555: The Nature Of Man Is War

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content René Quinton’s extreme ideas about war, human nature, struggle, and heroism. They examine why humans are drawn to conflict and why a life of comfort may be something worth fighting against. 0:00 – René Quinton & Maxims on War 4:21 – Does Human Nature Love War? 13:22 – Competition vs. Collaboration 16:10 – The Male Psyche: Friend or Foe 24:05 – Why Men Seek Risk, Combat & Danger 31:00 – Tribalism, Fighting & Understanding Jiu-Jitsu 37:04 – Service, Sacrifice & the Nature of Heroes 49:44 – Success, Wealth & Why the Process Matters 58:57 – What Makes a Hero? 1:07:02 – War, Hardship & Why We Reject the Easy Life Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 555 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:06Jocko Willink?

  The worn body of the brave always finds a reserve. The rapture of service is too strong for the body, however spent, to refuse its duty. And that right there is a quote from a book called Maxims on War. It's written by a guy named Rene Quinton. And you're gonna find, and we were discussing before we hit record, that some of his opinions on war and human nature are extreme. Some of them are, some of them are very extreme. We may even go so far as to say they're too extreme.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  But as I read through this book, there is a lot of elemental truth that these statements are rooted in. This guy, he was a Frenchman. He was born in 1866. And his father was a doctor and like a local mayor and he's pretty wealthy. And his mom was, you know, a homemaker. And he grew up, he was very into writing. He's, he wrote poems and, and books and stuff like this. And he tried to pursue writing. I think he was kind of, quite frankly, I think he was, well, in modern day, we would call him a trust fund baby. You familiar with this term?

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Of course. Yes, sir.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  So he was like a trust fund, fund kid. And he tried to pursue writing for like a decade. And then he realized, and I don't think he, he never finished a project. He would just like write and start and whatever. And then he decided, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pursue something else. And he became a bio, he went into biology. And he studied, you know, marine life. And he made this, this potion. And it's, you can still get it, by the way. It's called serum de Quinton, like means like Quinton's serum. And it's some kind of saline solution. He made it from seawater initially and,

• 1:59Jocko Willink?

  and it's supposed to help with the whole plethora of, of diseases and ailments and whatnot. Eventually, he became interested in aviation as well. He was in, which meant, interestingly, like around the turn of the century, that meant he was into like ballooning, you know?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Like hot air?

• 2:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like balloons. That was aviation back in the day. So he did some of that, but he was pro, kind of real planes too, once those things started rolling out. And then the war broke out. The First World War. And despite not being required to serve because of his age, which was 48 years old, in 1914, he joined, he joined up. So he's 48 years old. He's had this kind of strange life. And he joins up and he just goes, goes to war, World War I. Fought in just battle after battle after battle. All over France, he fought at the Somme, Champagne, Trigny, like the list of

• 2:59Jocko Willink?

  battles that he was in is ridiculous. He's wounded seven times. He, and on top of that, he suffered severe frostbite to his feet. He was highly decorated. He was highly decorated by France, his native country. He was also, you know, he also received a distinguished service cross from both America and the United Kingdom. And he was highly decorated by Belgium as well. So the guy definitely got after it. And after the war, he finally sat down and started writing what he had learned at war. And that project, which he came close to finishing, remember I said he

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  never finished a project as a, as a, when he was a writer. And unfortunately, he didn't finish this project either. He was editing it and he was writing it and drafting it and whatever. And he died. But before that, he's like, the first part of this book is the most heavily edited. So the furthest along the process. And this book here, which is released by Perth Imperium Press, that's the name of it. So that's who made it. It's edited. And they put, they did a good job putting together. And we're gonna look at the, we'll look at some of them today. I think this might take us

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  a little bit of time. So very interesting. In some cases, like I said, very extreme maxims. But again, I think a lot of them are rooted in some level of truth. So let's get into it. Starts off.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  Men may dream that they do not love war, but nature loves struggle and death. That's where we're going out of the gate. Now, again, as you and I talked about a little bit before the, we hit record, and you pushed back a little bit against this concept. And I just threw at you like, why are there so many movies about war? Books about war, movies about war, videos about war, it's war all over the place. So why is that? You know, it's, it's, if people don't, I hate to use the word love, but if there's not some deep part of a person's brain that doesn't want to watch war, why do we, why do, why does 20 war movies come out a year? And by the way, it's not just historical

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  war, it's aliens war, it's all kinds of war, mafia war, gang war, it's just war.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Infinity War?

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  Infinity War? What's that?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  I think it's one of the Avengers.

• 5:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the Avengers. Check. So it's a good point. That's the opening, by the way. Men may dream that they do not love war, but nature loves struggle and death. Next, it is in the, it is in the bloom and fullness of their age, nature dedicates males to death.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Which is why you get, why is, why is the insurance rates for an 18 year old boy very high for a vehicle? You know what I'm saying?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  He is dedicated to death. Like that's what he's doing. He's pushing the envelope.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  Nature creates species, it does not create beings. The species is the end. The being is only the servant of that end. It is the nature of the individual to be deluded about his destiny and to believe he was born for himself. So he's saying, your whole purpose is not for you. It's for the species.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  He says, man places, this is, he's got a bunch of footnotes. The footnote for this one is, man places value on his, on his existence. Nature does not. Facts. Nature doesn't care. You, you got all this big life, got all these things and all this stuff. You just get eaten by a bear. The bear literally does not care at all about you. He's just like food. Do you think when you eat a chicken nugget, you know, you're a chicken nugget to a bear?

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  You are. You don't think about the impact of the soul when you're eating a chicken nugget? A bear is just crunching your head, doesn't care. No thought whatsoever about anything that your wife, your kids, your future, your mortgage, your house, the little dreams you had of videos you were gonna make, like what you did, your memories, it's all just chicken nugget, boom, gone.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  I understand, yeah.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  Only heroes suspect they were not born for themselves. Key critical fact.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  War does not transform men. It returns them to their native purpose. War is the natural state of males. Now you seem to have a little bit of pushback before we hit record on this, this idea.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  I still do, and I don't want to interrupt, like this, you know?

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  Interrupt their, the titan of facts over here?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  It was what?

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  The titan of talking.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Eight minutes of this. So I can't be like, that's not, well, there's more to it than that, you know, kind of a thing. So yeah, I get it. And keep in mind too, I suspect, I suspect, I'm not saying, I'm not proclaiming this, but I suspect that his whole experience caused this little bit of bias for the outcome of this book.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  So he put himself in a very specific environment. And that environment's like very intense, very exclusive too, by the way. So he's coming up with all these, you know, conclusions and stuff based on this very exclusive environment over time. So I'm not saying, or disagreeing with that, that there's a lot of truth to that. I think that there's like, you know how, you know, your little terrarium speech that you give me and others from time to time? I feel like it's one of those situations where he's in this terrarium?

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Aquarium?

• 8:56Jocko Willink?

  Terrarium.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Fish tank, whatever. And he's like, bro, this is, this is it. This is what's going on in here. Meanwhile, there's like one, two, three more terrariums next to him, by the way, but he's just not looking because he's not in that terrarium. See what I'm saying? So he drew all these, this is what it sounds like so far. Okay. He's drew all these conclusions in his very specific one. Meanwhile, there's these other ones driving the whole bigger picture. You see what I'm saying? That, that kind of complimented and stuff like that. That's what it feels like.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  I thought where you were gonna go with this idea was that this dude had kind of tried some other stuff, tried to be a writer, tried to make this, this serum, you know, kind of tried to get to the peak of these other things. And it didn't really happen. So then at 48, it's like, war happens. And now all of a sudden, and he's gonna talk about this stuff, all now it's like, nothing else matters. Cause we're out here. And, and so this seems like the peak thing. Now let's say he'd have been a Nobel Prize scientist who had discovered in this serum that he made was, you know, world renowned and saved all these people. Maybe he wouldn't feel the same way. Yeah. But I kind of think he's saying, yes, I would.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I understand. And then, but, and keep in mind too, like when I talk about this bias, like he's gonna, he's gonna go in this war environment. And not only is he gonna think that's the whole world, he's gonna draw like analogies to everything, mapping back to war. So he's gonna call everything war, when you could do that with construction as well, like building something?

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's a lot of things you could be like, well, isn't that just another way of saying building? You see what I'm saying? You gotta throw away the scraps when you're building, otherwise you can't build it. You see what I'm saying?

• 10:32Jocko Willink?

  You can, you can make a metaphor, but it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be a one to one metaphor.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, that's kind of my point where if you're in a wartime environment, you can make metaphors, war can be metaphors for like a lot of stuff.

• 10:44Jocko Willink?

  Metaphors, war for, war is the metaphor for everything. Everyone's comparing everything to war all the time. But they have to compare it to war, but it's not war. Right. We all know that.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 10:52Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's saying. Okay. Not war. Okay. Like all the other stuff, the building, the whatever, doesn't matter. All right. Next, as much as man dreads death in the calm hours of life, so too does he naturally accept it in the midst of struggle.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  Being all afraid of dying and then you get in war, you're like, well, gonna happen, could happen. I'm, I'm down with it, ready. In the universe, the service of the species imposes on females, the burdens of risk, the burdens and risks of maternity. It imposes on males of the same blood fratricidal struggle, combat amongst themselves, death if need be. What instinct commands, the animal accepts by nature. Males are made to die, or at least to accept the risks of death in battle.

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  As I said, this guy goes hard.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  This guy goes hard. And when I say there's some, you know, uh, morsel of truth in there, I, I can see this morsel of truth.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And again, I do too, but even that, what he just said there, it's kind of like, he's like, men are made to die, or at least willing to accept the risk. Those are two completely different things. So, yeah, I don't know. Like I said, this is just the beginning. So, I don't know.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  I'll give you time to process it.

• 12:21Jocko Willink?

  Nature does not will fertilization, it wills essential fertilization. The primary mission of males is not to reproduce, but to kill one another. Across the living world, their slaughters precede love. The female propagates the species, the male, through his death, selects it. Nature, which reaps the benefits, creates males to destroy one another. She grants them both the taste for it and the strength to risk it. And by she, he's talking about nature.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  So, that's what we're doing. And isn't it crazy, you know, that we're supposed to be this enlightened, you know, educated species now with, with thought and logic. And right now, as we're talking, there's people just slaughtering each other out in the battlefield.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  So, it, it's kind of, well, you know, maybe in your coffee shop or whatever, you're sitting there going, oh, this war is, doesn't make sense. And meanwhile, some dude over in Ukraine is just like getting ready to freaking charge a trench for the 14th time in two weeks.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, and not to, I don't want to keep us here on the first chapter, whatever.

• 13:27Jocko Willink?

  First page.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Page.

• 13:28Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  But I think where maybe we might fundamentally disagree at this time. Me and Renee here.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Is, he's, he's focusing on the war part of it and saying that's everything. And I say, and I actually told you this before, where I think, if you want to break it down to the fundamental building blocks, at the very least, there's two, there's like a balance between collaboration and competition. So he's talking about just the competition part. You have all competition, everybody kills each other and everybody dies. You gotta collaborate if, if you wanna, you see what I'm saying?

• 14:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. But, but in a lot, in most cases, you're just collaborating so you can kill other dudes.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:06Jocko Willink?

  Ultimately.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  But still, that collaboration exists alongside.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  It exists, but only to further your war efforts.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Or you further your war efforts just for a greater collaboration.

• 14:17Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  I think yes. Of course, you're gonna say no, I understand. That's what I'm saying. I don't want to keep us on the first page, but you see what I'm saying?

• 14:25Jocko Willink?

  This is where we get, you know, we start getting more extreme. The male who dies serves the species by leaving to others the task of propagating it.

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  Nature denies males the right to reproduce, races the right to endure. This right, males and races must win it through struggle. The first duty nature lays upon them is not to live, but to triumph or die.

• 14:55Jocko Willink?

  Going hard in the paint.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yep, I agree with that.

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  The burden of dying is as natural to the male as the burden of bearing is to the female. The destiny of males is to stake their lives in the service of the species. Every male carries within him the calling to die.

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  And his footnote here is nature does not love males. Within every species, males are tasked with destroying one another for the salvation of the species.

• 15:23Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's what you're gonna do.

• 15:26Jocko Willink?

  And you, you know, when you take, I think a lot of the stuff that you're, you're seeing, you're picturing with like the veneer of society on it.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  I think.

• 15:36Jocko Willink?

  Meaning, oh, we're gonna collaborate because we're trying to build something.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 15:39Jocko Willink?

  And when that veneer goes away, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna beat you to death with a club.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, half the time, half the time, that's true. The other half is like, no, no, let me team up with this. Cause like, even if you're fighting, you're fighting for something. See what I'm saying? So it's not like, oh yeah, we're just gonna fight for no reason because we're meant to fight and die like it.

• 15:55Jocko Willink?

  No, that, that is what he's saying.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  I know, that's what he's saying. That's why, exactly right. So, so like, even, and again, I don't know. I could be wrong at this time, but think about even just the male, uh, psyche, let's say you come across another man, and actually you too, the more, you know, leader of men, Jocko, hell yeah, freaking war all day, you know, if required, kind of a thing. When you see another person that's within the realm of yourself, even a little bit, age, physicality, you know, whatever. An evaluation goes on in your mind, just maybe even subconsciously, but I would imagine conscience, consciously, right? And it's either like, is this a friend or a foe?

• 16:35Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  So.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  By the way, that stuff is all, that stuff is all primal.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  It's part of your limbic system. When you look at someone, you're, you're judging, you look at the narrowness of their eyes, you look at the broadness of their jaws, you look at their, their weight, their height, that you assess all that stuff. In your limbic system, is this human, is this other human a threat or not? So this is going on, this is so deep in your, in your being, you sometimes don't even recognize it.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  Now, what happens is if you're a fighter, it, it bubbles to the surface more. Cause you spend so much time in combat, in hand to hand combat with your, with your teammates and your friends. That when you see an outsider, which by the way, is also another part that your limbic system judges, like is this person part of my crew or not? If they're not part of my crew, I know it. I know it by looking at someone, this, this person's not like us. They're outsider. This is all, that stuff is all happening. Whether you want it to happen or not, it's happening.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, and that's my point.

• 17:29Jocko Willink?

  Now, hopefully logically, you can go, look, I meet this guy. I look, I think I can take him or I think he can take me, but instead of like aggressively trying to confront him, to your point, let's see, maybe we can collaborate. But that's all an override of logic. And there's a decent chance that logic does not override and I'm just fighting you.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and I, I get that, but I think as far as the initial that evaluation, it's a friend or foe evaluation. And the friend part of it is part of it too. And that's what I'm saying. I'm not denying any of this stuff. I think, I just think there's another side that comes with it. That's all I'm saying.

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  So when he's like, you're meant to die, it's like, bro, you know, maybe, that's why I would, I would lean more towards the risk.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  Again, you put the veneer, well, he said, or, he said, meant to die or the risk. But also when you put the veneer of society.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:20Jocko Willink?

  And like, you know, when, when you have a car and you have a wife and you've got kids and you've got a house, like, and you've got a job, like, all this stuff is just, each one of those little layers just, just buries it a little bit deeper. But if we're gonna say, we have to recognize that it's there.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:36Jocko Willink?

  It's there. Okay.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yes. And that is what I'm saying. I do recognize that it's there. And that's what I'm saying. I'm saying, but there's that other part. Otherwise, this society wouldn't even exist as a whole. It's basically, society is one of the many symptoms of this other side that exists, which is the collaboration side. So if you're saying, and not you, but if he's saying war is fundamentally it, that would be the front running result. You see what I'm saying? Just freaking destruction. Like man would not, would build less than he destroys.

• 19:03Jocko Willink?

  And if the societal part had even the slightest bit of power over this animalistic instinct, we wouldn't just be in constant state of war for the past 30,000 years.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Like I said, they go hand in hand. I'm telling you, like, again, I'm not denying that. I think this is it. Yeah, hell yeah, all day. But I'm saying, there's another side to it that comes with it, is what I'm saying.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  And I think the fundamental point that you're making is that there's, there is a surface veneer over painted all over this stuff, which I totally agree with you. There is, that's what we live in. We live in the veneer.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  We live in the nice stuff, right? But beneath it all is just like, I'm getting ready to beat you to death with a club.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's half of it.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  It's not even half. It might, it might be like, it might, yeah, it's like point 02% depending on who I am. Because if I, you know, I'm probably, I'm closer to beating you to death with a club than some guy that works, you know, in finance, who, you know what I mean? Like, he just doesn't, he hasn't had the opportunity to express and he has buried those instincts deeper.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:11Jocko Willink?

  With more, with more fluff, right? Whereas like, and then you go to someone that's a, uh, you know, someone that's an active duty marine. But he's a little bit closer. And then you go to somebody that's like in combat, well, he's there. And then you go to somebody that's, you'd go right on down the line. So we have people that are various depths. And this animalistic nature is being brought to the surface more.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:35Jocko Willink?

  Depending on who you are and what you're doing.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  But you better keep that in mind.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, sir, I agree.

• 20:40Jocko Willink?

  It, it in, yes, keep it in mind. Continuing on, death is well born in war. In the hour of combat, natural man scorns life. He is no longer his end, or sorry, it is no longer his end. He ceases to be its champion and becomes the champion of the species. This is like you're sacrificing yourself for the species.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  War is no defiance of nature. It is not against nature for the male to kill his fellow. It is not against nature for the male to be killed by his fellow. The law that governs relations between males within a single species is a law of murder and risk. War is a chapter of love.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  Males of the same species are intoxicated by tearing each other apart. The intoxication of war is an intoxication of love. Again, why are we watching UFC?

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  Why, why can you go on and doom scroll just people getting in fights? And war scenes and people killing each other? Why is that? I wonder why that is.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:50Jocko Willink?

  That's very strange, isn't it?

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think it's strange, but I think that that's part of, that's one of the elements that people doom scroll. There's other things that people doom scroll and love, by the way. And so if I, how about this, zoom out a little bit?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  So yes, I agree with you that hell yeah, like two guys fight, everyone's gonna pause and watch for sure. You know, in the more freaking active.

• 22:13Jocko Willink?

  But we jump up and down and cheer.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Oh, hell yeah. But here, zoom out for, to a bigger picture too. Here's what we like, just a little bit, one click, we'll zoom out. We like when two people have like beef and issues, right? They hate each other and we're like, oh, this is brewing up. We feel it, the entertainment starts right then. See what I'm saying? They didn't fight yet, they got beef for this reason or that reason. Some people identify with this guy because of this and the other guy, because he's from here or whatever, you know, they're beefing. They hate each other and it's just bubbling up until the climax of the fight, right? Boom, boom, they fight, boom, it's hard fight. That's what we like, the hard fight. We don't need that anticlimactic freaking short fight. We want the, the hard fight, right? They fight, they fight, they fight, one winner emerges, right? Gotta have the winner, see what I'm saying? And then after the fight, they make up.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  And they say, man, I respect you and boom, we love that, that, that make up collaboration part, you see what I'm saying?

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  We just love war.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  It, no, no, no, but if you add the other elements alongside it, it's a greater satisfaction is what I'm saying. It's a greater thing, like we like that more, I think collectively, I think.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we like war.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what I'm saying is, yeah, I agree with that, but you add on those other parts of it, we like it even better.

• 23:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 23:21Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  So if, if war was the only thing, that other part would be, and neither here nor there, see what I'm saying?

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  No, it wouldn't be here nor there, maybe not quite as gratifying, but it would still be.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  No, I'm saying if we didn't love the other part of it.

• 23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  If, when it came, if, if two guys, you know, like I said, that whole scenario, whatever, that happens, by the way. If that happened versus another scenario, that, you know, the next week or the next year, whatever, and they didn't make up and be friends or whatever afterwards, we'd still, if that was less significant, we wouldn't care about that second one. You'd be like, yeah, that's neither here nor there, that, that, that, that collaboration part at the end, you see what I'm saying? But it's not like that. We tend to like the whole story.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we tend to, yeah, we tend to, but it's not a critical, not a critical component.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  It's not the roots.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Egoism is the false reckoning. War suddenly reminds men that they were not born for themselves. Ain't that the truth? Pacifism is an assault on honor. Man has but one, man has but one majesty, the knowledge of how to die. Pacifism denies him this.

• 24:32Jocko Willink?

  The force that drives men into the line of fire is one of the most powerful in the world. It surpasses even the force that drives them to love. There are few loves on earth for which one is willing to die. Love of country is one of them.

• 24:47Jocko Willink?

  He who is, he who has never wished to die, has never truly loved. Again, we're sometimes we're getting kind of extreme here.

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  It is not to reach summit that men climb mountains. The nearness of death is so sweet that in absence of war, man invents games, occasions to die.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  I, I do agree with that, yes, sir.

• 25:11Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And you think about it, you know, when people like climb up Everest? If you, or whatever mountain, like if you're doing that for the view, right? Well, just send a drone up there with a GoPro attached to it.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  If you're doing it for the physical exertion, we'll just go and jump on a treadmill and, you know, go up the, whatever, stair climber and climb up however far it is. But you're only doing it. What makes it kind of what you want to do is let's face it, you might die. So you have to replace war and look, there's levels to that too, right? Cause we do, you know, the, we, we want to go to war, well, we can't do, there's no war going on. So we're climbing mountains, we're fighting, we're playing football, we're playing basketball, like we're competing, we're fighting, we want to get in combat. And you know, I always say like, if we're in a basketball game and you like foul me a little bit much, we might fight. You know what I'm saying?

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yep, it's true. Yeah, you're right, that's actually very, that's correct, I think too, that when there's no war, like we look for, he says death, but I'm like, I'm like, bro, he's probably more right than he knows, because we look for other words too. Like if, and if there's no other words over here, we're gonna look for them over here. If they're not over there, it's like, bro, let me make one up real quick. Let's see how else I differ from this other person or group, you know? Doesn't matter, it can be the most peaceful freaking time.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  Don't matter.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  And you're just looking for that stuff, I get it.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  No species brings more frenzy to death than man. None purifies itself more nor kills its own more readily. Among animals, only instincts clash. Among men, it is ideas. A differing belief carries within it a summons to death. Every ideal is a pretext for killing.

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you gotta just admit that's spot on. Like, we're the only, we're the only group, we're the only animal? That's like, wait, I don't like what you're, what you're thinking? I'm gonna murder everyone, every one of your group.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:21Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, I think, I think it's kind of like a more sophisticated version of the animal stuff. You know, like most animals, they'll, they'll kill another animal of any could, like either to eat them, take their stuff or defend their.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but a lot of times, but within their own species, most of the time, it's, it's a, it's more of a, of a fake fight. It's more of just a, they don't kill each other. Like they, they sometimes accidentally kill each other or they sometimes kill each other because it gets, it gets heated or whatever. But a lot of times, you know, if you're a freaking elk and the, you know, if I'm the smaller elk or the weaker elk and this other elk starts beating my ass, I just leave. He doesn't, he doesn't like chase me down and just kill me. Occasionally they get killed because they got freaking giant knives on their head that they're stabbing into each other. So occasionally, but like, that's not their purpose. But, but humans be like, no, no, no, wait, you think different, I will chase you down and kill you. Like we have to make special laws, you know what I mean? They're like, hey, if the guy comes into your house, you can kill him.

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  If they start running away, you can't kill him anymore. Cause a man will be like, oh, you came into my house and now you're trying to get away from me? Cool, I'm going to walk down the street, find you and kill you. And now we gotta say that's a more extreme, uh, law, we gotta put like, that's you murdered, it's not manslaughter, you know? And like, uh, we gotta put special laws like crimes of passion, like, you know what I mean?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:42Jocko Willink?

  That's a lesser, if, if, if you, you know, if a guy catches his wife in bed with a guy and he kills them both on the spot, he will get less sentence than if he, he leaves and he comes back a one hour later and kills them both, he's going like that, the first one is gonna be, I think it's, there's some, there's, it's not gonna be first degree murder. He might even get, you can even get away with a damn manslaughter charge.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  A little aggravated.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  That aggregate of manslaughter, something like, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, but I know it's a lesser charge. Like everybody knows that you just might lose your mind, you know?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  And they kind of, they kind of make, uh, some wiggle room for that, see what I'm saying?

• 29:23Jocko Willink?

  But we have to have a law that says, oh, you might calculate to go and just hunt a, a motherfucker down. You know, I'd be like, we have to have to, have to say that, like, hey, listen, if you go to that extreme, you can't do that. Whereas like an elk, like the other elk runs away, he's just like, cool. Like, cool, I won the little scrap. No, a, a human, oh yeah, I'm gonna hunt you down, I'm gonna kill you. I'm, I'm gonna come into your house at night and slit your throat, that's what I'm doing.

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  Pleasures may fill the world, but it is ideas that govern it. Cool. Nature commands being to live, beings to live only in order to serve. Service is the end. Living is merely the means. The instinct of self-preservation in the male is like caution in a troop advancing towards the enemy. It delivers him alive, on foot and in position for combat. His final purpose as a being created to struggle and die.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  Again, extreme.

• 30:29Jocko Willink?

  The face of the male in combat is hideous. It breathes vice and commands the blow. The male is horrific to the male. He is that which must be exterminated. It's like your own worst enemy, you, you, your, your other species. This is where people, you know, uh, pacifists are like, what are we doing? Like, wait, that's, this is another human being. And you're gonna kill them. Like, what is happening right now? Isn't it funny how you, uh, not funny, but when you start to pare down, like, how groups will turn against each other. I remember we were off the coast of Somalia in the nineties.

• 31:14Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, there's always a bunch of shit going on in Somalia at the time. And the Somalis had the, you know, they would try to give us the cultural brief on the Somalis. And one of the cultural briefs was, they have this saying, and it was like, me against my brother, my brother and I against my family, my family against my tribe, my tribe against Somalia, Somalia against the world. So that's how they just break shit down. And, but it's weird for like, a pacifist is like, wait a second, no, no, no. Your brother is also your tribe, is also your Somali, is also the world. So, why are you trying to make war with, you know, these other people that are basically, they, you know, all humans are brothers? So what's happening? This is what a pacifist just can't even, can't even relate, you know?

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  They just can't even relate. You know how some people just don't? When, when, when people, like culturally are different, it's very difficult for them to even understand what's happening. It's like when you, when, um, I think I was having a talk with my daughter about fighting. And when someone doesn't know about, like grappling, they just don't even understand. Like you could say someone boxed, let's say we went back thirty years right now, or forty years, right? Go back pre UFC, and someone was a boxer, and you knew jujitsu. Like trying to explain to them that they should learn how to grapple would be, it would be like, you know, it would make no sense whatsoever. It just makes no sense. Just, it would be incomprehensible. You'd have to, you'd have to like fight them and choke them. You couldn't verbally explain it to them.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  You'd have to show them, and it would even take them a long time to even realize then that grappling is good. I, I used to think the number was about four, maybe three to four submissions, before someone even realizes, even believes that what you're doing is real.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, back in the day before people knew jujitsu, I would grapple with someone, and I'd submit them, right? And people didn't really know jujitsu, so you know, catch them in an arm bar, and they'd be like, you know, the look of disbelief, oh, let's go again.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  And so you go, okay, cool, guillotine. And they still are just like, wait, you know, this doesn't make, you know, your, whatever lucky thing just happened, it was not gonna happen again. And they give them a kimura. And then, and usually by the third, by the fourth, the fourth time, they're like, okay. But the first two times, there's no belief whatsoever.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:39Jocko Willink?

  So thinking that you're going to convey to somebody how radically different the world is is very, very difficult.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you're still right about that as far. It, if you, um, let's say the grappling scenario, if you're, if you walk them through what you're doing to them in real time, then they'll start to grasp it, but it's kind of like,

• 33:59Jocko Willink?

  Never tried that.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, here, that's why I thought that the first three UFC's, actually it was one, two, and four, were the kind of the ones that I would watch all the time, is the announcer, one of the announcers was like, new, new grappling. I think he trained with like, Corin and them. So he would kind of walk you through, he's like, okay, he's gonna put them, you know, between his guard, he'd say that. Between his guard, or now he, okay, he got him down, now he's gonna mount him, and you know, this and that. And it's like, bruh, this guy, even though I don't know what he's gonna do next, this guy does, and he's walking us through it, so it doesn't look like just one big shuffle of anarchy, and he winds up in this magical position that I happen to have my arm like bent, or to happen to be, you know, choked through it, because that's what it feels like in real life.

• 34:42Jocko Willink?

  It is so, it is so weird to think of what grap, what jujitsu is from a place without knowledge.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:49Jocko Willink?

  It just must look like,

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels like, oh, they lucked out. And even if you, if you remember, like, um, you know, when we were kids in high school, I remember, uh, like when you get on mount, right? And it's really hard for someone to, because they don't even know what mount is, they just feel like you're on top of them, you know? And then, so you feel like, oh shoot, I just wound up in this bad spot out of bad luck.

• 35:12Jocko Willink?

  But no problem.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, let's do it again. Yeah, yeah, let's do it again, and whatever, and then boom, you're in mount again, and it's like, okay, nah, maybe luck, you know, you know how it takes them a few times to understand, oh, you're doing this on purpose? See what I'm saying? And that's so common. Like, if you, if you, I'm trying to remember who, it might have been Henzo, or, I don't know, somebody where they're like, okay, they got in a fight, and they said, uh, the guy who he fought was like, let's go again. You know, I'm gonna show you, uh, what I'm gonna do with that sneak attack stuff, right? Called it sneak attack, even though it's very calculated stuff, it's not just some, you know. So yeah, you're right, if you don't know the fundamental stuff, it just looks like one big kind of hodgepodge of nothingness, and you wound up in this unfortunate bad luck situation. See what I'm saying? But meanwhile, it's like, no, no, no, this is a calculated.

• 35:58Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you what's interesting, from a leadership perspective, that's leadership too. And when people aren't thinking with the leadership principles, they're just, they're just ending up, they're like, oh, you know? And hopefully, if you're leading correctly, you know, you're, you know, obviously you're trying to teach people leadership, you're trying to bring them up, but when they're, they're, they're stumbling around, and all of a sudden, they're doing the thing that they should be doing. They're kind of like, oh, you know, this is, this makes sense, you know?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  It's so true, because even when you say, oh yeah, they had good leader, you know, this real successful, I don't know, like even a football team, right? Oh yeah, they had really good leadership, the head coach is so good, you know? And you're like, bro, what the hell's the head coach doing? What, telling them a good job? Like, I don't get it. Like how his leadership affected, how fast this guy runs, how good this guy can catch, how good this guy can throw, how good this guy can tackle and all this stuff. How does the head coach do that? He doesn't teach him that. But that's how, you know, they're the ones doing this amazing stuff on the field, and have that keep, the coach is an old guy. Just because what, he, he was on a team, like, I don't get it, you know? But when you know how leadership works, you're like, oh, bruh, this is, this mystery just revealed, you know, kind of a thing? Because yeah, we don't see leadership like that kind of intuitively, right?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  We just see a guy walking and everyone just sort of following him.

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  It looks like jujitsu to the untrained eye.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  So true.

• 37:14Jocko Willink?

  Check. Um, pleasures of the body, resentment, remorse.

• 37:20Jocko Willink?

  The being knows it betrays. There is no bliss but of the soul, and no laurels but of the species. And it says here, as a footnote, every being possesses two souls, the soul of the body and the soul of the species. The soul of the body seeks only pleasure. The soul of the species issues the command to serve. He who does not serve knows he betrays. The body craves comfort, rest, delight. The species demands effort, hardness, sacrifice. Come on, bro. It's all worthwhile. You know what I'm saying? Like, think of that, that right there is just,

• 38:02Jocko Willink?

  it, it makes so much sense. You know, when, when, when you're looking out for yourself, people look out for themselves, and they bury that, that, uh, that instinct to serve. And it's rough, comes out in other ways. Sometimes it comes out in good ways, they become very charitable, whatever. You know, when you see these billionaires give a bunch of money at, you know, before they die, they want to donate all their money to all these causes and everything, they're trying to become saviors, they're trying to become, they're trying to make up for the fact that they were just, you know, doing stuff for themselves.

• 38:36Jocko Willink?

  And then they go on and give all this money away, and yeah, well, guess what? The pursuit of happiness is impious. Pleasures are lures, they are not ends. So he's saying, you know,

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  impious is like, without God, you know, so like, pursuit of happiness is just not good. Pleasures are lures, they're just lures.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  Not ends.

• 39:06Jocko Willink?

  The people who love war are the male peoples. Yep.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  The male people.

• 39:13Jocko Willink?

  The male peoples, end quote. It's them.

• 39:19Jocko Willink?

  Maternity is the natural state of woman, war is the natural state of males.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  Guy's going hard in the paint. The male who kills saves the world.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  And he says, nature, this is the footnote, nature imposes guarantees upon duration.

• 39:41Jocko Willink?

  Races and males purchase the right to endure with their blood. The male who kills save the worlds, saves the world.

• 39:51Jocko Willink?

  Philosophers may offer people the ideal of tranquil tranquil happiness, but tranquil happiness is not the only thing men desire.

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, do you think this, do you think this has anything to do with, uh? You ever heard of a midlife crisis?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes and yes. I heard of midlife.

• 40:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, have you seen, have you seen people like, um? They pay to go to like a bootcamp scenario?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The recreational bootcamp scenario.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like a recreational bootcamp scenario.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:24Jocko Willink?

  They're like, pay for that.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:27Jocko Willink?

  But, but, you know, it's like, oh, what are they missing?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Jocko Willink?

  Are they missing? Cause they were not, they didn't, they buried their warlike instinct for their life. And then they get to be like thirty five years old and they're like, they feel, they, they wanna gratify that thing. They're too old to just freaking straight up join the army and go get some.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes.

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  Could be, right?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it feels, well, it feels like, I don't know, all the ones I've seen.

• 40:54Jocko Willink?

  Cause you don't see dudes that were in the army or in the Marine Corps signing up to go to one of those things.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's not happening.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:00Jocko Willink?

  At least I don't, I don't think it's happening.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I don't think so either. It wouldn't make much sense to me as of right now, but I don't, I don't know. I've never been to one, so I don't know what it entails fully, but the, uh, it feels like the attraction is not just the, the war part of it. It's just, you know how like, there are many benefits to the military than just being able to fight, you know, according to this person. In fact, a lot of people join the military like with no intention of fighting, you know, like there's benefits.

• 41:30Jocko Willink?

  College.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, but I'm saying personal benefit.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm saying like you get college paid for, you get, oh, you're talking about structured discipline.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Discipline, you challenge yourself, you come out more resilient in a lot of ways, stronger mentally, physically, like all this stuff or whatever, all like legitimate, legitimate benefits. And then when you kind of put them together, you could, you know how like the, what are the sum of this is worth more than its part or whatever? It's like you have that element as well, as far as like just personal development through life as a, usually, usually men go through these things, right? So think about this, I think they're trying to get that part of it out of these recreational, we'll say bootcamps. Yes, the whole like, oh, I'm gonna challenge myself.

• 42:12Jocko Willink?

  Everything that you just listed is all, is all under the umbrella of being ready to freaking serve.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:21Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? It's all like, that's what we respect about those things.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  We don't watch, when we drive by like a, you're driving down the road and you see in someone's window and you see a guy like, just like eating a bag of Doritos and watching Netflix.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.

• 42:35Jocko Willink?

  You, you just, you don't, you don't respect that person. You have no, you're not like, damn, I wish I was doing that.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:41Jocko Willink?

  And then you go by a guy's open garage and he's freaking in there swinging a kettlebell and he's playing freaking, uh, let's see, what was it? Mastodon? And you go, you go, okay, like dude, like you kind of want your, but you think like that guy's getting ready for war. Your, your, your animal instinct goes, that guy's getting ready for, the guy that's on the couch is not getting ready for war.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I think is, so when you go, I want that. And so when you see those like, uh, uh, adult bootcamp things, you're like, oh, that guy thinks that that's gonna get him ready for war. He's gonna scratch that itch that he has, cause he didn't just at freaking seventeen years old, just sign the dotted line, let's go.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, I, I do agree with that. War, I think in a more zoomed out perspective, war is one of them, but I think it has to do with overall just capability, you know, so like if you're resilient, you're strong.

• 43:38Jocko Willink?

  All these capabilities are the only reason we all.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Not the only, not the only.

• 43:42Jocko Willink?

  The main underlying reason that you can admit to or not, that you respect these things is war.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  I think, I would say more specifically, one of them, yes. I don't, I don't know if, I don't know that I would say the main one.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  I, the underlying one, might not be the main one that you sense, cause you layer a bunch of frosting on top of it. But if you get rid of the frosting, you'll be like, war. War is the root.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I, I don't know if it'd be the root. I would say it's one of the root tentacles. Oh, yeah, for sure. Put it this way, look, anytime I'm contesting this whole book or whatever, or anytime it appears I'm contesting the whole book, I just know that I'm not, I'm saying there's more to it. It's kind of like, hey, uh, freaking the tires are the most important part of the car. With no tires, your car ain't going nowhere. So that's the roots, but I'm like, whoa, whoa, what about, but no, no, you have a tire, tire in concert with the engine. Cause if you don't got an engine, your car ain't moving either. See what I'm saying?

• 44:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 44:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, we, we got you covered in this next one here. It says philosophers may strive to tarnish discredit and blind, and bind war. But the stags will go on bellowing in the woods and all males will go on offering themselves to slaughter and to death for the salvation of the species. So you can be over there like, well, you know, there's this, that and the other thing, but it's like, cool. As I just said, the stags are in the woods getting after it and the, the troops are on the battlefield right now, by the way. It's twenty twenty six. We're all enlightened. We have education. We have the internet. We can, we, we have philosophy. We have psychology. We understand the way the human mind works. We have medicine. We can save lives.

• 45:20Jocko Willink?

  And we got dudes right now just unloading belt fed machine guns into trench positions. That's what's happening.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  I'm with you.

• 45:29Jocko Willink?

  Nature, which has bound, bound pleasures to, to the acts of love, has not forgotten the pleasures of combat. The pleasures of combat are the thrill of risk, the thrill of killing, the thrill of being alive.

• 45:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, confirmed. Death in battle is the natural end of males. Check.

• 45:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, we, now what do we, what do we do? We like, you get old, you can't walk anymore, you're, you're, you're losing your mind, you're, uh, you have mental decay and all this stuff is going on.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  Or just death in battle.

• 46:12Jocko Willink?

  Wars will cease on earth when love is extinguished.

• 46:18Jocko Willink?

  The hero is a man of destiny. He obeys a mission. This guy's going hard, a hundred percent.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  But I do agree with that part of it.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  The whole mission thing.

• 46:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  There is no such thing as a pessimistic hero. He would undertake nothing.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  Confirmed.

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  The full array of military virtue does not yet make a hero. What sets him apart is the pleasure he takes in difficult situations.

• 46:51Jocko Willink?

  The hero acts not out of duty, he acts out of love.

• 46:57Jocko Willink?

  What the brave man may do is give their life. The heroes offer it.

• 47:05Jocko Willink?

  This guy's rolling out a World War One, too. You know, go back and listen to Dick Hoffman in what was like trench warfare and this guy got wounded eight times. And by the way, he's there for the whole war.

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  So it's, this isn't some guy, which he, he later in the book talks about these other guys. The people that are in the rear, he talks about them. He's got a whole, the whole thing. But I just want to remind everybody here, this is not some, uh, you ever heard the term pavement princess?

• 47:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:35Jocko Willink?

  So you ever seen a big jacked up truck?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:38Jocko Willink?

  But it, but it just drives around like the mall.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a way, we have an expression, all go, no show, no, all show, no go.

• 47:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, but this is, he's, he's not a pavement princess.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  He was in the shit, as they say.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  He's all go.

• 47:55Jocko Willink?

  He's all go.

• 47:57Jocko Willink?

  The hero is the one who forgets himself and gives himself.

• 48:02Jocko Willink?

  Self-love guides men, but love for others guides heroes. Nature does not create heroes to live, but to serve. Heroism is to serve. Heroism is nothing but love. It is not effort. Where there is joy, where there is no longer joy, there is no longer heroism.

• 48:23Jocko Willink?

  What does he say about that? I'm gonna read the footnote. Where there is no more joy, honor may still remain, but heroism no longer does. Heroism is the joy of effort for the struggle, for the love of struggle.

• 48:38Jocko Willink?

  Men may, men enjoy the universe only through the senses of their bodies. Heroes through the, the faculties of their souls.

• 48:48Jocko Willink?

  Men are fulfilled by possessing heroes by giving. He, and this whole section, you know, obviously he's talking about heroes, but it's almost as if he talks about heroes as they're borderline another species, you know, like they just have to have a philosophically different, different, uh, existence in the world. Like men are fulfilled by possessing heroes by giving. Men are servants of their bodies. Heroes are servants of men. This is a different, these, these people are thinking differently.

• 49:20Jocko Willink?

  Heroes beg for hard commands.

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  Tragic days are wedding days for the brave. Nature entrusts heroes with the deeds too heavy for other men.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he, he's, he definitely views heroes, which I'm sure he saw plenty.

• 49:41Jocko Willink?

  Experience does not cure bravery.

• 49:47Jocko Willink?

  The builders of great fortunes never enjoy them. They go on pushing the boulder that crushes them. You definitely see that, right? People, people just, they're, what, you can't get enough? But that's a, that's a saying, right?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Oh, right, right.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, can you get enough? And like, why is Elon Musk still working eighteen hour days? Like, bro, he has a trillion dollars. If I gave you a trillion dollars today, how many hours a week would you work one month from now?

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably not many, but that's two different things. Like, you giving me a trillion dollars is different than me, you know, dedicating my life to something that, you know, ends up, ends me up with a trillion dollars, you know?

• 50:33Jocko Willink?

  How much of the, you know, you always hear, uh, people that win the lottery?

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:37Jocko Willink?

  That they, like, the urban legend is, you know, they have all kinds of problems, right?

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  You think, what do you think? Do you think that's just urban legend? You think it's facts?

• 50:44Speaker 01

  I, I, put it this way, it makes sense to me, yes, from the stories that I've heard. You know, you can, you can watch little documentaries on this kind of stuff. Um, I'm sure you can look up the statistics at some point to really get the facts, but it makes sense to me, yes, because I vote, it kind of makes sense to me that a person who winds up with XYZ, you know, whether it be riches or, or a be in great shape, or basically the coveted things that people like have. For the most part, it's, they have that for a reason, and put very simply, it's because they're the type of person that lives the kind of life and takes the kind of actions that end up with this thing, right?

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  You just don't turn it off.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's who you are, and that's just in the money or whatever you want to point out. That's just the, the result, the eventuality, a symptom of what kind of person you are and what kind of actions you take over time. So Elon Musk, or, you know, who, you know, whoever you want to say, or even a guy in great shape, we'll say. He's in great shape because he did a bunch of stuff and lived his life a certain way. He's the type of person who ends up in good shape. That's the way it works. Now, anytime you sidestep that process, you end up with some weirdo problems. Like, you, you know, like, um, you know, we have these GLP-1 peptides, which, that's kind of an example of that. People will sidestep this process and take a drug for it.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  And then it'll wind up with all these effects that are outside of that process that are undesired. See what I'm saying? So, and that goes for any kind of sidestepping that process, you see what I'm saying? So, winning the lottery is another example of that, where a person with, let's say, five hundred million dollars isn't, when you win it, most of the time, when you win it through the lottery, you're not the type of person who gets five hundred million dollars in this principle, you see what I'm saying? So you end up with a five million dollars and you're like, you kind of don't know what to do with it, see what I'm saying?

• 52:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, you go to Vegas and you figure it out real quick, a lot of these, a lot of these people, right?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. Or you buy a bunch of stuff that a person without five million, hundred million dollars would want to buy, you see what I'm saying?

• 52:53Jocko Willink?

  This happens to athletes, too. Like athletes that sign big contracts, and all of a sudden, they just have all this money. A lot of them end up with nothing.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  They just blow it.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  I remember an interview with Mike Tyson's accountant, and they were like, the questionnaire, or the interviewer said, you know, "Mike Tyson made a hundred and seventeen million dollars last year. How is it that he's broke?" And the accountant said, "He spent a hundred and eighteen million." It's like, there you go. Like, it's just numbers.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You ever watched the show, uh, or you heard of the show called The Biggest Loser?

• 53:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a weight loss, right?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. So you get these people who are not into working out, not into, you know, being dietarily conscious and, you know, all this stuff, right? And they put them in this very strict and regimented program that has very few, like, not very much wiggle room. So it's kind of like they have kind of no choice. So they go through this process, and they're very successful at losing weight and getting into, we'll say, getting into shape, we'll say. But that's a very, that's not really the real world process. You know, the real world process that people will have their struggles with is like, all, it's a world without those boundaries that are kind of artificially placed for this show, you know? So they get this crazy success, crazy success, very fast, too, faster than the normal process.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  And they don't have to contend with the, the, we'll say, the obstacles that the real world process will provide, right?

• 54:19Jocko Willink?

  There's no Krispy Kreme sitting in the office.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  In the office, at the corner, in the grocery store, when you're shopping, you know, all this stuff or whatever. Parties, you know, get to get this all this stuff, freaking nachos.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  So they go through this process, right? This is manufactured process or whatever. They get the success, and they go out in the real world and immediately gain it all back. See what I'm saying? Because they're not like-

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  What percentage?

• 54:40Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  It's a high percentage, though, isn't it?

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Put it this way, I would not be surprised if it's literally all of them. Hundred percent. I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know, though. I gotta be fair and honest.

• 54:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, what's, you know what's kind of cool is like, at Victory MMA?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  We've had people that have lost hundreds of pounds. But, but the big difference that I think I see is like, they, they have a full lifestyle change. You know what I'm saying? The person that had, that was overweight, they're not that person anymore.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:12Jocko Willink?

  And so what you're saying is, which I agree with, when you go to, uh, The Biggest Loser, you lose weight, but you're still the same person that you were before. And there's a reason that you were in that position, because you followed habits and you did, you know, the way you lived your life. You're not a different person. So, interesting.

• 55:33Jocko Willink?

  Like mothers, heroes place their purpose outside themselves. So he's calling, for the, the females that are listening that are very angry at some of the sentences that he said, he's saying, you know,

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  mothers are heroes, which I agree with. They're, the mom, the children come first.

• 55:55Jocko Willink?

  "It is the privilege of motherhood and heroism to find rapture where there is only pain and effort."

• 56:03Jocko Willink?

  Props.

• 56:06Jocko Willink?

  "The love of danger, the thrill of risk, the need to affirm one's worth, the joy of exercising initiative, the pleasure of outwitting the enemy, the delight of harming him, the intoxication of combat, the certainty of survive, survival, the pride of carrying through a difficult task, the ecstasy of performing extraordinary deeds, the honor of service, a healthy body, the exultation of every faculty. These are what make men brave."

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  "Heroes hear voices other than those of their own commanders. Even in obedience, they dictate their own mission."

• 56:48Jocko Willink?

  That's legit.

• 56:50Jocko Willink?

  And the little footnote here says, "One can obey heroically, but even in obedience, the hero assigns himself his mission. Obedience is not always easy for the hero. He hears other voices than those of his superiors."

• 57:06Jocko Willink?

  "Men conquer only to enjoy. Heroes conquer only to give."

• 57:13Jocko Willink?

  "Heroes are servants of men before they are servants of their leaders."

• 57:19Jocko Willink?

  "The hero knows his own cowardice.

• 57:23Jocko Willink?

  The hero, too, has days when he is tempted to only live."

• 57:31Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a rough one, that, that kind of lands. How many days are you tempted to only live?

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:40Jocko Willink?

  I mean, let's face it, only living is sort of the default modern mode.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh, get up, brush your teeth, scroll your phone, eat a donut, climb in your mechanical, uh, uh, transit machine, put a radiation thing in your ear,

• 58:03Jocko Willink?

  get to the, the secure compound, enter it,

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  leave your machine, go into your cubicle, look at the numbers on the screen, radiation into your face. You see what I'm saying? Like, that's just living, right?

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Sure, I guess.

• 58:22Jocko Willink?

  So just got to be careful. We're tempted to only live.

• 58:28Jocko Willink?

  "Heroes have their temptations, but they are heroic temptations. Men must be pushed forward. Heroes must be held back." "Neither fatigue nor hunger holds sway over heroes. Men take turns on duty. Heroes do not. Neither mothers nor heroes are ever relieved of their watch."

• 58:54Jocko Willink?

  "The hero wants to suffer. He takes pride in it."

• 59:00Jocko Willink?

  "Heroes love defeat, for it presents with them great duties and opens the realm of initiative."

• 59:09Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 59:14Jocko Willink?

  "One must be gentle with heroes, even when they are mistaken. Outside of combat, they are defenseless." That's interesting.

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  That's sort of the, uh, you know, the stereotypical war movie will have like the guy that's kind of shy, or he's kind of whatever, and then he'll just do like insane heroic stuff.

• 59:40Jocko Willink?

  "When a man has given his all in a critical moment, he is beyond reproach, even if he was wrong."

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know, you got

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  good initiative, strong, or good, good initiative, bad judgment. You ever heard that?

• 59:57Speaker 01

  No, but-

• 59:58Jocko Willink?

  That's a very common saying in the military. It's like, hey, the way you flanked and ran over there and like, good job, but, you know, good initiative, judgment was a little let off.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the old school, uh, A, A for effort, right? I'll give him an A for effort.

• 1:00:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  That's kind of the same.

• 1:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Tried hard, yeah, yeah. Didn't work out the way we wanted it to.

• 1:00:22Jocko Willink?

  "The hero takes his impulses only from himself. He, he may be disciplined, but he cannot be governed." It's a very interesting portrait that he paints of a heroic person.

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  "It is a great disappointment for a brave man to be poorly received by his superiors or peers on the evening of battle where he gave everything of himself."

• 1:00:49Jocko Willink?

  "Boldness is madness to those who fear. To those who see clearly, it is reason."

• 1:00:58Jocko Willink?

  "To deny the enemy, this is the brave man's first reflex."

• 1:01:04Jocko Willink?

  "The love of difficult situations come from the certainty of overcoming them."

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  The hero feels no passion for victory. Victory ends his mission. There you go. Someday this war is gonna end. Colonel Kilgore. You know what I'm saying? Apocalypse now. You know that scene I'm talking about? There. One of the most famous scenes in cinema. My little brogino.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:30Jocko Willink?

  How can you not know this scene?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  I, you know, I see some movies, some I don't, you know?

• 1:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, Colonel Kilgore, this battle is taking place and, and you know, he says to the captain from Special Forces, you smell that? You smell that? Napalm. So nothing else in the world smells like that. One time we had an air bomb for 12 hours and it was all over. I walked up and we didn't see one of them. Not one stinking dink body, but that smell, that gasoline smell, the whole hill smelled like victory.

• 1:02:04Jocko Willink?

  And after that speech, he goes, someday this war is gonna end in the most despondent little undertone, right?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:13Jocko Willink?

  Cause he knows he's where he's supposed to be. This is as good as it's gonna get.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 1:02:16Jocko Willink?

  This is it.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Jocko Willink?

  Someday this war is gonna end.

• 1:02:21Jocko Willink?

  I felt like that.

• 1:02:24Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, like on my first deployment to Iraq, I definitely was like, hey, this war is gonna be over quick. Like it's 2004, things, you know, we were doing, it seemed like things were going well.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Right until the end, but yeah.

• 1:02:38Jocko Willink?

  Only a long triumph crowned by death truly makes the hero. The hero who falls in his first battle or survives his last seems not quite a hero.

• 1:02:52Jocko Willink?

  The days that end wars are days of mourning for the hero. Straight up.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Those who have not endured, those who have not endured them cannot fathom the depths of deprivation in war. So there you go. So here's this guy that's talking about war, love war, all this great stuff, war, war, war. Everyone's bent to go in war. And he's like, hey, if you haven't been to war, you can't understand the deprivation of war. And by the way, he's talking about World War One. He's talking about World War One. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about trenches. He's talking about maggots. He's talking about entire battalions being wiped out. He's talking about mustard gas. Like that's what he's talking about.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot of deprivation.

• 1:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Deprivation to the nth degree. At times the fatigue of war is so immense that one longs for death simply to be done with it.

• 1:03:49Jocko Willink?

  Hunger, battle, sleeplessness. These drive a soldier's spirit to its highest pitch. Divine souls inhabit broken bodies. Souls are refined as bodies are drained. The most exalted hearts in battle are the most exhausted ones.

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  It's like a purification ritual in his mind.

• 1:04:18Jocko Willink?

  Fatigue invites scorn.

• 1:04:23Jocko Willink?

  He's like, do not get tired. You will be scorned for fatigue. He's also saying like, you're gonna be exhausted. It's so horrible, but like, uh, don't show it.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Jocko Willink?

  Don't show it. Exhaustion is never confessed, not in love nor in war. Pride lies in seeming beyond human limits. The brave hide their weariness as lovers do.

• 1:04:48Jocko Willink?

  Don't show it.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Fatigue does not exist in war. Man's resources there are infinite. Fatigue is weakness in the soul.

• 1:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, I got a picture of me and Dave Burke on a cop Falcon right after we took it down. We're asleep.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  The rest between sets.

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you definitely gotta rest between sets. In war, no man who kills has need of rest.

• 1:05:17Jocko Willink?

  War is a passion of the soul.

• 1:05:21Jocko Willink?

  The more the body is consumed, the more the soul is purified.

• 1:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Nature endowed men with virtues, but they reveal them only in war. He who has not known war does not know man. Mediocre in ordinary life, man is radiant in war. Because his virtues are martial. Because nature made him for struggle, because war is the natural state of males. Yeah. When you were describing like what you would wanna get out of one of these boot camp scenarios, you're gonna get, wanna get these various virtues? And what he's saying is like, the virtues that we're talking about, they're martial virtues.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:03Jocko Willink?

  They're just for war. That's what they are. Healthy, smart, sharp, disciplined. Like, hey, those are cool for business. They're cool for being a dad. They're cool for your health, but like, core, they're just good for combat.

• 1:06:20Jocko Willink?

  War is to men what still water is to swans, the place of their beauty.

• 1:06:30Jocko Willink?

  To say to a man, you will die there and for him to die there, this is one of war's granders.

• 1:06:39Jocko Willink?

  It is war's harshness that grants its sanctity.

• 1:06:44Jocko Willink?

  And by the sanctity, he's got a little footnote here. Hardship, fatigue, which he just said, you don't get tired, but he knows you get tired. Hardship, fatigue, deprivation, days without fire, nights without shelter, water, snow, danger, wounds, death. These are the sources of war's grandeur.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  It's almost like a lot of this is kinda saying the quiet part out loud. You ever heard that expression? Like the quiet part out loud?

• 1:07:14Jocko Willink?

  These things, a lot of these things are sort of saying the quiet part out loud. Like, why is it we wanna watch a war movie? Oh, because death, wounds, freezing, like cold, suffering.

• 1:07:27Jocko Willink?

  You know? Like, how was that movie? Oh dude, it was, dude, they, they really showed what it's up.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, this too.

• 1:07:37Jocko Willink?

  Humility, poverty, chastity, faith, hope, charity, mortification, the Christian virtues. Why can so few attain them in ordinary life while in war all rise them effortlessly? All rise to them effortlessly and with bliss.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention the other side of that coin, which is like, you also get total depravity sometimes in war. You get, uh, the Mele massacre. You get Sand Creek. Like you get some very gnarly shit that goes down in war. Not, not everyone rises to the, uh, rises to the Christian virtues in war.

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  War is the noble form of human activity. Poverty there brings no shame. Vanity finds no place in it. Duty fulfilled fills the soul.

• 1:08:39Jocko Willink?

  Men are brothers in war. War is the golden age.

• 1:08:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know,

• 1:08:52Jocko Willink?

  again, it's just interesting that

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  you get just, wars just happen. You remember, remember the, uh, the term spontaneous combustion? Like there was some weird thing in the seventies and eighties, like, and it happens, human beings catch on fire sometimes, right?

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Spontaneous.

• 1:09:11Jocko Willink?

  Spontaneous combustion. Yeah, I guess it's spontaneous, but then there's also just spontaneous combustion with like some, you know, fuel source that's been in a closet and it reaches a certain temper and just spontaneously combust. It's like war just spontaneously combust. It just pops off. But, but it's because, because these underlying like thing. This underlying thing. You know, I'm talking at the last council and I had this whole thing about humans acting like humans. Like, like you can't be surprised when, you know, somebody on your team does some like little thing to look out for themselves or tries to, you know, get this little maneuver in so that they can get, they can get promoted instead of that guy. Like, you can't be surprised like by that.

• 1:09:53Jocko Willink?

  It's humans acting like humans. You have to expect that a human's gonna act like a human. Well, you got whatever nine billion people on the planet, humans are gonna act like humans. They're gonna go to war.

• 1:10:04Jocko Willink?

  And believe me, I'm not pro-war, obviously.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Oh, you're not?

• 1:10:08Jocko Willink?

  I'm just trying to say that it's when it pops off, you can't be like, oh, I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised that it popped off.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, fully. I'm trying to figure out where this kind of lands, um, overall, because there are certain things about what he's saying. Um, and of course he's being extreme, but at the same time, it kinda feels undeniable. A lot of these things were in and of itself, it's hard to refute, but at the same time, it's almost like, hey, wait a second, is that the only thing though? Cause he's like saying, this is it for life. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  I get it. I get it. I think what he's saying is these, or he doesn't necessarily say this, but I think well, the way his belief would fall out is the, this is the underlying uh, uh, spirit of humans.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Jocko Willink?

  Of male humans.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:59Jocko Willink?

  Is like the underlying spirit is, you know, I was talking like, uh, some new recruits, we'll say.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, you, what, 20 guys? Who wants to go to war? Uh, like all of them. These, look, these kids, their brain's not developed. I get it. But okay, their brain's not developed, right? Cause when your, your, your male brain doesn't develop until it's what, 25? Like the frontal lobe isn't fully developed? So you take a 19 year old. What do you, you wanna go to war? Uh, yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Jocko Willink?

  Like that's what they're saying.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Little bit of a selection bias there.

• 1:11:34Jocko Willink?

  It's a total selection bias, but I'm still saying that like, you take, uh, a group of 20 males.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:11:41Jocko Willink?

  That have volunteered. And look, can you go to a college campus somewhere to somebody that's taking classes on what, whatever freaking stupid class he's taking and be like, do you wanna go to war? And you'd be like, no, hell no. You know what I mean? Of course, of course there's, you know, so yes, it's total, it's a total biased survey that I did.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  But no, actually I do agree with you though. Even, even like this college, very specific example that you said on the other side, which I, I actually for the point or for the sake of this point, I feel like we can dismiss. But if you just grab any typical, let's say a group of a hundred male humans, ages 18 to, I don't know, 30, we'll say.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  And you, you know, put them in some thing where outside interests are kind of like null the little bit. I feel like the thing that's gonna start bubbling up is the war, the martial virtues, we'll say. I do, I believe that. Generally speaking.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And, and listen, are there nine people in that group of a hundred that are, they don't want to go to war? They like legitimately, they don't. But the other, and there's some that are like, they will go to war, like regardless. Like if you don't, if you don't send them to war for the country, they're gonna go to war for a gang, they're gonna go to war for something, they're gonna figure something, they're gonna figure out a way to go to war.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  And then there's a bunch of people that are like, hey, if that opportunity comes up,

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Jocko Willink?

  you know, like, I'm kind of down.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:06Jocko Willink?

  And they're watching war movies that, what, what, I totally forgot, but what about war video games? Have you seen a war video game?

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Have you seen Call of Duty or whatever? Like, those, those things are just war in a video game. Why are those things so popular? They may make way more money than a movie.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to do you one even better, you're more right than you know, as far as the video game things, even like if it's not an actual like military war game, it's always some fight against the enemy game. And then.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  And you can say, well, what else kind of game? Well, you could have all kinds of different skill games.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  There's other games, yeah, there's like, like, there's a game, um, about building, but you can fight other people in a way.

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  No, but there's games where there's like, you can make a game where there's literally no fighting or combat of any kind.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  There's a game called The Sims. It's just, you just build, I don't know, I've never played it, but I've seen people play it.

• 1:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, I remember there was a game with a bird trying to fly through like some areas.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  No, I mean, maybe, I don't know.

• 1:14:03Jocko Willink?

  You try to make it through like different pipes. It was really popular.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  A bird.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, it was a bird, but it wasn't fighting anyone. He was trying to make it. You know what I mean? He was trying to make it through the scenario.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  But the scenario was not combat. It was just flying.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:19Jocko Willink?

  So you can make, you don't necessarily need to have a, a combat and war in a video game, and yet there's a lot of combat and war in video games.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. And that's not to say they're all, you know, there's racing games, there's, Yeah. you know, whatever. But, um, but let's say, old school, Super Mario Brothers. Bro, you're fighting these, bro, it's a war game. You're literally fighting them.

• 1:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Who are you fighting against in Super Mario Brothers?

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Freaking mushroom beings, turtles with wings, and they're half turtle, half like duck or something like this.

• 1:14:53Jocko Willink?

  Are there modern versions of Super Mario Brother? Or is it all just like old school eighties?

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Well, Super, or Mario Brothers has a whole thing.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  What's Mario Kart?

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Mario Kart is the go-kart racing with all the characters from the Mario universe. So Mario, yeah, all the people. And you can select your kart and select.

• 1:15:13Jocko Willink?

  What's the backstory? Like, where did Luigi come from?

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Bro, you'd have to, it's actually pretty good fun when you look into it. I mean, a lot of it had to do, cause we played Super Mario Brothers when I was young, but it's like, they go pretty deep in the storyline. So stuff starts to make sense, you know?

• 1:15:30Jocko Willink?

  Are they plumbers?

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're plumbers.

• 1:15:32Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, yeah, it's, but, but yeah, it's a whole thing. So yeah, you're just fighting against them. Against the freaking goombas and the freaking whatever. You see what I'm saying? And then, so, and I was thinking too, when, like in life, you know, when you get some stuff, right? Without the work, we'll say, that's one thing. Like, what are, what are people trying to achieve in life? I'm saying in civilized life, we'll say, even in like less than civilized life. There has to be something, you're fighting for something, right? It's not like, hey, let's just fight to fight. That's why I'm like, trying and still struggling to land this whole book on the whole of life, the entirety of life. Like, I don't know, I think that's, this is a very specific context, which is war, which, I don't think you can really deny these. They're extreme for sure,

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  but it's hard to deny. But it's like, okay, we're, we're fighting, we're warring, we're warring tribes or people, whatever, but like for what? There's always something. It seems like anyway, you're fighting for. So it feels like that's gonna kind of give rise to understanding, like, okay, where does war and all this that he's talking about, where does it fit in? You know, kind of a thing. So you're like, okay, let me say, I'm gonna go save a princess, right? Cause she's in danger somewhere. Let's say I go through my little journey, right? In life, and I go and I, and I, oh shoot, I find her, I found her, she's in the woods. She just tripped and sprained her ankle, she, she was stuck there. And I found her, whatever. Bring her home, whatever, and it's all peace. Part of you, I think, for most people would

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  be like, I'm glad I found her, but it would have been way more fulfilling if there was some bad guy who kidnapped her and I killed the bad guy. If there was some battle that ensued, you know?

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Human nature, right there.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it is undeniable that this is it. I mean, this fundamental, critical part of it.

• 1:17:19Jocko Willink?

  There's something there, bro.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  There's something there, bro.

• 1:17:21Jocko Willink?

  You can't deny it.

• 1:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Birth, wealth, vanities, lose all value in war. Man is adorned only with his virtues. In war, the ranks collapse beneath the weight of virtue. Isn't that interesting? Eventually you're getting judged not on your rank, but on your virtues, who you are as a person. It is good to toil when one serves. That's what you just said. You know, we don't want to just rescue the princess. That's serving, but we want to toil some.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  The pleasure seekers of this world are wrong to think themselves happy. Their delights seem pitiful on the front line. The man who sleeps on the ground would not trade his bed for any other. Bodily softness is the soul's mourning. Nature grants her blessings only to those who serve her through effort.

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  Check. Pleasure seekers are beggars, living day by day on the alms of their own flesh.

• 1:18:34Jocko Willink?

  Just as covenants weep for the worldly soldier, for the worldly, soldiers prefer their hardship to the soft and hollow ease of the so-called fortunate.

• 1:18:48Jocko Willink?

  This is why when, um, that first Rocky movie came out.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  And like, when he starts going hard, everyone gets fired up.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Jocko Willink?

  Like, he's gonna wake up at four, he's gonna drink eggs, he's gonna run in the cold.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:19:01Jocko Willink?

  And every, no one goes, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna turn this off now.

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:06Jocko Willink?

  That, I don't really, no one does that. You know, it's like a massive movie.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Jocko Willink?

  It's just martial activities. It's asceticism.

• 1:19:20Jocko Willink?

  Asceticism. This is a, this is a word, um, it's like giving, it's like hard living. It's giving things up, living lean.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:29Jocko Willink?

  Just, uh, fences, walls, locks, these are insults to liberty. Social life is nothing but prohibition. Man suffocates within it. War permits everything. The soldier is poor, yet the world belongs to him.

• 1:19:49Jocko Willink?

  And we'll close it out with this little section here, and we'll pick it up in the next podcast and give Quentin Rene some more time. In social life, man is torn by conflicting duties. Life is light in war because duty is simple and the path is clear. You hear so many veterans talk about that.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Jocko Willink?

  They're like, oh, you're on deployment, nothing else matters, you just get to do what you get to do, you got to, this is what you're focused on.

• 1:20:17Jocko Willink?

  And here it is. Wars restore the religious feeling in those who have lost it. In ordinary life, men believe themselves masters of their fate. They look only to themselves for their fortune. But when life and death depend on forces beyond them, they awaken to their weakness. They invent a god, lord of fate, and place all themselves in his hands. It is easy living that kills the gods.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. Like I said, we'll finish, uh, we'll finish these maxims on the next podcast, but that's a good one. I think a good one to finish with tonight. Easy living that kills the gods. So, let, let's avoid the easy living, which is, which is, look, easy living is all around us right now in the modern world. It's all around us, but you cannot just go gentle into the easy living. You gotta fight it. And one good way to fight that is getting after it. Like, physical exertion, running, sprinting, jujitsu, I highly recommend. Highly recommend the jujitsu. Swimming,

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  lifting, throwing, there's a lot, there's been a lot of throwing going on in the Willink family right now.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  I've heard things.

• 1:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So, shout out to, what do we shout out to?

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  The throwers of the world.

• 1:21:48Jocko Willink?

  Ricky Bruch, right?

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 1:21:51Jocko Willink?

  Krauser out there just getting after it. Um, who else we got?

• 1:21:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, hell, you know, we might as well throw Burt Soren in there. He's out there. Burt, Burt, uh, he was at my house and I was doing, I was like, I surprisingly, you know, I have like steel maces at my house?

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:11Jocko Willink?

  And he surprisingly, he, he was like, I've never worked with him too much. And I kinda like showed him something and you know, he was a hammer thrower in whatever, in college?

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

• 1:22:22Jocko Willink?

  And he just picked this thing up and looked like he was just like, just, no problem.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Like a fish to water, just doing it.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah. So, so that's what we're doing, man. That's what we're doing. We're out there getting after it. Um, that means you need fuel. We recommend Jocko Fuel. Get, you need protein in your body? You need it? If you're gonna, if you need it, you might as well enjoy it. And look, does that make easy, does it make it an easy life? Cause we're, cause we're having something that tastes good? Should we make, you know, a form of protein that tastes bad? So that you have to impose your discipline just to choke it down? I guess we could do that. I don't recommend it. Maybe if you want to do that personally, you can mix it with something that you don't like. You know what I mean?

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Do it.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Like, mix it with something you don't like. Cool. Otherwise, you're in for a treat. You're in for some dessert. Get yourself some protein powder, get yourself some ready to drink protein. Get yourself what you need. Energy, hydration, joint warfare. I saw a buddy of mine the other night. He's like, dude, I, I got some joint warfare. His knees were jacked up. He's like, freaking good to go. So, that's what we're doing. Get some joint warfare. Super cool. The whole nine yards. You know the deal. JacoFuel.com, check it out. Also, whatever store you go to, I don't know what store you shop at, but if you're shopping and you want Jocko Fuel, they should have it there. If they don't have it there, ask them for Jocko Fuel and we'll make that happen. So, check out

• 1:23:49Jocko Willink?

  JacoFuel.com. Fuel your mission. Also, Origin USA. We're doing jujitsu. We are prepared for war. If we are preparing for war via jujitsu, our, our gear has to be ready for war. Origin's ready for war. Durable, well-made. It doesn't, it doesn't supply our enemies financial and I, an economic situation. When you buy something from a China or another communist country, you are not helping America. You are aiding the enemy. So, let's not aid the enemy. Let's get a pair of American-made jeans, American-made boots, American-made hoodies,

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  American-made belts, American-made hats, American-made sneakers coming soon. You call them sneakers? You call them tennis shoes? What do you call them?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, even when I,

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  Trainers?

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  When I call them, no, no, train, that's Australian, right?

• 1:24:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, my, my wife will call them trainers.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The, yeah, sneakers, man. I, yeah, I call them sneakers now.

• 1:24:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Wait, what'd you call them in Hawaii?

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  You don't even know what you call them?

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Shoes.

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Shoes?

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  That's sneakers and shoes and all that thing, you know, is kind of foreign in Hawaii. We wear slippers in Hawaii or bare feet. But, uh, yeah, yeah. But nonetheless, I seen the Origin ones, so they're not out yet. Is that what you're saying?

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  But they're coming soon.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  They're coming soon. Okay. But yeah, so I will be wearing those when they come out. Oh, yeah. That's, yeah, that's like the kind that I'm down for.

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  That's next level. So, we got it all. Check out OriginUSA.com. Get some American-made stuff. That's what we're doing.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Yep. I feel like Origin is, uh, part of, if not the full uniform for everyday attire.

• 1:25:35Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  A hundred percent of the time. Like, when I say every day, it's not like, you know, most of, everything.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  Head to toe.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:41Jocko Willink?

  Head to toe. By the way, when we get, uh, when the sneakers come out, we'll be full head to toe every day. Cause sometimes, you know, you're wearing another pair of sneakers for whatever. But we'll be head to toe. Cause you can, you can boot your head to toe all day. So, that's a good place to be.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, mine is not head to toe. Mine is representation under all circumstances. I would, I would say, I can't think of a scenario without some Origin representation.

• 1:26:05Jocko Willink?

  Nicely done. OriginUSA.com, check it out.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Also, Jocko Store is where you get your discipline equals freedom stuff. See what I'm saying? We're representing, we're on the path, we're representing. See what I'm saying? Um, so yes, so good. We have this idea of good. This is from day one. See what I'm saying? Actually, technically, I think it was like day three-ish, yeah, or something like that. Nonetheless, from, since the beginning, good. When things go bad, there's gonna be some good to come from. Okay. We, we know that. We're all, you know, but we do have shirts where you can represent this. See what I'm saying? We have various versions of it. It's all on Jocko Store. See what I'm saying? So, yeah, choose one, represent that as well. Also, the Shirt Lockers, new design, whether it be good, whether it be discipline equals freedom, whether it be just stuff in that vein. It's a new design every month. Subscription

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  scenario. Check that out. It's called, check that out. It's called the Shirt Locker. And if you want, you have more questions about it, you know, like, what is it? What's the vibe? Whatever. Just go to JacoStore.com. On the top, click on Shirt Locker and I'll kinda show you what it's all about. People seem to like that one. So, yeah, check it all out. You like something, get something.

• 1:27:08Jocko Willink?

  Good to go. Check out EchelonFront.com. If you want to help with leadership inside your organization, we can help you. We also have ExtremeOwnership.com, which is an online training course or series of courses that you can take to learn the skills of leadership. We got a bunch of books. I've written a bunch, bunch of books about leadership, written a bunch of kids' books. We also have Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones and Need to Lead by Dave Burke. We have an opportunity. If you want to help service members, active and retired, you wanna help their families, you wanna help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's Mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you wanna

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  donate or you wanna get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, please check out Heroes and Horses.org. Also, check out BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. Also, check out WarriorsInNeed.org. And finally, StrongholdRescue.org. A bunch of awesome charities out there doing awesome things in the world. If you wanna connect with us, check out Jaco.com. And then on social media, you can find us. Uh, I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Don't spend too much time on there. Don't spend any time on there, actually. Don't even check us out there. It's a big demonic, uh, time suck. So, be careful. Also, thanks to all of our uniformed personnel across the globe, standing tall, in harm's way, living the

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  life of heroes, defending us and our way of life. And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for defending us here at home. And everyone else out there, let's go back to, uh, one of the quotes from this book of maxims. Says, "The hero too has days where he is tempted only to live. Only to live." That's a good thing to think about. To maybe just reset your perspective, reset your attitude. Cause it's very tempting to think that just living on its own is enough. Just, just going

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  through the motions, just living through another day, just surviving another day, surviving another week, surviving another month by simply living. Let's not do that. Let's not just live. Instead, let's go out there every day and freaking get after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.