79: How To Get People to Take Action. When to Skip the Chain of Command. Sacrificing Short-Term Health to Reach a Goal. What "GOOD" Can Come From a Sick Child?

0:00:00 - Opening 0:00:42 - How to Deploy Decentralized Command when your team changes very frequently. 0:07:28 - How to, and When to Skip the Chain of Command and go above your direct superior's head. 0:34:20 - How Important is Longevity (a Long Life)? 0:43:20 - Should you sacrifice Health in the short term to reach work objectives? 1:00:42 - How to deal with family members with anger issues. 1:13:33 - How to get people to take action when they over-analyze and over-think. 1:18:41 - Handling a team member who takes "ALL" the responsibility but has sub-standard work. 1:39:40 - What "GOOD" can come from a sick child?? 1:55:27 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid http://amzn.to/2n9k6I9, and The Muster 003 http://www.extremeownership.com. 2:17:55 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 79 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  And it has been a little while since we were able to hammer out some Q and A.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Questions from the interwebs and so here we are. Number 79, let's answer some questions from the interwebs. What do you got?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Cool, go. First question.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, wait, should we spend a bunch of time with a bunch of fluff and talk about nonsense? Or should we get to the questions?

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Why say we get to the question?

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  What about 27 minutes worth of advertisements?

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  Let's get to the questions. Rock and roll.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I am a vascular surgeon training residence. How do you apply decentralized command when your team changes every one to three months?

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, solid question. And with something like that, what we need to do is we need to get a standard operating procedure in place with clear documentation, some kind of a qualification and approval process, and then a monitoring system in place. Right? So this, this, the reason I can kind of, the reason that's pretty easy transition for me to make mentally is because we would have to do this kind of thing sometimes in the SEAL teams. When you get, for instance, you're overseas on deployment in a war zone and you get some guys that show up to work halfway through the deployment or two months into deployment or three weeks before deployment ends. You get some guys that show up, they're SEALs, right?

• 1:35Jocko Willink?

  So they, they, they understand the fundamental concepts, but you haven't worked with them specifically before. They haven't worked with the platoon before, they don't know the area of operations that you're in specifically, they don't know what kind of mission specifically you're conducting and where the intel is coming from. Basically, they don't know anything other than the fundamental knowledge of being a SEAL. But as far as that particular job goes, they don't know too much. So what you have to do is you have to. Run them through a bunch of familiarization stuff very quickly about the gun trucks and how your Humvees are set up. You've got to make sure they can get on a 50 cal and a mark 48 and a mark 19 and understand our crew served weapons and how we operate them because our crew served

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  weapons, by the way, a lot of times we most of the time operate our crew served weapons alone. So they got to make sure they can do this. Humvees, right? A lot of the older guys in the SEAL teams before the war started, they wouldn't know how to operate a Humvee. So you had to make sure they knew how to do that. They had to understand the mission, why we were doing the mission, what was important about it, what was the commander's intent. They had to know the rules of engagement because the military will take a guy that lands in country and they'll give them like a 30 minute brief to welcome to in-country and 30 seconds of it'll be a rules of engagement brief and they won't really understand it. So you got to make sure they understand that. You've got to, when's the last time they did med training, medical training? When's the last time they did that? Has it been like 12 years since they put on a tourniquet? Okay, not good. We got to get them familiarized on that. How are they going to stop the bleeding?

• 2:59Jocko Willink?

  The different IED threats that are out there because the ID threats change all the time? What kind of trigger mechanisms are being used and what kind of identifying marks are for IEDs? So there's all this stuff. The list goes on and on. And so you have to develop some kind of a standard operating procedure. Hey, when a guy shows up, this is what we need to do with them. Boom, they need to go through this, this, this, this, this, this little checklist you put together. And then if the person's a leader, maybe you got to go and do a couple of left seat, right seat rides with them. So does that make, do other people use that terminology?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Left seat, right seat? Not that I know of.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so if I was the platoon commander and you were coming in to take over for me, we would plan a mission together and I would be in charge of the mission?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  So I'd be in the driver's seat.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Oh, like a pilot, co-pilot?

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you'd be in the next seat. You'd be in the, you'd be watching and you'd be in the passenger seat and I would be running everything. And then maybe we do that a couple of times and you're just watching me. And then we switch seats, you get in the driver's seats, but I'm still there watching and telling you to move a little left, to move a little right. And then eventually you got it and then I'm going to leave. Go home.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  So maybe if the person's a leader, you got to do two or three or four ops or whatever to get them a good turnover. So now in all these situations, or if it's not a full-on turnover because that you're going to walk away from, but if it's just a, you've got some other groups, small entity or people that are coming in. You're not going to be able to give them that full 100% decentralized command, right? You're still going to have to keep a little bit more watch on them because you're not going to build up the full level of trust in one to three months. That's just not possible. So there will be a little bit of limitations, but you can definitely,

• 4:44Jocko Willink?

  you can definitely move pretty far down the path. And one other thing that's going to help, I said document, and it's really smart to put together a document with very clear roles and responsibilities and expectation and then not just give them the document and say, hey, read this letter. No, no, you sit down and go over every single thing with them. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to condense this timeline of building trust into the shortest possible time. And one of the ways you do that is by condensing everything into a simple, clear, concise format, written format, go through, talk it with them so they understand it and can do it very clearly. Like when I was in task unit bruiser, I didn't lay anything like that out for the platoon commanders for Leif and the Delta Platoon Commander.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  I didn't say, here's the rules and I did that over a long period of time, you know, over a year workup. Now that, now within a few months, they kind of knew what the deal was. But if I would have, if that would have been my normal job and I would have been getting a new platoon commanders every three months, every time they came in, I'll be like, are you new platoon commanders? This is what a platoon commander does. This is the rules and rules, roles and responsibilities. This is the expectations that I have for you. This is when you call me, this is when you make a decision on your own, lay all that stuff perfectly clear. And that way I could more quickly develop a sense of decentralized command. Now again, it's not going to be full decentralized command. You're not going to just let somebody run with it. They've only been with you for three months and

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  you know, I don't know, I don't know what the timeline is to, for a vascular surgeon to get total trust in their subordinate vascular surgeons or their subordinate team members. But I'm sure it takes longer than one to three months. So how much can you condense the timeline? What can you do to condense it? Once you get it condensed as much as you can, you're still going to have to do a little bit more monitoring than you would normally do. But it is still going to be beneficial. It's going to be beneficial for them and it will be beneficial for you to operate as much as you can in the decentralized methodology.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  So when you say condense the timeline, that's for the procedure?

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  No, it's condense the timeline to build trust, actually. So I want to, decentralized command is about trust, right? If I trust you and you trust me, it goes up and down. If I'm in charge and I trust you, that means you're going to go out and you know what to do. And when you're out there, you know, you trust that I am going to cover for you and I'm going to trust the decisions that you make. So decentralized command is about trust. In order to have trust, we have to have understanding. And in order to understand things, we have to work together. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to condense the timeline that it takes us to build trust. And how do I do that? I just am very direct and lay things out in a very simple, clear, concise format so that you can understand it.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  Very quickly. That's my goal.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  When and how is the right way to skip the chain of command? When you feel like your direct superior is a part of the problem?

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  Big one, big one, because this is very, very problematic. And skipping the chain of command is a last resort.

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  It is a last resort. Why is it a last resort? Because when you, when you skip the chain of command, you're breaking the trust I just talked about, you're breaking it. The relationship that you've been building, you're damaging it. It's not good. Sometimes it's unsalvageable, by the way. Sometimes when you skip the chain of command, you will never be able to recover from that. Now, of course, if there's something that your immediate superior is doing, that's illegal or immoral or unethical. If that's the case, then it's actually your duty to go above them in the chain of command. Now, do you still first report it to them and say, hey, what you did is wrong, we're not going to do that? Yes, you should tell them first, unless it's going to, you know, cause you to get in some horrible situation. Now, this is an interesting thing that I thought about.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  Let's say you and I are working together and, and you're my boss.

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  And let's say you're doing something that's immoral, illegal, unethical, right? And I watch you do it.

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  And, and I, and I see you leaning towards it. I'm like, oh, I think he's going to do something that's illegal right here. And I don't say anything. And then I watch you do it. And then I run up the chain of command, report you and bust you, right?

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful with that. And, and I think when you work for someone, or when someone works for you, you need to lay it right out of the gate. Like, hey, this is where I stand. Like, I'm not gonna cover for you if you do some stupid illegal things. You don't wait for them to do it and then drop the hammer on them. Maybe I'm being overly fair. Maybe we should be all out to get people that are, you know, doing something that they shouldn't be doing.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Part of the problem.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I actually, I, I, I believe, that's my belief, is when I, when I meet you and I say, hey, what's going on? And you make a little crack. You know, you make a little joke. You know, you say, well, you know, it's not like, it's not like the, it's not like the customers can really see that money. You know, let's say you're gonna skim money from somebody, right?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's.

• 10:02Jocko Willink?

  And you go, yeah, you make a little joke like that. You know, and you're, and what you're doing is testing the waters with me. Right? You're testing my ethical morals. I'm like, yeah, there's no way they would ever know. And besides, we pretty much work for it anyways, right? Right? You're gonna see if you're gonna get that reaction. So you go, you know, we just, you know, sometimes we had to get a little charge, a little extra on that install, right? Maybe we're, maybe we're some kind of installers at a house. And you go, yeah, you know, I usually, you know, throw a little up charge on here. They never know if that's type of wall, whatever, right? You throw that test at me. It's my duty. If I'm the type of person that's gonna report you for skimming money from the customers, then I should tell you like, hey, man, that's not cool. No. Yeah.

• 10:43Jocko Willink?

  No, those customers, you know, here's my view, is those customers that we're out there trying to do this install for, they had to work hard for that money and I don't wanna be taking it from them. Now you kinda know.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  You better not be doing that in front of me.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to me smiling and going along with your joke and then three months later, I report, you know, I turn over a report to the boss man.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  So I don't think that's very ethical either. Yeah, it's kind of like a backstab. It's a little bit of a backstab. Now, are there cases, of course, where somebody's doing something that's just outrageously unethical and you didn't know about it or something? You pretty much know though. You can tell when people are doing shady things. Yeah. So, so I think that that is something. Okay, so let me, let me, let me, let me close this thought or at least make a point of this thought. My point of this thought is it's the same thing that happens a lot where people don't like to have harder conversations. So it's an easy conversation when you say, you know, those customers never know where their money goes and it's only 12 bucks a thing and it's no big deal.

• 11:48Jocko Willink?

  The easiest thing for me to do is to smile and say, eh, yeah. Right? That's the easy and, and, and that's not that big of a deal, right? It gets so much harder. The further we go down that road, it gets harder and harder and harder because then you start saying, hey, you know, it's only, you know, we, we've been skimming like 12 bucks. Guess what? They never noticed this other charge either and I can get him for $62.

• 12:13Jocko Willink?

  And then all of a sudden it's a harder conversation. So have the hard conversation earlier. It'll make it easier for you.

• 12:22Jocko Willink?

  So that being said, now how do we escalate above you in the chain of command? First of all, my goal is to not escalate above you in the chain of command. My goal is to actually raise the situation to you and bring it up to you and say, hey, Echo, you know, the way we've been doing this job, you know, I think we should do it a different way. I think there's a better way to do it. I think there's a better way to treat the customer, whatever, whatever the thing is, better way to attack this target, whatever the thing is. And I'm going to have that conversation with you like two, three, four, five times to try and get you to listen to me. Now, if the conversation doesn't work, I'm going to escalate it even further. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to actually do a little write-up. I'm going to write a point paper.

• 13:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to say, Echo, I was listening, thinking about what we're doing, how we're hitting this target or how we're loading out our guys or whatever. And I'm going to write you a point paper and I'm going to, I'm going to lay it out for you to lay out what my plan is, what the cost benefits are. And make that very clear to you. So that way, I'm giving you every ample opportunity to listen to what I'm saying. Right? And I'm probably even gonna say, hey, maybe we should run this by, you know, the boss. To see what they think. Cause if you just keep disagreeing with me and I say, you know, can I, you mind if I bring this to the boss and see what he thinks? Now, what are you gonna say to that? Most, most the immediates are not gonna be happy, but I'm giving you a heads up. Right? Cause I'm just trying to play open.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And it kind of, doesn't it kind of make them reflect too? Where it's like, oh, hey, I'm gonna, you know, bring this to the boss. No, don't bring that to the boss. It's kinda like, ah, it makes it real overt that they're not doing correct.

• 13:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So. So, yeah, you say, and you might get a boss, you might get a boss that goes, yeah, bring it to him. He's gonna say the same thing I'm telling you. And then you go, well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about this procedure. Or maybe I'm wrong about how we're gonna attack this target. But it is, and, and also, this is a hard conversation to have. It's a hard conversation to say someone, man, can we just bring this to the boss? And, and, and again, I'm not saying, you say, hey, I'm gonna bring this to the boss. No, you say, hey, would you mind if I got his opinion? Would you mind if I see what she said about this? And that way, we're, we're not saying, I'm going to the boss. I'm going above your head, you can't stop me. No, that's not what I'm talking about. So.

• 14:42Jocko Willink?

  There's that. The other thing that you, so that's, that's sort of a direct approach with your immediate boss. Which starts, by the way, with an indirect approach of being like, hey, Echo. You know, I was thinking about the way we're hitting these targets. Wouldn't it be smart, maybe if we hit him from over here? Do you think that would work? And now we're just open up the conversation. So we've done that. I can also go indirect with your boss. Right? So, so your direct boss, who's now two up above me in the chain of claim. I can go indirect with him at the water fountain.

• 15:08Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:09Jocko Willink?

  Hey, oh yeah, thanks boss. Yeah, everything's going great. Yeah, doing a great job. Yeah, worker. Yeah, I'm on Echo's team. Yeah, yeah, no, it's really good. It's good. It's a tough mission, but you know, we're, we're always exploring new ways to do it. You know, we're looking at some other ops. I was thinking of another way to hit those targets too, kinda like coming in from this direction. Oh, that's all I did was just drop a little, plant a little seed, you know? Have that conversation come up and I'm just gonna, that's what I'm gonna do. Plant the little seeds and try and get them to maybe say, oh, that sounds like a really good idea. What did Echo think of that? I, you know, actually I haven't talked to Echo about it in full detail, but I will. Hey, man, the boss asked me about this and he was mentioning, you know, I mentioned this other way of doing it and he thought it might be a good idea.

• 15:52Jocko Willink?

  And I just wanna give you heads up in case he says anything. I didn't really have a chance, you know, whatever. So we're just, we're playing the game a little bit.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  That's good, right?

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  We're maneuvering.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  That line, I just want to give you the heads up. I feel like that's like real good when someone says that.

• 16:07Jocko Willink?

  It is, however, it also gets, uh, it's also a way of saying, hey, I ratted you out.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  I ratted you out. Depending on what it's followed with, it's like, hey, I just wanna give you a heads up. The boss, you know, asked me about this and I didn't know how to respond, so I said this and he might come and talk to you. I just wanted to give you a heads up.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Right, that's.

• 16:27Jocko Willink?

  That's different than, hey, just to give you a heads up, I talked to the boss earlier today, I told him what your deal is. Something like that, that's not gonna go good for you. So, yeah, there's all kinds of shades of gray there as well. And, and you know, I worked for, for a while, I was the admiral's aide. And so, and I worked for a really great guy, great admiral, who I had a really good relationship with, you know? And if I needed something, he was gonna give it to me. And so when I was a task unit commander, which is what, which is what job I went to immediately when I got done working for the admiral. I literally had a direct line to the admiral. Because I had his cell phone number. I had his office number.

• 17:11Jocko Willink?

  And if I wanted to call him, he wanted to talk to me because we were friends.

• 17:17Jocko Willink?

  But that doesn't mean that I went to him and you know, did all kinds of, you know, I didn't do that. No, I never took advantage of that at all and was always professional. But there is this one little story where as odd as this might sound, we were getting ready to go on deployment. And we needed a, what's called a large format color printer.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:43Jocko Willink?

  And it prints out big pieces of paper, large format. And you need it because you need to make battle maps.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  And you need a good one because when you go out on an operation, every single guy on the platoon has a map. So you could have, you might need eight, 10, 12, 15, 30, you might need 30 color laminated maps to go out on a mission. And for whatever reason, I think we had one, it was kind of crappy. And the boss, the admiral, you know, I talked to him before I was going on deployment. I don't know if he called me or I ran into him or whatever. And he's the admiral in charge of everything and he's just, you know, getting a feel for what's going on. And he says, um, you know, hey, do you have everything you need for deployment? Cause he knew I was leaving in a couple of days or a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks. And I said, yeah, you know, sir, we're, we're good to go, you know, right now, believe it or not, I'm just waiting on a printer.

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  You've got to get one of those large format printers for battle maps, but other than that, we're, we're rocking and rolling. And like that afternoon, I got back to my office and the Commodore. So now it's two bosses above my immediate boss at the SEAL team and one guy below the admiral. We don't have like a message for me. He was like, hey, and luckily I was friends with him too. He goes, hey, I guess you need a printer. Let me know what kind.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  See what you did.

• 19:01Jocko Willink?

  And he's like, thanks for the heads up. And I was like, hey, sorry, sir. I just saw him in the quickie mart or whatever. But, uh, but yeah, you know, you, you gotta, you gotta, you don't want to abuse that stuff at all. And you gotta, gotta be smart about it. And it's, it always is, I'm telling you, it's always, it's, it's not good to skip the chain of command. It really isn't. It's not gonna, it generally is not going to benefit you. It generally going to put you in a bad situation. It's going to give you less leverage with your immediate boss. Cause if I went above the chain of command on you. Even if you get redirected by our boss, you are pissed.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Jocko Willink?

  And you're gonna, you're gonna sabotage.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's really, it's a version of going behind someone's back.

• 19:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure it is.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it almost even feels like even if you tell them, it feels like, oh, you're going above my head.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  You're going behind my back.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  It's a really, it's a really, it's a tough one. You gotta, you gotta use caution with that one. And also, I'll tell you what else it is. It's, it's an easy, it's, it appears to be the easy way out. Like, if you're not listening to me, I'm just gonna go above the chain of command. Instead of me influencing you, explaining to you, writing point papers to you, building a relationship with you so that you trust me. Instead of doing all those things that take time and effort and tact, I'm just gonna skip the chain of command and tell your boss. That's, that's another negative about it. It's a cop out. You shouldn't need to do it. I can't, like that printer story I just told. Like, other than that, of me going above the chain of command, and that was almost a comical thing.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  Like I said, I was friends with the Commodore 2, who always took great care of me and was laughing when he left the message. I go, thanks for the heads up. You know, he wasn't mad when he said that. He was, you know, he was laughing because here I was getting ready to deploy to Iraq, and what I want is a printer. That's what we need, which can tell you how dialed in we were and how much great gear we had. Because the only thing that was left that we needed was a printer. You know, that's where I was at. I got all the, everything we needed, but I needed a printer.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  So you went above his head, and I get it, you know, for the printer.

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  But you got to, you know, other than that, it's really hard for me to think of other times in my naval career where I went above someone in the chain of command. It just didn't happen. You know, I'm gonna take the time to build a relationship with my immediate boss, and they're gonna do what I want them to do. They're gonna give me what I want them to give me. They're gonna support me the way I need to get supported. That's what I'm gonna do. That's leading up the chain of command. Skipping the chain of command isn't really leadership.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  So, try not to do it.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Kind of like when you're a kid and you're, you gotta deal with your older brother or something, but instead of dealing with him, you go and tattle on him, something like that, is how you feel.

• 21:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's the same, same, uh, similar thing.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Not that my little brother tattled on me ever in his life.

• 21:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Interesting how you, and it seems like this is a common theme too, how you're, uh, like, you wanna try the most and the best you can to deal with it yourself, like the most.

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  You know, like from the beginning.

• 21:58Jocko Willink?

  Own it.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  I mean, just like how you were saying, how like if you gotta fire someone, you know, where you wanna get to the point where...

• 22:04Jocko Willink?

  Deal with it in the beginning, yes.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you can't like, just let them do the wrong thing and be like, "Yeah, that's cool." Let them do it for years and then be like, "You know what, you're fired because of all these wrong things and you didn't even bring it up."

• 22:14Jocko Willink?

  And think about this too, like on the unethical things, you, you might be, again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk a fine line here, but you might not recognize, you might not recognize that what you're doing is unethical. You might be like, "Hey, Jocko, you know what I do is I just, I always hit everyone with this little extra $12 charge, you know? No big deal, no one ever notices it, and, uh, you know, we're working hard." And you might just, "Hey, man, it gives you food for your kids and you're working on a bunch of rich people's houses, so they can afford 12 bucks, and it's not that big of a deal to you." And maybe somebody that you started working for did the same thing, and that's kinda just the standard operating procedure.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if I was like, "Man, you know what, that's not good, you know, that's actually, it might not seem like a big deal, but you're taking money." You're, you know, you know that puts money on your, your table, gives, feeds your kids, it's taking money off their table.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, and whether they're rich or not, money's money. And I don't think, I don't feel like we should be doing, you know what I mean? I can, might awaken you and get your ethics back on track, and you might be a good dude. Cause just cause someone was skimming some money doesn't mean they're a horrible person, right? It means that they went down the wrong path. And just because someone goes down the wrong path doesn't mean they can come back, doesn't mean they cannot come back to the right path. Man, if I was, if I was, you know, executed every time I did something that was stupid or, or bad, or, you know, I shouldn't have done, I would've died a thousand deaths by now, right?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  We grow up and we learn these things, we become better people, but we only become better people and we only learn these things if somebody teaches them to us.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  Now, we can learn the hard way, which is, you know, all of a sudden someone looks at you and goes, "Wait, what's this charge for, 12 bucks?" And then they pull up all your receipts for the last five years you've been working here. And then they realize you've stolen money from the company and stolen money from these customers, and they're gonna prosecute you. Because stealing over X amount of dollars is a felony, you know what I mean? So then you learn your lesson, but that's not the lesson we want to learn. So having those tough conversations like you're talking about, having them up front and whether it's your, we're right, whether it's counseling somebody, whether it's dealing with, you know, my boss who I want to tell like, hey, I think there's a better way to do this. Any of those, the earlier you do them, the easier they are to have. And the longer you wait to do them, the harder they get.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Also too, it's just an overall help. Like, I don't know, it's hard to not draw the analogy, not the analogy, but the comparison between um, like your boss and subordinates type situation and parenting kids, you know, like.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Just like, are you saying sometimes people don't know necessarily that it's unethical or they don't know it's that unethical or something like that. That's, that's it. I mean, in my situation with kids, like they don't know. Essentially, they don't know better, you know, like, I don't know, you take a permanent pen and you draw all over the walls. You're four or five years old and you're like, yeah, sure, I've been drawing on paper this whole time. So there's no reason for me to think, sure, I should draw on the walls, but there's really nothing to tell me not to. So they do it and then they go get like beat or something like that, or just yelled at or something, some punishment, straight up punishment. Instead of, you know, okay, you didn't know that, you have to know this, you know, it's like that kind of stuff.

• 25:24Jocko Willink?

  I gotta, I gotta tell a story. We were, I was going through officer candidate school. And there's a manual and you're going through officer candidate school. I can't remember what it is, but it's all the rules of officer candidate school. Everything you, this is how your uniform is supposed to be. This is the way your locker is supposed to be. These are the way you stand in line at the chow hall. All the, every single rule is in this book and I forget what it's called. So you live by the code of this book and it's very specific rules. And there was a kid who was going through officer candidate school with us. And he was.

• 25:56Jocko Willink?

  From another country, he'd been raised in another country and became an American citizen. But he was from another country and grew up in a really poor, you know, a really poor kid. So good for him. I mean, he had achieved an incredible amount, finishing college, going to officer candidate school. It was awesome. But he had some habits from growing up in the third world that were a little bit different for, you know, for Americans. And one of the things that he would do is he would urinate in the shower. And, and not just while he was taking a shower, but when you come back from a class or something, you know, you'd everyone have to go to the bathroom at the same time. And so, you know, guys would go in and they'd fill up the urinals and then there's nowhere to piss. So what are you gonna do? Oh, well, he would just go in the shower and it's a big open shower. You just go in there and piss right in the drain like it was nothing.

• 26:41Jocko Willink?

  Toilet, shower. Yeah, toilet, shower, whatever. Dang. And one of the American kids, uh, and I'm calling kids, these guys were all, you know, actually we had a, but some of them were new kids, fresh out of college. The kid, the, the kid that was urinating in the shower was fresh out of college. And one of the older guys who was like me was a prior enlisted guy. He came to me and he said, hey, man, this kid's urinating in the shower. Like all the time. And I said, I said, okay, well, you know, run the water. He's like, Brandon, I gotta get these like I've, he's like, you know, my squad's in charge of cleaning the showers. And so these are my guys on their, on the ground, cleaning up his piss. It ain't cool. And I was like, all right, cool. I'll talk to him. So I went and I said, hey, man, I say, hey, you know, officer candidate, whatever. Can I, can I talk with you for a second?

• 27:26Jocko Willink?

  And he goes, yeah. And he comes in my room. I said, hey, man, you, um, you know, you're, you're, you're pissing in the shower. Just wait for a, a toilet. And he looked at me like I was telling him that he shouldn't breathe air, right? He was like, well, why? And I said, I said, well, no, because you know, you're, you're, you're pissing where everyone walks around and, and he goes, yeah, but the water to drain. Yes, all pipes. And he goes, and I said, no, it's, it's not, just, just don't do it. He goes, it's not in the rulebook. Is what he said to me and I go, what do you mean? He goes, the, the, and he named the manual? He goes, it doesn't say in there that you can't piss in the showers. I was like, well, it doesn't say you can't piss on my floor either, or in my bed, but I don't want you doing that. But it was interesting. My point is that his viewpoint was like, this was totally normal.

• 28:08Jocko Willink?

  And, and he was a great kid and a hard worker, but for him, he was just like, what are you talking about? Why wouldn't I piss in the shower? All the, all the pissers are taken. I'm gonna go piss in the shower. Well, next question. Let's move on. I got work to do. And so I had to explain to him, hey, man, listen, it's, it's a little different. And people that are cleaning the showers don't want to be down on their hands and knees in, in your piss.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  So, and he said, okay. And he, he listened to me. And, but I could see that he listened to me, but he didn't a hundred percent agree with me.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:38Jocko Willink?

  He was like, okay, you know, that's fine. Yeah, he, he kinda did that, you know?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Jocko Willink?

  And it was one of those where I, I'm trying to explain to him the why, but it just, it's like you're saying, like, he literally didn't understand that that was not acceptable from a hygienic point, hygienic, is that right? Hygienic, from a hygienic point, from a, you know, a moral or, or a morale point of the team that's in there cleaning up. So, that was, uh, that was good times.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  You never seen that, um, Seinfeld? You watch Seinfeld ever? You know what that is, right?

• 29:12Jocko Willink?

  I know it's a TV show, but negative.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  That's what they talk about. He gets caught, one of the guys gets caught taking a leak in the shower at the gym. You know, you go to the gym and take a shower. And then it's like, you know, they catch you and they, you're ostracized, basically. I think they even took his man, I don't know. But he was like, hey, you believe this? They're whatever, you know, they're, they're mad at me for, you know, pissing in the shower at the gym. And he's like, he's like, why, why are you confused that they're mad at you kinda thing? And he's like, it's all pipes. It all goes, you know, he's trying to defend it. And you can kinda see where, in a small, teeny tiny way, if you don't think about it, yeah. Like, why not? It's going down the drain. You're not pissing on the, on the people.

• 29:52Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I was deployed on a ship. And I was an officer, I was an ensign, so I just moved up from the, from the troop birthing where I used to be. With the enlisted spine, that's what we used to proudly call ourselves. And all of a sudden, I was up in the, in the officer area in the, uh, what do they call those areas? Officer country. They have little signs, officer country, you know, no enlisted allowed.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Elitist.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, totally elitist. So I'm in there and I'm living with, uh, uh, we actually had four other SEALs, SEAL officers in this room. And one of the SEAL officers, there was a sink in the room, but no bathroom. So you just had a sink, you brush your teeth, shave, whatever, but if you wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to go down the hallway where the showers and the pissers were. And so, one night, I'm, you know, I'm like, get stirred awake by some noise and I see one of my fellow officers is pissing in the sink. Right? In the sink. And, you know, I, I was like, hey, man, what are you doing? He's like, I'm not walking all the way down to the, down to the bathroom. I was like, yeah, actually, yes, you are.

• 30:55Jocko Willink?

  That's where I brush my teeth, Holmes. And he, and he was the same way. He was kind of surprised, like, what's wrong with you? It's just piss and it's the same pipes, but like, no, do me a favor, just walk on down there.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  What if he urinated in the sink regularly, but every single time when he was done, he scrubbed the, the sink with like lice horn stuff?

• 31:16Jocko Willink?

  Bro.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  It's all psychological, huh?

• 31:18Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's not just psychological, but that doesn't even make it worth it. Now you might as well walk down there.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Right. I, I, I dig it, but like, what if that was just his thing? I mean, well, how would you feel about it?

• 31:28Jocko Willink?

  Don't piss in my sink.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a, um, what do you call it? Like a customary almost for reasons, of course.

• 31:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the reason is don't piss in my sink.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Actually, in college, we played football with it, like a nice facility too, at UH, but the showers were, like, guys would do it all the time. And, but the showers were shaped different where. Like, let's say you're facing the shower, right? Or you're facing the wall. At the bottom of the wall was like a gutter.

• 31:55Jocko Willink?

  Trench, yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  A trench, yeah, so it went down, so if you did and one guy's wood, it would go down. You weren't ever standing in it, you know? So if you're standing in it, that's like obvious, you know? But, but guys would do it. And when I first saw it, I was like, dang, you're just openly doing it. Like, one of this guy, I actually mentioned his name before, I'm not gonna mention, cause it's pissing in the shower. But, he's like, talking to me while he's pissing in the shower. Almost like, it was a straight up toilet, it was understood. And he's like, yeah, I'll talk to me, and I'm like, alright. That's how, so again, it's more like the ethics of the, like, the culture, almost. It's what it seemed like.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what it seems like to me is, don't piss in my sink.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  I agree. Oh, yeah, the sink is different.

• 32:36Jocko Willink?

  It's a totally different ballgame.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:38Jocko Willink?

  Shower, okay, understood, right? Like you said, it goes down the drain, it's, there's water flowing all over it.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're washing off anyway.

• 32:48Jocko Willink?

  You're washing off, there's soap coming over it, but, uh, you know what? I got a good idea, just as a general, overall, rule.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:55Jocko Willink?

  Piss in the toilet.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, try the toilet, it's way better.

• 32:57Jocko Willink?

  Do that one.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, the same way, you're probably not gonna brush your teeth in the toilet.

• 33:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you wouldn't do that.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  That's what the sink is for.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  Now, if you wanna piss, if you wanna brush your teeth in the toilet, have at it, I won't be mad at you.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  I, I'll be mad at you, bro. I don't know if I can hang out with you as much, or whatever, but, yeah, I understand. It makes sense.

• 33:15Jocko Willink?

  And we're talking about pissing in toilets from, talking about skipping the chain of command. Oh yeah, that's right, cause the guy at OCS, Officer Candidate School.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:22Jocko Willink?

  He was pissing in the shower.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  You gotta let him know. You gotta have the hard conversations.

• 33:26Jocko Willink?

  I wonder whatever happened to him? He was a hard worker.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Where was he from?

• 33:29Jocko Willink?

  Um, somewhere like Vietnam.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Oh, dang.

• 33:33Jocko Willink?

  Or, or Laos or something, um, maybe Thailand.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so, some Asian, Asian country, Southeast Asian country.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Jocko Willink?

  Hard worker, and smart.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say.

• 33:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  My opinion about taking a leak in the shower is, you shouldn't do it. But, if like, like this guy, who's like, oh, that's normal, that doesn't, like, totally surprise me, though.

• 33:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it doesn't totally surprise me.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  But, makes sense that guys didn't like it, though, for sure. Next question.

• 34:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and don't skip the chain of command if you can avoid it.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  By the way, yeah, don't do that either. Yeah, that's a, yeah. Anything going behind someone's back, it just, it just, like how you said, it's like, sometimes you can't repair that.

• 34:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's hard to repair. Hard to repair.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Hello. How do you rank your longevity in your priorities?

• 34:29Jocko Willink?

  Longevity, this is talking about staying alive for as long as possible. And of course, I mean, I want to live.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Oh, like how do you?

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do I personally, that's the way it was, the question is actually directed at me. Jocko Willink question for the podcast. How do you rank your longevity and your priorities? Longevity being how long are you going to live for? And for me, I mean, obviously longevity has some level of importance. I do want to live for a little while longer. But, and, and I think that generally my lifestyle and my focus on health and fitness in a broad way align with living for a little longer. So, you know, working out and all that stuff is good, but there's also an extreme,

• 35:17Jocko Willink?

  and I don't know if you know this, I don't know how much you know about this, or if you've ever read about it, but there's an extreme side of longevity. Of trying, if you, if your goal in life was to live as long as possible, there's an extreme version of that. Do you know about this?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. How so?

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  Uh, well, one of the biggest things is you, you do calorie restriction, massive calorie restriction.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:41Jocko Willink?

  You're talking like massive calorie restriction. And that's one of them. You, and, and believe it or not, you do extremely low levels of physical activity.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:52Jocko Willink?

  Right? You, you basically, if your goal was to live as long as possible, you would want to live basically in a bubble.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:02Jocko Willink?

  And do nothing.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:04Jocko Willink?

  But, but eat very little and, and just lay there.

• 36:10Jocko Willink?

  No jujitsu. No surfing, no lifting heavyweights, none of that stuff. Now, when you're in that mode of longevity, pure longevity, you are not prepared for anything in the actual world, right?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:25Jocko Willink?

  Because your, your heart can only beat so many times and if the less you use it, the longer it's gonna be lasting. But, and I'm sure I have that not quite right, but the problem is if you're not in good shape, when you get surprised, your heart can't handle it. That's the kind of people that have heart attacks. Their heart can't handle all this madness when it comes. So, I'm not going there. It's not worth it for me to, for me to live my whole life as a sedentary person, half-starved and completely unprepared for anything to happen to me outside of my bubble is not happening. I'm not gonna live that way. So where does it rank in my priorities?

• 37:05Jocko Willink?

  I think it's, it, sure, it's an important thing, but I think my general lifestyle aligns with it enough that I don't think about it as much. And I think overall, living life is more important to me than just living.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:21Jocko Willink?

  So, gotta live life.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  What if magic, like a magic wizard guy says, "I'm the, you know, gatekeeper of your whole life, whatever, your life and death situation." He's a grim reaper, that's who he was. And he said,

• 37:37Speaker 01

  "I know when you're gonna die, you know, you can't help it. This, I just know the future, whatever.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I will give you 20 extra years. Right now, you're, you know, forty something years old. The day you're gonna die, whenever that is, I can't tell you that. Maybe ninety, maybe eighty, whatever, but I'll give you 20 more years of fully functional life. But you gotta stop doing jujitsu right now. You can never do it ever again."

• 38:04Jocko Willink?

  I'd probably choke him out. Next question.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  But otherwise you'd be just as functional. You can lift, you can surf, you can, you know, you can get after it in, in every other way, just no jujitsu. Oh, no martial arts in any way.

• 38:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you know what? I would double leg him.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  And then I would pass his guard and then I would choke him. Yeah.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 38:28Jocko Willink?

  And I'd take his sickle. And I'd free the world.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  So a jujitsu free life is not life. That's what you're saying.

• 38:39Jocko Willink?

  I think the minute you start restraining yourself from doing things that you want to do, you you would need to take serious considerations in what you're doing.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:47Jocko Willink?

  I also think that hypothetical questions like that are completely ridiculous.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  No, they're not. They're mental exercise.

• 38:54Jocko Willink?

  So my, that's why. And then in that case, I will stay with my first answer.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  If the Grim Reaper came to me and made me an offer, I would double leg him. I would take him down and I would choke him out.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 39:07Jocko Willink?

  I might kill him.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:09Jocko Willink?

  I might kill death.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. See? Boom. And you can't do that without jujitsu. So as far as the double leg and choking someone out. So back to your, um, how you say, you know, how the longevity

• 39:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  thing. I did know about that, actually.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  And it and it makes sense because that's a lot of things. Like if you want to be the safest you possibly can in life, right? Same thing. You're just gonna live in a bubble with no threats of any disease, sterilized bubble, no murders, no car accidents, no nothing. Never drive, never do anything. The same thing. Bro, you'll be so safe. You'll be the safest person in the world, really.

• 39:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  But as far as quote unquote, living life, you know, you you go one day out in the in the wild, oh, you're dead. Same thing. Like if you restrict all your calories, no hard physical activity, no sun, you know, all this stuff. The moment you go to everyday life, which is physical in some is less than before, but still physical. There's sun. There's day. When you go out there, oh, you're dead.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  Sun, right?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  So it's like all or nothing. Yeah.

• 40:11Jocko Willink?

  Take vitamin D pills.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  The, uh, the other thing is with calorie restriction is I think, and you know, I'm reading about this stuff all the time and but you can get a lot of those benefits by doing some intermittent fasting, for sure.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  And you will feel good on the intermittent fasting.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:26Jocko Willink?

  Twenty four, forty eight, seventy two hours. That's the most I've done. You know, and maybe I'll do some more in the future. Tim Ferriss did like seven days.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:36Jocko Willink?

  Or actually, you know, I don't know, man. Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but and see, and that's that almost goes into a whole.

• 40:44Jocko Willink?

  Honestly, when I did seventy two hours, the last time I did it, same thing. I've done it a couple of times now, and every time I feel fine.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  I don't feel any of this stuff that people talk about.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, so, I mean, it's, this is almost.

• 40:56Jocko Willink?

  Did I feel hungry for a little while?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  But I do, I wasn't like, oh, God.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:01Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't gonna die, no.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you were.

• 41:04Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  But you're talking about a whole different thing now.

• 41:08Jocko Willink?

  You know what, if people are gonna say, people are gonna ask on the interwebs to talk more about intermittent fasting? No, don't ask me, there's like actual research out there.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  Go and Google it, look up intermittent fasting and read about it, don't ask me, I'm the wrong person to ask.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:26Jocko Willink?

  Ask smart people.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and again, the intermittent, like, if you're talking about like.

• 41:31Jocko Willink?

  I just preempted like ten thousand questions on Twitter.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Because it's true, don't ask me, Google it, and look at these really good research papers, there's all kinds of stuff coming out about it right now. Now, what's weird about the internet and science in general is in, you know, there's a one article that says it's great. You can find two more articles that say it's horrible, and you can find three more articles, so you can always counter everything.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, not to split hairs, but that's not necessarily about science in general, it's more about a specific person's.

• 42:05Jocko Willink?

  Viewpoint.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Viewpoint based on what they've.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Arrived at.

• 42:09Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Um, and especially with diet and health, it's so, it's so ambiguous and so adaptable and stuff like that. So, but if you're talking about fasting, that's, that's, you're talking about something different, like, you know, people fast for a specific reason.

• 42:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Or even a kind of a general reason, but it's like fasting alone isn't gonna make you achieve whatever it is you're doing. You know, it's a, it's a complete, just like lifting, like, with lifting, you need nutrition, you need rest, you need all this stuff for a specific result. And then there's all kinds of different lifting, you know, so you can't just be like, oh, yeah, I want bigger muscles, so I'm just gonna lift, that's it. No nutrition, I'm not gonna eat at all, or no rest, I'm not gonna rest at all, so. The point there is when you go trying to live as long as you possibly can, it's like you have to like that has to be the objective just to live. Everything else is, everything else is out the window. So you, yeah, I don't, I agree with you. I don't think that that's living necessarily.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  I don't think there's too many people that are just on the full on longevity gig. But there are some.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know one, not gonna mention his name.

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  Jack, I guess it'd be your little secret.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 43:26Jocko Willink?

  Similar question.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Jocko, prioritize and execute. Is it wrong to sacrifice health in short term to accomplish work objectives? And how would you make up the time lost?

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, absolutely. Sometimes you have to sacrifice workouts for health and health for work objectives. There's no doubt that's life. And work in many respects is life. And that's kind of another topic. But try and love what you're doing. Try and enjoy your job. If you don't, because if you enjoy your job, then work is life is an okay thing. If you hate your job, then work is life is not a, is not a good situation to be in. So try and get into things and do something that you enjoy doing. And if you don't enjoy it, you know, find some kind of an exit strategy. But that's another topic. Going back to this topic, is it okay?

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  Or is it wrong to sacrifice your health in the short term to accomplish long-term work objectives? And yeah, even in the SEAL teams, we did that all kinds of times, a lot. Whether it was in training or for mission where our priority, or our mission or our training takes priority over workouts and over eating healthy and over everything. So there's times where you're 100% focused on some kind of mission. And that's what you're gonna, that's what you're gonna do. And that's okay. That's what we did in the SEAL teams and that's what everyone does. And it's, and when you get done with that, how do you make up for lost time? You do some hard workouts and maybe you go eat super clean or you fast for a little while or whatever it is that gets you back on track. You just get yourself back on track.

• 45:05Jocko Willink?

  What you have to watch out for is a pattern. A long-term pattern where work takes precedent over health for multiple weeks, right? Multiple weeks and months, right? If it's, if you're talking about months, we're in a bad situation. Like if you go week, two weeks where you just were crazy and work was crazy and you, you know, you know, your health took a little, went down a couple notches on the priority and a couple of weeks goes by and you go, I'm glad I'm got through that and the, the, the hard season's over or the whatever, the, you know, you know, people in the finance world and tax season, they're just busting their ass for two, three, four straight weeks.

• 45:46Jocko Willink?

  It's really hard. It's understandable and you know, retail people around Christmas time, they're, you know, everyone's got their little cyclical things, real estate people in the springtime and the summer starts rolling around their work. It's, it's, they're cyclical things and that's cool. You work hard for two, three weeks where you just have to get after it. But when that starts turning into months and, and multiple weeks and then months and then secular months of your health is taking the backseat, we have an issue. Now, that being said, there are not too many jobs that consume 23 and a half hours a day of your time. There are just not that many jobs that do that.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  Now, what, and what you might be facing here is you might be blaming your job for you being lazy. That, that can be happening. That's a strong possibility, actually. Because you can make time for a 20-minute workout, right? 20-minute workout, right? 20-minute workout, like that, if you get 20 minutes, you get in there, shake it out a little bit and you do, you know, couple hundred burpees, go as hard as you can, you just got a workout. That took you 10, 15, 20 minutes, right? Well, yeah, longer than that for me, but yeah. You see what I'm saying though? I do, yes, fully. You do, and then if you can do that, if you sprint, if you do 10 sprints, right? Doesn't take you much time. You do go, go knock out three, four, five sets of pull-ups.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  Go knock out a couple hundred pull-ups. How long does that take? It doesn't take that long, right? Take you 15 minutes, you're done. So. Then maybe at night, you just roll up there, you grab your kettlebell and you knock out some swings. It takes you seven minutes. We're not talking about a bunch of times. So are we being lazy because we're not carving out 15, 20 minutes, half an hour? You know, a lot of people ask me about what workouts I do when I'm on the road. A lot of times when I'm on the road, I fly into a city, I get there 11 o'clock at night. The next time, next day, I'm working with a company at 8 o'clock in the morning. And so I, my, my schedule's tight. Why am I in the hotel room? The hotel room gym sucks for, for one thing. And I'm going to bang something out quickly.

• 48:00Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's not going to be an hour workout. No, it's going to be like 20 minutes sometimes. Now, sometimes if I have a little extra time, maybe I'm not meeting with the company until lunch. Cool, I'm going to have a nice, long workout, of course. But if it's, I'm due to meet with the CEO for breakfast at 7 o'clock. It's going to be a quick hardcore 12 minute workout. And that's cool. So you've got to carve that out. And so, so, you know, make sure that it's the job that's doing this to you and not you that's doing this to you. Yeah. So if it is your job, truly, truly your job is the thing that's making you unhealthy, then you got to fix it.

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, what you have going for you is that companies want you to be healthy. Right? Companies understand the benefit of having healthy employees, not just from a productivity standpoint, but from like an insurance viewpoint. We, if we got a, you know, we've got a health coverage for our employees and all of our employees are, are sick and, and lame and lazy and we're having to pay their medical bills and they can't work. It's problematic. So what you do is you step up and you say, hey, you know what? We don't have a health and wellness program. I want to run it. We need a little gym. Oh, it's going to cost money? Yes, it's going to cost money, but I'm going to save you money in productivity. I'm going to save you money in insurance. I'm going to write a point paper on that. I'm going to win that one all day long. We're gonna, we're gonna put a gym.

• 49:26Jocko Willink?

  In the lounge and we're gonna put, we're gonna put some mats in the donut room. You know what I'm saying? So we're gonna, we're gonna do it. I think LinkedIn has a jujitsu room.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  You mean?

• 49:38Jocko Willink?

  LinkedIn, the company. I think I saw a picture of they have a jujitsu room.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Good idea.

• 49:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you wouldn't even have to pay me to work there. Oh, you got jujitsu room?

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Free membership.

• 49:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you get, so, so go, you know, step up. Your company, I can guarantee your company wants you to be healthy. So step up, maybe take leadership role in forming the health and wellness program for your company.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Get it? Funny, my, uh, my brother's company, you know it, Frag Mob. He, uh, they don't have a, they don't have mats in, obviously in the office, but.

• 50:13Jocko Willink?

  Yet.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yet, yeah. But, um, the, it's funny though, he'll, he'll like, he'll do this, he'll encourage people to go to jujitsu. You know, to the point where they have rash guards even.

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we have a pretty good representation from Frag Mob at the gym.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:28Jocko Willink?

  You know what I call everyone from Frag Mob that trained? You know what I nicknamed them?

• 50:31Speaker 01

  What?

• 50:31Jocko Willink?

  All of them? Frag Mob. Everyone from Frag Mob, that's what I call them.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that's their actual name. Hey, you Frag Mob, it's not gym anymore.

• 50:37Jocko Willink?

  No, no, your name is Frag Mob.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, but, but that's good because it becomes this culture that kind of catches on, you know? Where, and this is just jujitsu. It can be kind of anything, CrossFit or even susp, I don't know, whatever, but. Jujitsu is kind of good because it's one of those ones that you can kind of come and talk about it and you know, oh, I choked you out or you choked me out kind of thing. You can choke your boss if he's there, you know, it's like that kind of stuff. It's real fun.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Choke your boss.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  And they even have like rat, like I said, rash guards, the rash guards, like if you work for Frag Mob, it'll say, um, staff on the back, it'll have, uh, like. You know, you know, they do like AI and, you know, development, stuff like that. So the, the staff one will be, um. What does it have on the sleeves? Like digital.

• 51:17Jocko Willink?

  Digital.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Circuitry. Yeah. And then, um, the other one says, will say security. That's like, you know, friends of.

• 51:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  The friends of the family, whatever.

• 51:25Jocko Willink?

  Between the hardware and the software rash guards?

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. That's what I mean. That's exactly what it is. So the soft, the guys who actually work for Frag Mob have the software rash guards. That has like circuitry on the design and then the, the.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  No, the hardware.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, sorry. The software is.

• 51:38Jocko Willink?

  Is little zeros and ones, like matrix.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  The code. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And the security guys who work. Anyway, nonetheless, um, that's kind of. That's like a good look, because that's not really an official program in Frag Mom. Or in a company, it's just, it's kind of the influential element of the culture, you know? Where it's like, and you know, my brother, he, he, he pushed that, you know? Not, kind of overtly, I guess, but it's more, it wasn't like, you guys have to do this. It's kind of like, hey, you should come down, I'll give you a rash guard. Okay, cool. And guys, and it was funny, there was a time, there's a bunch of Frag Mom people in there. Just going, interesting, but yeah, that helps.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  It does help, for sure. Now, the, the, the thing is, if none of that works, if you, if your company's just dragging you down, and, and you've checked and double-checked and triple-checked your own discipline, or lack of discipline, and you realize that it's the work that is bringing down your health, in that case, you gotta follow the procedure, you gotta find an exit strategy, create an exit strategy, save up your money, line things up, get the ducks in a row and then execute, because your health is going to be more important than everything else.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:45Jocko Willink?

  Than everything else, all that money you could possibly make. If you gotta sacrifice a year and a half, two years, and you're gonna grind it out like an investment banker that shows up on Wall Street and is gonna grind for two years and their health is gonna suffer, but they've got a goal at the end of that, hey, understood. Sometimes you gotta do, but you gotta, at the end of that two, three years, if you, if you're not there, and you're not where you want to be, and you're starting to decline in health, you're gonna get some stuff that you won't be able to recover from. So, make your, make your decision, then you come up with an exit strategy and move on, do something else.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and health, health and even like, fitness is, is this thing, it's called systemic versus direct, you know, as far as being beneficial. So, exercise is like one of the few things in your little hierarchy of, of like, needs or whatever.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  That affects everything else. Like if you, if you're an unhealthy person versus a healthy person, the healthy person will be better at everything else. He'll be better at making money, he'll be better at all relationships, he'll be better, obviously, health-wise in and of itself.

• 53:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you've got some guy that's brilliant and really out of shape versus a guy that's an idiot who's in great shape, the brilliant person's probably gonna make more money and do better in the long run. I mean, we're talking, you have to put them on a level in intellectual playing field.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're talking about the same person.

• 54:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, then for sure, for sure. The healthier person was gonna win.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  But, so, and compare that to the direct thing, like, will people be like, hey, making money's important, so it's more important than health. But here's the thing, making money doesn't improve your health, making money doesn't necessarily improve friendship or romantic relationships necessarily. In fact, a lot of times, it damages them, a lot of the times. Health doesn't damage anything, it improves everything. There's not anything that I can think of, anyway, that health makes worse.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Or being more fit makes worse.

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  Get healthy, stay healthy.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:43Jocko Willink?

  Stay on the program.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  You know what, um, and it's one of those things too, man, those, like, working out. When you're on the road, that's a big one, right? It's hard to, like, get a solid workout on the road, because you're busy or whatever. But there's, this is gonna sound crazy, but when you think about it, it's not, not crazy, but sound kinda unrealistic, where, okay, so this is what I've been doing recently, when, when we went to New York for the muster and like, all these other stuff. Before I go, I'll research jujitsu gyms and fitness gyms where I can work out, because like you said, the hotel gym is like, if you don't have anything else and you have, but you still have time, okay, good. But, I research where are the gyms and prepare, like, okay, how long is it gonna take me to get there, work out, get back, all this stuff, and then you fit it in your schedule. And here's the thing, if you don't wanna fit it in your schedule, then don't work out. Then, then

• 55:25Speaker 01

  health is not for you, then. But if you're like, oh, you're asking, you know, this kinda question, where, you know, is it wrong to sacrifice health and, and all this stuff? That means you're concerned about health, then be concerned about health. You can fit it in, be surprised what you can fit in. Just like, you don't have to get that good of a workout, but you're fitting it in. But here's the thing, you can fit in a good workout. You just gotta make room for that, you gotta plan.

• 55:49Jocko Willink?

  It's a psychological win, too, like, I, if I'm going to speak somewhere. At a minimum, I'll do a couple hundred burpees before I go when I wake up.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:00Jocko Willink?

  That just gets the blood flowing. You're ready to rock and roll.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. At the muster, there was no break in the program. I went to 24 hour fitness. I've rolled a hard one at Henzo's. And then we rolled at the muster, which wasn't hard necessarily, but there was a lot of rolls in there. And so, man, it was, there was no break in the program. But the point is because I knew that that was, I made time exactly right. It was important. And I don't want to say it's important, like it's the number one priority. I'm saying it's part of the whole what I'm doing. If it's not part of what you're doing, then, then don't be healthy. Then don't make it part of what you're doing.

• 56:34Jocko Willink?

  I vote against you on that one. I say make time, be healthy.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so too. That's my opinion, but I'm saying, you know, people, you know, like, people will be like, I don't have time. My job is so whatever. Hey, if you straight up don't have time, then you don't have time. Health is not for you. You chose everything else over health. And that's up to you.

• 56:52Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go ahead and go on a limb here that most people, you can make time.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  That's the point. That's my whole point.

• 56:57Jocko Willink?

  Wake up a half hour earlier.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you know, you know, when you really don't have time.

• 57:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like one time, I don't know, two or three months ago, we were, we came in and we skipped jujitsu to record the podcast.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:12Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, man, we skipped jujitsu to record the podcast. We had no choice. It was like, if we didn't do that, we weren't gonna get it done. I had a flight in the afternoon and we just had to do it. And so, yeah, occasionally that those things happen.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so consider that, right? So it's either skip jujitsu one day and get the podcast out. Or don't, we could have easy, we could have chosen train jujitsu, don't do the podcast. But at that point, given all the circumstances, the podcast at one day, skipping jujitsu at one day is more important. For that one day, because it's not like we're giving up jujitsu completely for this, but it's not that.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  We were actually holding the line with the podcast.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And that was important that day because we were kind of faced with that thing. What do you give up? So what, that's the question. What do you give up? Do you give up watching, you know, a movie in room service? Do you give that up? Give that up?

• 58:01Jocko Willink?

  Yes, give that up.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Like I said, hey, if you don't have time, you don't have time.

• 58:04Jocko Willink?

  When I go to hotels, I don't even turn on the TV.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ben, it's been a long time, yeah.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  Cuz I don't have TV at home. And so, I don't know, a year or two ago, I went to some hotel and I turned on the TV. And next thing I know. You know, an hour and a half went by and I was watching some movie from nineteen eighty six. Going, you've gotta be kidding me. Turn it off. You know what I always do? I hang my chalk bag on the TV. That's my, that's my standard operating procedure. I hang my chalk, because you know how there are all the thin TVs now?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  When you travel?

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  When I travel.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  So you bring your chalk bag?

• 58:34Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I bring a chalk bag. I bring sweatbands for my wrists because I sweat. I bring a chalk bag. I bring my little notebook. I bring um a mobility wad ball to do some mobility work. And I bring some one inch tubular nylon that I used to stretch.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Oh dang, yeah. You're good to go regardless.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  Like when we went to the muster, I brought rings with me.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that. That was good.

• 59:00Jocko Willink?

  Because I, I knew I was gonna be on a tight timeline. I knew I was gonna have to, you know, get some workouts done. And I traveled a little bit heavier. Because I normally travel really light, but I had an extra bag, so then, rings, no factor.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  You were there for a while too.

• 59:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Couple of weeks.

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was in Austria and then came back to New York and then from New York to Texas, so it was a road trip.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dang, see, and you made it happen and you're busier than the normal person, in my opinion.

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  Kind of busy.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  And from, yeah. But again, man, I, I think, you know how that old saying, I think, I don't know, you might have said, uh, might have been Henry, I don't know where I saw it, but it's like, there is no um, free time or spare time or, you know, work that there's just time, you know, it's, it's one of those deals.

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  That is Rollins. That's a Rollins quote, yeah.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  So it's like time, so.

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  There's no spare time, there's no free time, there's just lifetime.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Just time, yeah.

• 59:50Jocko Willink?

  So you better just get on it.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  So unless you're like Peter Attia, remember when he was talking about what Peter Attia was talking about, like, there is no time. You're just working the whole time, like you can't even sleep, you know?

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  When he was at med school.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So if you're in that situation, then that makes sense. You're not gonna be like, hey, I'm not doing this part of my med, medical program, you know?

• 1:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Pulling over the side of the road to a park to fall asleep for an hour because you haven't slept in nine days, yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  So there are exceptions for sure, but again, like if you're in, doing room, room service or you're, you know, you're watching the game or you're stopping at the bar or doing anything, I'm not even saying necessarily destructive things, I'm just saying things that don't, aren't conducive to your quote unquote work, that's keeping you so busy or whatever, that, that are essential. If you're doing these other things, then there's where you can make time. How can one ever have time if you don't take time?

• 1:00:41Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  My wife and kids are quick to anger. Sometimes it's explosive, like a Moab. Mother of all bombs. Other times, it's a slow, grinding war of attrition. Being a student of your podcast, I've learned the worst strategy is to directly attack their fortified emotional position. Seems like this is a good opportunity to employ the flanking maneuver. How do I effectively flank their anger without appearing weak?

• 1:01:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay, first of all, flank yourself because that appearing weak thing, that's pretty much in your head. Really, it is. It's legitimately in your head. And that's the first thing you need to do is that's your ego talking when you don't wanna, when you don't want to. When they hit you with something that they're angry at, the thing that's hitting back is ego. That's what's hitting back. So first thing you gotta do is, okay, I'm gonna check my ego right now because I'm gonna win the long war. In fact, you have to be careful. When you stay calm when everyone else is angry, you have to actually be careful not to come across as aloof or, you know, arrogant.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Like when people are getting mad, okay, okay, for instance, if your wife is super mad about something and you show no emotions and you don't get mad at all, they get madder sometimes, right?

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Jocko Willink?

  You don't even care about this, you know? So, no, no, so you gotta, you gotta give a little bit, you know, I'm not saying it, you know? A little bit of, hey, I get it, right? But then what you wanna do is absorb. Oh, they wanna get mad? Cool. Absorb, take the screaming, give the head nod of understanding in a only marginally emotional way that pretty much communicates that I understand you're mad and I'm, I'm listening and I hear you. You know, I get it. And let them get it out of their system. Just let them get it out of their system, then let them calm down. And then after you've given them the time to kind of calm down and settle down. And I mean, it's longer than you think.

• 1:02:47Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's longer than you think. Let them, let, let, when you think they're calm, wait an extra 45 minutes, if not two hours, probably two hours. Because they're not calm.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  To be safe.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  They just stopped screaming, right? They're not calm. So, and then what you do is, and then what you do is you kind of take it on yourself, you're gonna own it, right? And you say something like, hey, you know, that thing that made you mad, I want to make sure it doesn't happen again. I, you know, what, what can I do better to make sure that you don't get mad about that? Right? You take, you take ownership of that. What do I need to adjust? And what exactly is it that, that I did that frustrated, what is it that frustrated you? What can I do to stop it? Maybe it wasn't me, maybe you're mad at the printer. But you know, how can we fix that? Cause I don't want you to do it. And, and then, you know, so you have that kind of conversation. And, you know, you're going to slide something tactfully and they're tactfully.

• 1:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause again, you're still dealing with like, you know, possible flare up scenarios happening. So, you know, but you, but you say something like, ah, you know, we both know that nobody benefits when people lose their temper. Right? I mean, we gotta be careful. You know, I, no one, it's not, it doesn't do us any good when people lose their temper. We, everyone knows that, right? So you slide those things in there, you're giving that kind of like,

• 1:04:05Jocko Willink?

  little mini lecture indirectly about what's happening. And then when you have other conversations, now we're in just a normal day to day thing. You drop things about temper, you know, you talk about temper being, well, you know, it's a weakness and it's, no one makes good decisions when they have, and then they lose their temper. I mean, it's some of the dumbest things I've ever done was when I lost, you know, everyone knows that, but you know, you say you start sliding those things in there that it's bad for your decision-making, it's bad for relationships, it's bad for your health, it's bad for life. And again, you're not directly saying these things, you're subliminally saying, you know, it's, man, I remember one time I lost some of the dumbest things I ever did. When I lost my temper and I kicked the wall and I broke my toe and I put a hole in the wall and the landlord came. That's when I, I hate when I lose my temper.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  And you start getting them in the, you give them thinking about it over time. And this is the thing, it's a long war. And there's going to be relapses along the way.

• 1:05:03Jocko Willink?

  But you gotta just hold the line, keep it steady, absorb and then.

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Flank gently to get them to start self recognizing where they're at and what their temper does to them.

• 1:05:18Jocko Willink?

  Temper's crazy.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Jocko Willink?

  When you see people lose their temper, it's it's a total loss of control.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Jocko Willink?

  It's a total loss of control and it's just doesn't do anybody any good. And when you see someone that really loses their temper, you're like, what is wrong?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Come on.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Jocko Willink?

  And when I was a kid and I used to lose my temper. And at some point I just realized, I forget what it was, I forget what made me, I think it was something my dad said to me. There's something about, you know, something along those lines of like, yeah, you lose your temper, it's like a little baby.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:05:52Jocko Willink?

  Loss of control.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so you, you, when you realized it, that's because of something your dad said?

• 1:05:57Jocko Willink?

  My dad said to me something along the lines of like, you know, I think he was referring to an athlete or something, someone that just had no emotions and how that was impressive.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, hmm, that is impressive.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Massive control of oneself.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Nothing is gonna make me mad.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't matter what's going on around me.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it is like a baby, you know, like I said, you know, like babies, they cry and they whatever, because they don't know how to talk. So if they knew how to talk and control everything, they'd just be like, hey, I'm cold. Or hey, I'm hungry, but they don't know how to talk.

• 1:06:31Jocko Willink?

  So why do adults go crazy and cry?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Because they're babies.

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  Because they don't know how to talk?

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  If they, if they cry for every little thing, they're babies. Yeah, they don't know how to talk. Actually, you know what? Under, um, and it depends, it depends how much control and all these other little variables, but it's like the front part of your brain, that's the decision making, like the conscious, like, oh, okay, I'm gonna make this, this conscious decision, right? Which is the last part of your brain to develop, by the way.

• 1:06:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the conscious decision making?

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, the front, the thing like frontal cortex, you know, something like this. And it happens and it fully develops around age 25, by the way. So if you're 24, 23, 22, 21, and so put simply, it's like, okay, my actions now, how do they affect the future? You know, so in one way or another, it's gonna be kind of surrounded on that little premise, small little premise. So otherwise, you're just going on straight auto mode, however you're, however you feel, that's gonna influence, not totally control, but that's the thing that's gonna influence your behavior. So times of stress, your frontal cortex start to shut down a little bit, hunger, shut down a little bit.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Hormonal situations for guys and girls.

• 1:07:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you lose your temper more. That's where hangry comes from.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Hangry is one of them, you know, and it's like all these things, loss of empathy, loss of like all this stuff where your decisions just aren't that dope. And so, and when I say hormonal, like that's why you get roid rage, you know, cause like guys, if they're on steroids, that's their hormones are up or girls PMSing, it's like a real, you know, premenstrual syndrome. It's like their hormones are all.

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I remember one time my wife started, when she was pregnant, she started crying during an AT&T commercial.

• 1:08:13Jocko Willink?

  Like legit crying.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  It's on auto mode.

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, my God, what's wrong with her?

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  Some of those are kind of sad, but they're just emotional. Nonetheless.

• 1:08:21Jocko Willink?

  So why were you crying during Hawaii Five-O?

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, they're trying, they're trying to make it deep, man, that show, you're watching, nutties? Anyway, nonetheless, um, it's back to losing your temper and stuff. It is a weak thing, so it's kind of obvious, especially from the outside to see that, look, losing your temper is not cool. And a lot of people, they think it's cool because it feels good.

• 1:08:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it feels good. And when you're a little kid, you respect it. Cause you see someone lose their temper. Oh, you're scary. She's powerful. It's awful. You're like turning into Superman, right?

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a way. He's mean, he's feared, but right, you're not feared, but you look stupid.

• 1:08:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you look dumb. That's the, that's the message to convey to your kids. Is that losing your temper is stupid.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and man, some people there, you could tell they say that stuff with a little bit of pride. You know, it's just me and my temper. My temper is gonna get me in trouble. And they're all like, yeah, you know, bro.

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm a hothead, man.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  That's like, that should be the kind.

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know you. I wish I didn't.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  That should be, if you say, hey, I just have a temper, that should be the equivalent of you saying, I don't know how to read. It should be that, hey, nothing wrong with it. You can get past it and, you know, whatever. I'm not going to judge you for it, but it's not good. It's not a good state to be in, to be someone who can't control your temper. Just like it's not a good state to be in as a grown adult to not know how to read. No judgment, but you solve that problem. That's A. B, if you're having, like if your kids have a temper

• 1:09:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  And they're easy to anger, it's because, chances are, I don't know everybody, of course, but chances are, they got it from the parents. Keep in mind, you're one of those parents. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you have a temper. I'm not saying you don't. But I am saying, sure, kids have a temper, your wife has a temper, you gotta really honestly evaluate, do I have a temper? And understand that, because the kids, they're just these little seeds of beings who are like, hey, how do I act? I don't know how to act. I'll act how, you know, just how I feel. I'm gonna cry. This is my default. I'm just gonna cry when something's wrong.

• 1:10:24Jocko Willink?

  So you're saying if the parents have a temper and show that and act that way, the kids will learn it from them?

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Kids are gonna learn it, so.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  There is some, there is something like genetic, though. I, well, maybe, I guess, we don't know if it's genetic or not, but there are some, where you know the father has a bad temper, and then the kid has a bad temper.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there's no temper gene. So what it is, is there's a genetic situation for sure that you're more apt to not be able to control certain parts of, or not not be able to control, but, but control less, you know, certain parts of your brain or chemistry is gonna make you lean towards certain types of behavior, like impulsive behavior or something like that. There is that, for sure. But, again, man, when you're a kid, you're just looking for, how do I act? I don't know, I'm growing up, I don't even know how to act. So the first thing you're gonna look at is the people, the authority figures in front of you, the parents. If the parents aren't there, who are they looking to? I don't know, the guy next door, the guy on TV, the guy up the street, the guy in the music video, whoever, I don't know, whoever's doing better than me. That's it.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  So if you're, you're the parent, and you're losing your temper all the time, kid's gonna lose their temper. That, that's how, what they're gonna learn how to act, so.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Point there is,

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  if you lose your temper, or if your kids are losing their temper, you start with yourself. Because you know the kind.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  You know the kind, there's certain things that's real easy to see when someone else does it.

• 1:11:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, most things.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  But yeah, but it's really, yeah, you simply don't see it.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, it sounds like this guy here that asked this question, he's saying his wife loses his temper. And that could be where the kid is getting the, the modeling from, right? And he's saying he doesn't. Now, is there a chance that he does too? I guess so, but it sounds like he's prudy together and he's saying, look, I just need to get them to calm down.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah. In this situation, I'd say it's probably the wife who's losing her temper and then the kid is imitating or modeling and then we have this scenario happening.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Jocko Willink?

  So what we need to do is explain to everyone in the family that it's not good.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  We're not losing our tempers anymore. The, yeah, and the reason I say it too is again, I'm not saying he does lose his temper, but I am saying that it is a possibility that because if, let's say me and your husband and wife and you lose your temper.

• 1:12:38Jocko Willink?

  How about we're just bros?

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we're, you know, listen.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Okay, me and my wife.

• 1:12:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  If she loses the temper, her temper, and I'm taking the direct approach, right?

• 1:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Which I understand now.

• 1:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Temper more.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  No, I'm gonna lose my temper back. I'm gonna go fire, I'm gonna fight fire with fire. You raise your voice, I'm gonna raise my voice. The kid's over there in the corner, how do I act? Oh, that's how I act right there. That's a possibility. And kids will become antisocial. That's the thing.

• 1:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Goes on.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  It's one of the things, one of the many things.

• 1:13:13Jocko Willink?

  Antisocial.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  I told you about that book called Mind Games, small little book, forget the author. Like pretty clearly and concisely laid out if you have anger issues. Like what up with that?

• 1:13:26Jocko Willink?

  It's insecurities.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Changed my whole life, low self-esteem.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:13:33Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  Unless we wanna go on.

• 1:13:34Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  You sure?

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Okay. Alright. Jocko Willink, tactics to flank slash shift a ferocious analyzer.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  From paralysis to go, meaning what? Somebody overthinks things and hesitates all the time.

• 1:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Planning and planning and planning and planning. Well, there's a couple of things here. The person is above you or below you in the chain of command. So if they're below you in the chain of command, you know, you explain to them. You say, look, we don't need perfection. We're not going to have 100% solution. We don't have 100% of the information. That's a good enough solution. We need to move forward. Let's execute. And you know what? I'll take, if things go wrong, don't worry about it. I'll take responsibility for it. I'm not going to blame you, which is what you're going to do anyways as a good leader. So that's what you're going to do if they're below you in the chain of command. If they're above you in the chain of command, guess what? Same thing. You're going to tell, same thing like, hey, boss, we don't need perfection here. Look, boss, we're not going to get all the information we need. We're not going to get 100% solution.

• 1:14:33Jocko Willink?

  We got a 90% solution and let's go for it. And if things do go wrong, you can blame me. I don't care. So boom, whether they're above you or below you in the chain of command, you might change your tact or your verbiage a little bit, but it's the same, same overall concept. You've got to get them to understand that we don't need perfection. We need to move forward. And the other thing is you explain the cost of not moving. The cost of staying still, the cost of being reactive instead of proactive and basically the cost of not being aggressive. Cause that's what we're talking about is a lack of aggression. And so what does that look like? Well, you explain to them that the longer we sit, the better position the enemy gets into.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  The longer we wait, the less we know about what is actually happening. Think about that one. The more you sit here and you're planning, the less we know what's going on out there. The things are happening. They're changing, they're evolving. The enemy is maneuvering. There's developments on the battlefield or in the marketplace and you don't even know because you're sitting in the planning space. The longer we wait, the less time we have to recover if something does go wrong. So if we sit here and plan for 47 days and on the 48th day we step out and we start to execute and something goes wrong, we're not going to make the 50 day mark because we spent all that time planning. So the longer that you're sitting around, the less time you have to recover and adapt and adjust.

• 1:15:59Jocko Willink?

  And the longer that you wait while you're doing planning, the less relevant your plan actually becomes. So that's what you need to make people understand. And there's people that are just habitual and chronic ferocious analyzers and those are the people you gotta watch, but you gotta continually just get through their head that the more we sit, the more the enemy maneuvers and if we let them maneuver on us anymore, we're gonna get killed. That's it. Pretty easy. Well, not easy. It's a simple concept. It's hard to get people out of their own heads, just like, just like everything else. It's hard for the ferocious analyzer to recognize themselves as that.

• 1:16:41Jocko Willink?

  They think they're doing a good job. They think they're, they think they're actually being thorough and you're a wild man. You're a cowboy. Are you crazy? No, I'm not crazy. I remember one time I, my first deployment to Iraq. They said, hey, John, this is after I'd been there for a while and they wanted, for some reason, they wanted to know the minimum requirements for us to go out on an operation. And I said, I just need a vicinity of a target and of radio frequency to talk to the local conventional units there. And they were like, well, don't you need air support? Don't you need, I was like, all these other things. I was like, no, we'll figure it out. Just send us.

• 1:17:17Jocko Willink?

  We'll go. And there was other things that we would do as we'd move to a target. We'd align things up and we'd, but we'd, we'd be good. But sometimes people wanted to plan out every last detail. And that doesn't work. The details are not gonna stay the same. The things that you're planning on are gonna change. So don't sit there and plan every last detail because it's not gonna help you.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Man, that's, that's actually a pretty good point. I never even thought about how you say if you spend too mu- too much time planning, you know, and then you jump in the game all late. It's like, dang, you have no time to make any adjustments.

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  Can't react. You, oh, you better go perfect because that's all, that's the one shot you got at it. And guess what? It's not gonna go perfect because things don't go perfect.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  Things are not gonna go perfect. Not gonna happen. No such thing as flawless execution. Dave Burke just wrote an article that was on Business Insider. That's what it was. Flawless execution doesn't happen. You know, he was a top gun senior instructor for three years. He, he, he knows about flying and he knows how hard they worked to, towards flawless execution, but it didn't exist. The flawless execution was, was.

• 1:18:19Jocko Willink?

  Analyzing their mistakes, seeing what they can improve upon, that was flawless execution for them. It wasn't the actual act of flawless execution. They, you know what they had? Flawless debriefing. Flawless analyzation of what they did wrong.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:33Jocko Willink?

  But it wasn't gonna be perfect ops and there's no such thing. Doesn't happen.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Jocko Willink?

  So if you're sitting and planning that, trying to make that happen, it's not gonna work for you.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Jocko Willink?

  So don't do it.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Just jump. Just go.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Next question. Jocko, got a quest. He actually wrote that.

• 1:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:52Jocko Willink?

  He's fully in the game. Got a quest.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  How would, how would you deal with a team member who tries to take all the responsibility but cannot do as good a job as others? I don't know if it's sincere helpfulness or desire of power, or desire for power.

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Ooh. See, there's a little twist on that one.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Jocko Willink?

  That little twist, that puts a lot on that question right there. And so you got a guy that's wanting, trying to take all this responsibility for everything. Not really as good as he should be to be in that position, but trying to take responsibility. And yet, the person that's got the quest, he doesn't know if it's sincere trying to just help out the team or a desire for power. So, is it helpfulness or is it their quest for power? Where are they coming from? How do we figure that out? Well, for one thing, if someone is truly trying to help the team, they will have an open mind to support and suggestion and help from other people. They'll be open to that. Because they're just trying to do the best for the team.

• 1:19:56Jocko Willink?

  If they're trying to take or maintain power, which as we know is driven by ego, they don't want help. And they don't want suggestions from people either. They're just gonna do it my way. I got this. No, it's mine. So that's the difference. So, there's gonna be two different ways that I'm gonna handle this situation. So for a person that's actually trying to help and trying to do a good job, I'm gonna bolster them up. I, I love it. The fact that they have some shortfalls, that's okay. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna give them some support. I'm gonna put some people on their team that can help cover some of those shortfalls.

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna try and set them up to win and learn and be educated while they are winning.

• 1:20:40Jocko Willink?

  And if they're humble, which I'm assuming that they are because they have this attitude that they're trying to help out everyone, then while I'm doing this whole process, of course, I'm coaching them and I'm mentoring them and giving them suggestions and I'm turning to someone that can do a good job in that situation. So that's pretty easy. You've got someone that wants to take ownership and responsibility and they're doing it for the right reasons, boom, let's help them out, let's support them, let's get them training, let's get them knowledge and let's get them up to speed. We've got an upcoming leader. I dig it. If it's an ego-driven person and they are maneuvering for the power, well, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to let them get humbled by the experience. Because remember, it's stated that they're not as good as they could be at this job. They're

• 1:21:25Jocko Willink?

  not particularly good at what they're trying to take control over. So that's fine. I'm going to let them get humbled by it. Now, I'm going to assess the risks. I'm going to make sure that no one's going to get hurt or no one's going to get killed or we're not going to fail a mission. Or in the business world, make sure they're not going to lose millions of dollars or we're not going to suffer some kind of a strategic setback, but I am going to let them fail a little bit and let them see that they're not as good as they think they are. I'm going to let them learn about humility. Right? I'm going to let them learn about humility. Now, if they learn, if they are humbled by that and they realize that they're not as good as, they realize that they're not ready to control everything and they realize that they need help, if they learn from it and

• 1:22:08Jocko Willink?

  they don't just cast blame, then they'll become a much better leader. You will actually help them by letting them get humbled. If they just get done and they just cast blame, then we see them fail and now we have legitimate reason to say, look, I can't put you in charge. You just failed. I can't allow this to happen again. So that's How I would basically handle that situation now, of course, there's all different kind of gradations of of those realities and the answer will be somewhat scaled as well, right? So that's what you do, you scale the answer, maybe you give this person a little bit of help, but you're gonna let them stumble a little bit, you know, maybe you're not gonna give them any

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  help at all, you're gonna let them fall flat on their face, maybe you're gonna bolster them up a lot, but you're still gonna talk to them and say, hey, listen, you need to step back and get more in the weeds on some of the lower level stuff because you're not ready to manage this yet, you know, so it's cool, but that's my basic overall concept of where I would be going with that.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Do you find that like even with the expression extreme ownership or in this case, take all the responsibility, do you find that not people get confused, but you know, yeah, like people will kind of get confused, you know how you say, okay, take responsibility? Because it seems like anyway, from what I told, think I totally understand with extreme ownership is.

• 1:23:37Jocko Willink?

  I totally understand. Oh, I like it. I like where you're coming from.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  You take responsibility for the mistakes and the solution.

• 1:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that is extreme ownership.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  So and then, but then it, from what I heard, like sometimes when people ask questions, it'll kind of, this one's kind of ambiguous, but sometimes people will ask it, ask a question or make a statement, comment, whatever, in terms of take responsibility or take ownership of like, not of the problems or the solutions, but like before them is like, this is my mission, this is my.

• 1:24:16Jocko Willink?

  You can overstep, you can be, you can use too much extreme ownership, you can say, hey, this is echo, this is my mission, I'll tell you how to do it.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, no input from you.

• 1:24:25Jocko Willink?

  No input from you, that's bad.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  It's all me.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep, yeah. And by the way, I'm taking all the credit too, when we get back, which is actually equally wrong.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  What I should do is say, hey, I will echo. I'm in charge of this, but hey, man, I want you to come up with a good plan. I think you've got a great insight. I think you know the terrain better than me. Can you come up with a good plan? And then we get back if it's a successful mission. I'm like, hey, guys, everyone look what Echo did. And I tell the commanding officer, Echo ran this great operation. I think he's ready to step up in leadership. He really did a superb job. If it fails, what am I doing? Pointing the finger at Echo? No, I'm coming back and saying, hey, boss, here's a mission failure. These are mistakes I made. Here's what I did wrong. Here's what I'm gonna fix next time. That's real simple.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  So would you say, in a nutshell, extreme ownership applies to problems and the solutions to those problems, and that's all?

• 1:25:13Jocko Willink?

  No, it applies to everything. It applies to everything because even when I say, hey, Echo, I want you to come up with a plan for this. You come back and brief me with a plan, I still take ownership of the plan. It's your plan, but I go through it. I say, okay, this looks like a good move. Hey, Echo, I'm looking at this right here. I don't know if this is the best way to execute this. Here's the issue. So I'm not taking ownership of it that I'm pulling it away from you, but I'm definitely gonna make sure we win. That's the thing that drives me crazy sometimes with leaders is they don't realize it, but they're making excuses. Cause they'll say, oh, you know, I let, I let, I'm decentralized command, so I can't control everything. No, actually, you are responsible for everything. And if I got three teams out there, and you're one of the team leaders, and I come to you

• 1:25:57Jocko Willink?

  and say, hey, Echo, here's the plan I want you to execute, I still have to look at the plan. I still have to make sure that I agree with what you're doing. I have to make sure you're not doing something that doesn't make sense. So I, yes, I do have ownership of the plan.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Like it's your family member or something.

• 1:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  That plan is, like, it's, I love it like a son.

• 1:26:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the plan is, the plan, you came up with a plan, you created it, it's my grandkid.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  So it's yours, but I'm still gonna take responsibility and ownership of it.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 1:26:25Jocko Willink?

  But where people, it's when your ego starts flaring up, and I start saying, no, it's my plan, and we're gonna do it my way. That's where we have issues.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, the ownership doesn't stop. And it just doesn't stop. When you're in a leadership position, it doesn't stop. You own everything. I put down the chain of command. It's hard to do. It's hard on your ego, for sure.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it kind of seems in a way counterintuitive. I guess if you understand all the little subtle dynamics of it, because you know how like if the plan fails, boom, that's when extreme ownership is really going to show its head. But if it's a super successful flawless plan, it doesn't. It's more covert. Because it's more internal, because you got to give the credit to everyone else.

• 1:27:03Jocko Willink?

  Everyone will will sit there and go, oh, Jocko's, you know, he's he's giving the credit to Echo for the operation. He won't show up as extreme ownership, for sure. It'll be harder to see. And people will say, dang, people know that I was in charge, right? They know I'm the overall guy, so I'm still going to get some credit.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Right. It's more covert.

• 1:27:23Jocko Willink?

  But but it's way more covert and it's better. It's better. That's that's the hard thing.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  On the inside.

• 1:27:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what's so hard for people to realize. They want so bad to raise their hand and say, yes, it was me. It was my it was my operation, but it doesn't help you. It doesn't help you. It feels good for like a half a second. And then you realize you just deflated yourself.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Is that kind of like when you make a donation to charity, but you want like everyone to know that you did it? It's kind of like that?

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess it's similar to that.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Similar concept, right? Like in a weird kind of profound way?

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:27:55Jocko Willink?

  I guess we'll just move on to next question, the profoundness of your last statement.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  Just saying, on a certain level, it's the same thing. Because, you know, you did something good, you know? Or you are something good or whatever, but it's like saying, I'm I'm the most humble guy in the world. You know, I'm just super down to earth.

• 1:28:15Jocko Willink?

  Here's the other thing about this. When I give you the credit for success, not only do I win covertly, in that you look at me and go, man, he he gave me a couple of corrections that were critical of this operation. He's not even saying anything. So you have even more respect for me, which means you're going to work harder for me in the future. You're going to do even more and we're going to look even better. So I am going to ultimately win. Because my team is going to be kicking so much ass all over the globe. And people are going to say, wow, you know, this, these guys are just winning everywhere they go. And and and so it's very, very positive. Whereas if I took that credit from you on that first operation and I took it from you, how hard are you working on that next one?

• 1:28:57Jocko Willink?

  Not as hard. Not as hard. You know, maybe you're a great guy. Maybe you're a great guy, but. And you're just a great guy, but you're still not gonna go that extra little edge. You're not gonna do it because you're not gonna get credit and you're not gonna do it because you don't care that much about making me look good. As you would if I was taking care of you.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  There's nothing better than having guys that you're taking care of. They know you're taking care of them and they're gonna do anything for you. Like they're gonna do anything. They're you, you, you know, and you'll do anything for them. It's a mutual thing. It's real.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Jocko Willink?

  It's a real thing.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  It's like the gift that keeps on giving, really.

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  It is. It's a powerful tool. You know, that's why the book's been so popular and it's and it's it's why the book has been so popular. Because when you, when you break it down and people see what it does, they realize how powerful it is.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:48Jocko Willink?

  And it's, and it's also, you know, another reason that the book is so popular is because we put it in a very clear way.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  And it's easier to understand. It doesn't make it easier to execute, but it makes it easier to understand for sure.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's crazy too. And someone said, it might've been someone at the muster. I don't know. Could, could have very well been on Twitter. I don't know. But oh, someone was saying how it's so interesting how they started to realize that it applies to their relationship with their like husband or wife.

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Like that. And I always kind of look at all this stuff as primarily that. You know, because I mean, who do I, especially now, who do I work with? You, you know, I'm like, oh, I don't have to like, I don't go through these extreme ownership struggles, you know, with you. So it's more, you know, so to me, everything just applies to like your relationship with your wife, my wife, whatever, you know? So, and it all translates, all of it.

• 1:30:43Jocko Willink?

  It does. Yeah. When you take ownership of stuff, you, it's when you take ownership of stuff, then you can control the outcome.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:30:51Jocko Willink?

  When you don't own it, you don't get anywhere.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, that, um, you know, you have a, I don't know, disagreement, argument, any, any ripples in the water. Where the instinct is to, to point fingers, you know? But when you, even though the other person is really in the grand scheme of things, you're both to blame. I know that, but. They do have their huge role in the issue, in the problem. Don't do that. Don't even pay attention to that. All you gotta do is shine the light on your own things and say, don't. I mean, and how you say, don't be, don't like be hard on yourself, you know, like that kind of like the guy, I suck, I suck. It's not that. It's like, what did I do? This is what I can do. Exactly right. So what's interesting is, and you said it from the beginning, but it is interesting to just watch it play out.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  So it's almost fun, but it's more just really interesting where when you do it and you just keep doing it, you always do it. That's the thing. Consistently do it. You just watch how the other person just changes.

• 1:31:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  And just becomes kind of the same thing. And before you know it, like the ripples in the water are pretty much gone.

• 1:31:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And what's, you need someone in the team has got to start doing it. That's, that's one of the hardest things. Occasionally we'll work with a company where everyone's like, oh yeah, extreme ownership. No one is actually doing it.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:32:06Jocko Willink?

  When no one is actually doing it and all they're saying is like, I wish that guy had extreme ownership and that guy should have extreme ownership. And I don't see anyone else taking ownership. And hey, I haven't seen anyone else taking ownership. Therefore, how can I take ownership?

• 1:32:21Jocko Willink?

  You know, we send out, when we work with a company, we'll send out surveys, you know, pre-class surveys and then post. Cause we'll, we'll do a number of sessions. So we'll send out to the leadership team that we're working with. How's it going? And we'll, we'll send out a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later, four weeks later. And sometimes when you get a team where no one is taking ownership and, and literally you'll hear people say, well, the boss isn't taking ownership. So how can I take ownership? If the boss isn't even taking ownership, they don't realize that when your boss isn't taking ownership, it is an opportunity for you to take ownership and to excel and to gain respect and trust and power.

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  And power, which is a good thing because you're doing things for the good of the team. So you want to have power. Right? I want to have power when I'm, when I'm a team leader, I absolutely want to have power. And the reason I want to have power is so I can distribute it properly amongst my team. And I can utilize it so we can be successful in our mission. So when you have your CEO isn't taking ownership. Awesome. I'm going to take ownership and when the rest, if the CEO is truly not taking ownership and I do, everyone else looks at me and they start to, I elevate my position. The CEO becomes irrelevant because all he's doing is sitting around pointing fingers. I'm taking ownership of things and solving them. I'm actually going to end up in a superior position.

• 1:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Now, I might not get promoted to CEO today or tomorrow or in two years. But when this information gets back to the board or to the directors or whoever, they realize that there's one person that's mutually respected by everybody and that's you. Because you took ownership. And when you take ownership, you solve problems. And when you solve problems, you win. But somebody has got to start it. And it's hard, sometimes in some situations, you get the, the, what's that word they use? Like the caustic environment.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Right, toxic.

• 1:34:22Jocko Willink?

  The toxic environment where everyone's just so, so defensive about everything. And it's difficult. Those are the difficult situations to, to work with. But you, and all it takes is the transition of one human, one person in that team to step up and say, you know what? This stuff that's going wrong is my fault. CEOs, don't worry about him. He's got enough problems. He's got to deal with the, he's got to deal with the shareholders meeting. We don't, we need to protect him.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:55Jocko Willink?

  You know what? This is my fault that this happens and here's what we're going to do to fix it. Here's what I'm going to do. And that just changes the attitude and, and of course, you're going to have two or three people in that defensive, toxic environment that are going to look at him and go, yeah, it's right. It is your fault. And you know what you say to that?

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you're right. It is. It is my fault and here's what I'm going to do to fix it. Here's how I'm going to move forward. Here's what we're going to do to change.

• 1:35:18Jocko Willink?

  But it's hard to be that person to take that first step.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  And then you gotta keep that going, you know? But again, man, after a little bit, you see the guy next to you, he's starting to do it, then the guy next to you.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, in Extreme Ownership, the book, it's pointed out, but it's not super crystal clear that when I was taking blame for the blue on blue that happened, everyone else was too. You know, those guys were saying, hey, it was my fault. I did this. It was my fault. I did this. And that was because that was, that wasn't the first time these guys had seen or heard ownership. You know, when we were going through training and something was screwed up, I'd be like, hey, this is my fault. This one, and so everyone had that really good attitude.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:52Jocko Willink?

  So, and that happens in a company. So what you're saying, it does. That's one of the best things about this idea, this principle of extreme ownership is it spreads throughout the company. And will you get people on the team that will not take ownership of things? Yes, of course you will. You will get that person. And eventually they will either leave or you will fire them. One, one of the two things will happen because when you have a person, when you've got the whole team is going, no, it's my fault. And eventually everyone's, oh, you, oh, you, that's not your responsibility. Cool. I'll take that. Oh, Echo, you can't handle that. Cool. That's not your fault. Okay. Then I'll, I'll take it and fix it. Oh, Echo, you can't handle that either. It's not your fault. Okay. I'll take that and fix it. Eventually you don't have a job anymore.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Jocko Willink?

  So if you don't want to take ownership of things, including problems, I will take ownership of all of them and I'll eventually take your job in your world and it'll be mine.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Fazed right out.

• 1:36:39Jocko Willink?

  Faze you right out, like you weren't even there. That's what's gonna happen. So, yes, it's a powerful, powerful tool. And then the other thing is you see, like you see politicians do it all the time. They don't take ownership when they make a mistake. And when they do, it's sort of this lip service of, hey, it was my fault. It was my fault that this happened, but.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  But blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all anyone hears is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like once as soon as you say, but, and then you make a bunch of excuses, that's all anybody hears.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  And there's just, it's so weak.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  It's so weak to do that. And it sounds, when like you said, when you get used to hearing it, when you get used to hearing people take ownership of things, when somebody doesn't, it sounds like Satan is screaming out of their mouth and, and just horrible. It sounds awful. It's like a, it's like a cacophony of.

• 1:37:38Jocko Willink?

  Just sickness, right? That's what it is.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it stands out for sure.

• 1:37:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, when we were at the muster, it's like, I was talking about how when you start taking ownership of things,

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  when you start having this attitude, when, when you feel yourself about to make a mistake and cast blame on someone else, like you feel like you're gonna throw up in your mouth. It's like you, it's like, it's like vomit is coming out of your mouth and then you choke it back down because you don't want to let that puke out onto the floor and let everyone see it.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Yep, it's not allowed.

• 1:38:09Jocko Willink?

  That's all it is when you blame everyone else. That's all it is. It happens all the time and it's so, it's, it's, it's, it's like the other thing I talk about with, with,

• 1:38:21Jocko Willink?

  stepping back and, and how you step back off the line and how much visibility you have. As soon as you step back off the firing line, as soon as you just elevate yourself six inches above what's happening, it's the same thing when you start to take ownership. It's like the change, it's just this little change, but it just completely changes the dynamic of what is going on in your business and in your life, in your life, because it's the same thing in life. When people are blaming everyone else, they're blaming the market and they're blaming their parents and they're blaming the, the debt that they built up and they're blaming the car that broke. They're blaming everything else that's going on. And when you, when all, when everything, when nothing is your fault, what are you gonna fix? The answer is you're not gonna fix anything.

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if you go, okay, these are some mistakes that I made and here's what I'm gonna do to fix them. That's the paradigm change and that's where you start getting on the right path.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  The muster, your line at the muster, I included it in the video. Favorite line, I think, says, "Sure, I'll take the blame and I don't care. I have a mission to accomplish and I gotta get the problem solved."

• 1:39:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  That's what it was.

• 1:39:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  It's in the video, best part of my opinion.

• 1:39:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I will take the blame and I don't care. I don't care. Bring it.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Bring it.

• 1:39:46Jocko Willink?

  Jocko? We got time for one more?

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  I think we do.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Jocko, on the Joe Rogan Experience, Everlast from House of Pain was on. Everlast was explaining how he wasn't in shape and Joe played the good video for him. Everlast said, "It is inspiring, but it didn't always work." And the example he gave was his sick daughter, who had a lung disease that the doctors can't explain. I wondered the same thing. How is a sick child good?

• 1:40:21Jocko Willink?

  You know, I saw that episode as well and it's definitely a hard question.

• 1:40:32Jocko Willink?

  And actually to quote a song, a great song by Everlast. And I, I haven't walked a mile in his shoes and I've been extremely lucky and, and blessed with the health of my family, my wife and my children and I am so,

• 1:41:03Jocko Willink?

  so thankful for that. But I have been around disease and I have been around death.

• 1:41:15Jocko Willink?

  And of course,

• 1:41:19Jocko Willink?

  to say there is something good about death and disease is impossible to do. To, to hell with disease.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  To hell with cancer and ALS and heart disease and all the rest of them.

• 1:41:41Jocko Willink?

  To hell with them all.

• 1:41:45Jocko Willink?

  And death?

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  To hell with death. I have nothing good to say about disease or death. Curse them both.

• 1:42:06Jocko Willink?

  But, but then what?

• 1:42:12Jocko Willink?

  Is that where I'm supposed to focus?

• 1:42:17Jocko Willink?

  Am I to latch on to death and disease and ride with them down to the depths of despair?

• 1:42:30Jocko Willink?

  I say no.

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  No, I will not ride with them. I will not go down their evil path.

• 1:42:47Jocko Willink?

  Instead, because I cannot find good

• 1:42:53Jocko Willink?

  in their vile darkness,

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  the vile darkness of disease and of death,

• 1:43:03Jocko Willink?

  I will not feed their fire. I won't feed their egos. Instead,

• 1:43:12Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna look elsewhere.

• 1:43:16Jocko Willink?

  I will look to life and light and I will find good in those places.

• 1:43:26Jocko Willink?

  I'll find good in every moment I get. I'll find good in every breath. I'll find good making memories and holding them dear.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  I'll find good in knowing

• 1:43:46Jocko Willink?

  that I will learn from this horrible experience.

• 1:43:53Jocko Willink?

  That everything that I'm going through, all the pain and suffering and darkness,

• 1:44:00Jocko Willink?

  it'll make the light brighter and stronger and more powerful.

• 1:44:10Jocko Willink?

  More powerful than disease and more powerful than death.

• 1:44:19Jocko Willink?

  So

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Cry

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  And scream And shake your fists at the sky and curse death and curse disease and shout to the world That life isn't fair

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  And that this is not deserved, not for me, not for my child, not for my friend, my spouse, my brother, my sister, not for anyone.

• 1:44:56Jocko Willink?

  And then Look up

• 1:45:03Jocko Willink?

  And breathe

• 1:45:06Jocko Willink?

  And all that darkness and all that evil

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Let it all go.

• 1:45:18Jocko Willink?

  And when it creeps back again

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  Let it go again.

• 1:45:29Jocko Willink?

  Let it go.

• 1:45:33Jocko Willink?

  And look forward

• 1:45:38Jocko Willink?

  Toward the light, toward life

• 1:45:43Jocko Willink?

  Toward the future.

• 1:45:49Jocko Willink?

  And of the past, let the memories The sacred memories

• 1:45:58Jocko Willink?

  Let those flourish And grow

• 1:46:04Jocko Willink?

  And expunge the darkness from your world.

• 1:46:14Jocko Willink?

  And replace it all

• 1:46:19Jocko Willink?

  With good.

• 1:46:26Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's

• 1:46:29Jocko Willink?

  All I've got for tonight.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:46:40Jocko Willink?

  It's a rough one.

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um, bro, that guy, it's like, I think that that like that outlook on it is is important because that's not just easy to do, you know, especially man and me probably been lucky. My daughter had a staph infection, you know, in her lymph nodes in the hospital for like week, weekend after something like that.

• 1:47:06Jocko Willink?

  And you have the viewpoint, you're lucky that that happened. Oh my. You know, when you go to a children's ward and you see kids that are just suffering from horrible diseases, it's awful and you feel lucky, exactly as you should. Hey, we're lucky to have this.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And at in that moment, when we're in the hospital, I'm like, you know, like you're scared, you're like sad, scared for them, you know, it's just, but

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  I think that just even hearing that is like, it's kind of like, it does help, you know?

• 1:47:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, and it's one of the things that, you know, when I want to, you know, when you talk about the reaction you have and, you know, the fact that it's okay to like scream and shake your fists at the sky, that's okay for that. And then I'm saying, you know, that you gotta let it go, but at the same time, everyone's got to realize that like you let it go, it's coming back. It's coming back and it'll sneak up on you again. And then you gotta do it again, you know, you gotta, you gotta go through that, you gotta scream and and curse the evil that it is.

• 1:48:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you gotta let it go again and you're going to go through that cycle over and over again. But what you can't do is you can't not go through the cycle. You can't just get trapped in the screaming and the suffering and the pain. You can't get trapped there and it's really hard. And I noticed that, you know, when I had, when I had my friends get killed overseas, I realized.

• 1:48:49Jocko Willink?

  You know, when we'd be home and like, everything would be normal, like, maybe we'd be out having some beers with the boys, or we'd be doing something, and all of a sudden, like, you just get hit with this wave of sadness. And it would kind of just, almost instantly, I'd be like, breaking down, I'd be like, like, ready to cry or crying. And then, three minutes later, I'm like, out of it. You know, I just had to get rid of it. I just had to expunge that sadness.

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  And, but what you can't do is you just can't get caught in those cycles. And I think that's what happens to people. And again, I, I haven't walked a mile in those shoes. But what I have seen is I know that it's hard. I know that it's heartbreaking, but you can't let it break everything. You have to try and hold it together.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, part of the, like, going through, I know this on a low level, I guess I understand it's like a low level, but part of like, the feeling that you get is like, like, what do I do? Like, I feel like I can't do anything, and then that provides these feelings, you know? But if you start to, to understand what it is that you do have to do, and one of those things is, is essentially like, understand it, that, yeah, it's going on. Don't try to block it or escape. Do some escapist activity or whatever. Just know and understand that it's going on. And then on top of that, on top of it,

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  your job is to be strong, you know?

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's, that's another thing that I've noticed, especially, and it happens with anybody, but with some of my SEAL friends that have been in these horrible situations, is they're alpha guys that are, you know, used to being in control of everything, and used to being able to control the outcome, and you, and you, all of a sudden, you can't.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:41Jocko Willink?

  You can't control the outcome. And then what do you do? Well,

• 1:50:48Jocko Willink?

  it's like we learned from Charlie Plum. It's like we learned from Bill Reader. You can't control that thing. The only thing you can control is your own attitude. Your own view of what's happening. And if you're, if you control your attitude, and you make your attitude the best possible attitude it can be, that's the best you're gonna do. And again, I wish there was some, I don't have some- Miracle solution to these situations. No one does. If we had the miracle, these problems wouldn't happen. These horrible things wouldn't happen. So what can we actually control? Well, what we can control is our own view of it, our own assessment, our own

• 1:51:34Jocko Willink?

  attitude. And that sounds such like a trite word, but our own attitude of what's happening and make that as good as we can. And are there going to be points where your attitude turns completely dark and negative? Of course there are. How can you not? But don't let it be permanent. Don't let it be permanent for the sake of the situation, for the sake of the person you care about. They don't want you to live like that. So don't. And again, you know, it's going to be sick cyclical. From what I've seen, it's going to be cyclical in nature, the way it happens.

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  The way people deal with these horrible emotions is they go down and then they come up and then they go down and they come up and and when they go down, when your emotions go down and when you get dragged into the the mindset of loss, then I think the best thing to do is just embrace it, grab it, say, yeah, like I said, shake your fist at the sky and scream.

• 1:52:40Jocko Willink?

  And then let it out, get it out, and then pick it back up and say to yourself, okay, that was horrible. That's darkness. That's evil. That I couldn't control. What can I control? And how can I have the best possible view? And what can I learn from all this that's going to make me a better person with a better life to live the best I can in their memories?

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  Even, yeah, man, and man, when you're in this situation, like especially with working out, where your daughter's like, you know, in the hospital or whatever, and you're like, "Yeah, I haven't worked out this whole week."

• 1:53:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  It's like, who cares about workouts? Your daughter's in the hospital.

• 1:53:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  You know, "Ooh, you didn't make it to jujitsu." Like, you don't care about jujitsu anymore. You just care about this one thing, you know? But, again, just like how you said, it's like, so, it's like this big burden in life. Because really, you know, a lot of time, your kids are like, all you have, really, it feels like. So, if you don't have them, who cares about jujitsu? Who cares about working out? I don't have anything, you know? There's no reason to even do them, really. But, aside from, the fact is, there is more, like, to your life. And in fact, the more, your whole life beside them is for them, you know? So you gotta, you gotta kinda, you gotta keep that, I think.

• 1:54:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt.

• 1:54:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I, and I think that's always an important thing to remember, is that if you surrender to all that bad, evil darkness, that's the legacy, that's the example, that's what you're showing, as opposed to

• 1:54:37Jocko Willink?

  showing the legacy and showing the example of

• 1:54:44Jocko Willink?

  not giving up, of moving forward, of driving on and doing the best you can with life, and with the things that are good, and again, having the attitude

• 1:55:02Jocko Willink?

  to control the things you can control and put them in the best possible light that you can.

• 1:55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's a, and it's a spectrum, you know? I mean, it kinda puts into perspective, in my opinion,

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  why you should do the best you can when things are going good.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  Because they're not always gonna go good.

• 1:55:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  It's my opinion. Anyway, speaking of doing the best you can.

• 1:55:38Speaker 01

  Hey look, working out, we know, obvious, obvious workout. Work out hard too, you know, I mean, maybe not every single day working out hard, but workout hard. And when you do work out hard, you might need some supplementation. I think I wasn't a supplement guy. I wasn't before, you know this, right? I might have mentioned it. Everyone knows.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  But now I am a supplement guy, happy to say, not the kind of supplement guy who's like, hey, take this power gainer. Hey, what kind of protein powder you take, but even though I'm not against protein powder, I don't take any, but nonetheless, you know what I'm talking about.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  Krill oil. I'm gonna say to my father-in-law, his name is Ross, I'm sorry for not heating all of you, is heating, heating is just advice, can you heed advice or is it just warnings? Okay, so you can heed warnings and advice. I should have heeded Ross's advice, my father-in-law. About the krill oil.

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  Eventually Jocko turned me back on to it, or further on to it, so I'm on it now, I think he'd be happy. Literally on it, on it. Dot com. Pun intended. On it is the company, if you didn't know already, I get, Jocko gets, krill oil from On It, onnit.com. If you want 10% off all these supplements, which are what? Shroom Tech, okay, Shroom Tech, good for oxygen uptake is what it is. So when you're doing these hardcore metcons, jujitsu, your body takes up the oxygen easier, more, more efficiently. Cordyceps mushroom, some science for you right there.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  Strongbone, that helped me, bro, I had this, um, and I kinda wanted to report this before, but I didn't wanna take too much time. And the jury's still kinda out on it, but, so I had this tendonitis kinda situation, and it's weird, it wasn't in like a normal place, like in your elbow, it was in my deltoid muscle. Where it inserts into the humerus bone, which is your like bone under your bicep.

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  And it was like tendonitis and it's like, you know, the kind of like, I'm not injured. I'm not out, but I gotta warm up more. I gotta rub on it, you know, all this stuff. And I'm lifting hard. I'm not gonna take days off if I'm not injured. So Brad, this thing wasn't gonna get better. That's the thing about tendonitis. Like if you keep lifting hard on it, it just simply won't go away. It's the whole reason there's tendonitis, cause you're lifting hard on it, you know? Uh, Brad, this thing's not going away. I'm just gonna have to live with it or wait for, you know, the time where I, I don't know, have to skip workouts, whatever. But I'm on the strong bone. I'm like, alright, strong bone, let's see what up, you know? Do your thing. I'm not saying it was because of the strong bone, but nonetheless, the tendonitis, it's not completely gone. I'm gonna be honest with you, but it's pretty much gone. I'm warming up normal. I'm a believer of the strong bone. Thanks for turning me on to that.

• 1:58:27Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Jaco. Anyway, go on there. There's a lot of good stuff for a lot of good things from supplements. And there's workout stuff on there too. So, I already had weights and a gym membership. But, when you go on there, you see the stuff that they have, you're gonna get some of that too. Cause it's not like normal, like kettlebells, you know, there's all the cool ones. Um, and there's info too, on this stuff, like, I understand that, you know, a lot of people, a lot of us, we want more info than just, "Oh yeah, Jaco takes it, so I'm gonna take it." Some of us are like that. Anyway, we need more info, so there's info on the website. Be careful though, you can get stuck on there, cause it's real interesting and in-depth, by the way.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  So just be careful with that. Anyway, onnit.com/jaco. I recommend the krill oil, big time. To me, if you're not on the krill oil, you're, you're behind. You're like a good one to two steps behind, like step steps, not like a half step. Like you're behind. If I had a twin brother, which I do,

• 1:59:31Speaker 01

  you give us a five-year period, two-year period, I'm on krill oil, he's not on krill oil, we do the same exact workout program, same lifestyle, I'm way ahead of him, way ahead of him, way more functional.

• 1:59:42Jocko Willink?

  Is this factual?

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  That's, it's, this is my hypothesis.

• 1:59:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  It's hypothetical.

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  Is Jade on krill oil?

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah, he's on krill oil, but he don't have the same. He doesn't get after it physically as much as I do. So this, yeah, it's hard to have that for a basis of comparison for the krill oil. Nonetheless, good stuff on there. And the good thing about Onnit, you can, I can say this with pretty much, with absolute certainty at this point, is that it's the good one. It's good stuff. Because supplements in general.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  I don't want to mention any store names, but you know, when you go in the Meathead Bodybuilder Store, a lot of those supplements are, they're whack. They just have like sparkly like labels and stuff in their junk. Onnit is not like that. Get 10% off if you want 10% off, go Onnit.com/Jaco. That's a good way to support this podcast as well. Another good way to support my peo- you know what's interesting is, okay, you read, you review books on here and sometimes, actually a lot of times when you have the guests, you actually have their book and you read their book to them.

• 2:00:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:50Speaker 01

  Which is like a switcheroo.

• 2:00:52Jocko Willink?

  That was, and I think I probably talked about this, but when we had Jody Minnick, this is the first time it happened, Jody came on and you know, I had his book and I was like, okay, well, should I have him read this or should I read this? Or I just wasn't quite sure and it seemed like the common sense answer would be, Jody, read this section of your book. Right, that was kind of like the common sense answer and then you could talk about it. And for some reason, my gut told me, don't, no, Jocko read it, I read it, right? And as soon as we got, you know, probably, I don't know, halfway through it, Jody said, you know, something like, man, hearing you read this is like crazy to hear and it's

• 2:01:37Jocko Willink?

  true, when you hear someone else read something to you, it's, it's different. It's different. So, so that's what I've done every time since, you know, when we had Colonel Reader on here and he said the same thing.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  He said the same thing, yeah.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's hard when he's, you know, he's like, he's saying the most unemotional way, he's like, when you're reading this to me, it's extremely emotional for me to hear. I'm thinking, you know, but it's, and, and same thing with, with Captain Plum, you know, same thing.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  And Mannion as well.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, so it's, it's really interesting, uh, the way that works and it's definitely, it's unbelievable to have the author sitting there.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  And to have my spin.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's what it is, right? It's my, it's the way I hear it.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:25Jocko Willink?

  And for them to hear the way I hear it.

• 2:02:30Jocko Willink?

  They it it hits them from a different angle.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:33Jocko Willink?

  Right? So I think that's I think that's where the the interesting.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:36Jocko Willink?

  Powerful part comes from.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  And you essentially, yeah, it is very interesting and it's interesting to watch it. Cause and you know, you you're a little bit different than a typical person just reading a book, you know? So you really get the to me is what what it feels like is like. That's kind of how the book is supposed to feel, you know? Like when you read it or whatever. So you know, the point is like, I think a lot of people feel that. So, you know, they say, oh, I want to go get this book. But they're like, oh, what was that book again? I got to rewind it. So anyway, you don't have to do that. Just go on our website, chocolatepodcast.com. There's a section on the top, books. Boom.

• 2:03:08Jocko Willink?

  There they are.

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  All the books by episode. Boom, you can get them. And when you buy your books through there, support the podcast as well. So boom, double, double. Edge.

• 2:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Double gravitational.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Double. No, it's like, no, it's a two pronged.

• 2:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Now, what if you what if you weren't getting a book, you were getting like duct tape?

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Anything, yeah. So that's thing. Yeah, it's it's there are Amazon click through situations. So yeah, even if before you do your shopping, boom, just click through. We've got banners, Amazon banners all up on there. Click there. But most people, they do the books, you know? But yeah, if you're doing your shopping as well, do that.

• 2:03:42Jocko Willink?

  Some people do golf clubs.

• 2:03:43Speaker 01

  Golf clubs, whatever you like.

• 2:03:44Jocko Willink?

  People do cameras. Some people have done some pretty cool high ticket, high dollar items.

• 2:03:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:49Jocko Willink?

  Which is very impactful. And then the low ticket items, low, lower cost items, you might not think it's a big deal. But then when a bunch of people do it, it is a big deal and it's very, very helpful.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  To the podcast.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  Yep. Good way to support Amazon click through. Boom. Uh, also good way to support this podcast is to subscribe. Seems obvious, I know. But you know, if you haven't subscribed on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher.

• 2:04:18Speaker 01

  What's the other one that I keep missing?

• 2:04:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:04:21Speaker 01

  Hey man, whatever podcast platform.

• 2:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Those are the three that I post.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Someone said something about SoundCloud, I gotta look into it. I don't think that that's a subscribe podcast situation.

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:04:30Speaker 01

  They're just audio. I don't, I don't know either, so I shouldn't even say anything, but nonetheless, I look into it. If in fact, people are committed to the SoundCloud situation. Anyway, subscribe if you haven't already. Also YouTube, if you want or are interested in the video version of this podcast. It's been on there since number seven. I think seven was the first video episode we did.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  The other ones are on there, but they're just audio with the picture of your head.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  No, I think it's your head. Yeah, it's our, it's both of our heads, let's face it. But yeah, if you're interested in that, go on YouTube.

• 2:05:01Jocko Willink?

  Don't you wish we had video from back then? I do.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Kind of.

• 2:05:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm so bummed out we don't have it.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, the closest you have is like a picture of me trying to, what was it? What was the?

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  You were setting up Periscope.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  Periscope, yeah, yeah, remember that?

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  The first one, we did it live on Periscope.

• 2:05:13Speaker 01

  We tried.

• 2:05:14Jocko Willink?

  No, we did.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  We did.

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  We did it live on Periscope.

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  Huh. Yeah.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Just try and capture that video.

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  I know. Nonetheless, video, that's the point there. If you wanna see, you know, I guess what we look like, if you don't know. I don't know. I feel like the guest, that's where the value comes in.

• 2:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, for sure.

• 2:05:32Speaker 01

  People like to see, like the guest, you know?

• 2:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Roger Hayden, getting after it.

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Yeah. Roger, yeah. Roger, that's a good one too, cuz he's like, like his stories, man, it's fun.

• 2:05:42Jocko Willink?

  He, he acts things out a little bit as he sits in his chair.

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but in this real mellow, kinda nonchalant badass way, you know? It's real good. Uh, but yeah, YouTube, subscribe to that one if you like. Um, also, yeah, it's the video version of the podcast, yes. But I will take a little excerpts and we'll post those as well. So you can, you know, if you like, if you're into sharing little lessons with your friends or coworkers, whatever, you can do that. So you don't have to share the whole podcast. Um, I'll put some other stuff on there, interesting stuff. I think we'll think up some other stuff, just in relation to it. We've been spitballing about some stuff. Anyway, if you wanna see what that is, um, yeah, go on YouTube. It's not like YouTube costs money.

• 2:06:26Speaker 01

  Or does it?

• 2:06:26Jocko Willink?

  No, it doesn't. It's free.

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  YouTube Red costs money.

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're not dealing with YouTube Red. We're not doing that.

• 2:06:32Jocko Willink?

  Not yet.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  No, I don't charge for content.

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, no, we're not gonna do that.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 2:06:37Jocko Willink?

  But I was thinking about getting YouTube.

• 2:06:39Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Yeah, that's a whole nother thing for sure. But yeah, YouTube, subscribe. You wanna support that way, that's cool. Uh, also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. jockostore.com. So this, I keep forgetting everybody's name, but very clever guy. Said, hey, this was a haiku. And then I went through it, I was like, dang, I'm sold. But I was like, ah, it's not a haiku.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Cause you need to say the.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  The Jocko Store, yeah.

• 2:07:03Jocko Willink?

  So why don't you change it so it's a haiku?

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Because it might, uh, yeah, I guess. Okay, here we go. Also,

• 2:07:13Speaker 01

  Jocko has a store. It's called The Jocko Store. jockostore.com. Boom, there's a haiku. Nonetheless, jockostore.com, that's where you can get, if you want shirts, rash cards, hoodies,

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  some patches, Velcro, regulation size and color. Some women's stuff on there. Anyway, the point there is, if you like t-shirts, you wanna represent, get a shirt. Boom, good support. They're good shirts too, they're not the free tan junk.

• 2:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Get after a t-shirt.

• 2:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:47Jocko Willink?

  Do you get a little bit?

• 2:07:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you wanna get after it more. And actually, that actually sounds kinda funny, but when you think about it, it's super obvious. So like, you know how like, I mean, I don't know, you're different.

• 2:07:59Jocko Willink?

  It's actually, it's a liter- it's a liter- literature thing. There's a literature thing. It's called something, it's called something like The Dressing of the Warrior.

• 2:08:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:11Jocko Willink?

  And you'll see it in movies, they do it in movies, where you see the guy putting his boots on and putting his gear on and putting his sword and picking up his shield. That's donning his helmet. They do everywhere from night movies to gladiator movies to soldier movies in the modern day. You'll see these scenes. Well, they do it in literature too. So there's a little something that, there's a little reality to that. Like, I'll tell you, what used to get me was flipping down, so night vision goggles, you wear them on your helmet. And they, they, they flip up when the lights are on, when you're, you know, you're getting ready to go. And then when it's time to go, you flip down your nods. And for me, Like that was just game so game on. It's so game on when you flip down those nods.

• 2:08:53Jocko Willink?

  And so when we even when I got back from my last deployment, I'm working training and we'd go out, we'd still be on night vision. We'd go out at night to observe the troops and run the opposing forces and all that. But I get out on the target area and flip down my nods and I'd like go into full combat mode. It's just so good. So I think sometimes you put on the you sort of feel a little something.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it was Gladiator, that movie when they're like, I don't know. It's like the emperor or something came up. And then there was like this small act of defiance from the Gladiator guy and then all the guards behind him, they all flip down their thing and boom, we're ready to go. Real quick, I think it was Gladiator.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  Probably.

• 2:09:31Speaker 01

  Might've been something else. Nonetheless, yeah, the modern version of that, right? With these like, and it did happen to me. When the first shirts came in, the discipline equals freedom. I was like, oh, the shirts are, and I put it on and I wanted to like go work out in it. You know, and they make sense. When you get a new rash guard, it's like, or you get a new gi or something. You're like, oh, can't wait to go practice in my new gi kind of thing.

• 2:09:51Jocko Willink?

  Like when little kids get new shoes.

• 2:09:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  In football, when we split in Pop Warner football, we'd get the new shoes for the season. I can't wait to go to practice, practice super hard and it sucks, especially as a little kid. But you just want to when you get that, that new stuff. Nonetheless, so like I said, jocko store.com. Get yourself a new shirt. You get the one that says get after it. Guess what? You're gonna really want to do. Get after it.

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  Some other ones on there. Pretty cool, I think. And they're good. They're quality shirts. That's in my opinion, that's even more important than what it says on them. Cause they're wearable. I can print like, yeah, Jocko's cool sayings on a junk shirt. You wear it one time, you're like, all right, you know, maybe I'll wear that again. But it's not very wearable. I don't look that good in it. It's not the case with these ones. These ones look good. I've had multiple people say it's my favorite shirt to wear. Cause I look good in that.

• 2:10:44Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of the case with the first round of travel mugs. The silver ones?

• 2:10:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  Like, they were not as high quality as what we went to.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Jocko Willink?

  Even though they said, they said discipline equals freedom on them. The silver mugs, they said discipline equals freedom. They looked, you know, they looked pretty cool. But we needed higher quality.

• 2:11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So it's yeah, essentially the same thing. You get the mug, you're like, cool.

• 2:11:11Jocko Willink?

  So that new travel mug is gonna, is going the distance.

• 2:11:16Speaker 01

  That's gonna replace your whole cup cupboard. It's straight up. It did with me and I didn't even expect that. But yeah, thirty ounces. And it fits in your cup holder in your car, too.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  What's the black on black? Discipline equals freedom. No one can see it.

• 2:11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:33Jocko Willink?

  Except for you.

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:11:35Jocko Willink?

  The owner.

• 2:11:36Speaker 01

  Nah, you can see it. Here's the good thing about it. It's black. It's, you see, look at it. It's black. It's not shiny.

• 2:11:42Jocko Willink?

  No, it's matte black versus shiny black.

• 2:11:45Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, then the logo and stuff is shiny black.

• 2:11:47Jocko Willink?

  So people have to look a little extra hard to see it.

• 2:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  But there's a subtlety to it that's powerful.

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  It's for you. It's for you. It looks dope. They call it murdered out. You know, car is black with black rims. Anyway, it looks good. And it's double insulated. Is that double insulated? Is that what it's called?

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:03Speaker 01

  When, yeah, your ice, you put ice water in there, you leave it overnight. Next morning, you still have ice water. Even if it's a hot night, even if it's a hot day outside. It's amazing. I left mine in my car. You know, you go into, where did I go?

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  Grocery store? No. I know you spend a lot of time in the grocery stores.

• 2:12:21Speaker 01

  No, man. No, no. I was coming back from somewhere, left it in my car with, it was just ice. I drank all the water. And left it in my car. Came out later that evening. Boom, ice still in the car. Hot day. It's amazing. It's a miracle, yeah. Anyway, those are good, high quality, PPA free, all that stuff.

• 2:12:43Speaker 01

  Anyway, jockostore.com if you didn't know already. Also, good way to support yourself and this podcast, by happenstance, is psychological warfare. Psychological Warfare is what it's called. If you know what that is, it's an album with tracks of Jocko telling you how to get through your moments of weakness. In the event of you having a moment of weakness, getting up early, procrastinating, even being creative. It's like for everything, being creative. Like, how can, how can you get talked out of writer's block? How can you get talked out of that? It's weird, right?

• 2:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:18Speaker 01

  You will be talked out of writer's block and right into creativity. Yes, exactly, right? And same thing with workouts. Anyway, for all the little moments of weakness that you might have,

• 2:13:28Speaker 01

  don't worry, Jocko's there. Get it. Psychological Warfare. You can even buy the individual tracks, too. Let's say you're like-

• 2:13:34Jocko Willink?

  Just know, but that's not as good of a deal.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  No, but, I mean, really, 99 cents. Yes, it is a good deal. It's a great deal regardless, in my opinion, because, okay, my whole thing wasn't to wake up early. It was going from not working out to work. You know how it's like, okay, I gotta work out today, but I'm on the computer, I'm doing something, and I'm like-

• 2:13:51Jocko Willink?

  It's a little late. This is important, too.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  I should really focus on my craft right now instead of working out.

• 2:13:56Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So the workout day becomes a rest day, you know, impromptu, you know, kind of. And that was kind of my thing. But, so there's a track for that, you know? So if all I need is really that track, the diet thing, eh, I'm not, you know, that weak when it comes to like the diet stuff. So, you know, so maybe I don't need it, but I'm not saying to do that. I'm saying there is that option. So you get the one. Anyway, it's on iTunes, it's on Amazon Music.

• 2:14:23Jocko Willink?

  Google Play?

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  Google Play. Pretty much anywhere where they sell music.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  MP3s.

• 2:14:27Speaker 01

  Online, MP3s, boom, it's on there. It's called-

• 2:14:30Jocko Willink?

  And for people that want alarm clocks, because people always want an alarm clock.

• 2:14:34Speaker 01

  Or ringtone.

• 2:14:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just put it, no, no, alarm clock. If you want to wake up to like, someone telling you to get up, that, and that someone is getting Jocko.

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Because people want me to do something like that, but I'm like, we already did it. That's one of the reasons why we did this psychological warfare.

• 2:14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you, yeah, you download that specific file to your phone and then you, yeah, you apply it to your alarm clock. Yeah, yeah. Psychological Warfare, Jocko Willink, boom.

• 2:14:59Jocko Willink?

  You can also get Jocko White Tea on Amazon, and people ask if I ever drink energy drinks, and the answer is yes, I drink Jocko White Tea. It's my energy drink. Sure. Don't need any other energy drinks. No. That actually sap your energy. Once their, once their crash hits you. Yeah. Talk away to you, that's not gonna happen. You'll be going strong. Way the Warrior Kid, the book. I wish I had when I was a kid, that shows kids the path. You can get that book as well as for adults that would need to get on the path. There's another book coming out, October twenty seventeen, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.

• 2:15:44Jocko Willink?

  It's the path, that's it.

• 2:15:47Jocko Willink?

  Extreme Ownership, of course. Combat Leadership From The Battlefield And Translated Into Strategies And Tactics That Can Be Applied In Any Leadership Situation. Extreme Ownership. Get it? And then get it.

• 2:16:03Jocko Willink?

  Also. You can also get Echelon Front Leadership And Management Consulting Into Your Company. You got Leif Babbin, you got JP Denell, you got Dave Burke, and you got me. You can contact us at [email protected]. Of course, the muster, Leadership Conference, but not your normal conference. It's not your normal conference. So don't, whatever your vision of a conference, because I've spoken at a bunch of conferences, that conference, it's not that. It's different. It's different. The normal conference, you're waiting for the break, and then you're gonna disappear to your hotel room for like forty-five minutes. Waiting for the happy hour. All that other stuff. That's not, that's not what we're doing here. At the, the conference, at, at the muster.

• 2:16:48Jocko Willink?

  The, the muster starts at eight o'clock in the morning. Everyone's there at seven o'clock in the morning. After we get done with PT, everyone's there at seven o'clock in the morning, including all of us. We're hanging out. We, when we start at eight o'clock, we start at eight o'clock. Boom, it's go time. So it's not just your kind of typical conference thing. We get after it, knowledge, interaction, solving problems. We go and we go hard. I just peeked out the microphone. I don't do that normally, but we go and we go hard. Next one is in August, or sorry, in Austin, Texas, July thirteenth and fourteenth at the Omni Barton Creek Resort, which only has three hundred people. We're a little over, we're over halfway sold out right now.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  So register quickly. If you can't make that, you can come to San Diego, September 14th and 15th for muster 004. We look forward to seeing you there. And until we do see you there, if you want to talk to us, you can find us drifting about inside the interwebs on Twitter, on Instagram, and on that facey boha. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And as always, to the military personnel deployed all over the world, thanks for everything

• 2:18:10Jocko Willink?

  that you do for us. To the police, firefighters, EMTs, first responders, thanks for keeping us safe. And make sure you stay safe as well. To everyone else that's listening, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting. Thank you for spreading the word. Thank you for getting up early, and thanks for working harder than your enemy. And as Echo said earlier, thanks for taking advantage of when times are good, because times will not always be good.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  Out.