any of that in Israel. I had a couple of, couple of names of security providers, guys I knew I'd worked with on the circuit. And so I sort of messaged them. And so Alana

• 28:36Speaker 01

  booked me a, booked me a ticket. It was Turkish Airlines. We went straight to the airport. And by the time I got to the airport on October the 8th, this was like, just about noon, Turkish Airlines had already canceled their flight. You know, all flights to Israel were canceled. And now all the American airlines had canceled their flights as well. So we started heading back home and Alana's still looking online. She doesn't stop. And then El Al, which is an Israeli airline, had now opened up all their flights. They literally opened up more flights to get as many Israelis back to Israel. So she says, there's a flight this evening in El Al. So turned straight back around and went back to LAX. And as I was in the queue,

• 29:20Speaker 01

  this lady, actually, so every operation we have, you know, so Afghanistan, you know, the Brits called it Opitting, the Americans, Operation Allied Refuge, we called it Operation Alaman, always give it a name, you know, the Canadian embassy was Beaver Tail. And so when I got to the airport, this lady, she gave me this, this little book called Zohar. So that was the name of this operation for me was Operation Zohar. But you could sense as well, as soon as you got to the airport, there were families there, people were upset. But there was actually families, full families going back out, you know, normally when you go into places like this, everyone's wanting to come, come out, but there's people actually wanting to go back in. And I'm stood in the queue and Israeli intelligence, this gentleman comes up to me,

• 30:04Speaker 01

  two of them, and asked Alana to step back as he asked me questions. And he said, so, so who are you going to see? And I I said, I I don't know. He's like, okay. And he said, do you have a letter? I said, no, I don't have a letter. He's like, so who are you? And I said, oh, SCI, we're a security company. He said, great. He said, do you have a website? I said, no, I said, no, I don't have a website. So this guy, I'm being fully transparent to him. He's like, this guy's pulling a wool over my eyes. I'm stood there, literally five eleven, head to toe, looked like a PMC. I said, no, we we specialize in evacuations. And he then Googled me and he then went off. And his his friend then said to me, he goes, are you in MI6? I said, look at me. I said, I'm too big for MI6. And he actually came back and and and waved

• 30:48Speaker 01

  me through. So that was the hardest thing about getting into Israel.

• 30:50Jocko Willink?

  Was that once you were on the ground there? Is that taking off?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  That was actually taken off. That's before you can even get on a flight. Yeah, that was LAX. No, that was hardest thing. So I knew once I'd got through that, I'd be fine in landing. And actually, he pulled me aside just as I was boarding the plane and wished me the best of luck. And so Alana went straight, Alana headed home. No, she then started messaging people we knew from the Jewish community, people in London and New York and LA. It was a 13 hour flight to to Tel Aviv. I landed and, you know, everyone was cheering on the on the plane. And already, my phone's, you know.

• 31:26Jocko Willink?

  So the atmosphere going in, this is October 8th or maybe 9th now?

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, this will be probably landed on the morning 9th, yeah, because of the times and difference.

• 31:35Jocko Willink?

  And people were cheering as you were coming in?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  People on the flight, people on the flight were cheering and clapping that they'd sort of come home.

• 31:42Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, which which for me was, it was so different from the other, the other projects that we done because, A, we knew who we were getting. We already named our people, we already had a plan, we had infrastructure in place. This was almost like, right, we need to go in and sort Do it from the inside out. But when I landed in Tel Aviv, you know, it's it's a beautiful place, the sun was shining. And as I said, my phone had had now fired up. Alana, I think Alana had over fifty families um that needed assistance. You know, that's literally just through the network we knew the Jewish Jewish community. So she gave me my first address, which was just outside Jerusalem. So landed at Tel Aviv, um one of the guys I'd I'd messaged

• 32:24Speaker 01

  I was coming in, he had a driver pick me up and drove me straight to this family. So just so the the audience are aware, so October the seventh, it was right in the middle of a Sukk holiday. It was a big Israeli holiday. So there was ten thousand families alone from New York and Boston in Israel. Um. So there's a lot, a lot of families there. And so I would, we were trying to literally coordinate and and and help them. But actually, atmospheric wise, in Jerusalem, because it was so close, within thirty six hours of the actual incident, there was a huge presence of police and military on the ground. Everyone had guns. And so it probably was the safest place on on earth. And so we helped coordinate getting

• 33:08Speaker 01

  people out. What was difficult with this was, again, it was the flights. It was the the chartered flights. Flights were getting cancelled. But you then also found that flights were getting cancelled because, again, people wanting to help. I remember, um, I got introduced to a lady from one of the YPOs in New York, as a young president's organisation, so very successful businessmen and women. And she said, I've chartered a flight, um, I want it, I want it full. So we ended up having this this flight. Um, but actually, the flight she chartered was one of the original flights, one of the domestic flights, and they just sold it to her. And then so we had people already on that original flight, and now taken off, and then she was about to charge double. Um, but in the end, Alana managed

• 33:52Speaker 01

  to get them all on uh for free. But because flights were opening and closing, you had to be quick and you had to be online. So there was a lot of elderly people there who don't really understand the internet. And so you had to make decisions in buying in tickets. And so Alana, you didn't have time to then liaise with the son or daughter back in New York and London. You literally had to make that decision and buy it. But again, with this, because I call it the media monster, what the media monster was portraying on TV. So actually what was happening on the ground were two different things. Yes, in Gaza, it was about to go off, but actually in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem was very safe. So I'm going to these people, these families, you know, and elderly people and say, look, I've come to get you out.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  And they're like, oh, no, we're happy to stay. And I'm like, well, you need to speak to your son and daughter because they're literally, you know, going mad back at home. So, but there were the people that wanted, wanted to get out. Um, we had, I think the first four days, because of the time zones, Alana would literally give me lists and names of families. Um, and by the time I'd done that in a day and I was just about to rest, New York woke up and then, and then LA woke up. And I literally would have my, my next list of people. So the first four days, I had very limited, uh, sleep. And I'm breaking protocol and I think it's when I messaged you.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Unlike the other evacuations where we already had, as I said, people to get in. Um, and we would fly in under the radar and come out until the job was done. We obviously had to make people aware that I was there. So if any people did need any assistance, that they can contact us. So totally against my normal protocol, I was on social media and, and Alana sort of jokes. Cause I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm within thirty six hours, quite safe. And she's like, yeah, she goes, for you it's safe, but for others it's, it's not. And, um, and I remember doing a, a couple of TV interviews in like the Jewish Chronicle and, and I'm in the old city of Jerusalem, probably the most holiest place in the world.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And, you know, I actually said on TV, I said, look, I'm, I, I'm not a religious person. Um, but I do believe in good and bad. And, and so I'm just here to help, you know, and get people out because it was very difficult. When you first got there, it was so raw, the Jewish people were so. Angry uh and things like that. And so then on social media, you're you're seeing you're seeing dialogue going back and forth. People telling us, I hope you're not rescuing these, hope you're not rescuing them. No, for us, as we touched on with the um later on, I just finished filming in Jordan. We did a an episode in Jordan. And so we had

• 36:38Speaker 01

  uh fixes, drivers, I knew the colonels in the special forces. I even knew everyone up to King Abdullah, who runs the country. And so we had um the option of getting people from um Israel over to Jordan. That was an option for us. It wasn't an option really. Mainly, a lot of the Jewish weren't comfortable with that. But people, Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, they were happy to to do that route. But in fairness, we did get a lot of Jewish people across King Abdullah Bridge into Jordan and and out on Amman. So again, people didn't realise that actually the Muslim community were also were also helping, but the media portrays something different. But going back to social media, I said, I think I sent you and a couple of the military influencers my video. I said, do you mind sharing just let people know we're here?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  And this is where I see the good in social media and the power of social media. I I then get a you shared it that morning. I then get a message of a lady called Elizabeth. She goes, I I don't know if it's gonna go to you, Dean. She goes, I'm a big fan of Jocko and I've just seen you on on there. And she goes, we're in the old city of Jerusalem. We're a Bible college um and we have fifteen students. We can't get out. And so within forty five minutes of that message, because literally the old city was just around the corner. I I was having a cup of tea with her and her husband Matthew. And he was, they're both from Huntington Beach originally. He's a pastor. They've been out there for eight years. And they run this Bible college and they had fifteen students, fourteen American and one Indian.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  And it exhausted all their options. All the flights were cancelled. They couldn't get them out, but they're under so much pressure from the families, you know, to get them out.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because the weird thing is at this time, like October seventh, eighth, ninth, like it was impossible to tell what was gonna happen. Is Hezbollah gonna get in this? Is Iran gonna get in this? Is this gonna be the beginning of World War Three, which it certainly could have become? So if you're some random parent in here and your kids over there going to college at this school, you want them out of there and that's what you were trying to make happen.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true because at this point, you know, there was the the trouble in the south with Gaza, as you rightly mentioned there. Hezbollah, no, because I think where the Israelis got the green light from the UK and the Americans to wipe out Hamas and terrorists. You know, that doesn't just end with Hamas and, you know, Hezbollah. So there was an opportunity for them to get involved in the war. So that was the worry I had because at the moment, the airspace was still open because you're with Hezbollah and Lebanon not being involved. You you can fly in via the north, but should they get involved, then that whole airspace would be shut down. And so that was the worry people were having, as you rightly put, you know, if this escalates, there may not be an option to get them out by air.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  And we always look at the three options as the land, which was the Jordan, there was the air, and we were already looking at options for Cyprus as well. And so, yeah, these couple were were distraught. And she said she woke up that morning and she prayed. And she picked up my phone. She said, I wonder what Jocko would do. That's what she said. She literally said, I wonder what Jocko would do. And she opened up and she saw me there. So I went and spoke to them. I said, yeah, it's not a problem. We can get you out. We can help get you out anyway. And so again, Alana gets emotionally involved. She knows all their names of the kids. I still don't know any names. And forty eight hours later, you know, it sounds very sexy. There's me dragging these suitcases with fifteen students straight out of the old city of Jerusalem. And yeah, we all got them out at no cost. Back on.

• 40:11Jocko Willink?

  So how are you funding this? I mean, even your flight costs $2,000, $3,000 to get over there. You're staying in a hotel somewhere. You got it. What are you doing to fund this?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we we reached out to people and Alana set up a GoFundMe page. And actually, what she then did, she, you know, we had to look at the bigger picture moving on forward, because people were messages are like, are you a you a nonprofit? Because some corporates can write off their tax if it's a nonprofit. And so Alana Googled evacuationsupport.org, and no one owned the domains to that. So we bought the domains to evacuationsupport.org, and we will now, moving forward, turn that into a nonprofit. And the reason for that is, A, it gives people the option to be able to donate. But also, that incident I had at LAX, is if I go to LAX, and then the guy asked me, do you have a letter? I said, yes, I have a letter. I have a company. And this is our mission statement. It sort of helps

• 41:06Speaker 01

  for that. So so that's, that's what was born out of that, that issue in Israel. We managed to set that up. But we had nonprofits who were able to take the money, and then Alana could utilize that for for the flights.

• 41:18Jocko Willink?

  And then, how long did you spend on the ground there?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  So, in the end, I was there just less than 10 weeks. By the end of the first, I'd say, five days, everyone who wanted to get out was was out. Everyone who's now in, wanted to stay in, and there's still a lot of flights coming in. The reason for me, I, the rest of the days I was there, we actually then

• 41:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you say 10 weeks?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Sorry, two weeks.

• 41:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, two weeks.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Sorry, two weeks, yeah. And the the rest of the time I was there, we were then establishing safe houses, confirming the routes in and out, doing a handover with Israeli guys as well. Because I, the reason I wanted to leave is, I have to remain impartial. And it was very difficult to remain impartial in a country at that point. And the reason I had to remain impartial is because I didn't know if my next port of call was Lebanon. And and so for me, once I realized that the infrastructure was in place, everyone who needed to get out was out, and we had, you know, should there be any additionals, we could get them out. And then that was it. And I then I then pulled out then, after two weeks.

• 42:21Jocko Willink?

  What what was the atmospherics when you landed on the ninth? People you said were angry. What what were they like? What was the atmospherics and the attitudes like before you left?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Obviously, they've had time to absorb what was going on. Again, you know, the troops are now starting to form up in and around Gaza. No one really knew what was going on. I think for me, one that surprised me, you know, if you asked me prior to October 7th, you know, we were one of the best intelligence services in the world, I'd say Israelis, you know, and the fact that they hadn't seen this, it still surprises me. So, so for me, I think there was an element of embarrassment, there was an element of anger still. So that was still boiling up in a lot of people. I stayed in the old city of Jerusalem and you know, you've got the Catholic quarter, you've got the Muslim quarter and the Jewish quarter as well. And they all still live, live

• 43:16Speaker 01

  together. But all the shops were shut as well, you know, it was just about to be their busiest time of the year. And so I think a lot of people wanted a quick resolution, but I didn't think that's going to happen. I think obviously Israel see this as, you know, an opportunity and, you know, they want to take out Hamas and they'll continue to do so.

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see the postmortem from the intel side on how this happened. And to me, it's one of, it seems like it would be one of these cases where, you know, when you can't see the thing that's right in front of your face, or the thing that you just, it's such a massive attack with, you know, guys with paragliders and stuff like this, it's almost inconceivable. And so they're just not looking there. They're looking for this little attack here, or what little attack could happen over there. They're not thinking about this massive attack that's going to take place all coordinated very well. So, very, very disturbing to see. When, when you, what advice do you have for people that are traveling to other countries?

• 44:20Jocko Willink?

  Maybe it's for work. I'm always surprised at where people go for vacation. Like, you know, I spent enough time going into places that are nasty. I don't like to go on vacation. I don't even like to leave, really. I don't even like to leave San Diego, let's be honest. But if I have to go, but if you, when you're, when you've got people that are, either they're going overseas to a, let's say a questionable or, or a Unpredictable, dangerous area. What advice do you give to people that are traveling like that?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  I think for me is do as much research before you leave as well. You know, we do a travel security advice training, you know, whether it's for corporates or individuals. And every time there's an incident, it's because of naivety. People not understanding other people's cultures. And that's what I see all the time. And so I always say it's not, it's not the UK, it's not America, things are done differently, but do your research, but don't. It's very difficult because you know, we have like, you know, .gov.uk, you may have one here, like travel advice. If you, if you listen to all that, you probably wouldn't, wouldn't leave San Diego, you know, even I'd be quite scared to go. You know, all these countries are beautiful, but every country as well has the good places and the bad places. You know, I was in New York at a wedding two weeks ago, wearing a Scottish kilt.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I've never been so scared in my life. You know what I mean? So the uh, and it's, it's the same in these other places. There's beautiful places, the places you, you, you stay clear from. So really just get educated on that, but on the cultures as well.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Don't get caught short, you know, as you've probably seen the Turks and Caicos guys with their, their ammunition in there.

• 45:55Jocko Willink?

  That's right.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  You know, just simple things like, you know, jurisdictions of what you have here in the US aren't the same, same abroad. But that, that's all I would say is just get educated. What I tend to do as well, you know, some of the top tips I give them, I take a little, you know, if you, if you are nervous, take a little, doorstop, you know, rubber doorstop from Home Depot, just kick it behind your door because you don't know who has access to, to the, to the room keys, you know, when you go to these hotels and they want to take your passport, you don't want to leave your passport. So go there, have, have photocopies of your passport already. So you're still giving them what they want. And so, yeah, so we go through a whole, whole list of things to do from, from the moment before you leave, the moment you arrive and, and coming back. And, and then, you know, again, try and enjoy yourself as well, whether it's vacation or, or business.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Business is slightly different, but it is vacation, you know, don't, don't listen to the media monster.

• 46:44Jocko Willink?

  So is this a service that you offer to private individuals? If I am going on a trip to somewhere and I want to make sure that my family is going to be safe, do you offer like a little assessment?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, because we can do everything from the actual intelligence before you go on the ground, give you some atmospherics and actually say, actually, maybe you want to look at another holiday spot. But then, you know, and we've done it with some of the family offices before COVID, especially a lot of the British children, they used to have like a gap year, university, you used to go traveling around Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia and things like that. The parents used to be like panicking. So we would come in and we would, we'd give those kids or those families that, that travel advice. We do an intelligence picture. Now, we have everything from track, we have apps where we can actually track them as well. And you can actually geo fence certain cities. So for example, if you're in Mexico City, we've had the elections recently and there's, there's trouble in the north, we can geo fence that and, and send you up to date information.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  So you're, you're still being updated as and when you're on the ground. And then if it gets to, you know, to the extreme and the parents are still not happy, then we can put a, a team on you. But we also have a protective, protective surveillance teams as well, which is, you know, everyone sees the, the close protection capacity where you physically see that, that person. There's a new setup now, it's protective surveillance where you're still delivering that, but they don't actually know you're there. You know, there's, there's a Saudi princess in London at the moment, you know, she thinks that dad's let her go to, to London to university on her own. She's got a six man team on her all the time. She's not aware of that. So, so literally we can upscale and down scale depending on the threat and, and even if there's no threat, just sometimes just ease the minds of, of the parents.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  But we've done it before where actually, you know, I've said to the students when they're traveling, all right, if you've got any trouble, just call me and then before you call your mom and dad and then, you know, we, we can work it out, you know, because what I deem as Potentially dangerous, risky, my, my, you know, they have a different, uh, different element of risk from me. They're a bit more risk averse than I am.

• 48:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  And so sometimes, you know, I, I can sort of ease their minds before they start fly, fly, flying the balloon up.

• 48:53Jocko Willink?

  Do you offer insurance, like extraction insurance?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Um, we work with some insurance, uh, providers, you know, what I'm trying to do now with some of the insurance, uh, providers is actually say, well, look, you know, if we come in and assess their evacuation plans and, and their mitigations and, and that they're adhering to it. Surely you can bring their premiums down, you know, it has to be a win-win for, for both. Why, well, why are we going to do it? We're still paying insurance, but, um, but yeah, we, we, we do the, the, to go back to the travel. We can either do it for families or we can do it for corporates, you know, one of my clients used to be Siemens Energy. Um, he used to go around the world and if they had to have engineers to go out to medium to high risk, we would come in and, and, and give him ad, advice as well. So, yeah, we sort of cover the full spectrum.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  And they're going into places like, like Saudi Arabia, you know, a good one with Saudi is, you know, if, if you're a, a religious person, a Christian, you want to take your Bible, that's good, but if you have more than one Bible, you're a preacher, you get arrested. They're like, oh, I didn't know that, you know, so again, it's just that, that knowledge of the countries, you know, there's the basic travel security awareness, but it's all about cultural awareness. That's, that's one of my biggest things when I'm, when I'm preaching or, or teaching.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  What, what's, uh, some strange things that you've had to unwind for like a high net worth individual out there?

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. We, we've had everything from embarrassing seeing, you know, these ultra high networks who like in the public eye. And then there's, there's an incident gone on in a super yacht and the, the press are waiting, you know, back on, on the port, you know, for, yeah. Can we get this person out of their country? We, we, we have, we have all sorts, you know, I just, some, some of the things that come across our, our desk, me and Alan, I'm like, surely this is like a movie and, and, and it's not, you know, obviously I'll be mindful of, of what I say. But over some of them like, you know, some of them will gamble off a super yacht, uh, drunken in the light, right? Okay. Yeah. Next day like I've made a mistake. I said, yeah. So we'll come in and try and, try and fix things.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of it, you know, again, without, it's a lot of stupidity as well. It's not understanding your, your, your atmospheres or, or where you are. You know, where we, where we're trying to help some of these family offices now is you have. Different family offices, the second and third generation money, you know, the dad or the granddad, they're they're fine, but it's

• 51:10Jocko Willink?

  That's because they worked for it.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  They worked for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the recipients recipients now, the kids are just driving around in Lamborghinis.

• 51:17Jocko Willink?

  There's something like the first generation makes it, the second generation keeps it, the third generation loses it.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, third or fifth generation, then loses it again. Yeah. And that's again, it's like, you know, when I speak to these families, obviously, these these granddads or dads are like, you know, we're we're fine, but their Achilles heel is their children. You know, and they all have a digital footprint now, you know, they're all, you know, you look at a stupid example, the Kardashians, the incident in Paris, they literally told everyone, they showed everyone all their jewels. They showed them where they were staying. So they had only had one security guy and they they went to Paris. Um, and they they were obviously doing photos, doing selfies, showed everyone their jewelry, uh, where they were.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  But the only one security guy and he he ended up going out, I think they ended up splitting up, he ended up going out and then the the room got uh broken into.

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  How much money did they lose?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Ah, I don't know, millions. It was it was millions. Um, but but again, again, it's the social media thing we have in like the UK, the um, we call it, you know, your soccer. Like our Premier League, they have like a an award ceremony each year in London. So all the players from Manchester United and Liverpool up north come down for it. So all their houses get targeted by the burglars. So it's it's so for me, it's it's um, when with some of these family offices is is is understanding your online presence. Um, and Alana, actually, she has a program. So back in the UK, a thing called soccer, it was like the equivalent of the FBI, Special Operations Crime Agency.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  And she taught child exploitation, online protection, uh, teaching you how to be safe because with human trafficking, it's all the grooming elements, you know, targeting for for kidnapping ransom. And so these families, they will pay, um, but you shouldn't have to. And a lot of family offices will look at the linear family, but actually, and have no protection on their nieces, nephews and and brother in laws and sister in laws, and they're the ones that get targeted. And they will still pay.

• 53:18Jocko Willink?

  So they get targeted for like kidnapping?

• 53:21Speaker 01

  So some countries is kidnapped ransom. Yeah, yeah, they'll they'll target them um, and and kidnap them, take money, especially in in the Latin American countries. It's it's quite rife.

• 53:31Jocko Willink?

  And you do all this work without a website around this.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally. Yeah, every my my earlier years was, you know, I took the risk going out and doing jobs that were were quite quite risky. Um, you know, my then obviously the bike ride then raised my profile and then people then, you know, realized actually Israel was like it was was interesting because when I went to Israel, people were messaging me like, oh, you're you're you're back in the security industry. I was I'd I'd never left. I was actually chatting to one one of the head of stations in the Middle East, a CIA guy. And he's like, I've just Googled you. I said, look, don't Google me. I said, there's two, there's two Dean Stotts is the one that the world sees, you know, the books, the guest speaking and, you know, the the TV show. But that's only thirty percent of what you see seventy percent, you know. And so really, that's

• 54:19Speaker 01

  sort of, you know, generated more work. And I think they think people thought I had taken that sabbatical and was still on that sabbatical, but I just never, never really left.

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  Do you or you, I know you said you don't need many people to do it, but do you ever think, do you have like a number two person that you're going to bring up that could kind of run the business at some point? So you don't have to go on the ground in all these places?

• 54:43Speaker 01

  I I have guys I can my number twos now, you know, for me, I I I have to be mindful of the fact that we have, we have a family, you know, for me, the great thing about working with my wife Alana is if if I'm on that flight, she's greenlit, you know, so she's giving me her blessing. And one of the things after the Canadian Embassy, you know, I was only home twenty one days in a three hundred and sixty five day calendar and and we got the whole yin and yang balance completely wrong and the communication between us broke down. I thought she wanted me to be away and she thought I wanted to be away. And so from that moment on, things changed. And so everything we do now has to be cleared between Alana and the kids. Um, and and they explain why daddy's gonna have to go away.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  So it's it's more those high profile ones that I'll I'll go out. Um, but if I don't need to be there, I I can put someone else on the ground. I do like to be on the ground for the very first time with a client, you know, to get the infrastructure in place and then just sort of hand it off. But yeah, I'm. Forty seven years old now, I'm getting old and you know, my kids need me more, more at home, but, but yeah, actually Alana, she's, she's generating the most income really just on, I, I said she should set up a website called nosy bitch dot com, you know what I mean, because they, they can find anything.

• 55:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is crazy what's online, it's totally insane and the way that, I think AI is really gonna up that ability to collaborate and correlate all that information that someone has out there and just like, put together a profile of someone and be able to do what you want with it.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:14Jocko Willink?

  Scary.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  It is, it is scary and, and actually it's scary that what you can actually find just open source. That's, that's what's scary. You know, I've, I've done some security vulnerability assessments for some clients before and, and I've given any names, there was a gentleman, a, a big hotelier and he, you know, he got online and he's, he's donated so many million dollars to university, local universities, him and his family, photographs, you know, you start following her on Instagram, you see where she is on holiday. And I actually went to his house and we did a security vulnerability assessment, beautiful house and had all the, all the, the right technology in place, he had the, the, the alarms, he had the buzzer, he had the cameras, all, all the sensors. But his, his, uh, his mother-in-law and father-in-law were staying, they were very elderly, um,

• 57:00Speaker 01

  from, from India and, and they were deaf, pretty much. So every time you buzzed, they just let you in thinking it was Amazon. So it's like, so literally had, you know, thousands of dollars of, of this, uh, technology, but it's not been used right. Uh, and then I could see actually, he was, uh, when I was doing his assessment, I could see he was a cyclist, he had, um, a couple of bikes and so I then started following him on Strava, I mean, literally again, you know, his name's on it, his real name, I mean, it's just literally the route taking him back to his, his house. So sometimes you can have all this infrastructure in place, it's just, again, it's just, everything is on, online, you don't have to do a deep dark web, you can get so much information just through open source.

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  craziness so last time you were on the podcast we covered your book relentless that I talked about and then you guys ended up because that was a British release of that book you guys ended up relaunching the book here in America how'd that go down

• 57:55Speaker 01

  yeah so when we finished your podcast you know prior to coming on the podcast I mean we'd only been in America about three three months and and so my book had launched in September nine nineteen so it was almost like eighteen months really by the time I came on the podcast and and I get it you know eighteen months has passed so I said to the publishers and look about going to Jocko's podcast I think People Magazine were also doing a four-page special on the family I said look it'd be good to get some books in place for demand and they just brushed it off they just brushed it off you you took me to number one on Kindle and I mean I just got loads of messages like how do I get the book and Alana Alana's the entrepreneur Alana's like spoke to the the publishing house and I said well you haven't launched in the US yet and I said no he said give me a price and

• 58:40Speaker 01

  so they offered her a price and we bought the rights for the US North America I mean as you see difference between the two books is I then get a brand ambassador for 511 and so I said look we're relaunching the book in the US we're going to Americanize the book so in the UK we have like Sirhan or Fines on the front of that I don't even know Sirhan or Fines is like SAS Explorer he's he's one of the most famous explorers in the world you know he chopped his he chopped his toe off in the Antarctic with frostbite and just carries on he's an absolute like legend but here in the US no one knows who he is and so we we we got yourself to endorse the book on the air we

• 59:20Speaker 01

  got Admiral McRaven and Bear Grylls but when we were doing the book covers it was like that book cover is very UK it's very dark and apparently America's about light and hope what 511 said and so that book doesn't actually explain that actually I did a bike ride it says world record breaker and so we we sort of watermark the cyclist in the background but that That image with me with all that ammunition around my neck and a mini me. Wouldn't never make the shells in the UK, but yeah, in UK. Why wouldn't it make the shells in the UK? Just UK is is almost like fifteen years behind the US, you know, things when you start talking about

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  like plant medicine and marijuana is illegal still in the UK, you know, they, you know, they're not going to have people with guns on their on their front covers. Really? Yeah. So which is which is why it's very, very American. So we, um, there's a five eleven. That is a very American cover. It's a very American cover. Just a dude with a freaking machine gun and a big smile on his face. And it literally says what it is, is obviously he's ridden a bike and that's his will record. There we go. So, um, yeah. So you gave us inspiration for that. And and then my wife went on and wrote, you know, I laughed because I say I'm an author. I had a ghostwriter, you know, I mean, you know, if it was left to me, I'd still be on chapter one. I'm just too busy. My wife then went on and wrote her biography and a few books as well. So.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  How'd the ghostwriter process work? What did they do? They interview you basically? So when I, yeah, no, they actually, you get to interview them. Yeah. So when I, when I got in and we signed the deal, they said, right. We can present some ghostwriters to you, you know, you interviewed them, see how all of them is that chemistry test. And the first guy they brought in was a guy called Gerant Jones, Jez Jones. So I don't know if you heard of seventy five hard with Andy Fizzell. Yeah, Jez wrote seventy five hard for Andy as well. Yeah. And so, um, I didn't know that at the time, actually. And so, but Jez was a, um, he does a lot of, um, fiction on the Roman legion stuff. He loves, loves military history. But he's actually served as a reservist. So he knew the terminology and the slang of the military.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  And so we just, we just hit it off. And so it was quite an easy process for me, you know, once we started and we had a really tight timeline. We, we got, we signed up in February and it had to be, you know, the first, uh, or completed by May, um, which is, which is sure. So him and I would have a phone call every day. He would, you know, he said, start from the beginning. So I'll start from the beginning. I'd just be talking to him. Um, and then he'd do an hour, then that evening he'd write three to five thousand words and we'd just keep repeating this. And then he'd send me the first, um, first, uh, first look, first proof. And then where, where he may have misinterpreted me, I'll just correct him and send it back. And it was actually really good because for me, I'm very, um.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  I'm very particular, I like details. And so I would be talking about something and I would just be going on and on and on and on about probably about this podcast, let me just keep talking. And whereas he would like that, people don't care about that thing.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  But I'm always thinking of the mindset of my friends from the units of the teams reading it. And he said, majority of people don't care. And so that was really good in the fact because people do read it, said it flows. And so if it was me, it wouldn't flow well.

• 1:02:37Jocko Willink?

  That's an interesting argument. So when, when we wrote Extreme Ownership and Leif was putting all these details in about the, you know, the max effective range of this weapon and all this stuff. And I was like, bro, no one cares about that. But what's interesting is Jack Carr's book, the whole Terminalist series.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Jocko Willink?

  It's like the most granular detail about everything. And that's one of the things that people really appreciate about that. And I mean, those are two different types of books. I mean, obviously Jack Carr's books are fiction and they're meant to entertain and they're sort of for people that are, that are into that military stuff. Whereas the book Extreme Ownership and Dichotomy Leadership and Leadership Strategy and Tactics, they're for normal people that don't care about the max effective range of a, of a whatever, of a freaking 50 cal. So, yeah, but, but when, when his book came out, when Jack Carr's books came out and Leif was reading him, he's like, dude,

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink?

  you should have let me put my stuff in here. And we were laughing about it. But yeah, that kind of detail, it is interesting for people that are into the military.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  But for people that aren't in the military, it can be a little bit like, we don't care.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think with mine as well, because the books really almost like freeze, it's in three phases. It's the, my childhood and military. Then there's the private security up until that time. And then the World Records, you've almost got three different books in one. So we didn't have time to put in detail. And so actually I don't even go beyond selection. I don't even talk about anything in special forces because at the time, you know, our SF disclosure is very different from the US, you know, you, you very tight restrictions on what you can and can't say. And for me, I didn't want to compromise my, my brothers that were still in. And so, yeah, that, that's why we couldn't really go into too much detail on certain things.

• 1:04:21Jocko Willink?

  So how'd the relaunch go? You got it back out there?

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, got it back out there. Yeah, as you know, they fluctuate. They go up and down. And my plan is to write another, I don't know if it's relentless too, I think of another name. Because obviously, we have, you know, we have other stories, we have other evacuation stories, and we have other will record challenges. And so it's almost like mirrored apart from my childhood will be taken out. And so, and so that common theme, lessons learned from the previous book going into the next book.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  So while you're doing that, you end up in this TV show in Australia called SAS Australia. And you're in season three, and from what I understand, you got offered that job early, and you said no to it at first.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you end up coming back and saying yes. What went down with that?

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  So in the book, I think it's chapter fourteen or fifteen, actually. No, it's actually later on. It's after the, chapter sixteen, which is called Dead or Divorced, the conversation we're having. I took this back in twenty fifteen, I get an email from a gentleman called Andrew, and he's like, Andrew Slater, and he represents a company called Minnow Films. And he said, look, we're looking at doing this TV show. Do you mind if I fly up? And your name keeps coming up. Do you mind if I fly up and come see you? So he flew up to Aberdeen, and him and I sat down. He told me about this concept of the show, and I think here in the US, it was called Selection. It was the same one as Selection with Marcus Capone. And he said, look, we're looking at doing this show, explaining the sort of premises of it. And he said, would you be interested?

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Wait, did that show come out in America?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  There was a show called Selection. Marcus Capone was the host. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:00Jocko Willink?

  He's been on the podcast. I didn't even know he had that show. He didn't even talk about it. I didn't even know that.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  No, yeah, I think they did one episode here.

• 1:06:07Jocko Willink?

  How did they miss that? That's crazy. Okay.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, so for me, I didn't really have anything to reference it from. You know, back in the nineties, there was a show with a guy called, ex-SAS guy called Eddie Stone. And it was called SAS U Tough Enough. And it was like, it's embarrassing. You know, so for, you know, the SF community sort of like look at it and roll their eyes. And so that's what I was quite worried about, because again, when I, I'd only been out four years now, and everything I was doing, I always It's interesting. I didn't want to upset the community. It's all about what my, you know, staying, staying, um, keeping the community on, on site. And so I said to him, I said, look, I, I can do this show, but it needs to be cleared through the M O D. But a, a good friend of mine,

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  who was in, uh, C Squadron with me, Ant Middleton, he just, he got dishonorably discharged. He then, um, when he came out, he ended up assaulting a policewoman, ended up in jail. Uh, so it was a whole spiral of, of, of errors. So he'd not long come out of prison. And so we're struggling for work. And then another good friend of mine, the other host, Jason Fox, he, uh, suffered badly with PTSD. And so, you know, in the security industry, he couldn't really work either. And so I messaged him, I said, look, I've been approached to do this show. I messaged them and a few other guys. Um, and they said, look, yeah, we're, we're happy to, to go along with this and see what happens. I, I, I got in touch with the security cell with the S B S, sort of made them aware, you know, because all I don't want to do is, is flank them. They get upset when you, when

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  you surprise them. And within a week, I was back in Libya on, on a, on the ground and I, I get an email from the, uh, S F Disclosure Cell saying, step away from this project. And so for me, I did, because up until this point, I was still flying under the radar. I hadn't done the bike ride. No one really knew who I was. And so they went on and then filmed it. Um, they went on and filmed it and never told the, uh, Disclosure Cell, which, which flanked them. So they ended up, or eventually all getting persona non grata. But it actually ended up being the biggest show on Channel Four in the UK in 10 years. It was huge. So although the S F Group were slightly upset at the time, recruitment.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, recruitment.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Recruitment went, went straight up. So these guys ended up doing subsequent, I got asked again to do season two. I, I still wasn't, I wasn't interested.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  Were those ones in Australia or those?

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  No, they're still in UK.

• 1:08:21Jocko Willink?

  So the first two seasons were in the UK?

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  I think they're on, um, season, uh, what are they on now? Eight or nine now in the UK.

• 1:08:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still going, it's still going on. So they then sold it to the Australia. Uh, and then also now Fox have got it here in the U S. So it's now in, in multiple countries.

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Is it on TV right now in America?

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  It's on TV now on Fox. Yeah. I call it Special Forces Toughest Test or something. Yeah, yeah. So the, the, my change in decision was when I was, um,

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  When I was looking at doing my next challenge, um it doesn't matter how many world records you got, or how many millions you've raised for charities, like how many Instagram followers you got, and I was like, really? You know, are we having this discussion? And so for me, I I managed to keep the A M O D on side, you know, they fully endorsed my book, you know, it went through with with no issues. And so for me, in their eyes, they all knew that I turned down an opportunity as a quick fix to T V and then sort of done it this way. And I've always given back. And so I said, well, then S A S Australia reached out and they and they said, look, we're doing this show, would do you want to come on it? And it's right in the middle of Covid, you know, it's quiet here. And so I I said, yeah, why not?

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  As I thought, well, it helped helped me uh with the exposure and then when I then launched the uh the next challenge. So, yeah, I went out and and filmed S A S Australia, which was just great. And ironically, when we talk about the Afghan uh pullout, the Afghan pullout was in August. Halfway, you know, uh beginning of September, I flew out to Australia and had fourteen days quarantine in a in a in a in a hotel in Sydney. And I was doing a lot of, you know, Alana was back here and I was in Australia and we were still coordinating. Because although the everyone had left on like the thirty first of August, there was still a lot of people to get out. So I u- utilized my time in in in uh in quarantine there.

• 1:10:09Jocko Willink?

  Um yeah, Australia was locked down.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:10:12Jocko Willink?

  Really hard, right?

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, really, I I I I knew it, I I had family in Australia and and my one of my families in Melbourne, I think they're the most locked down city in the world. And and they were distraught. But when I landed, I it was like a scene out of E T. You know, everyone was there in the white suits and the masks, the military would take you from the plane and they would then process you onto the coach. I mean, there was a blue light escort on motorbikes to the hotel. The military would process you, threw it into your room and you have fourteen days on your own in your room. You have one phone call a day uh with with a nurse.

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  Man, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Plenty of time to do podcasts, plenty of time to do evacuations.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  So crazy, isn't it?

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink?

  And, and one of my- Especially, I mean, look, it seemed crazy at the time to me. I know Echo Charles thought it was kind of crazy because we were over here cruising.

• 1:11:04Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, looking back now with all the information that they have, I mean, they just did the Anthony Fauci testimonies and stuff yesterday. Did you watch any of that stuff? I saw some clips, I saw some clips from it. It's the, it's just crazy to see that they, that what they did. And especially again, for people that were into it. I mean, people that kind of bought into the whole thing. The government really took a hit and the media really took a hit as far as trust goes. But yeah, I can't imagine getting, what is it called? Quarantined for 14 days after you get escorted to a hotel. So you had to stay in your room. What, did you get room service or something?

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what they do, they, they would drop the mail at the door and they'd knock, knock on the door. But we, you know, luxury, we had the luxury, obviously the production company, they asked us if we wanted any. So I asked for like, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, but also gym equipment. I wanted gym equipment in the room. So that was all there, ready for you. So I was actually getting quite a good routine. I'd get up, do some PT.

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  What's crazy is like, what about sunlight? What about fresh air?

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  We had a balcony, we had a balcony, which was good. But I, one of the, one of the hosts, we had 14 days in there. And then we would then move to the site and do 14 days recce and 14 days filming. But literally everyone had to be in the one hotel, you know, all the crew and everything. And we'd get tested every day. If there was one sign of COVID, they would shut the whole thing down. But on the 13th day, on the 13th day in this first hotel, we, we get tested before we leave. And one of the guys tested positive. So I was like, how? Has he been here for 13? He did, he did 27 days in quarantine, came out literally on the day we were about to start filming. And out of all of us, he, he's the one that's all about conspiracy theories. He's like, it's coming through the air, you know, the air vents.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  So yeah, it was, it was, it was strange to see and, and witness. But for me, it was, it was perfect. I got into routine. I was able to help with the evacuations. You know, I actually did Jack Carr's podcast remotely from Australia as well, yeah.

• 1:13:06Jocko Willink?

  That's classic. And then the the format of that show is just like a bunch of challenges?

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, the original concept was what they wanted to do is, because I helped helped with the the treatment back in the early days. Because what they presented to me and I was like, okay, you know, it needs to be a bit more like this, you know. But as I always find now, especially TV, there's a fine line between authenticity and entertainment. So the very first season back in UK was, they literally got uh twenty members of the public. And they're all fit, guys in gills, and they push them through these tests. And it's not like selection, you can't do that in fourteen days. But now what it's sort of escalated into is they're almost like celebrities that have um messed up in their careers or sports people and this is like redemption. And so they come on and and so, but they all have backstories as well. So we're, as we're doing the,

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  as we're doing these uh these tests with them, actually, the the good thing to watch is when they're back in the dorm. And you know, and they're tired and they're hungry and then, you know, hear their backstories and then we have them in, you know, we will take one at a time and we'll sort of have.

• 1:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Do you keep them in like a boot camp scenario the whole time when they're back in the dorms?

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, what I would say was good about the show is that they actually have no interaction with anyone. When we start filming for the fourteen days, all they see is a DS. So if they need to change their mics, they're hooded. They're hooded and they get changed and not allowed to talk to anyone. We don't want to sort of keep them in that bubble. Um, you know, and you don't want to break that bubble at all. So that's that's one that's quite unique. It's like a Big Brother scene. So when we're, when they're on the base, there are cameras everywhere. Um, I mean, it's when you start seeing the friction between some of the um, some of the contestants. And then, then we have like um, uh, it's like an interrogation room. It's very similar to this, actually. We have a mirror behind us with this cameras. I mean, the person there and then we just, they're tired and they're hungry. And then we start talking, asking them questions.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  And we may bring stuff up on social media from their past and then, you know, and then they start breaking down really. And that's, that's what people, it's a reality TV show. I I enjoy doing it. It was a good experience. Um, and it was my first exposure uh to TV, which then went perfectly on to the next one.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  I was researching the TV show and you started with seventeen people. Um, ten people voluntarily withdrawn, which is quitting, right?

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Jocko Willink?

  Is the people, some of the people that that voluntarily withdrew, Olympic swimmer, Olympic diver, an actor, a rugby player, a comedian, a singer slash actor and a model. People are a little, you know, okay, I get a singer, an actor or comedian, whatever, but Olympic swimmer. I mean, that person has definitely put in some work and Olympic diver, anyone that's a rugby player. So when you, were you surprised when people would quit?

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting to see what people's breaking points are. I actually talk about, um, I do a lot in the, in the, in the fitness area and I call it clean PT and dirty PT. So a lot of these, everyone has this, everyone thinks there's a lot of synergy and crossover between professional sports people in the special forces community. Yes, there, there is certain crossovers. There's actually a lot of differences as well. So here in the US, you know, you have a professional footballer, he, he, he has to play sixty minutes. Yeah, that's why sixty minutes, you know, easy sixty minutes. So he, he basically knows that all I need to do today is perform for sixty minutes. On the build up to that, you know, he's, he's having a good diet, you know, he's, he's, when he finishes that game, he's gonna have a good shower. He's gonna have physio.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  Massage.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Massage, his calorific intake's gonna be on point, you know, everyone's monitoring hi- his diet. You know, his motivations are money, the crowd, things like that. Take them into a special forces environment, you got no one cheering you on, you know, you don't know, um.

• 1:16:54Jocko Willink?

  When it's gonna end.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  When it's gonna end, you know, you may, you, your calorific intake is low, your, your sleep deprivation is low. And so there's a lot of differences between the special forces community. A special forces guy could quite happily go into this professional sports, uh, people's environment. It's very difficult going the other way around. So I, I, I call it the clean PT and dirty PT. And there's a whole, there's a whole book in itself probably on that.

• 1:17:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Jocko Willink?

  And. You also had some people medically withdrawn. There's another term that's in that show. It's called cold. Cold like

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  Cold.

• 1:17:26Jocko Willink?

  Like you call like weak animals.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  So were these people that you guys got rid of? Like you're allowed to say you're out?

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think we, and they also they give, they let the students choose as well. You know, sometimes we, we play mind tricks and then it's like, right. We'll pull them in and say, right, who do you think is the weakest person? Who do you, who, because we, we will only see a certain amount. You know, we won't see what's happening on behind, behind closed doors. Um, you know, I remember once when I was instructor on the commander course. Uh, we, we had a guy and we, we gave him the commander medal. We thought this guy was, I mean, some of the students came up to the after, said that guy was useless. When you weren't there, you know, we call them DS watchers, you know, when you're there, they're, they're, they're performing. And so that's why we give them an opportunity. It's like, right, you know, you tell us what, or who do you think shouldn't be here and, and why?

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  And they, they may see something we haven't seen, which is quite, is quite good. Now we do it on, on our special forces selection, we, we have the, the, the, the, the jungle phase, which is six weeks, you know, four weeks in the jungle. And so naturally, you're, you know, there's people that don't get on well with each other. So you may have a rub in with your DS and might not see eye to eye. But what they then do is they make sure they swap instructor for the final week, for the final missions. And because i- if there is any of that sort of, um, relationship breaking down, you know, it gives him an opportunity to say, right? Yeah, I agree. Or actually I, I, I disagree as well.

• 1:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And the, the Rangers do this and they, they actually have incorporated some of this into SEAL training now where they, you force rank everyone in your class.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:01Jocko Willink?

  Where they say, yep, there's 20 guys left in our class right now. Here's the number one guy and here's the number 20 guy. And they're looking at it. They don't make any hardcore decisions. It's not like, oh, Echo's the bottom guy. And we, everyone thinks Echo's the bottom guy. We're getting rid of him. But it just allows a little bit more, like you said, for the instructors to go, oh, okay. So, and, and there's going to be some kind of a trend, if there's some kind of a trend.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause look like, oh yeah, I don't like Echo, but you like Echo and it kind of all comes out in the wash. That's all good. But if there's, everyone hates Echo, it's like, hmm, maybe we should pay attention to Echo. So that's, it just gives a little bit of awareness to the instructors. But I know in Ranger School, American Ranger School, they, you can peer someone out. So if all of us don't like Echo, we're like, hey, get, put Echo as the bottom. If we all get along, today Echo is going to be the last, the bottom guy. Cause you have to force rank them all the time, like regularly. And then tomorrow I'll be, hey, everyone rank me at the bottom. And then we rank you at the bottom the day after that. So that way we all stay. Because we're taking care of each other, but it's really easy. I think it's called peering someone out. You can peer someone out in Ranger School.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  So it sounds like you could peer someone out in, in the SAS TV program.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we could peer someone out and, and you know, there, there's some that literally, especially when we know what's coming, it's like, you know, you're on your last, you're on your last legs. Actually, you've performed well, you know, leave now, but they would, they would either voluntarily withdraw. Or we may get to a stage actually like, we've got too many. So, which is why I said, it's almost like a reality TV show. There's an element of it's the truth, but actually, you know, and they're screaming and shouting at them, you know, our, our, our special forces selection, no one shouts at you. No one needs to shout at you. So, you know, but again, it's that, that authenticity and entertainment, uh, needle.

• 1:20:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what's interesting about SEAL training is there's some guys yelling, scream at you. And some guys wouldn't. The guys that wouldn't scream at you were way more horrible and, and sadistic. You know, the guy that would just walk over and be like, go ahead and get down on the ground. You're like, oh no.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Jocko Willink?

  The guy's, you're like, okay, cool. You're gonna yell at me, but it's all good. And some people would be intimidated by that. Some people wouldn't. But the guy that just comes over and goes, hey, I need to talk to you. You're like, damn, this is gonna hurt. And the people that passed, I guess this thing, where you had a motorsports presenter, a rugby player, and a women's rugby player.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Women's rugby player, yeah.

• 1:21:24Jocko Willink?

  Bro, women's rugby? Is they don't they don't change any rules. It's just on. Where I live, they play women's rugby sometimes and out in the fields. And you drive by there, dude, they get after it. And male, I mean, man rugby, of course, right? Like you, did you play rugby?

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  I played rugby, yeah.

• 1:21:42Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I went to a rugby game and look, I get it. I'm a little bit more mature right now than I used to be in terms of age. But I watched that game. I'm like, dude, every interaction, I was cringing thinking, oh, ACL, oh, PCL. Like, it just is gnarly.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  It's gnarly. We we we're not allowed to play sports in the special forces because you, because there's so many injuries. Anyway, they can't afford to then you guys having sports injuries. But there's dispensation. There's one rugby match a year and it's SES versus the SBS.

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  We must just murder each other.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, yeah. And it's literally, we have a thing called.

• 1:22:20Jocko Willink?

  What's it called? Dispensation?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Dispensation is basically he's being greenlit from direct to special forces. And this, these guys can play, play one, one game together. And we have a thing called the Oracle where both units come together in in December. And we spend a week together. Anyone who's not on operations or deployments will be at the Oracle. And you talk about operations throughout the year with with the units, lessons learnt, the future, the special forces. Everyone is in there. And then we go, then we have the rugby match. But the England rugby team train the guys, you know, the two, two teams over the next sort of two weeks. And and they fly, they fly you in from wherever you are. And if you're a rugby player, you're playing. I remember, I remember literally passing selection about two days before and you're on the team.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  And and it is gnarly. Oh, yeah, guys, stitches in their eyes. I remember one of the scientists like, you know, swallowed his tongue. But we, it got to the point where I remember one year going to Hereford. And these two big Fijians were coming off this helicopter. And I'm like, you're not in the special forces. But they, what they were doing, there was anyone attached to the special forces were coming in. So in the end, we said, no, you have to be badged. And and the origins of that game came from two thousand and three. They had the Australia will cup, rugby will cup. And the SES had sent a team over, the British SES, the SBS sent a team over, the Australian SES had a team, New Zealand SES and the South Africans.

• 1:23:44Jocko Willink?

  Ooh.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  And they they went and had a rugby tour around. Yeah, and then and then what they did, they continued that tradition that the SES and SBS would would play every year.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  Who won the who won the big one with all five?

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Um, I actually don't know who won that one. No, I don't know. I'll find out then.

• 1:23:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause I mean, New Zealand's full on. It seems like they would have an advantage, right?

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, then the Aussies, the Aussies, I actually thought the Australians, like rugby was their biggest one. Actually, you've got cricket and I don't even see an Australian rules football.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's gnarly as well. Yeah, that's another gnarly one. So actually, I mean, they have rugby league, uh, uh, rugby unions like their third or fourth sport. But yeah, but as you're right, the All Blacks, the Kiwis.

• 1:24:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  They're they're they're literally born with a rugby ball in their hands.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah. We got a guy working at Origin right now, Leo. He's from, he's he's from New Zealand and he played rugby, like pro rugby, yeah, all day. Uh, the like, I was, I was just saying that the people that won was like a motorsports presenter, a rugby player and a women's rugby player.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Did you, as you're watching this stuff, cause you were an instructor in in selection and you get to, you know, learn about people, see their breaking point.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Jocko Willink?

  What similarities or differences did you see with these civilians?

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Um, I I think for me was their motivations, you know, I I always find on selection, you know, what is your motivation for being on on selection? I don't know. It's like, um, like here in the U in the U S, but I know there's some guys, when I went on selection, there was guys there who literally from the age of five or six, always wanted to be a Royal Marine or Parachute Regiment and go SES or SBS. That's literally their their lifelong dream. You know, I actually fell into the military by accident and ended up in this position by accident. So I never put myself under that self-induced pressure. But these guys would. Would go on and you know, some of them would only go on because their dad or their brothers were in and they didn't have any other choice, which I don't think is the right motivation. Because when it's hard, as you know, you you need to to dig deep.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  And so um for me, these guys, some of them, when they failed, and that's literally what they've always wanted to do all their life, you know, they would end up leaving the military, you know. Um, so for me, was it was it was the motivations, you know, some people were either to prove themselves or to their families and and these these contestants that we had, they all had different backstories. And there's one, you know, someone who were heartbroken, there was the, I think it was the diver, the girl, and she was, she was a ninja, she literally just, she she got, in the end, we did break and yeah, and she she voluntarily withdrew, but I didn't think she was gonna stop. But, you know, her sister committed suicide, you you didn't hear about that until until you had her in the interview room and and things like that, and so she was doing it for her sister and someone.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  What made her quit?

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  She just couldn't keep up with the the pace in the end, but it it uh in fact, we had a a MIB, you know, the medium inflatable boats, and they were they were doing, pushing them above her head, and actually, remember, they dropped it on her head. And so I think she had a bit had a bit of an injury. And then she also had, she she was still a professional diver, she had competitions coming up as well, you know, had a pro boxer in there who did his shoulder, and it's like, you know, there there's an element of, right, this is just a TV show, you know, I do have a career outside of here. Um, so for me, it was more their their motivations, but the yeah, the the the the female rugby girl you touched on, then she was strong, honestly, she was stronger than the guys. And I and I used to always to wind the guys up, you know what I mean? But um, yeah, whatever their motivations were, but again, there there were, you know,

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  as you know, it's it's it's eighty percent mental, twenty percent physical. Um, and it was good to see see that sort of crossover.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, one thing, you know, the guy that has wanted to be a SEAL his whole life, and some other guy that just like, oh, my ex-girlfriend said I couldn't make it. And you don't know which one of those guys is gonna make it, because somebody's just like, oh, my dad thinks I'm a loser, I'm gonna be a SEAL, and that's enough for him? Someone else is like, their their grandfather, you know.

• 1:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Ran out on the family and he's gonna make it to prove him wrong like it just it just really Do you actually want to do that job if you really want to make it for whatever that freaking reason is like some people you need to be patriotic you need to be doing it for selfless sacrifice and service and all that's some dudes like no dude my girlfriend dumped me for a seal when I was 20 and now I'm gonna go be one like that's the kind of stuff you don't you can't tell you can't tell what's gonna what's gonna get someone through and how far they're gonna make it only they know

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah and also where they've come from as well you know a lot of them come from humble beginnings you know I remember

• 1:28:12Jocko Willink?

  You know it's true but for me it's the same the people that I've seen like you'll end up you you'll have a guy I knew guys in the SEAL teams that that were from billion dollar families billion dollar families in the SEAL teams and of course I knew guys that you know grew up in foster care in foster homes and never had two nickels to rub together and and so both those ends of the spectrum you would get guys that would make it you'd also get guys from both those ends of the spectrum that wouldn't make it

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  So I always say there's no rhyme or reason but sorry I cut you off

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  No no we had a we had a remind me of an officer we had in five nine commando Kamal Kahoon I think his name was you know again from from money and he would donate you know for the love of the job he would donate his wages to charity every month and we were like what about charity starts here the guys the guys are all skinned but no I think I think you're right there's those you know some come from humble beginnings and some literally that's all they've they've wanted to do or they wanted to test themselves like for me I only joined the army because my father told me to last two minutes and I then never look look back you know I did I always wanted to be a fireman I didn't want to be in the military so yeah people have different motivations and end up on the that finishing line

• 1:29:23Jocko Willink?

  Crazy so now you went from that TV show and so when did you get done filming that one

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  So we we were filming that in September, October of of twenty twenty one and then it aired in something like January, February twenty twenty two.

• 1:29:40Jocko Willink?

  So when did this next TV show come together?

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  So when I was uh when I was doing the bike ride, and you mentioned Prince Harry earlier, Prince Harry and I did a promo video together uh at Kensington Palace to really sort of promote the the bike ride. And there was a woman there, Ashley, who was with that production company. She now works with another production company called Emporium, and they have a show on Netflix called Inside World's Toughest Prisons, where the guy goes around the world and you know, he's an ex-convict himself, and he goes into all these prisons and he sees the the difference, the differences. And I think that's on like season seven. So she, they were then wanted to do something about the forces. And so she always remembered me from that interview with Harry. And so she reached out to to me and uh to Alana um about three years ago,

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  and it and it was just before I'd finished, before I'd started filming SES Australia. And she said, look, we're looking at doing this show. Do you think Dean would be interested? We we can we put his name in the hat? And Alana said, yeah, of course. And we didn't hear anything of it. So then mum's passed and then we got a phone call and she said, look, you know, Dean's gone from a hundred and fifty candidates in the UK down to one. And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense, because I I literally, I've only just finished filming SES Australia. So so why would they choose me? And there were some big names in there from the UK in the military community. And they said, oh, no, he looks like he's he's one of the fittest. And I said, so what what is the concept of the show? And I thought, am I doing selection eight times a year over? And so they they

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  presented my name to to Netflix and said, this is this is our host. And Netflix came back and said, we're thinking more of an American, because it's Netflix Hollywood. And so um I was then told that I had to fly to Dallas in November uh November twenty one, which is great timing, because I'd just finished filming in Australia. And so I was actually now quite comfortable in the camera. And I I flew out to to Dallas and I met four other, two two Navy SEALs there, one was Ryan Bates, uh him and his pal. Actually, it's his pal they approached originally, and he asked Ryan to come along, which is um there was a a Green Beret and a uh. Marine Raider, I think it was, Marine Raider guy. And so we went out and we were doing a bit of

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  go ruck, a bit of PT, having a barbecue, and it's basically all about chemistry. You know, see how you guys get on. And then so when I came back, you know, and Paul and I were like, what's your forte? And Ryan and I sort of really hit off. I said, Ryan seems to be cool. So then it was Ryan. Ryan was then selected and we're gonna have two hosts. And then right at the 11th hour, so you talk about Top Gear, the commissioner for the show commissioned Top Gear back in 2005, and he said, two hosts doesn't work. We need a full guy. You need a third person. So right in the 11th hour, they're like, right. So we found these two guys, they're two YouTubers, and one of them was a guy called Cameron, he's a Ranger, he, you know, he did

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  four years and got out, but his YouTube channels are based on military equipment and he reviews the stuff. And so, and you know, this guy's quite confident. No, for me and Ryan, we're all old, old dog veterans and you stick a camera in front of us and we start, you know, turning away from it. This guy is very confident in front of the camera. He's got a nose ring in and everything. I'm like, is this for Pope Idol or is this for toughest forces on earth? But actually, yeah, he was really good. And so I didn't really understand how the dynamics would work. But then actually, when we started filming, I get it. And I think it was a good decision to go from one, two, to the three.

• 1:33:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so you guys, and Ryan is, I knew him from the teams and he's just a freaking, just a freaking outstanding, freaking outstanding dude. And you guys end up traveling. So the, so the theory of the show is, is you're, it's sort of like the inside the prison thing, but this, you're going to go inside of, for lack of a better way of saying it, various special operations units from different countries around the world.

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. Basically, we go to eight countries around the world. We visit eight special forces units and we showcase what's unique. About that unit, whether it's geographically where their place, what the threats are to them as a nation, or just the environment that they operate in. You know, we did everything from the Arctic to the desert to the jungle. And, and I call it Top Gear with guns. You know, we can't call it Top Guns because that's already gone. But that's pretty much the concept. And, and we, and we go to these countries and we get immersed in their training. We do training with them for a week, and then they showcase, you know, all the different things that they do. And then we then do a, a mission profile at the end, a, a final mission. And so, um, for

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  me, the reason I wanted to do it was because I had an intrigue about other military. When I was in, I knew about the SEALs, I knew about Delta Force, um, the SES and the SPS, you know, and maybe a couple of other units. I wasn't aware about all these special forces units around the world. And also the influence that the UK and US have had on all of them. You know, when you go there and you're training with them, you're like, I'm, I'm, these TTBs aren't, aren't far from ours. You know, like when we went to Philippines, uh, the NAVSOM, uh, group there. No, Ryan spent a year with them.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, we've been training thems for, since NOM, you know, since we left Vietnam, we've been training the, the Filipinos.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we went out to Colombia to hungar our police and they're like, their, their crest has got the, the unicorn and the lion, which is very British. And yeah, it turns out the SES were the first ones to go out. So, so that's what I was, I was interested in. And also, you know, for me personally, my, my kids think I'm, I'm stolen valor, I think, you know, or a Walter Mitty, because they were all born post military. Like dad wasn't in the military. So, so for me, it was like more to showcase, uh, to them. And, and personally, you know, I got injured out in 2011, you know, could I, what is the skill fade? Do we, do I still have it? And so, yeah, that, that, that was cool for me.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  How'd you feel?

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  Feel strong. Yeah, I feel strong. And, um, you know, I just see on the show, you know, uh, and I, I, and I'm very competitive. So I wouldn't let Ryan and Cameron beat me on anything physical, you know, even if it killed me off camera, it was an icon clip.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  But for me, again, it's, you know, I was having, I was proper rubbing, banging heads with the with the production because I now understand production and they're like, yeah, but we don't really need to do that. We can cut that. And I think about, no, it needs to be done correctly. I said, I don't care what 99.99% of the world see. I'm worried about what 30 of my best friends from my unit see because they are watching this with a sniper's eye and a scope on top of that. So.

• 1:36:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've watched a couple of episodes to check it out. And yeah, seen, so Ryan was like, he's younger than me. He's probably like, he's younger than me. But I remember when I read, yeah, when I read, so I'm fifth, so I'm 10 years older than him. So when I retired, I was like, you know, I'd look at the teams, you know, and you think, I was, I was all stoked that a guy like Ryan was in there. And then he ended up getting out and I was, I had a tear in my non shooting eye when he got out. Because, you know, because it was gonna hurt. So you guys, you guys went to Jordan. Yes. That's where you kicked it off, I guess. Is that where you started?

• 1:36:49Jocko Willink?

  Out there in the desert. And, you know, what was crazy is you had, you had to find these guys and you had to like, you had thermal. And that just is such a game changer, man.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:37:00Jocko Willink?

  Not fair anymore.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  It's not fair anymore. Like you said, the first thing was a hunter force, me to chase down Cameron and Ryan. And what I really surprised me about this show, you know, I got out in 2011, Ryan wasn't long after me. But the advance in technology in such a short period of time, you know, one of my biggest surprises was the weight of the body armor. I'm like, I remember you were, and you remember first generation kit. Now it's just, I'm like, is this, is this a training one? Or is this a swimmers one? I said, no, this is actually full ballistic. I'm like, oh, my word. And that was a great thing about Cameron. Because me and Ryan, you know, I used to joke that when I was in tier one, I'd just get like, the signalers to dress me and just go out the door. And he was

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  like, you know, he would show us about all this new equipment. And he was fully averse with all. So that was a big surprise for me. But the. But yeah, the show, the first, actually, the first episode they aired was Jordan. The first episode we filmed was actually USA, which is number eight. And, and what was unique about that is Alana gave birth to my daughter twenty four hours before I went and filmed the first episode, which, which, which was hard. Because, you know, when you're in the, when you're in the units and you have to deploy, you have to deploy, you know, you, you, and then we'd literally, you know, we, but we couldn't move the show because we, we weren't working on productions time. We were working on these units time and these units of, you know, they're, they're still got their other training and their operations. They literally had to fit us in. So we didn't have any, any,

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  um, um, any fudge in the system. And so, yeah, um, she gave birth to Harley and then twelve hours later, I was on a flight over to, to Destin.

• 1:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  For two weeks.

• 1:38:36Jocko Willink?

  And what's the filming schedule like when you're out there? So you spend a week doing training and then another week doing like the full mission profiles and stuff?

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  No, so it, it, it tends to be about seven to ten days filming. Uh, normally a day of setting up, um, then we meet the guys and then we just do all the, all the various, the training exercises. Uh, I mean, it tends to be about the full mission profiles on, on about two days, two days long. So it varied from country to country, you know, like Jordan, we had a bit more time where Sweden, you know, and that, that was the thing, that was tough about this show. People say what was tough for me. There wasn't anything that I did particularly that I thought was tough because a lot of this stuff, everything I'd done, I'd done before, apart from the swamp survival in, in Malaysia. I've never seen anything like that. But you, you're going from, we were filming in Sweden in minus

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  thirty, uh, doing a sea course up there. Um, and then coming back to the US and then a week later, you're in Colombia in plus twenty seven, plus thirty degrees in the jungle. So it wasn't so much what we were doing, it was the impact and the effect it was having on, on the bodies. You know, I think Ryan and Cameron, they got, uh, DMV, diarrhea and vomiting four times in, in, in the different countries. And so, yeah, that, that was, that was tough. And then also understanding, uh, production, understanding us and us understanding production, you know, for me, I was just like, I was just stoic. I just, I just did everything I did. I, you know, every, the, the way I carried myself, I just wanted to make sure, you know, I was doing it correctly. Cause for me, you know, we had really good balance

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  because you have Ryan and Cameron flying the US flag and there's me on my own flying, flying the UK flag. So there's that initial, there's that, that competition and, and camaraderie as well. So it was fun. It's like being back in the teams. And the banter as well and Ryan, I just don't think Ryan has an off button. He just keeps, he just thought it was a, and in fairness to Ryan, I think the showrunner, last thing the showrunner used to say was, remember be funny. And I'm like, what are we doing a comedy? You know, I used to like joke and then but Ryan would would play on it. He would, he would love it. Yeah. And it is a really, it's a really good balance between the three. I'm like this grumpy Jeremy Clarkson, who's like, I'm just giving you the details and this is why we do it. Um, and then there's Ryan clowning around and then there's Cameron who's just like, yeah.

• 1:40:49Jocko Willink?

  Was there any like crazy mishaps or anything?

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Um, no real cra-.

• 1:40:55Jocko Willink?

  That's good. I mean, I, cause I was watching it and you know, you're anytime you're doing fast roping, anytime you're doing patrolling, anytime you're driving vehicles, you get knuckleheads driving vehicles, which were all knuckleheads. Like, oh, how fast can this thing go? Let's find out. So I was thinking, man, if they made it through whatever it is, eight different groups and didn't like hurt anybody, I'd be pretty impressed.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  We had a few injuries. No, Ryan tore his bicep in the Philippines. I like to say it was something sexy. It was playing basketball, which is their favorite sport. You know, I, I dislocated my thumb in the killing house in Austria, you know, you'd fall over. I mean, I did the spy rig, you know, what, what's injured, you know, the nature of the job is dangerous anyway. You know, we, in the SBS, we used to have more fatalities and injuries in training than actually on operations. If you train for real, but for me, you know, I'd done that before, which is fine. But then you're going to some of these countries where their health and safety standards aren't the, the same as ours.

• 1:41:48Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I saw like a trailer and it's one of those things where you're basically shooting or it's, it's a shooting drill. It looked like they're shooting.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  Live fire.

• 1:41:57Jocko Willink?

  Live fire at each other.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  What, what?

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was in Malaysia with the G G K. I remember the showrunner came over and he said, ah, Dean, apparently these guys, the S E S taught them this. And I was like, really? But it was back in the seventies, the S E S used to do that as a, as a training exercise. And then they, they've obviously gone out, no, cause the G G K, um, is the green beret. So they worked a lot of the Royal Marines. That's how they, they built their, um. The recognition. And so, yeah, it was actually stemmed from the UK. I was like, really? I said, I've not done that before. But yeah, these guys were, as a confidence test, would would fire and they'd hold paddles next to their head or between their legs. And, and so I think that was the only one we decided that we weren't gonna do, um, uh, of of all the exercises. Um, but yeah, we, uh, you know, I took, I, I just gave my

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  shoulder on the spy rig. Uh, there's nothing I could do. I had to go pro in one hand. But and the only reason for that is because, you know, the Malaysians are about four foot two, you know, their tallest guy. And so you're in a harness on the, on this thing. And so, so yeah, there, there were injuries along the way. But, um, yeah, we, it's, it's, say, we, we had a little bit of downtime.

• 1:43:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, being in the military is very abusive on your body. I mean, you're just doing stuff all the time. Whether, I, I remember I was a new guy and I was, we were doing ship boarding from, from helos, right? So we're doing fast ropes.

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:19Jocko Willink?

  And I'm a radio man. And so I got my body armor on and I got my radio on. And at this time, you did not put your feet on the rope. It was like, if you put your feet on the rope, you were a coward. And so, what no one told me is, don't put your feet on your, on the rope unless you're a radio man and you have an extra thirty pounds. So I would just come out and just basically fall thirty feet to the deck of the ship, fall down, get up and go set security.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:46Jocko Willink?

  So stupid, so dumb. And eventually people realized, hey, you're no good if you fast rope onto the ship and hit the ground and freaking blow your knee out. You can't do the assault. So, yeah, we do some dumb stuff. And just, like I said, you do enough fast ropes, you do enough rappels, you do enough jumps, you do enough whatever, hook and climbs, just everything that we do, running through the desert, night vision, carrying a down guy. A rough terrain, like you're gonna have injuries.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:18Jocko Willink?

  And it's a pretty, that's why for you guys to do all that and get relatively minor injuries is pretty impressive.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it was. Yeah, we put our body, our bodies through it. But like I said, I think the, the toll was just those different environments. But funny you say that. When you look at the Malaysia one, I fast roped in with my legs open because that's the way I was taught. And so, um, you know, and Ryan's like showing off as that. But no, when I, when we did it, we had our legs open because we had to see uh be- be- be- between them. And so, um, but yeah, again, but we also had military advisors from each of the, you know, they were also watching as well. Because they want to be coming across quite well. Because this, what I think is great about this show, remember US, the first episode we filmed, it's last episode is US Navy EOD. And the guy called Craig Jungers, he was like the, the training officer. And I remember when we turned up, they were quite nervous.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  Cause they were basically told you're, you're doing this. You know, I think other than Top Gun, this is probably the, hopefully their biggest recruitment thing. So they were, they were nervous, guys weren't unsure. They also weren't, didn't have anything to reference from. Cause it's the first season. So what is it you guys are trying to do? Uh, cause we, we did, we had other countries lined up like Japan, Brazil, Greece, and Japan didn't, Japan thought we were going to potentially make them look bad. And that wasn't the purpose of the show. But like I said, US Navy took the risk and the gamble, and they loved it. And it's paid off for them. So recruitment's at an all time low around the world. Apart from the US Marine Corps, I think still, still hitting their numbers. And so for me, if we have a season two, I, I, I said to, to Craig, I think you guys, you know, you took a risk, took a gamble, it's paid off.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  If we have a season two, the US Army, Air Force, everyone, everyone's going to be knocking on the doors. Cause this is a great recruitment platform for them.

• 1:45:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, EOD is a pretty, a relatively unknown entity in the, in the US Navy. And especially the part of the EOD that. Comes and works with special operations. I mean, the EOD guys that we had that come to the SEAL teams, like they go through your whole workup with you. They're in the train and they're on the assaults. They're doing everything.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  They're swimming.

• 1:46:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, they're doing everything. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty awesome job, but it's relatively unknown. And it's also, I mean, a job where you're walking up to bombs and disarming them. It's sketch in many cases.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  I, I interviewed Craig afterwards, um, did some interviews with him on a podcast. And he was explaining to me that actually, and you don't really think about, they have to diffuse everything from a grenade to a nuclear weapon. And everything in between. And whether that's on land or underwater, I'm like, oh my God. So actually, I think he was telling me from the time you step into the recruitment office or you're going through it's four years. Before you even enter, that's probably the longest process I've ever heard.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that might, that might be the longest.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  It's nary. Because the air force, American air force, special operations guys, their school is really long, but it's also, it's kind of spaced out where you go to like this training and you make it through that and then you're kind of waiting around for the, the next school to start up. And then you go through that and then you wait for the next school to start up. So there's a lot of start and stop. I don't know if EODs like that or not. The, the SEAL pipeline is just like, you're in it and you're just going to go and you can't get rolled back, which I guess can hold you up. So in the midst of all this, uh, kind of newfound, this, this television type stuff. You also went down the path of the, the plant medicine thing.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:47Jocko Willink?

  How'd that come about?

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  So that sort of came about by accident with, with my bike ride. I, um, when I did the bike ride, we did it for a mental health campaign. Um, and it wasn't just, it was just veteran mental health. It was everything for that whole society, post mental depression, young children, teenagers. And so when I, you know, when Harry would ask if I would do it for mental health, I always, all of a sudden became a mental health advocate. And because of the success of that, we raised, you know, we raised over a million dollars for the charities. Um, I was always banging on the message about physical activity helps your mental state. I didn't really know much about, uh, the mental health space. But because of the success of that, you know, the world records and everything we did, you know, I ended up becoming. This mental health ambassador, especially for the for the veteran community.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  So when we came over here, Alana, my wife, she she wrote a book called How to Ask for Money. She's not scared in in in asking for money. And and the reason for that is, you know, and and the way best to explain it, she helps a lot of veterans on their transition. Because we we come from an environment where, you know, when we were planning operations in Afghan or Iraq and you need, you know, you need two Black Hawks, you need a spec, the gunship, you need UAV, you need fast air, you need thirty guys. No one gives you a bill in the military, you know, it's million dollars operations automatically done for you. So you spent your career doing that and then you then entered the world of corporate, which is totally alien to us. And so for me, I never used to feel comfortable talking about money.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  So Alana would always do the the contracts and because also as well with somebody.

• 1:49:24Jocko Willink?

  You were obviously not very clear about it because you did that evacuation in Libya for seven thousand dollars.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:30Jocko Willink?

  You should have had her run the run the invoices on that one.

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, she she she's still still that makes me suffer for that. But the thing is, I I, you know, from our background, I I don't see a price on the person's head. I don't see the value of that. Alana comes from a corporate world and she's like, no, you know, there is a price. Because the problem is, if you if you say, right, this is the price, and then you actually go do it, you know, it's after the fact, they're like, well, you know, I probably don't want to pay that. So she sort of takes all that away from me. So she deals with all the contracts. I never deal with, you know, with with clients on that. But when with a how to ask for money, you know, on my bike ride, I'd never cycled more than twenty miles before I applied for the World Record. She got me half a million pound sponsorship for that challenge. And I mean, raise over a million dollars a a along the way. And so she has her own formula, it's called MAPS.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Um, you know, she, you know, she she she understands it, you know.

• 1:50:23Jocko Willink?

  What's MAPS stand for?

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I'll have to get her on. Yeah, yeah, I don't know that one. But it's a but basically, whether it's in nonprofit or we've seen corporate, it's all about the mindset and the and the and the approach and stuff. And so, um. Because of that, because of the success of that, and she also now got honoured the MBE from King Charles last year for her services to vulnerable women in human trafficking and also mental health awareness because of the money that she's raised. So that sort of really given her that credibility. And for me, I think I was more happier than herself, more proud of than herself, because everyone sees me doing the stuff and always say that, you know, she's working behind the scenes. So for me, that she'd been recognised for all that hard work that she does do. So going back to the question about the plant medicine,

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  she now works with some of the nonprofits in helping them, working with their development directors and helping them achieve their targets for the year. So, you know, she helps them, trains them for 12 months, hits their targets and lets them go off on their own. So one of them approached her called Heroic Hearts. They heard about me, Heroic Hearts UK, they heard that I was in the US and they said, look, you know, you guys are big in the mental health and the veteran space. Would you want to come on board in the Sisters? And so for me, I didn't know anything about plant medicine. You know, I've never even taken any recreational drugs in my life, never smoked before in my life at all. And so we were looking at doing ayahuasca last year. You're just going right in for it.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So looking at doing ayahuasca last year. Like, did you, what was driving you to feel like you needed to do that? Yeah, so, so having had some conversations with people, I'm very fortunate, I don't have PTSD, I don't have any, any addictions. But now and then, I would always see this red mist, just maybe two or three times a year, just out of nowhere. And where it would happen would be like, for example, if I'm in Israel or Afghanistan or Libya, Somalia, Yemen, all these places, I'm more comfortable in a crisis or in those situations. It's when I come back to the Western world and people are arguing about the smallest of things, the nifnaf and trivia, or people.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  Beeping their horns at me. That's when I see red. There was an incident back in Scotland. I was dropping my daughter off in nursery and I was pulling out and the guy behind me was just banging his horn. And so I just got out and I just pulled him through the window. And then all of a sudden the red mist and there's nothing you can do to intervene. And then the red mist lifted and I just like apologize. I just come from nowhere. I don't know where there's something underlying. And so Alana used to always mention this to me. So for me as well is I've been banging the drum about physical activity. Now, I've been going to some of these conferences as well on the stage and for me, I wanted to almost at least try it. To then at least have a foot at the table or a seat at the table to then explain my experiences and how it can benefit people.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  So yeah, I was asked to do ayahuasca, but with ayahuasca, you have to, there's a, there's a build up phase to it as well. You know, you need to be coming off caffeine and all these other stuff. If you're on any medications, coming off that. And then you have the process which can be between six and eight days. And then you have the integration. Well, for me last year when we were filming, it just, there was no way I could find a week in the calendar. But also the production company got wind, you know, Ryan and I were chatting about it and, and Cameron, you know, cause it's quite, you know, prevalent. Everyone talks about it here on this side of the world. And yeah, one of the production got wind of it and they rang Alana and said, look, you know, Dean's doing illegal drugs. And Alana's like, he hasn't done anything. But again, UK, you know, marijuana is illegal. So for them, they're not really, don't really understand it.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  So I, I, I put it aside. I said, look, you know, I'm, I'm not going to do it. I'll, I'll address it later. So Alan and I have a podcast called Behind the Scene and it's a play on words, S W E N. And so we get people on board, you know, people that the world sees. And then we bring their partners on, you know, and, you know, talk about the success stories and how, how you can both have a relationship together and still be successful. And unfortunately, a lot of women have to put their careers on hold, you know, to have a family. And then there can be resentment where the husband's been successful and then they're not. So we sort of showcase that. But we had a couple on called Marcus and Amber Capone. You know, Marcus. Yeah, I've had both. They were on this podcast. Yeah, who run the Vet Solution. So I remember we were interviewing them and Amber talks about how Marcus had tried ayahuasca,

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  this psilocybin, and none of it was working. And she found out about I- Ibergain. So the difference in Ibergain and ayahuasca, the ayahuasca is like the grandmother of the plant medicine. The Ibergain is the grandfather, it's the masculine one. Um, so he went away and it's over a weekend. It's not done, you know, uh, over a period of week. He went away, came back on the Monday and she knew straight away that he was his, back to the, the guy that she fell in love with and started, you know, she started crying.

• 1:55:16Jocko Willink?

  Wait, which one was it from?

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Ibergain, from Ibergain.

• 1:55:19Jocko Willink?

  And wait, the Ibergain is the masculine one?

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Is the masculine one, yeah.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  And ayahuasca is the grandmother.

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  The Ibergain is the grandfather. So I was like, I, my ears pricked up, Alana's already kicking my ankle and I'm like, okay. And so for me, again, you know, I, I'm not a spiritual person, you know, I, I don't listen to podcasts and, and things like that. And I like to make my own decision, but I, I recognize, you know, I respected Marcus and, and what he'd done. And so when I finished filming Heroic Hearts, who Alana was now helping, uh, fundraiser for, um, Jesse Gould, who's the, the CEO. He said, look, I hear Ibergain is probably more suited for you. And I said, yeah, it is, you know, um, just purely because I can only afford a weekend off. And so he said, look, we have these four weekends, uh, coming up and one of them was literally, this was on the Friday, one of them was the following Friday. And I said, just lock me in. And I was like, okay.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  On the Saturday, Alana and I were at Coronado Island with Marcus and Amber for their vets conference, uh, that they had down there. And I was on the table with, uh, DJ Shipley, uh, another SEAL guy. And I had questions and I was asking, they'd done Ibergain. I was asking them questions, you know, for me, it's like, you know, I, I, when I'm doing challenges, you know, I, I like to go into a dark place and use that energy and, you know, and, and do it physically. I said, will I come back and not be able to do one pull up? And they're like, no, it cleans you out completely. And so they were answering, answering questions that I was asking and. I then went the following Friday, Alana dropped me off at the San Juan Capistrano train station.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  And even on the way there, I was like, I'm only doing this for you and the kids. I could see what I was doing. I was just, I'm not doing this for you. You know, for me, I'm doing it for you and the kids. And she knew what was happening. But she sent me down there. We then went across the border into Mexico. And the difference in ayahuasca, ayahuasca is very spiritual. It's in the environments, in the jungles and stuff, and you drink it. Ibogaine is clinical. You take two pills. You have an old EMT team there. You have doctors. They put intravenous into you. You have mercury to surround your heart because your heart slows down that much. It's so powerful. It's the most powerful psychedelic out there. So I went in with no expectations.

• 1:57:38Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever smoke pot before?

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  Never done anything, never even smoked before in my life, literally.

• 1:57:44Jocko Willink?

  This is what it would be like for me, because I've never done that.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  And everyone said, this is typical you, Dean. You've just literally gone in the deep end. But the, and this is the first time I've talked about this publicly. And one of the gentlemen on the table with DJ, with me, you know, he said to me, it's a thing called about leaning in. You've got to really lean into it. You're going to see fears. But he says, it's the same with going through the door in Afghanistan, Iraq. You don't want to go through the door, but you have to go in and get through the other end. So I sort of took all these points on board. I never, again, listened to podcasts, never listened to other people's perceptions and what they got from it, you know, so went in blind. And the Ibogaine lasts about six to 10 hours. I was in it for 20 hours. I was literally in this, in this, in this state.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  And for me, I remember starting, you take the pill and you lie in the bed, you put headphones on you, you have an eye mask and they start playing music. And, you know, I'd never had a baseline before because I'd never done any sort of recreational drugs. And the gentleman next to me starts purging, you know, because you can be sick. You're basically getting rid of some of the badness out of you. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm not in it. I haven't even started. And then all of a sudden, I just saw this spiral tiger coming in and this music playing. And then that was me gone for 20 hours. And literally, it's really hard to explain. It's almost like you've been invited to a. A movie premiere, but you're the only one in the audience because you're the only one who understands the language or what's coming across in front of you.

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  But it took me back to everything, my my childhood, being in a homeless home, fighting at a young age. Um, my father getting custody and it literally was just almost being like kicked in in in the bollocks. A hundred times over, literally all these messages, you know, these are messages you've seen. And so for me, it kept saying, no, try not be the entrepreneur, Alana knows what she's doing, you know, step aside, let her do that. Um, you know, for me, it was about being the protector and they said, look, we had to. Um, you join the military, you've got certain skills and I know I was and you can ask it questions. If you see something, you can ask it, you know, questions. What's it? Just what you're seeing, you can ask the medicine what it's in, you know, I don't know what it is you're showing me.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it'll maybe show you from another angle. And so for me, it was like, you know, I didn't want to leave the military after sixteen years, I I got injured out. And then the way it sort of presented it to me was like, you you you couldn't learn anymore. You know, the skill sets you got, you you had enough. And so, but then in the private security said, look what I've learned from that. And it had everything all the way to me, even seeing Elizabeth checking her phone in Israel. It it was it was power, it's hard to explain, but I came out eight pounds lighter. Um, but sorry, before that, you you um, they they had to come to me because that evening we had to then. So I went in on the Friday evening, seven o'clock on the Saturday evening, they they started giving me papaya and banana to get me uh off the medicine.

• 2:00:38Speaker 01

  Because at midnight, we were then gonna have to fast because the next day we were gonna have the D M T, which is the most powerful psychedelic, which is a. A a toad and like I said, I'd never even smoked before, so even the guy had to teach me how to smoke a pipe. And yeah, that experience is not as long as the other, it's like fifteen minutes. I remember someone being on Joe Rogan who did it and thought he was living under the sea for six months and had a family. It's like, it's the closest thing to. Who is that? I I can't remember his his name, I remember someone referenced me, but I ended up. I ended up back in my mother's womb. I could see myself in my mother's womb and then it felt like I was being born again. So for me, I had no, no reference point, no baseline.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  But came back almost, um, yeah, eight, eight pounds lighter and, and everything was a lot more clearer. You're, you're a bit more present. I was more present with the kids. I was a lot calmer. It's not to say you, you're not angry and it, it fixes everything, but it's almost like beforehand, it was like a light switch and I'd go from zero to, to 10 with a switch. Whereas this is a dimmer. And so you're aware of it. I mean, you just sort of then bring it back down, but it's, the medicine's only a small part of it. It's all the integration, the stuff you do afterwards. So for me, I, and but Alana picked me up from the, from the train station and she, she broke down in tears. She's like, I've got the dean that I knew from years ago. Um, and so from that point on, we, we said we would help in, in, in the veteran space. I think for me

• 2:02:04Speaker 01

  is almost being a conduit, especially to the, the, the guys in the UK. Um, but for the special forces communities that and I, and I was guilty as well. I, I see sort of like the beads and the hippie stuff around it and it sort of, sort of puts you off, which can be off putting for the community, but it's actually, uh, not like that at all. But, um, the fact that guys are going down to Mexico or Peru with suicide notes and coming back ripping them up, guys that have been on, um, medication for 10 and 12 years and not needing it again. Um, i- it is impactful. And you have lights of Dan Cretch or Dr. Huberman, everyone in Stanford.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  You know, really now trying to push this, um, through the VA. But then on the other side, you have the pharmaceuticals to see the success and then they're trying, the ibogaine comes from Africa. It's a, it's a plant. And they're trying to burn down the forests in, in, in, in Africa.

• 2:02:56Jocko Willink?

  Literally?

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  Literally.

• 2:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Why wouldn't they just turn it, if you have to take it as a pill, why wouldn't they just start making it and selling it and putting it in the pharmacies or the hospitals so you could do it?

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Because it, because if it's healing them, there's no financial gain for them. They want to keep you on the medication. That's the thing that people are going down and they're literally from full on addictions or being used to have medications and not needing it again.

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  And you were just like, hey, I'm not addicted to anything. I get mad three times a year.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I I didn't I didn't think I was gonna get much from it. I probably gained the most from the group. Again, I was I was more present, you know, beforehand, like, you know, I would never be in a room, a conversation with other people. I could never have eye contact. You know, people not they'd bore me. I would just be, I just wouldn't be present. Whereas now, I'm present, you know, this this was a bad thing as well is is is people rush back and go back into social media. Social media is is a tool, but it can be quite dark. So it's obviously, you know, and I come from an environment where I'm going into places and you've seen dark things. Um, so it's just that integration again. And so your brain is basically almost like cleared out and it's it's neuroplasticity. You're instilling new um,

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  new programs, you know, so get up, you know, whether you want to meditate, whether you want to spend time with your family, you know, it's just, it's yeah, there's lots of things I took away from it, you know, it wasn't so much about the anger thing. It's about being more more present with my family, more calmer.

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Is this happening in the UK as well?

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  So from the, no, not at all in the UK. So the UK, they will fly, you know, veterans to to Peru. But, you know, it's interesting. What they say is is to plant medicines. It's amazing how many people out there have done it, who at the moment is still as as a taboo. So not many people are talking about, but you know, some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, you know, your musks and things like that, they they've all been, they all do it. Um, we were actually, Alan and I were at a birthday party in Tapanga, um, uh, a couple of months ago, a friend's fiftieth, and she's she loved all the sound baths. She's very spiritual. And she put us on the table and she says, look, you know, I put you guys on, some of you are Brits, you know, academic wise, you got the same conversation.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  And I was chatting to someone and she talked about healing. And I said, oh, have you heard of Ibergains? She said, oh, yeah, I've done it three times. And literally, everyone on that table, all ten people had done. The plant medicine, but they didn't know, didn't realise. Um. So for, for me, it's, it's again, it's that's, it's at its early stages. I know, uh, the veteran, the, the SEAL, uh, vets are doing a lot in the SEAL community, heroic hearts, they're doing a lot in all the communities as well. And, and I'd really just trying to push it through and, and promote it. So I now sit on the board of heroic hearts and, yeah, I'll try and I'll keep banging the drum on this. But again, I only did this back in November. I'm still learning, but it just means that I have a seat at the table when

• 2:05:50Speaker 01

  I'm ta- chatting with some of these mental health experts. And I actually contradict what I said on the final bit is when I talk about physical activity helps your mental state, you know, post plant medicine, the way you best describe it is you're like a, you're like a, uh, a, a pan of water on a stove. And so the physical activity is taking the lid off. You know, it's releasing that steam, but you're putting the lid back on and so it's going to build up again. What the plant medicine does, it takes the hat, the pan completely off the stove. Uh, that's the biggest difference between them. So, so yeah, so I've been banging the drum about physical activity. It still works. It's a short term fix, but then this, this is a,

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  this is a long-term fix. So whether it's veterans, their spouses, their children, victims of human trafficking, um, yeah.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  It seems like I would be very nervous to do this kind of thing. I would, I would not, I think I have no desire to do this at all. Uh, and not that I'm against it because I know guys personally that have, it has helped them out a lot. So I'm super stoked for them.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:53Jocko Willink?

  But it seems like, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm not there. I'm not there.

• 2:06:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I, I think for me, what it did for me answered a lot of questions to the present day. It's literally said, you're on the path that you should be, you know, continue, you know, protect. Um, whereas some people go in and actually give them the path, the path forward. But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a scary environment, you know, it's not for everyone. And, and what I gathered from the time with mental health on the bike ride, when I was doing a lot there is actually seventy five percent of veterans, their mental health hasn't got anything to do with the time in the military. It's time prior to that's their childhood. It's just trigger points in the military. And so a lot of people here, it's not what they've experienced immediately. It's a lot of their childhood trauma, which some people don't want to see again.

• 2:07:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And a great example of that is, is Marcus, because he was, you know, especially when you hear it from his wife, Amber, she's, he was just a totally different person than who she married.

• 2:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:46Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 2:07:48Jocko Willink?

  You know, he came back. The so I know it's I know it's definitely helped out a lot of people. I'm not rolling down there to get it done. Ain't happening. So so what's next? What do you got on the what do you got on the on on the gamut for the future?

• 2:08:04Speaker 01

  So, yeah, we.

• 2:08:05Jocko Willink?

  You got something about an ocean row, right?

• 2:08:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So so for me, I like to keep myself physically physically active. So we obviously work in the human trafficking space, the mental health space. I always try to take a sport that I'd never done before. And now we will look at ocean rowing. It's not it's not that popular in the in the U S, but in the UK. It is quite popular. There's a famous race each December called the Taliska Whiskey Atlantic Crossing, and it starts in the Canary Islands and finishes in the in the Caribbean. And basically, it's a row across the Atlantic. And numerous teams get involved, four man teams, two man teams.

• 2:08:41Jocko Willink?

  Four man.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  Four man, two man teams, mixed, some people solo. But this year, they sorry, last year, they had the first one from Monterey to Hawaii. It's a race, you know, it's a good distance. Yeah. And so ocean rowing, people will start seeing more here.

• 2:08:58Jocko Willink?

  And these are just like super high speed rowboats, basically?

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  So really, the the the timing that they go in December, because, you know, the tides and the winds are in their favor. But sometimes it doesn't. If you if you have the winds against you, you have a thing called a sea anchor. It's like a parachute. You drop it in and then the wind pushes it back and stays static. And they're quite big boats as well. They have like two cabins, you know, you have your comms kit in one, your navigational stuff, you have a bed in the other.

• 2:09:24Jocko Willink?

  How long are they, generally speaking?

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Oh, depends if it's four or two man. Yeah, they're probably about, I'd say about good sixty feet, seventy feet, seventy five feet. Yeah.

• 2:09:33Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're yeah, they're big old beasts. Yeah. And so these, so we're looking at a challenge, but for me, it's like, well, what hasn't been been done before? And so no one's actually ever rode the West Coast of America. And so the plan is next year, we're literally just starting now, so looking out for sponsors, for beneficiaries, it's in charities, and the Surf Riders Foundation is one that we'll do it for. Um, you know, because they have stories all the way along that west coast that we can, we can share about, uh, it's gonna be about ocean conservation, but we will start in Vancouver and finish in Mexico and Tijuana.

• 2:10:06Jocko Willink?

  And you sleep on the boat somewhere?

• 2:10:08Speaker 01

  You sleep on the boat, it has cabin, cabins in the boat, and it's one of them ones if the tides and winds are in your favour, you, you just get, you get rowing, um, but when you're not, you just start ro- rotating between you. Um, but the, the one with this is it'll be, um, be me and Alana, you know, so.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, she's gonna do it?

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's gonna do it with me. So the, the thing is, is people, Alana used to get upset with the bike ride because, you know, when I finished it, a great feat, you know, it took seventeen days off the wheel record and became the first man in history to do it on a hundred days, but a lot of people, because you're from the SF community, it's like, well, of course it is, he's special forces. Well, I, I probably know ninety-nine percent of SF who wouldn't do that bike ride. Um.

• 2:10:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm one of them.

• 2:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Whereas Alana, I know, Alana got burnt as a child, spilled a kettle on her, her boiling water on her chest, and so literally she's had a life of surgeries, you know, when all the other kids were doing sport in school, you know, she had a, a compression vest for eighteen months in hospital. So academic, you know, didn't do that, but academically just, just shot off, um, shot off. But then she's recently had surgeries, it's now released her shoulder. So when, I'm just taking someone who's never done anything before and trying to prove that, that, you know, with the right mindset, you know, the training and the, and the planning, anything's possible.

• 2:11:20Jocko Willink?

  What does the training consist of for, for you and then for her?

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  So for us, uh, the hardest thing is getting hold of a boat. We, we now, we've managed to find a boat, and so we need to get that ship from UK, uh, to us. You know, you, you have the concept, two rowers, you know, they're pretty much the, the best thing, is, is like time in the saddle with, with cycling. So ju- just keep doing that. But the, you know, hardest thing is getting to the start point, you know, if you get to the start point uninjured with all your equipment, you're seventy-five percent of the way there. And so that's what they say is that. You know, just get you to the start point, you know, hopefully the, the winds and the tides will be in our favor going from north to south. But we, we'll also have to do some on water training as well. So one of our friends, he's the vice president of the Ocean Rowing Society, Chris Martin. So they're the ones who actually, um, with Guinness Records, they're the ones who sign off on it.

• 2:12:08Speaker 01

  So he's going to come out and do a week's training with us on the water, just get us through, through the routines. Now thankfully I did, um, my yacht masters when I was in the SBS. So I, I have all the VHF radio stuff and the navigational stuff, but I need to teach Alana on that as well.

• 2:12:22Jocko Willink?

  How, how long will it take? I mean, just a rough guess.

• 2:12:25Speaker 01

  Um, I'm anticipating probably about five to six weeks. Um, yeah. If, if, if the tides and winds are in our favor.

• 2:12:33Jocko Willink?

  So you keep the food on there for five to six weeks or do you get resupplied?

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  You have, so where this one's slightly different is normally people will have a start point like Monterey in Hawaii. So enough, you don't have a support vessel. No one's coming out to you. Because we're actually going north, south, we don't actually need to be that far off the coastline. We can be about three to five miles off, off the coastline, which, which helps us in certain aspects. You know, we don't need all the safety equipment that these guys have, um, the rest of the guys have. But actually navigation is more difficult because there's more shipping lanes, um, to go through. But we can have boats come out and then, you know, maybe drop off some fresh rats, but we would have.

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Damn, bring out that Domino's pizza boy.

• 2:13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, we would have fresh rations, uh, we could, we could have fresh rations, but we also have, um, Arctic rations, uh, as well. But, you know, already chatting with the Surf Riders Foundation, there's stories all along that coastline that we, we, we can tell.

• 2:13:25Jocko Willink?

  So when, when you say stories along the coastline, you mean like, oh, you're going to go by Dana Point and be like, oh, this used to be a great surf spot. And then they built this freaking stupid, whatever marina there and they wrecked a freaking great surf spot, that kind of thing?

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  All those sort of stories there and obviously, you know, uh, pollution in the water, you know? I'll leave that to them. I'll do the rowing and they can give us the, give us the stories.

• 2:13:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's legit. There's a, there's a, two guys that, brothers that paddled prone paddling from Canada to Mexico.

• 2:13:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but they, what they were doing was like, they would paddle and come in every night and set up camp and camp for a little while. And then go back out whenever they were ready and they, they did that whole thing, just prone paddling.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  Wow. How long did that take them? You know?

• 2:14:12Jocko Willink?

  I forget how long it took, but it was pretty impressive.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:18Jocko Willink?

  And you know, they're on little paddleboards. I mean, those things are like 12 feet, maybe. There may be 14 feet for the, for the one that they, the ones that they used. But they had it so loaded down with gear to camp at night. Man, it was, it was pretty impressive. They made a little movie about it to, to make it work. Uh, now you got going on right now. You got this podcast behind the scene. Do you only interview basically partner, like couples scenarios or?

• 2:14:48Speaker 01

  No, we did the first season.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna do me and Echo? Echo's behind the scene. Talk about all his extravagant efforts to make everything happen.

• 2:14:57Speaker 01

  It will get you guys on death. The, the concept came from, I, you know, I, the, in, in our special for, and I think it's the same ratio here. It's not, you know, for every SF operator to go on the ground, it takes seven other people you, you don't see. So it's really about promoting the team behind the scene. And that, that was the play on words. So we, we did one season of 10, um, 10 guests and it was, it was, it was more couples. But actually, you know, behind the scene, we, we, we now can talk, so the second season, I've actually now interviewed the, the major generals and the commanders of the units that we visited. Because the, the show's, the show's great. Um, but what it, as you've seen a couple of episodes, what it doesn't tell me is about the unit. You know, who are they? What are their origins? When, why were they formed? What is their selection process like?

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  So, so behind the scene can either be successful couples or it could be, you know, what's actually happening on the ground. You know, Israel, for example, you know, what are we seeing, but actually what is going on behind the scenes? So yeah, it's a play on words and each season will be, will be very different. Um, I mean, sometimes it may just be me and, me and Alana chatting. Um, but yeah, it seems to be, seems to be doing really well. We're slowly, uh, slowly picking up traction. Um, but yeah, that's where the concept came from, the origins of it. It was just really get other people out.

• 2:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna record any while you're rowing your boat?

• 2:16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there'll be some behind the scene one day, I tell you. We'll do a special, without a doubt.

• 2:16:20Jocko Willink?

  When are you supposed to, when are you gonna try and do the, the row?

• 2:16:23Speaker 01

  So the aim is to do it summer next year. And the reason for that is our children broke up from the summer last week for 12 weeks. And so for us, it's like, you know, you know, what I want to do is actually have them sort of hand railing the coastline as well. On, on an RV with a couple of members of the family and then they can, they can come out and say hi as well. So. Cause I think for me, I'm used to being away from the family for long periods of time for Lana, not, not just the physical aspect of this. You know, what's gonna be hard for her is, is that disconnect.

• 2:16:51Jocko Willink?

  Does she get seasick?

• 2:16:52Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know. There'll be plenty of tablets. Again, these are all, all new things we need, need to test.

• 2:16:57Jocko Willink?

  My wife gets terribly seasick.

• 2:16:59Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 2:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And we were gonna, I, I had that check in my hand. I was gonna buy a sailboat. This is when we were young. And I was gonna buy a sailboat for us to live on. Cause you know, it's real expensive to live in San Diego and. So I had the check in my hand. I got a loan from Navy Federal Credit Union for like. Eighteen thousand dollars and I was going to buy a boat. A, a nineteen thirteen gaff rigged wooden schooner. Just the most ridiculous boat, like fifty five feet long. And I thankfully, I had like a moment of clarity as we were getting ready to drive up. It was, it was actually up in, uh, somewhere up in LA.

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  And I had a moment of clarity, as the alcoholics say, where I was like, yo, this is a bad, bad, bad decision. Because, yeah, if you know anything, cause I was, I always liked wooden boats, cause they're, you know, there's this romantic thing behind wooden boats. And I was all, here, you know, wanna live aboard a wooden boat. Wooden boat, you have to work on your wooden boat all, every single day and from, from bow to stern.

• 2:18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  And you start at the bow and by the time you get to stern, you gotta go back to the bow again. You gotta start it again and it just never stops. And by the way, if you, you know, if you don't do, if you don't mow your lawn at your house, no big deal. You got some long grass. If you don't maintain your boat, it sinks.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:24Jocko Willink?

  So thankfully I had a moment of clarity. We didn't do that. But the other thing is, which I don't remember if my wife disclosed to me or not. She gets terribly seasick. And so by the time. We decided we weren't gonna do it. She goes, you know, it's probably better because I get seasick anyway. So I was like, yo, you might not want to tell me that before we buy a boat to live on.

• 2:18:43Speaker 01

  I might ask a lot of that and actually ask you it.

• 2:18:45Jocko Willink?

  It's if people get seasick, it's terrible.

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Like it's a it's a terrible thing. Going out to sea on on a ship, you'd see people that get seasick. And you they would just be such rough shape, such rough shape. Uh, right on, man. Does that get us up to speed? Is that where we're at?

• 2:19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that gives us up to speed. Yeah, we're just, um, you know, the other things we're doing as well. We're, you know, looking at doing coaching, you know, guest speaking. For me, it's tried to share the knowledge of what we've done and and, um, um, you know, hopefully whether it's in corporate, whether it's your own in in development, uh, individual growth. You'll sort of want to share that as well. So we we're looking at launching them soon. And one other thing I'm working on the background is is I'm forty seven years old. I've never done weights before in my life. And so I get a lot of questions as I as as do you, you know, how do I become an ABC or how do we become an SBS? And it's like, you know, you know, what you don't see is the hard work we've done before. So for me, I'm looking at designing a a website and a and a training app based around military, uh, fitness.

• 2:19:46Speaker 01

  Um, because what I have the luxury of here is you you you have other fitness apps out there and then, you know, whether it's a Ranger or a SEAL or a Green Beret. And the content of that app is from the author, from their own experiences. Why I have the luxury of here is I've gone around the world, visiting the special boards and seeing their different types of training. And so literally I've ever everyone's sending me in their training programs and, uh, non gym related, don't need a gym. It's all, you know, as you know, when you used to do courses, you know, I used to get tested on how many pull ups could you do, how many press ups dips? How fast can you run? How far can you you yomp? It wasn't how much can you bench press or or curl? And then also I remember being in Kosovo in ninety nine and I'm not going to throw the USMC under the bus, but there was a couple of guys who were like Hollywood superstars.

• 2:20:30Speaker 01

  They were massive. These guys, I looked at them, even I was impressed. But then we went on operations and remember having to climb up into a helicopter and rope and they struggled. So for me, when I was in the military, it was a balance of. Being able to pass those tests and pass them well, but also being able to perform perform a role. And so as we saw with COVID, when the gyms all shut down, everyone was having to improvise. So my aim with this this fitness app is literally is basically putting together a training program, or you can select the various, whether it's, you know, DevGru, CAG, SES, SBS, Royal Marines, parachute regiment, you know, how how we can best prepare them if they're looking at going on them. So it's whether the is the audience is those who want to join the military. And I think as we're seeing, I know the DOD, the MOD, they're struggling

• 2:21:13Speaker 01

  to get people in at the right fitness levels. And so target them, you know, there's those in the in the fitness industry, any who just have a general interest in in military. And then obviously now the growth of tactical games, you know, shooting them and doing exercises. So so that'll be my audience. So for me, it's just literally developing an app that people can can do and just, you know, learn from myself. Do you need at least need a pull up bar for this workout? You probably would need a pull up bar, but it's it's not it's not make or break. There there are other exercises you can do, you can develop the those muscles, you know. So for me, I I don't, I I call it non biased training, you know, if I'm busy, you know, it's hard, you know, from talking to the guy gets up at four thirty in the morning. But i if you're if you if your life's busy, you know, um, you know, especially when I

• 2:21:57Speaker 01

  was traveling around the world, I would just improvise and do stuff in in the room. But um, like I would do probably 500 press ups a day, you know, 10 sets of 50, but I wouldn't do them all at once. I would do like a few emails and then I'd do 50. Or if I walk past the toilet, then I do 50. So before you know it, you're you're keeping yourself um, yeah, ticking over. So they're the sort of things I I put in there as well as yeah, because everyone has busy lives, but that's not an excuse. You can still, you can still do exercises and stay in shape. And when's that? When are you putting that together? So I'm putting that together at the moment, and my aim is to have that launched by the by the end of the year. What's it going to be called? Ooh, that's a good one. I was thinking either tough. Yeah, no tough. Um, but it might, yeah. At the moment, it's just called tough.

• 2:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay, right on, right on. Awesome, man. So, uh, where can people find you for the, for the coaching and the speaking and stuff like that? Dean Stott dot com?

• 2:22:49Speaker 01

  That's it, deanstott.com and you get myself on Instagram, yeah.

• 2:22:52Jocko Willink?

  And on Instagram, you're at Dean Stott. On Twitter, X, you're at Dean Stott SBS.

• 2:22:59Speaker 01

  That's it, yeah.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  And then the YouTube and the podcast is Behind the Scene, S E E N.

• 2:23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:05Jocko Willink?

  And that's with Alana.

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a behind the scenes show as well, yeah.

• 2:23:09Jocko Willink?

  At some point, we'll get Alana on here to share her side of this whole story.

• 2:23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:13Jocko Willink?

  The real story.

• 2:23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, the real story, yeah, because I think, you know, we talk about the plant medicine, you know, when I went on, you know, when you talk about trauma, I think Alana has more trauma than, and actually, my I begane told me to take Alana to the medicine and she's gone and done hers since as well. So, yeah, it's, uh, it's quite powerful.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Looking forward to that debrief.

• 2:23:33Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 2:23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, a couple of questions. So the, the, your I begane trip, is that what we call?

• 2:23:41Jocko Willink?

  No, journey, journey.

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  Journey, journey, journey.

• 2:23:43Speaker 02

  So, did you feel sick at all? Did you get sick at all? Cause that's a big part of it, right? A lot of the time.

• 2:23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:48Speaker 02

  Throw up and stuff.

• 2:23:49Speaker 01

  So you go in and you have to write down your intentions. What are your intentions? So for me, it was, and a lot of it's about managing ego. That's where a lot of guys, you know, confront your ego. Um, so for me, I, I wanted to be present. I wanted to, um, I wanted to be more open to my family. So you, you write down your intentions. And it's really difficult because you have intentions, but you can't have expectations. And so it's quite, uh, a big difference between. And so you write down your intentions and I had four intentions. And so I purged three times during my I begane, but I could feel it at the bottom of my stomach that there was one more. And then literally on the 20th hour, yeah, I, I purged, uh, the fourth one.

• 2:24:27Speaker 02

  And is it like, you know, when you say project, obviously meaning like you threw up physically, actually throwing up?

• 2:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So with that one, I, I, you were throwing up, but obviously you, you, you're, um, you don't eat. That's why they, on the build up to it, you know, the week before, you know, they tell you not to take caffeine, not to have red meats and things like that. So there's a, there's a strict diet going into it. And then on the day of it, it's just certain, certain foods, because yeah, they know that you're, you're, you're going to purge. Um, so not really much comes up. Um, and then on the D M T is the same. It just, it almost feels like, you know, there's something coming out of your body. So, yeah, it's just releasing it from your body.

• 2:25:02Speaker 02

  And it feels like it's like the, you said it's like the bad energy or whatever. Does it actually feel like that? Or are you just like, oh, I'm kind of nauseous right now and?

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  Um, you, you, I, I felt it building up inside and, and I knew it was coming. No, a couple of times it surprised me. It just came from nowhere. Um, but then a couple of times you, you feel it coming up. Yeah.

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  It's crazy. Um, other question, dirty, uh, dirty P T, right?

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  Dirty P T.

• 2:25:23Speaker 02

  Dirty P T and clean P T. So, and I, I realized this concept before too.

• 2:25:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause he played football in college.

• 2:25:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:25:31Jocko Willink?

  So he's Mr. Clean P T over here.

• 2:25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:33Jocko Willink?

  And kind of, kind of for real.

• 2:25:34Speaker 02

  But big time now. Yeah. Like he'll be like, hey, yeah, let's go train. I'll be like, well, today's kind of like, I already did this is part of the rest. Period of my training, you know, program or whatever. But dirty P T and just, I want to make sure I understand it. Cause uh, it's, it's interesting to put it into words like that. Cause they're both like super beneficial in my opinion.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:53Speaker 02

  When I know about it, which is very little right now. Dirty P T is like, hey, let's see how you can perform under whatever circumstance, whether you're starving, fasting, one minute sleep, 10 hours, whatever, right? It's like, under whatever circumstances, we're going to just see how good you can perform.

• 2:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's just, no, not what you're used to. Um, you know, a, a good example of one is, is a, um, so Stephen, so Steve Redgrave, he was a Olympic rower. He had the most gold medals, medals to UK. This guy was a machine. Well, on the concept two, he would literally just perform until he, he collapsed. He would fall off this, this machine. He did one of those ocean rowings and came off, you know, cause for him, he just couldn't, he wasn't in that environment. He wasn't in the environment he was used to. He wasn't getting the food and the sleep that he needed. So really, I think it's just the environment that you're operating in. And in, in the special forces or where we are, you know, we go in thinking we're doing something. You think we're going to go on the ground and then you're going to, you know, move 15 miles to target area and then realize actually, no, the mission's changed. We're going somewhere else.

• 2:26:55Speaker 01

  And so for me, it's just that uncertainty, which the professional sports people don't really get caught out on. You know, the worst case scenario for you is you go into overtime. That, that's it. Whereas for us, and you know, you could parachute in, you could go on your ankle, you know, over your ankle. You then just got to strap that up and, and keep going. So it's just two different ways of operating. You know, you guys are physically fit as it is. It's just the environments that we have to perform in.

• 2:27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  And so mentally some of them, they can't, they can't cope with it. You know, they are the, the Olympians in the gold medalists, but.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  They they want their sleep. They want their food. Yeah.

• 2:27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:28Jocko Willink?

  Can't cope.

• 2:27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, like that's essentially it where yeah, where it's like, hey, you get into these physically and mentally unknowns in like performance or whatever. You're like, yeah, you just sort of shut down just because you're really not used to it at all.

• 2:27:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:42Speaker 02

  Like if I'm doing five rounds or if I'm doing eight sets of something and Jocko comes in and says, hey, we're gonna do a bunch of like pull ups. Now it's like, brother, that's not part of the program. I probably won't be able to do any pull ups because today's not pull up day. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, yeah, it's a different approach overall.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  You're kind of the shining example of clean PT.

• 2:28:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Hey, whatever works, I guess.

• 2:28:06Jocko Willink?

  Bro, when you trained the other day?

• 2:28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Friday?

• 2:28:10Speaker 02

  Friday.

• 2:28:10Jocko Willink?

  Friday?

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:11Jocko Willink?

  I was like so surprised you trained.

• 2:28:13Speaker 02

  Why?

• 2:28:13Jocko Willink?

  Because you came to film and yet you you just trained.

• 2:28:17Speaker 02

  No, no, that was Thursday. So I trained I trained a couple of rounds and then Friday I really trained.

• 2:28:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I was kind of surprised because normally I knew it wasn't, you know, what you were showing up there for.

• 2:28:26Speaker 02

  You know, you know, I'm I'm over here at that.

• 2:28:28Jocko Willink?

  You kind of got hyped too.

• 2:28:29Speaker 02

  Well, you know.

• 2:28:30Jocko Willink?

  Good room, right?

• 2:28:30Speaker 02

  It was it was a good room. I didn't see Keenan for a while. I hardly, you know, I see Noah, but I don't, yeah, you know, so circumstantial. So yeah, yeah, I jumped in there a couple of times, got hyped.

• 2:28:39Jocko Willink?

  But you are a really good example of clean PT.

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  And that's a big deal too. Like when you think about, I mean, we all, you always hear these stories like, oh, this guy was a college football player or he was an Olympic. I had an Olympic alternate gymnast in my SEAL training class that quit, right? I mean, how strong is this dude? An Olympic alternate gymnast? I mean, that's ridiculous. And he quit. And I also had a NCAA water polo player. Like those guys are studs, quit. And so you think to yourself, that's so weird. And I was like a. Below average athlete, you know, in high school, whatever, just a loser. And yet, I'm gonna tell you what, I'm gonna keep going.

• 2:29:27Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna get real dirty over here.

• 2:29:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  Keep going.

• 2:29:29Speaker 02

  Cause a lot of times.

• 2:29:30Jocko Willink?

  Kind of like, honestly, the mats of justice. You know, you've seen it many times. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going.

• 2:29:36Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's the ones, as you touched on, the ones that have overperformed in the sports industry. You know, they're used to success and, and, and getting their praise. But when you come in another environment, they're, they're not used to it. You know, you know, a gentleman, Rich Devini. You know, Rich Devini? Yeah, he wrote the book, Attributes. Now, he talks about that, how he had, on paper, these guys were rock stars coming through Dev Group, but they, they always passed. They were always accomplishing, they didn't know how to deal with failure. Didn't know how to deal with when things were getting hard. And that's where thing, and that's what it is. It's what, I find that similar to those who overs, overs, um, successes in, in sport.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that being said, there's guys that were freaking tremendous athletes, athletes in college in any kind of sport. And they're total studs in the SEAL teams. It's, again, it's not a universal thing.

• 2:30:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:30:22Jocko Willink?

  It's just, it is more interesting when you see a guy that was a total stud. Look, when you see a guy that's a total stud and was a college wrestler, or a, or a water polo player in college, like those guys, I knew those guys in the SEAL teams, they're freaking awesome, awesome frogmen. You kind of expect that, though. What you don't expect is someone that wrestled at Iowa or Oklahoma or something like, these dudes are, they're, they're barely even human. You know what I mean? They're barely even human. If you wrestled at Iowa, you're sort of, there's another category for you. You know, if you were a collegiate wrestler, you're sort of not, almost not human, you know? And then you can take that with many sports. Wrestling is a very obvious example, though, because of the abuse that you take.

• 2:31:06Jocko Willink?

  And then those guys show up and quit.

• 2:31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:09Jocko Willink?

  D1 wrestlers quit.

• 2:31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is, this is an idea that can show itself in many, many ways. Remember Jason Gardner actually said, essentially what you just said, studied, where he, he was like, hey, like, what? He said it real funny when he was on. He was like, some of these guys, they're not used to losing. So they lose one thing and they're mentally just done. Me, I've been a loser from the beginning. Remember when he said, I've been losing since I was a kid or whatever. But anyway, yeah, so it's like, um, okay, so take a, take a person.

• 2:31:39Jocko Willink?

  Which, by the way, is a little bit, that's a little bit of. Extra humility coming from Gardner, because Gardner is like kind of a stud.

• 2:31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:48Jocko Willink?

  Like Gardner was a water polo player, believe it or not, and he was like really good.

• 2:31:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and obviously he was being funny. But it was very funny too.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  But he certainly wasn't a collegiate water polo player, so yeah.

• 2:31:59Speaker 02

  Well, the idea isn't necessarily how good or junk Gardner was. It's more like, hey, I'm used to this adversity of not being on top all the time. You know, it was essentially that. So like, okay, so in jujitsu, for example, where if you're like, um, a lot of times like real, like big powerlifters or something like this, someone who has a huge top end strength, they're used to that top end. When I push this guy, he's even at same size as me. When I push him, I know what's gonna happen. He's gonna go flying because I'm so strong and I'm very, very used to that. You go one round, two rounds, three rounds, oh, one round, actually a lot of times. One round, that next round, your top end strength is now at about 15% and you're still strong. But you're not used to that discrepancy. So you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm useless, I'll never get it back.

• 2:32:43Speaker 02

  So it's like mentally, you're not, you're not used to being there, you know? Where like a person who is more just a conditioned person or a person who's just used to that kind of weird like discrepancy in strength or they're just, they don't have a big discrepancy in strength. Their top end isn't that high anyway, so when they get tired, they're still at like 60, 70, 80% really, you know? But these guys who lose so much of their strength, wow, what am I gonna do? I'm useless, I'm worthless, I might as well not even be here, kind of a thing, you know? It's like they're just not used to that.

• 2:33:13Jocko Willink?

  And jujitsu really exemplifies that. Because that strength can, the strength that you put into someone can be so easily absorbed.

• 2:33:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  Or deflected.

• 2:33:22Speaker 02

  And it's just gone.

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  And it's just gone.

• 2:33:24Speaker 02

  It did, like you can't get it back, it's weird.

• 2:33:26Jocko Willink?

  Someone will work so hard and the person that knows jujitsu is using, you know, probably 10% of their energy. And the person that doesn't know jujitsu is using 90, if not literally sometimes 100% of their energy, energy to trying.

• 2:33:41Speaker 02

  The full strength.

• 2:33:42Jocko Willink?

  And, and they're trying to squeeze your head.

• 2:33:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:45Jocko Willink?

  Like you cannot, you're not gonna squeeze my head until I tap.

• 2:33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:49Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Like from a headlock position, of course.

• 2:33:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:33:51Jocko Willink?

  I had Sloan freaking choke my face the other day, he's basically squeezed my head. Yeah, that, I tap.

• 2:33:56Speaker 02

  That's a lot different.

• 2:33:56Jocko Willink?

  It's a different scenario, but he's got, he's got technique too, it's not just strength.

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not powerlifter strength anyway.

• 2:34:02Jocko Willink?

  And it's not, it's technique too. It's not like you can put me in a headlock. And squeeze as hard as you want. I'm not tapping.

• 2:34:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:34:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, okay, I don't know, maybe Magnus or Magnuson or someone like that.

• 2:34:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:13Jocko Willink?

  You can squeeze your head.

• 2:34:14Speaker 02

  You think you'd actually?

• 2:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:15Speaker 02

  You'd actually like? I feel like some of those guys would squeeze my head like this and crack it. That's how it feels. I don't know.

• 2:34:21Jocko Willink?

  But for the most part.

• 2:34:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're gonna handle that for sure. But, but yes, yes. So I think that's it though. That discrepancy that certain people are not used to, that gets them for sure.

• 2:34:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Any other questions? Echo Charles?

• 2:34:37Speaker 02

  Um, no, that was it. The dirty PT. Actually, I've learned to embrace the dirty PT.

• 2:34:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you've grown into it.

• 2:34:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully. And a lot of times too, and it shows itself in little ways, right? Where, okay, so the other day I mentioned this where I'd already worked out. My workout was fulfilled for the day. Then my kids, they want to play soccer, they want to play freeze tag, and they never want to stop. Four hours I was out there. I'm like, brother, this is like, I'm getting tired and all this stuff, whatever. But I'm like, no, no, this is the kind of the, I didn't know the term. I do now, thank you.

• 2:35:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:07Speaker 02

  But it was dirty PT. See what I'm saying? I was like, now this is part of the, hey man, bro, you'd be surprised, these kids nowadays, they're running around freaking hours. Anyway, but, uh, but yeah.

• 2:35:16Jocko Willink?

  But you can't ever say no to that. Like if your kids want to play, you gotta get in the game. I used to have that rule. Like if my kids wanted, if my kids were doing something productive, I would not put a stop to it.

• 2:35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:27Jocko Willink?

  Like almost no matter what it was.

• 2:35:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:30Jocko Willink?

  There is one, there is a situations that occur where my daughters can get real. Look like loud, you know what I mean?

• 2:35:41Speaker 02

  Like what?

• 2:35:42Jocko Willink?

  Singing.

• 2:35:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:35:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is. Singing, but I'm talking, uh, singing with the, with the, with the kind of overall goal of making me tell them to be quiet. Like that's their purpose. So they see that when they were younger, I'd be like, okay, you're done. Cause you know, your kids are gonna sing. Cool. Like, oh great, sing all you want. Nope, I actually had to stop that. It's not sing all you want. It's sing all you want. Now when I tell you to stop, it'll be quiet.

• 2:36:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good rule though. Like you can't kind of say no.

• 2:36:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:11Speaker 02

  Cause all cause I don't necessarily feel like it or something like that. If it's productive, bro, they're kind of outperforming you.

• 2:36:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause especially if it's like, oh, they want to cook something. I want to draw something. They want to repaint something. They want to build something. They want to do whatever they want to do. If it's something productive in the world, you gotta, as much as you possibly can, say yes. Say yep, go ahead and do it. They want to freaking rip apart the garden because they want to plant some tomatoes. Like that's the kind of stuff. A seven year old will come home. I want to plant tomatoes. And you're like, okay, here's the shovel. And they're ripping apart your yard and getting dirt everywhere, but you just gotta like support. Support. That's what we're doing.

• 2:36:45Speaker 02

  What about this? And I'm saying this now off the top of my head because I just got asked to do this. So my son likes to go down this canyon that we have and just start chopping down trees. Cause you know, all those, those knives, the extra knives and axes that we have. He got into those. He was like, hey, we could should go chop down trees.

• 2:37:00Jocko Willink?

  Is he doing something with the lumber?

• 2:37:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:37:01Jocko Willink?

  Like you gotta collect that lumber and then bring it and then build a fire with it at night. Get a little fire pit.

• 2:37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:07Jocko Willink?

  Why are you, why are you making a face like this is a bad idea? This is the best idea you've ever heard.

• 2:37:12Speaker 02

  It sounds like a great idea. I'm just saying how far out we are from that. We have the fire pit.

• 2:37:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:17Speaker 02

  It's not wood burning, but I guess.

• 2:37:18Jocko Willink?

  No, you got the, the fire pit, the wood burning fire pit.

• 2:37:22Speaker 02

  Oh, the one that, that, that we got?

• 2:37:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:24Speaker 02

  I don't have that one. I think Joe has it.

• 2:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Well.

• 2:37:27Speaker 02

  Thanks. Good tips.

• 2:37:28Jocko Willink?

  Chop down the trees, collect the wood, build fires, cook, you know, hot dog.

• 2:37:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:37:33Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing.

• 2:37:34Speaker 02

  Okay. All right. Good to see you.

• 2:37:36Jocko Willink?

  You're good, Dean. Stott. Right on. Dean, any closing thoughts, bro?

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  No, no, um, none for me. I just appreciate you guys. And we're hopefully another three years, we'll have more stories. I just can't believe how, how quick the three years has, has gone from being at your house on Memorial Day and yeah, lots happened. Um, but uh, now, and now, um, here is a, as a citizen of America with a green card. That was a process. That's a whole podcast in itself. Yeah, we'll talk about it another day.

• 2:38:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've been through that a little bit with my wife, but you did it times, probably times five to get two Brits in there.

• 2:38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Four with my kids. Yeah.

• 2:38:13Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Well, thanks for joining us once again, man. Always awesome to see you. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned, of course. Thanks for your service to your country, which is our strongest ally, the United Kingdom. And I guess now you're an American. You have an American, so are you an American now?

• 2:38:29Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm still, I'm still, I'll, I'll, I'll end up having a dual passport. Um, I have an American daughter.

• 2:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have an American daughter and I have a Scottish son and a Scottish daughter, Scottish wife, and I'm English, so it's like a start of a, a start of a joke.

• 2:38:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, outstanding, man. Well, thanks for doing what you're doing, uh, taking care of people and helping people out around the world. Appreciate it. Good seeing you, bro.

• 2:38:50Speaker 02

  Thank you, buddy.

• 2:38:52Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Dean Stott has left the building. He actually left me with a cool knife here from Trained Monkey. And it says, "Discipline equals freedom" on it. And it's got Dean Stott's little frog man symbol of the frog foot.

• 2:39:11Jocko Willink?

  Sweet. So.

• 2:39:15Jocko Willink?

  Still been getting after it, Dean Stott.

• 2:39:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:39:18Jocko Willink?

  When he, when he, when he said, "Hey, I don't use weights."

• 2:39:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:22Jocko Willink?

  I thought you were gonna ask him about that.

• 2:39:23Speaker 02

  I was about to, but I didn't want to ruin the flow. But yeah.

• 2:39:27Jocko Willink?

  It's very old school. And when I say old school, I'm only talking about like a few 10 years ago. When I got to SEAL Teams, there was all kinds of people that didn't use weights.

• 2:39:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:38Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of people. What do we need weights for? Pull-ups, push-ups, dips.

• 2:39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  Sprint, run, swim. That's it. That's what we're doing.

• 2:39:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully. And you know, I've said this before, where there's not just one approach to working out. And I think that's why, and same thing with diet, same thing with raising kids, same thing with spirituality, same. And I think that's why they always get into these arguments. Not always, but a lot of the time they can trigger arguments.

• 2:39:59Jocko Willink?

  People have closed minds.

• 2:40:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're like, no, my way is the best because if you say your way is the best, that means my way is worse than yours. Like, bruh, that's, you know, it's on from there, you know? So, but I do agree with that. I agree. Like, yeah, I guess. It pains me to say, you don't need weights to be in great shape.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you definitely don't.

• 2:40:16Speaker 02

  I'll tell you right now, I can't bike as far as he biked. I can't, probably won't be able to row. There's a lot of stuff I can't do straight up that he can.

• 2:40:23Jocko Willink?

  The row thing sounds kinda cool.

• 2:40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:25Jocko Willink?

  Rowing down the coast of California. It sounds cool right now, you know?

• 2:40:30Speaker 02

  Halfway through that, motherfucker.

• 2:40:32Jocko Willink?

  Five weeks, but also getting a resupply. I wasn't kidding. Like, can you imagine getting a pizza? Like you're out at sea and they just show up with a freaking triple cheese pizza. Yo. I'd be so pumped. That's one thing, when you're going through basic SEAL training, you are eating cheese pizzas or pizzas, whatever flavor you like.

• 2:40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Like with wanton abandon of any concern whatsoever. It is just, it is just pure enjoyment with all aspects of health. Just they're not, it's not that you're not thinking about it, they don't exist. They just don't exist. You're just, I never, when I, I, there was times where I would eat an extra cheese pizza. Every day. The whole thing. Yeah, yeah, just as, just part of the day. Yeah. Like, oh, you get done, we go to Chow, we get done with it, we gotta get done, order pizza. Yeah. And this is when you could order pizza. This is before nine eleven, like the gates to the base weren't really secure and like the driver from Domino's would just show up and just drive on. Wait, you said this during Bud's? During Bud's. Yeah. The. We had a payphone.

• 2:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, hell yeah. You have to call Domino's and they deliver. Just a stack of pizzas for the boys. I feel like there's something real nostalgic about a payphone. Yeah. I don't know why. Hmm, not much. It sucks, actually. It sucks comparatively, you're right, not very. Especially you got like thirty guys living in a barracks and there's three payphones or two payphones, something like that. I think we could maybe call from like the quarter deck phone too, because it wasn't a long distance call. So you can, maybe we just called from the, I remember, I think there was a payphone in that little barracks, though. But nonetheless. Pizza's coming, yeah. And you're, so you're just burning the pizza, that's the point. Just burning it off. Yeah. And just, and you just want to get more food. Yeah. You're just, it's so good. When you're in that lifestyle,

• 2:42:24Jocko Willink?

  you're, you're literally just, you, everything you do is just physical activity. Yeah. Everything you do. Yeah. You hear me say it? It's a mile to run to Chow in the morning, it's a mile to run back, it's a mile to run to lunch, it's a mile to run back, it's a mile to run to dinner, it's a mile to run back. So before anything else in your day has even been calculated, you ran six miles, you jogged six miles. It doesn't matter, like, how you get there, you burn the same amount of calories, more or less. Yeah, so you're. You can walk. So then you put in there a four mile timed run or an eight mile conditioning run or obstacle course, a swim. Yeah. Like a two mile, two nautical mile ocean swim, like how many calories are you burning for that? And then you go and do a three hour dive with a, with an hour and a half turtle back, do you even know what turtle backing is?

• 2:43:05Jocko Willink?

  It's when you're just on the surface of the water with your dive rig on and you're just finning, you're just swimming on the surface of the water. Cause you only can dive for so long. So if you have to go a long distance to get. To the place that you want to attack. You don't have enough air to be underwater the whole time. So you just turtle back in for an hour and a half.

• 2:43:27Speaker 02

  So unrealistic.

• 2:43:30Jocko Willink?

  And then you go on back and dive for whatever, two hours, two and a half, three hours. You come up, just where's the pizza? So if I was rowing down, I think I'd do kind of a nightly scenario. Just get to me, send the coast guard out with a couple of triple cheese pizzas.

• 2:43:48Jocko Willink?

  Bro, pizza's good.

• 2:43:49Speaker 02

  Bro, even you talking about, I mean, I didn't eat anything today. So yeah, pizza sounded.

• 2:43:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm I'm tail end of a forty eight hour fast.

• 2:43:55Speaker 02

  Awesome. Pizza sounding really good to you.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm having go. So you can, there's ten calories in a go. And I had a hydrate, which has how many calories in a hydrate? Fifteen. So I've had twenty five calories.

• 2:44:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's yeah, it's some pizza sounding good for sure. I saw that documentary, you know, the documentary they have on buds.

• 2:44:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:44:17Speaker 02

  And then that's part of what they talked about where it's like, they said, there's no relief in this scenario. There's only one moment of relief in that's chow or that's when they go eat. And it shows the guys like eating like just all kinds of crazy stuff, cake, guys just like, but they're like half sleeping. You know, like, or I guess like right after you eat, you like, guys are like nodding off, they stiffen up and stuff like that. It was showing that, but I remember that. I remember thinking like, bro, that's freaking hardcore right there because literally no relief. Doesn't matter, like, except for eating. That's it. You don't even have the relief of sleeping.

• 2:44:51Jocko Willink?

  Here's the funny thing during hell week, as the students are in eating. The instructors are outside waiting and they're like spraying the windows with the hose. And you know what I mean? So that even though there's quote, no relief. You're just thinking, oh, as soon as this is over, which by the way, Chow is, I don't know how long Chow is in hell week, but it's not long. It's not like you're in there cruising, not like you're in there like, hey.

• 2:45:15Speaker 02

  It's not a lunch break.

• 2:45:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not a lunch break. It's probably twenty minutes or something like that. And then, and the hoses are going outside and you know, they brush your teeth when you get out. With a hose. So you're just like.

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  It sucks.

• 2:45:31Jocko Willink?

  So your relief is just filled with anticipation. To get some. All right. Well, hey. Pizza is not optimal fuel. Maybe if you're going through SEAL training.

• 2:45:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:45:46Jocko Willink?

  Maybe it's a good addition to your fuel, but you probably need cleaner fuel for life. I recommend Jocko Fuel. Go to JacoFuel.com. Check out the new Hydrate Energy Drink that we got, which is freaking amazing. How amazing is it?

• 2:46:00Speaker 02

  It's very amazing. It's surprisingly amazing.

• 2:46:03Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't seem feasible.

• 2:46:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:05Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't seem feasible that you can make something taste this good and have no sugar in it and have no artificial sweeteners. Cause we got it done.

• 2:46:13Speaker 02

  Or colors, by the way.

• 2:46:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's also clear. Because in order to have a cool color, you need to put artificial coloring in there.

• 2:46:23Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:46:25Jocko Willink?

  And you can add something, we can add, there's some things that have like a natural coloration, but then you're adding it for no reason. What are you doing that for?

• 2:46:32Speaker 02

  Just for the color.

• 2:46:33Jocko Willink?

  Just for the color? So, no, we got the clean stuff. Hydrate, we got protein, we got joint warfare, super krill. We got it all. If you want to get this stuff, go to JacoFuel.com. Also, you can get it at Wawa. You can get the protein shake at Wawa. Freaking so tasty. Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanafords, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Firm, ShopRite, HEB. HEB down in Taos. Getting it done. They have racks at HEB. They have racks of Jocko Fuel at Meyer. They have racks of Jocko Fuel at Wegmans. Go get some. Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and small gyms everywhere.

• 2:47:18Jocko Willink?

  We got, you know, you know, you know, Action Jackson?

• 2:47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:47:21Jocko Willink?

  Jackson, he's out there. Him and Jared are just out there and Chaz just getting it into every like niche gym, nutrition supplier. If you want to get in on that game, [email protected]. Get, get the good stuff for your clients, for your athletes. For your gyms, jujitsu, CrossFit, powerlifting, Globo Gym, whatever. Get them the goods. JacoFuel.com, check it out.

• 2:47:53Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, OriginUSA. Okay, so we can start with jujitsu. Sure. Geez, rash guards, jujitsu gear. Made in America, by the way. But, that's not all. So jeans, I think as of right now, the front running deal is jeans. That's just me, because I don't go hunting as much as you, at all. You know, so it's different, but. The jeans are the front runner. So, Delta 68, these are the more athletic ones.

• 2:48:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, they're just lighter weight.

• 2:48:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, and they're more stretchy.

• 2:48:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:48:26Speaker 02

  I, I know this because I was just wearing the factory jeans. And this is fresh in my mind, because I have some people in from out of town, and then the question came up. So yes, more maybe like.

• 2:48:34Jocko Willink?

  What was the question?

• 2:48:36Speaker 02

  Like, what, what kind of jeans are like, what's up with these jeans? What's so special about these jeans? Um, so yeah, I broke it down.

• 2:48:43Jocko Willink?

  And then a bald eagle flew in from overseas, from overhead, carrying an American flag. Releasing, releasing slaves from sweatshops. And cleaning the environment, all in one swoop.

• 2:48:56Speaker 02

  Yes, that is exactly what happened.

• 2:48:58Jocko Willink?

  Bestowing upon the earth the most comfortable jeans.

• 2:49:01Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:49:02Jocko Willink?

  And hoodies, and t-shirts, and hunt gear. Is that what happened?

• 2:49:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly.

• 2:49:07Jocko Willink?

  You should make that into a commercial.

• 2:49:10Speaker 02

  But yes, the last, yes, jeans, all different colors, but, um, but the, the significant thing is, A, the quality. B, made in America, or that could be probably flipped around, right? Made in America, quality, everything's made in America, though. Even the thread, even the cotton grown, made in America.

• 2:49:24Jocko Willink?

  The whole deal.

• 2:49:26Speaker 02

  Even the brass buttons. Brass, right?

• 2:49:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep, there you go. OriginUSA.com, check it out. Also, we have a jujitsu camp up in Maine. And we do it every year. It sells out real quick, but right now, we still have some spaces open for our law enforcement, first responder, military jujitsu training, August 27th through the 31st, in Maine. Come and get it. Come learn some good tactics, defensive tactics, to keep control over people when you need to. So check that out, all at OriginUSA.com. Also, we have a store.

• 2:49:58Speaker 02

  It's true. It's called Jocko Store.

• 2:50:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you made that up, didn't you?

• 2:50:02Speaker 02

  It was advised on to me. So at Jocko's store, not only can you get discipline equals freedom shirts and hoodies and hats and stuff like that, you can get, you know, good, you know, we were going to represent on the path. It's true. But not only that, we have something called the shirt locker, which is a subscription scenario. If you didn't know, different design every month.

• 2:50:23Speaker 02

  And I say this is the front running thing because this is something that apparently people are very, very into. Giving me ideas and all the stuff for different designs. So I will give you a hint on the, the design, Jocko. Back to the book. But it has a theme similar to like the sugar coated lies. You know, it had a theme. It's like that.

• 2:50:46Jocko Willink?

  What's the theme?

• 2:50:47Speaker 02

  Can't tell you. You gotta go to jacostore.com, click on the shirt locker. It'll say the June shirt and it'll have a little hint, little sneak peek. Anyway, so yeah, if you want to know about that kind of stuff, go there. So yes, jacostore.com. That's called the shirt locker, but you can buy whatever other representation apparel items on there as well.

• 2:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Check. Also primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. Awesome steaks. Get steaks. Get meat sticks. Get some burger meat. Get, check it out. You want the good stuff. You don't want stuff that's coming from a factory farm. You want stuff that's coming from the good, the good, the goodness from the earth. Coloradocraftbeef.com, obviously from Colorado, primal beef from the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Just amazing steak. Go give it a shot. Awesome companies, awesome people. There you go. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Also, jacoun underground.com. We're about to record a couple of those. Also, we have a YouTube channel. Jocko Fuel, it's a YouTube channel. Origin USA has a YouTube channel.

• 2:51:46Jocko Willink?

  That's what's happening. Psychological Warfare, you can get that. Flipsidecanvas.com. Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on the wall. Books. Obviously, we just talked about this book a little bit today. We covered on the podcast 270 relentless by Dean Stott. Check it out. Also, I've written a bunch of books about leadership, about war, about laundromats. Yeah, I wrote a book about laundromats called Final Spin. You may have heard of it. You may have read it. You may have laughed. You may have cried.

• 2:52:17Jocko Willink?

  But you learned. Also, I've written a bunch of kids books Warrior Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, and five. Hey, we got a movie coming about that. With a guy named Chris Pratt. You know Chris Pratt? Yeah. He's your bro, isn't he? Hell, yeah.

• 2:52:33Jocko Willink?

  Really cool to see that coming to fruition. The screenplay is awesome. Directed by a guy named Mick G. Terminator Salvation, by the way. There you go. Amongst a bunch of other flicks. Great, great movement forward on that. But listen, you don't have to wait. For. One year to see that movie. You don't have to wait. You can read the books. You can get those books to your kids. It will change the way they go through life. So check those out. Also, Mikey and the Dragons, also about face by Hackworth. You guys know the jams. Hey, Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details on that. We have the muster coming up. In Dallas, sixteen to eighteen October. Also, the Women's Assembly.

• 2:53:17Jocko Willink?

  September eleventh through thirteenth in San Antonio, Texas. FTX is, I think the last FTX is, or the upcoming FTX is sold out. So if you want to come to one of these events, go to echelonfront.com, check events. Also, if you need help inside your organization, we have a leadership consultancy. That's what we do. And you can find more information there at echelonfront.com. We also have an online training academy about leadership and life. So if you want to improve every aspect of your life. Go to extremeownership.com, take one of the free courses that's on there. Just go take it, it's free. I don't care, I don't care. So go take it, it's free. That's it. It's gonna help you. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families.

• 2:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee's charity organization. Americas Mighty Warriors.org. And also. Don't forget that. General McFarland came on and he talked about a memorial that is being refurbished by the one one A.D. To commemorate and memorialize. The men and women who were lost in combat in the Battle of Ramadi. So if you want to help. Restore. And, and replant. That memorial. You can also do it through Americas Mighty Warriors.org.

• 2:54:39Jocko Willink?

  As well, don't forget about heroesandhorses.org, Micah Fink, and then we've got Jimmy May's organization, beyondthebrotherhood.org. It's really a, it's a methodology of finding people from the SEAL teams and other special operations, screening them, making sure that they are up to the task, and then finding the right job for them in the civilian sector. That's going to utilize the skillsets that they learned in the military, teach them some new skills, and get them ready to get it done out there in the civilian sector. So that's beyondthebrotherhood.org. Once again, if you want to connect with Dean Stott on

• 2:55:18Jocko Willink?

  the interwebs, check deanstott.com. He's on Facebook and Instagram at Dean Stott, and he's on Twitter, X, at deanstottSBS. He's also got his YouTube channel and his podcast, which is Behind the Scene, S-E-E-N, and that's with his wife, Alana, who's got a ton to offer as well. So check that out. And if you want to get in touch with Echo and I, you can find, you can find all my stuff at Jaco.com. Also, I'm on social media, @Jaco Willink. Echo is @EchoCharles. Just be careful, because there's an algorithm on there, and it'll grab you like by your pinky, and then just pull in the rest of your whole soul.

• 2:56:00Jocko Willink?

  So watch out for it. Thanks once again, Dean Stott, for coming and joining us. And thanks, most of all, of course, for your service. And thanks to the military men and women from the armed forces in America here, but also all of our allies, including Great Britain and the rest. We've stood shoulder to shoulder around the world with you all, and we thank all of you worldwide for your service and sacrifice. And to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all other first responders, thank you for your service,

• 2:56:40Jocko Willink?

  keeping us safe here on the home front. And everyone else out there, just remember that there's choices we make every day. Choices we make every day to get better or to get worse, to build or to decay, to move forward or to sit and rot.

• 2:57:04Jocko Willink?

  Make the right choice. Make the right choice, and you do this by getting up every day. And getting after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.