seven out of 10 times,
action is going to be a better thing.
Default aggressive,
taking action,
making things happen.
Things aren't going to occur in the world the way you want them to be by chance.
They're just not.
The things that you want to have happen in the world aren't going to happen by their own.
Very few of them will be.
If you sit around every day with your plate out waiting for a good deal to come onto your plate,
it ain't going to happen.
You need to go and make things happen in the world.
When people get emotional about things,
people lose their temper,
which I haven't.
The running joke with me is I only lose my temper with my printer or copying machines,
right?
That's the one thing that matters because printers and copying machines are evil.
But I almost never have to admit that I'm wrong.
And the reason I almost never have to admit that I'm wrong is I almost never put a flagpole in the ground and tell people I'm 100%
right about this.
I never say that.
There are so few things in the world that I say,
you know what,
Will?
I'm right about this.
We should do it.
I never say that.
because how can I know what the future is going to bring?
Raw,
uncut,
and unapologetic.
Welcome to Men Talking Mindfulness.
How do you stay disciplined and present?
Today,
we're going to sit down with fellow retired Navy SEAL,
leadership expert,
and entrepreneur Jocko Willink to talk about what it really means to take ownership of your life and find freedom through discipline.
Jocko,
welcome to the show,
brother.
Thanks for having me on.
Appreciate it.
All right,
man.
pumped to have you here with us today.
And I know our audience has been looking forward to this.
Will,
brother,
good to see you too,
my man.
Yeah,
it's good to be here.
I was posting on,
I just like,
we're bringing Jocko on the show today and people are already like freaking out.
So good to have you here,
Jocko.
Thank you.
And hey,
and you know,
we have a new sponsor in the show,
you know,
so if you're curious about,
you know,
attaining better mood,
physical health and mental clarity,
then check out our new sponsor,
Nourish.
That's spelled
N-E-U-R-I-S-H. It's a daily supplementary.
supplement powder that can really upgrade your health from the inside out.
And to learn more about that,
just head to mentalkingmindfulness.com.
And we do our like,
we do a grounding practice,
Jaco,
to start.
We just do like one breath just to kind of get in touch with the inside,
get in touch with the moment,
detach,
you know,
from all the excitement we have.
And,
you know,
we're going to get into you and meditation a little bit later.
But don't.
just stay with us for this one and just we're gonna close the eyes for a moment if you like and just take a nice little exhale all the way out push all the breath out empty empty empty we'll take one big a giant inhale through the nose a
little bit more keep going big breath hold for just a moment and then gently let it go
Awesome.
And hey,
thank you everybody for tuning in.
Thanks for being here.
Leave a comment,
leave a review.
And
Jocko Willink,
everybody.
John.
All right.
Yeah,
let's jump in.
So,
yeah,
Jocko,
when people hear that phrase that has become somewhat associated with you,
discipline equals freedom,
you know,
it really pumps them up,
fires them up.
But for someone who's never really lived that way,
never lived that disciplined life,
what would you tell them that actually means?
in real life?
I think in real life,
it kind of means what it says.
And that is,
if you have more discipline in your life,
you'll end up with more freedom in your life.
And if you lack discipline in your life,
you will end up with less freedom.
So
I kind of broke down since I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed to three words,
which is discipline equals freedom.
So that's kind of what it means.
And if you want to have more free time,
then you should have more disciplined time management.
And if you want to have financial freedom,
then you should have better financial discipline.
And if you want to have physical freedom,
then you need to have more physical freedom or more physical discipline.
So I think it just applies to every aspect of,
of your life.
And I think it's a pretty good,
pretty good thing to keep front of mind.
Yeah.
I'm sure you've got people who have something like that tattooed after reading some of your books,
you know,
have it tattooed on their forearm or something.
There's quite a few discipline equals freedom tactics.
I bet.
I bet,
man.
Well,
you know,
with that,
there's this growing conversation about balancing that intensity,
right?
You're clearly an intense individual,
but balancing that intensity with presence.
For you,
how do you navigate the tension between being so driven,
being relentlessly driven,
and then being grounded in the moment?
So when you say,
are these things mutually exclusive?
No,
actually,
yeah,
I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
I don't necessarily think they are.
Yeah,
I don't really feel like
I am wandering around in some alternate world where I'm not.
I feel like I'm pretty much here and I feel like I'm present.
in the moment doing what I'm doing very often.
I mean,
occasionally you think about the future.
Occasionally if you think about the past,
but
I'm actually,
you know,
I pretty much here.
Yeah.
I mean,
you seem to see,
you seem to be very present in this conversation.
So yeah,
I think,
I think that's a great point now,
now that you flipped that back on us.
Yeah.
They're,
they're not,
they're not mutually exclusive.
You can be present and intense.
So thank you for that.
Will.
No,
I,
I'm a,
I'm.
I'm a 4.30 in the morning guy as well,
Jocko.
And that's been a big part of your life and your success.
And that's part of that discipline.
It also has a consistency element,
which is really important as far as just getting after it and just kicking ass and actually obtaining some really success and results.
What is it about starting your day on your terms and also so early that really helps you continually move forward?
Well,
it's just getting up when no one else can really bother you.
So if you get up before everyone else,
you don't have any emails,
you don't have any texts,
your kids are all asleep,
there's no homework that you need to review.
If the hot water heater is broken,
no one knows it yet,
so you don't have to worry about it.
And,
you know,
this was something that I adopted,
you know,
not being the smartest guy,
not being the strongest guy,
not being the fastest guy in the SEAL teams when you're surrounded by a bunch of guys that have a bunch of really good attributes.
And I kind of had to just work a little bit harder.
And one of the times that I could find to work a little bit harder was just coming to work before anyone else.
And or at least before myself,
my roommate at the time,
who was my roommate for a very long time.
And then the master chief,
who's old Vietnam master chief,
who we always tried to get to work before him.
And we eventually pulled it off.
But yeah,
you know,
just get to work early,
get a good head start on the day.
and if you want to get a workout in before the team PT or if you want to
prep your gear or you want to review some radios or get radios prepped or just anything that I was doing when I was a young guy,
just getting it done before work was very beneficial.
And then once,
of course,
once I had a family,
then getting up,
you know,
I want to,
on a
Saturday, I want to spend time with my wife and kids.
So
I don't want to be working out myself when my wife and kids are awake.
So I would just get up before them and work out.
And then when they'd wake up,
we'd do,
I'd do a workout with them,
but that's fun,
you know?
So just getting up and just,
um,
taking advantage of time where you don't have to worry about anybody else and you can do what you got to do and,
and handle things that,
you know,
are pretty easy to push off to the next day.
You know,
it's very easy to push off.
If you've got something that if you've got anything,
that's a long-term strategic project in life,
you know,
whether it's,
I guess one of,
one of them would be health.
The other one would be writing a book,
right?
Writing a book takes probably about,
it takes quite a few hours to write a book.
And since it's a long-term project,
it's the kind of thing you kind of have to,
at least my personality,
I like to chip away at it.
And it's really easy to say,
well,
you know,
I'll just write it tomorrow.
Because you're only doing less than,
you're doing less than 1%
of the project.
You're probably doing a half a percent of the project.
If you say,
well,
you know,
I can just put off this tiny half of a percent another day,
and then it gets put off that day and then gets put off the next day and eventually you don't do it.
It's the same thing with your health.
If you don't prioritize your health and make that a long-term strategic goal,
then it gets put off.
Because,
you know,
if you don't work out today,
you know,
Will,
you're not going to wake up tomorrow.
If you don't work out today,
you're not going to wake up tomorrow and you're going to be a total disaster and out of shape and have health problems.
No.
You'll be fine tomorrow if you don't work out today.
And that's what allows us to make that little excuse and go,
well,
you know,
today's not that important.
I'll just do it tomorrow.
So I think getting up early before any of the other things in the world can impose their will on me.
I impose my will on the day.
Yeah.
I mean,
I also like getting up so early and it'll be like
1030 in the morning,
1130 later that morning.
It's like,
oh my God,
like it's still the morning.
And if I just like crush like six hours of work.
But also what helps me get up is like,
you know,
like you mentioned a book or something like that.
I always have something that kind of pulling me out of bed.
So it's like less of a struggle to get my feet on the ground.
You know,
sometimes it's like,
Oh my God,
cause you're sore.
Cause you worked out or,
you know,
you just like burn so much fuel that the,
uh,
you know,
the day before or something like that,
it's really tough to get the feet on the ground.
But like,
but when I do,
and I get,
I just such a different day.
And also one thing I'll mention,
and you probably I experienced this too as well,
Jocko,
is like,
I actually have my best mind.
I feel those first like four hours of the day that I'm just really creative,
really clear,
you know,
just everything just kind of click on all cylinders and really coming through.
But yeah,
that's one thing that's made a big difference for me is just getting up,
hitting that really,
really,
really time slot.
Yeah.
And,
you know,
it's not for everybody.
Some people are more night owls.
And that's true.
Some people,
they don't they like to sleep in in the morning.
And,
you know,
some of it's genetic.
You know,
I got four kids and one of my daughters,
she didn't require much sleep at all.
My wife likes to sleep.
One of my daughters is just like.
you got to drag her out of bed.
Everyone's little kids,
man.
I think there's a genetic component to it.
And so I think you got to kind of figure out what works for you.
And some people love to stay up late at night and even like to work out late at night.
And if that's something that works for somebody,
go for it.
Yeah.
That's probably what's become my way of doing things.
Because my kids get up early.
They get up at five.
I've got young kids,
Jaco,
so you probably remember those days.
Yeah,
they get up at five.
So for me to get up at 4.30,
I really don't have that much time by myself anyway.
So the time that they're going down is like eight o'clock.
So my time is from eight o'clock until 10.30,
maybe 11.
That's where I'm hitting the gym,
which probably affects my sleep.
So maybe I need to reassess that.
But
I got to flip that coin on you,
man.
The grind culture has become something that's really popular,
right?
People are like,
hey,
you know,
if I'm not getting up at 4.30 like Jocko,
then
I'm a loser.
if I'm not
grounding myself into the ground and I'm not worthy.
Where do you find is the sweet spot between driving yourself in the ground,
burning out,
and then doing what we should be doing,
right?
I think there's a balance,
right?
For a while,
I was training a lot of MMA fighters for UFC and whatnot.
And it was really obvious when you would overtrain a guy.
And it takes a lot to overtrain someone.
It's not easy to overtrain somebody,
but definitely someone in a
10-week fight camp,
they will get to a point where they become overtrained.
And it's very obvious because a guy that was,
you know,
really doing well in sparring rounds and,
you know,
you'd have two of his sparring partners that he was just killing.
And maybe,
you know,
you'd got some sprint times that you're making some,
just some,
you know,
burpees and burpees for time.
And so you've got some very clear indicators and all of a sudden,
probably,
you know,
call it four weeks or five weeks into a fight camp.
There'd be a day where the guy shows up or maybe a day guy shows up and he's a little bit off.
Maybe he's not hitting his numbers the way he should.
And then he gets beat up a little bit in a sparring by a guy that he's usually beaten up.
And you go,
okay,
bad day.
If that happens again the next day,
I would immediately tell the guy,
all right,
hey,
day off tomorrow,
go eat steak.
And just,
you know,
go get a massage,
go relax,
go for a swim in the ocean.
Just do a stretch,
but take some time off.
so you
it was very clear to see someone was overtraining.
And I think,
you know,
if you pay any attention at all to what's going on in your life,
if you are becoming less productive in what you're doing,
if you're falling asleep during meetings,
you need more sleep.
If you're getting weaker in the gym,
you're,
you,
you might be overtraining.
Um,
so yeah,
I think you just got to pay attention and make sure you're not overdoing it.
And I think it's usually pretty clear.
And then the other end of the spectrum,
well,
if you've got things that you're trying to achieve and you're not getting them done,
well then.
you need to step up your game and work,
get some work done.
Yeah.
I always tell people,
you know,
resting before you're really tired is just laziness.
But there's also a time to rest.
So I like that balance there.
So,
you know,
you and I both led on the battlefield and,
you know,
it takes a lot of courage to step on that battlefield at first or in and of itself,
but it...
But it even takes,
in my opinion,
it takes more courage to lead on the battlefield.
For you,
do you think courage is born or do you think it's made?
Or,
you know,
similar to the question before,
are they not mutually exclusive?
And then if it is made,
how do you develop that courage?
I think different people have different levels of courage.
And
I think some of it is developed through your life experiences.
some of
Some of it is part of the culture that you're in.
Some people don't have it.
Some people are just afraid.
You know,
maybe if you're afraid of dying and you're going into combat,
it's going to be rough.
But if you've accepted death as a possible outcome and in some cases maybe a probable outcome,
then it's okay.
So
I think it's a little bit of everything.
But I think a lot of it just has to do,
you know,
when you're talking about battlefield courage,
I think.
Some of that is just based on the fact of how much you're afraid to die or not.
And
I think if you're really scared of dying,
then it's going to be hard.
And if you're not scared of dying,
then it won't be that bad.
Yeah.
And I would say it's also probably dependent on the training that you have and then the team that you have surrounding you,
right?
If you have a pretty weak team around you,
that could be pretty scary.
Like the times I've stepped on the battlefield,
I knew that the men that I was beside were some of the best on the planet.
And I know you felt the same.
So that definitely helps having a team.
You know,
maybe it's not the battlefield,
maybe it's the corporate space or something else.
If you have that team,
then you can lead with courage,
I think.
Step in with courage.
So you definitely want to have a good team.
That's,
there's no doubt about that.
And that'll make you feel more,
more secure with what you're doing.
You know,
I kind of,
I guess I went,
I went high into the right on your question and went straight to like facing death.
So
I apologize for that.
You know,
if you're talking about,
you know,
making decisions in the,
in the corporate world.
Yeah.
You know,
I'm,
that's just a matter of risk assessment and making incremental steps to move towards whatever strategic goal you're,
you're trying to achieve.
Well,
it's also,
it's another freedom if you let go of like,
if you know why you're there and accept the fact that you can die and there's like a freedom in that.
It's like,
well,
you know,
this is instead of,
you know,
not want,
that's gotta be a real tough situation.
I'm not a,
thank you for your service,
Jocko and John.
I'm not,
I really appreciate all that.
But let's,
let's go,
let's talk,
circle back to discipline and,
and,
you know,
what is like getting in the way of people like creating this.
discipline.
Like it's,
it seems to be such a struggle.
Like,
I mean,
John and I have been doing this show quite a while.
You know,
there's a lot of discipline that's built into the show.
Like we found each other because of discipline around meditation and mindfulness.
And we understand like,
you got to get after it.
You got to keep practicing,
but so many men out there.
And probably a lot of the men,
some of the men we're listening to have trouble getting after it and have trouble accessing that discipline.
Like where's a good place to start?
Like,
um,
if you would.
Or whatever it is.
I don't,
I don't like,
what's the,
how do we crack this nut,
if you will?
Well,
you asked the question early in that long question,
which was what makes discipline difficult?
And I was just going to answer that.
Oh,
it's hard.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's just natural.
It's natural.
It's just the contour of the course.
Yeah.
It's just,
it's just hard.
It's,
it's hard to do stuff.
It's hard to do stuff that you don't want to do and you got to do it anyways.
That's part of it.
The other thing is how bad do you actually want the thing that you are?
allegedly trying to be disciplined for.
If you don't really want it that bad,
then it's really easy to not take the small steps to get there.
If you really don't want to do something,
then it's really easy to say,
you know what,
I don't really need,
that book is not that important to me that I'm trying to write,
or the competition that I'm going to compete in is not that important,
and I'll just gaff it off.
You know,
it's just one of those things.
I think if you really truly want something,
the discipline comes pretty easily.
And if you don't care,
then if you don't really want it,
then the discipline is going to be a little bit trickier to come by.
And then it's just a matter of doing things that are hard.
And no one likes to do that.
Yeah,
there's anything you get away from being in the military.
It's just doing things that you don't feel like doing.
Right.
You're just going to do things that you just don't feel like doing and just turning off your mind and just going forward and doing them anyways.
Whether that's,
you know,
in
Navy boot camp,
you know,
having to eat your.
launch a certain way or you know like they make you fold your underwear a certain way and it's like you no part of me as a human being wanted to fold my underwear a certain way and i did it so you know you learn how to just shut off your mind and then eventually you're getting in cold water and then eventually you're doing
you know staying awake for long periods of time or whatever you're doing things that are hard and it's no factor well i feel like there's also
One thing that might help is like attaching,
giving yourself to a higher purpose or giving yourself to a bigger cause.
Like,
is this something that can,
I know it does for me.
I mean,
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Like,
you know,
instead of all it being about me and whatever you're trying to achieve,
it's like attaching to something bigger really just seems to draw me a hell of a lot more further,
further forward.
One of the things about,
um,
like long-term thinking is sometimes it's too long,
too far.
And so
I like to,
you know,
I don't,
I don't like to tell people,
think about the long term.
I tell people,
think about the long term for a little while,
but if the long term it's,
it's interesting.
There's a analogy that I use with shooting.
When you're looking down the sights of your rifle at a target,
that's three or 400 meters away.
If you,
if you look at that target,
it becomes blurry.
And so what they teach you is front side focus.
You actually,
you're,
you can kind of vaguely see the target in the background,
but what you see is the front side of your.
post on your on your weapon well when we used to use iron iron sights but now it's gotten a little bit easier but uh but you look at the the front sight and that you can do you can look at that and you can stay focused on that and so it's the same thing with you know when you have a goal
you know,
if you have a goal that I want to save enough money,
you know,
for a down payment on my house,
right?
That's a lot of money to save up.
And some days you're like,
you know what?
I really just want to get a new TV or I just really want to go out for dinner tonight.
I don't care about that because the vision is too far away.
And so sometimes you got to go,
you know what?
I'm going to look at the vision,
right?
I got to look at what can I do today?
This week,
I'm going to save this much money.
And you just bring it something a little bit more achievable,
something that's a little bit more in focus.
And for me,
you know,
again,
I'm using writing.
a little bit today,
but when I'm writing a book,
I write a thousand words a day.
It takes me like 45 minutes to an hour.
That's it.
That's all I'm going to do.
I'm not going to,
I'm not thinking about having to do that for 90 straight days,
which is what I have to do.
I just think about today,
I'm going to work for 45 minutes on this particular thing and I'm going to get what I'm supposed to do.
And I'll probably end up having to throw a bunch of it away,
but I'm going to get it done.
So
I think yes,
long-term and,
and,
and a higher vision.
definitely worth focusing on sometimes.
And then when that seems like it's too far away and I don't think I'll ever get to that goal,
well,
cool,
what can you get done today?
What can you get done this week?
And I think that's also a...
And then by the way,
when that grind becomes too much,
when you go,
I'm so sick of writing these thousand words a day,
I want to blow it off.
Then you go,
wait a second,
what am I trying to achieve here?
What's that long-term goal?
Oh yeah,
that's right.
I've got this book inside me that I want to get out.
And then I think...
Shifting focus basically between the long-term and the short-term is a good way to keep yourself on track.
Yeah.
I mean,
that's what you ask most SEALs.
How do you make it through Hell Week or how do you make it through BUDS?
Everybody says,
well,
I wanted to do more than just show up at BUDS.
I wanted to do more than just make it through Hell Week.
I wanted to become a SEAL.
But then when you break it down into the little digestible chunks,
I think almost everyone says.
I just made it from one meal to the next,
or I made it from one evolution,
one event to the next,
just in buds,
just kind of rolling.
And that's what kept the proverbial flywheel moving,
right?
It took a little bit to get it going,
but once it gets going,
then it's impossible to stop.
For that extreme ownership piece,
right?
What do you say to people who are afraid of taking extreme ownership,
extreme or full responsibility because
sometimes it feels like too much pressure or maybe they even feel that they're going to put too much blame on themselves if something fails.
What do you say to people like that?
Well,
what's the alternative to that?
The alternative to that to me is if I'm blaming you,
John,
well,
then what can I fix for myself?
Nothing really.
I can just sit there and say,
well,
it was John's fault and my world stays the same.
I can say,
hey,
you know what?
we were doing this project.
I fell behind.
I didn't give John support that he needed.
Next time I'm going to set him up better.
I'm going to explain the timelines better.
I'm going to make sure I give him the resources that he needs and I'm going to make sure that this happens next time.
And that's all on me.
And now I have control over my destiny and my world's going to be a lot better than sitting around and saying,
well,
John,
you know,
he didn't,
he didn't get his part of the project done.
That's why we didn't get it launched.
That's why we're failing.
It's all John's fault.
None of it's my fault.
Cool.
Nothing's going to change.
So yeah,
you just take ownership of what's happening and it
It is,
you know,
it does feel like a lot,
especially when you're not accustomed to it.
But it's also for the very reasons I just explained.
It's it's it's very freeing.
It's very liberating to know that everything that's going on in my world,
my health,
my relationships,
my financial situation,
my businesses,
everything that's going good and everything that's going bad is on me.
And and so if something needs to get fixed,
I need to fix it.
And I've always,
I've always had this attitude,
you know,
and it's something that's with good leadership.
You'd say,
you know,
as a young enlisted seal,
I would see that all like with good leaders,
when something went wrong,
it was them.
And with bad leaders,
when something went wrong,
it was everybody else's fault.
Yeah.
I'm seeing that.
And it's just,
it's just a loser mentality.
Yeah.
And you got to focus on what,
you know,
focus on what you can change,
focus on what you can affect and let the rest kind of go.
and
kind of tie into that extreme ownership piece and responsibility,
if you will.
I want to take a moment to honor two of your warriors who served under your leadership.
Mark Lee,
I went through buds with Mark or at least started buds in his first class.
And then Ryan Jobe.
For those who don't know Mark,
Mark was the first Navy SEAL killed in action in Iraq.
Correct me if I'm wrong here,
Jocko,
but I'm pretty sure he died in Ramadi.
And then Ryan was gravely wounded in that same battle.
shot in the face by a sniper.
And though he survived initially,
he lost his vision,
had a glass eye,
went through multiple surgeries,
and then at least reportedly died due to some complications in surgery.
And these men,
they weren't just operators.
They were brothers.
And like I said,
I went through or started Buzz with Mark.
And his and Ryan's legacy clearly live on in what you speak about with...
leadership and responsibility and,
and,
and burden of command.
Can you take us into what it was like to lose them and not just as,
as the commander,
but as a man,
and then how do those losses,
how have they shaped the way that you lead and the way that you live?
You know,
losing guys in combat is the worst thing.
And
Mark, as,
as you know,
Mark was
just such a stud and such a powerful force of nature and such an incredible human being.
And he was just an awesome guy.
And so he seemed very indestructible and immortal.
And combat does not care about that.
And so it was totally devastating and soul crushing.
Ryan was wounded the same day,
earlier in the days when Ryan was wounded.
And,
you know,
we didn't really know if Ryan was going to make it at first.
I mean,
he got shot in the head and then was put into a medically induced coma for weeks after that.
You know,
he got stabilized within.
probably a day or two,
but for certainly,
Kazavacking him out of Ramadi was,
was,
did not look good for probably 12 hours or something like that.
So yeah,
soul crushing.
That's what it is.
And then,
and then for,
for you now,
how has that kind of changed the way that you lead and live your life?
Well,
yeah,
I mean,
grateful,
you know,
so grateful for every,
you know,
every sunset.
grateful for every day grateful for all the opportunities that we have and you know we lost uh mikey monsoor as well a few weeks before we before we came home and you know so those those three guys um
yeah i think about him every day and every day i i try and remember how precious life is remember this gift that they gave to us and i will not squander
one second of this gift that we have.
Amen to that,
brother.
And for the listeners who don't know Mike,
Mike Monsoor sacrificed himself.
He jumped on a grenade to save his teammates,
ended up posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor,
absolute stud as well.
So thank you for sharing that,
Jocko.
I know that
I've lost guys on the battlefield too,
and I know that's a piece that's pretty sensitive to talk about,
but it's...
really important to understand what we do with that gift.
Like you said,
I think that's a great way of looking at it.
It is,
in fact,
like at the end of Saving Private Ryan,
Tom Hanks is on that bridge and he grabs Private Ryan and he says,
earn this.
That's what I try to do every day is I try to earn this life that I know
Danny Dietz,
I've got a plaque behind me in honor of Danny Dietz and Operation Red Wings and some of the other guys there.
I've got another poster over here on the side of the wall.
in honor of those guys.
So
I feel you,
brother.
Well,
I think,
well,
I mean,
the gratitude you guys are just expressing here,
if the situation that you're talking about,
John,
it led us basically to this podcast in some ways.
It did.
Through John's Survivors Guild.
If you want to share a little bit of that,
John,
with Jocko,
it would be interesting,
you know?
Yeah.
For me to share,
Will?
Yeah,
go for it.
Yeah,
Jocko,
just so you know,
that's kind of what...
it brought me to the practices of mindfulness and meditation.
Cause initially
I, as a,
I was a young Lieutenant when,
when Danny,
when I lost Danny and I,
it was my decision to put him on that operation because we were split between the two SDV teams.
And,
and then I sat in a joint operation center.
I was not on the battlefield and strangely enough.
Iraq with the rest of the platoon.
No,
I was,
I was in Afghanistan.
So the
J.D. Donaldson and the crew was.
down in Iraq.
So,
and I'm sure you felt this right when you weren't on the battlefield,
if you're sitting behind the computer doing the radio and everything else,
sometimes you feel less.
able to do something,
you feel more helpless,
right?
And that actually,
that operation affected me mentally more than any other one,
which brought me to,
ultimately brought me to the practices of mindfulness meditation.
And for me,
they have changed my life for the better,
but also saved my life.
And then they have given me the opportunity to pay back this gift by paying it forward,
if you will.
So that's,
yeah,
that great point,
Will.
Thanks for bringing that to the head.
Yeah.
It's amazing,
I guess,
what happens after.
something so devastating.
You know,
we move forward with more grace,
with more grace,
with more gratitude,
with more appreciation,
with more,
almost the heart of those people inside of you,
you know,
because their torch is no longer,
you know,
has been extinguished.
Jaco,
so Extreme Ownership,
like,
I absolutely love the book.
I mean,
I'm already giving to my students.
You know,
what in your history kind of brought you to this,
like,
core value?
I mean,
this is,
I mean,
it's,
Yeah,
I...
please,
like,
this is such a great book.
And I think that that core value has really helped me understand things in a different way.
What brought you to this realization?
Yeah,
really,
for me,
it was just seeing the contrast in leadership.
And what I already mentioned,
which is you have a leader that you work for,
and something goes wrong,
and he blames everyone else and everything else.
And you have no respect for the guy and nothing ever gets any better because nothing's changing.
And then meanwhile,
you'd have a good leader who when something goes wrong would
take ownership of the problem and and not cast blame on anyone else accept the blame accept the responsibility make changes and perform better and i got to see that you know i spent my adult my entire adult life in the seal teams from the time i was i mean i enlisted when i was 17 and left
when i was 18 and so that's that's what i did and um so that's what i got to see and again probably because I wasn't,
you know.
wasn't the smartest,
wasn't the fastest,
wasn't the strongest,
wasn't the best shot.
I was always just kind of watching what the leaders were doing and trying to pay attention to them.
And,
and it was really obvious when you'd work for a good leader,
what their attitude was,
their humble attitude,
they listen,
they treat people with respect.
And then you go and work with someone that's,
you know,
a bad leader.
And sure enough,
don't listen to anybody else,
blame other people.
And it's just a disaster.
So
Getting to see that throughout my career,
especially in the younger days when I was a young enlisted SEAL and I saw that.
But you see it your whole career.
You have good leaders and bad leaders.
And I just took notes.
Yes,
what to do and what not to do.
How has your leadership changed since you left the teams,
if at all?
Have you learned new things since you've left the teams in doing what you're doing now?
No,
the big revelation for me was just before I retired,
I had a friend that owned a big company.
and
he asked me to come and talk to his executives about leadership.
And so I went up there and I talked to his executive team.
And when they asked me the first question,
I realized that everything that I knew about leadership was applicable to all leadership situations.
And so that was the,
you know,
human beings are human beings and leadership is leadership.
And it doesn't really matter if you're in the military,
if you're in the civilian sector,
if you're part of a sports team,
leadership is leadership.
That's,
you know,
what have I changed?
I really haven't,
I really haven't changed much since I,
since I got out,
I learned more of the business cases and,
you know,
I have some businesses myself,
so applying those to the businesses is mandatory.
But,
but yeah,
the leadership is leadership.
And,
and I think,
you know,
there's obviously there's some stereotypes that people have,
which are,
which are derived from actual leadership,
right?
Because there's,
you know,
There's a...
a great book called The Psychology of Military Incompetence.
And it talks about the fact that the military,
when you look at it from the outside,
it's a very,
you know,
uniformed,
disciplined looking organization,
very hierarchical structure.
And people that are attracted to that,
that have that type of mentality,
they go in the military.
And the reason they go in the military is because they think,
oh,
now everyone has to listen to my ideas.
Now everyone has to obey me.
Now everyone.
to follow these rigid rules that I put together.
And so it attracts people,
it attracts some people with like an authoritarian mindset.
And what really is kind of sad is that that authoritarian mindset in some cases in the military,
especially during peacetime,
can flourish because,
you know,
if I'm telling you,
hey,
Will,
you meet me at the barracks,
I want your room,
I'm going to inspect your room.
And if your room isn't ready and your uniform isn't squared away,
then I'm going to have you on KP duty,
right?
And what are you going to do?
You're going to do what I told you to do.
And so are the rest of the privates.
And we're going to get inspected by my senior leader.
And he's going to go,
Jocko,
great job.
You're getting promoted.
And so there is an element of that.
And by the way,
that element,
I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of civilian companies now,
that element exists in the civilian world too,
but it's over the longterm is not a functional form of leadership.
And,
and especially in the military,
when you get into combat situations in combat,
you,
if you have that type of rigid mindset,
you,
you're not going to do a good job because you're trying,
you want,
you think everyone should listen to you.
By the way,
you,
including the enemy,
you think the enemy should listen to you.
The enemy doesn't show up to your op plan.
They're not going to do what you expect them to do.
And so you've got to really just have an open mind and be creative and be adaptable to what's happening.
And that's what works.
And it works in the civilian sector as well.
Now,
look,
are there times when you have to flex for a moment?
And hey,
if John and I were in a firefight and I said,
John,
flank right,
John would be like,
cool,
got it.
Most of the time.
There's a chance that even if I was senior to John,
I said,
John flank right.
He might look back at me and say negative.
See something you don't.
You just see something I don't see.
And then I'd say,
well,
hey,
I need some cover fire so I can move.
And he goes,
okay,
cool.
Let me move over to the left.
Cool.
Got it.
Go.
So there are occasions,
but the vast majority of the time,
that type of leadership is just bad.
And so
I didn't lead that way when I was in the military.
I don't lead that way in the civilian sector.
You know,
that's the.
I never yelled at anybody.
I always felt like if you had to yell at someone as a leader,
you've messed up about 38 times prior to having one.
Extreme ownership.
Yeah.
So,
never yelled and screamed at people.
Don't do it in the civilian sector either.
So,
yeah,
nothing's really changed.
Taking ownership of what's happening,
cover move simple,
prioritize,
execute,
decentralized command,
those things work no matter what leadership endeavor you're pursuing.
what does that look like in a fam?
We have a question.
What does that look like in the family?
Like,
or decentralizing command or,
I mean,
you know,
like,
what does that look like?
Yeah.
So the way it looks in the family is it looks exactly the same.
The only variable being that you're more emotional with your family because you look worst case scenario will,
if you work for me and you just,
you just do the dumbest things and you make this mistake and you make another mistake and you don't take ownership and you blame other people eventually.
I counsel you,
I coach you,
and eventually I fire you.
Well,
you can't fire your kids.
You can't fire.
And so we're kind of stuck with them.
And we also see our family as reflections of us and they represent us.
And we have that feeling about our companies as well,
right?
Like we have,
you know,
our companies reflect who we are,
but our families reflect even more.
So therefore,
it drives us to be a little bit more emotional.
And so,
but what does decentralized command look like in a family?
Oh,
I can tell you exactly what it looks like.
My kids are making their own lunch,
right?
There you go.
They're making their own lunch.
What does prioritize and execute look like in a family?
Well,
guess what?
There's times where one kid's season is going to prioritize over another kid's season who's just doing practices right now.
And now we're focused on this other kid.
Keeping things simple,
very important as a family.
Does the family understand what our goals are as a family?
Do they understand what our financial goals are?
Do they understand where we're trying to get to?
Are we communicating in a simple,
clear,
concise manner that everyone understands?
And finally,
cover and move.
Like,
that's real simple to see.
If you don't cover and move with your spouse,
everything's going to fall apart.
You know,
like there's,
hey,
I'm going to go to the wrestling tournament this weekend.
You go to the,
you know,
you take the other kid up to their camp that they're going to.
Like,
that's just the way life is.
So the principles apply the same way.
But where you have to be careful is you get more emotional.
And you have a tendency to want to impose things more on your kids than you would on your team or your employees or your platoon.
And so you think,
oh,
I know what the right thing to do is for my kid.
I know 100%.
And therefore,
I'm going to force them to do it.
And people don't like to have things imposed on them.
It doesn't matter how benevolent you are with your intention.
People still don't like to have even the most benevolent of things imposed on them.
So you got to be careful with the kids because like,
John,
you know,
for a fact that it would be good for your kids to,
you know,
name the thing,
learn a language.
Like,
yeah,
that'd be so good for you.
Learn a language when you're six years old,
you'll be,
you'll,
you'll be fluent and that's going to be such a benefit.
So you force them to do that.
Oh,
force them to play piano.
Okay.
Let's see how it works out.
Now,
listen,
can you give them a nudge?
Can you put the piano?
Can you require half an hour of practice?
you know
every
Wednesday and Thursday and say,
listen,
I just want you to have the skill.
You can do some of that.
But if you get tyrannical with it,
just like in any leadership position,
you'll end up with a mutiny on your hands.
And that's not good when it's your kids.
Right.
Oh,
man.
Well said.
And yeah,
what I've found more often than not is that with kids,
the road to hell is paid with good intentions,
man.
Everything that I try.
And again,
like I mentioned,
Jocko,
my kids are still young,
so I still get the three-year-old tantrum and everything else.
But like this weekend,
I tried to take them to a movie,
the three kids.
well.
my wife was out for Mother's Day doing her thing.
And they pitched fits because they didn't get the right freaking time that they wanted to go to the movie.
And then one of them wanted popcorn with salt and another one wanted it without.
And I was like,
good Lord.
Anyhow,
I could go down a whole rabbit hole there.
But talking about the emotional side with the family,
that brings me to another point here.
As someone known for toughness,
what are your thoughts on therapy?
therapy and emotional intelligence?
I suppose that's two different questions.
One of which am I super familiar with?
I've not gone to any kind of therapy before.
So I don't really know what to think of it.
I've asked people about it and said like,
well,
what do you think?
Or what would they,
you know,
I've had people on my podcast where they tell it,
talk about going to therapy and I'd say,
well,
what do they say to you?
And so,
uh,
It
But I know that it's like my,
uh,
my middle daughter has been on my podcast and,
and she went to therapy and she's great for like,
and she's a,
she's a stud of a person.
Um,
but you know,
she was like,
she got,
she became very obsessed with eating and what she was eating and she became high,
you know,
highly disciplined.
So the comments you made earlier about,
um,
is there,
is there such a thing as like too much discipline?
So my middle daughter,
who was a great jujitsu player,
great wrestler in high school,
and when you're wrestling,
you're cutting weight.
And so she's cutting weight through high school.
And by the time she got to college,
she's now became very obsessed with food and how much she was eating.
And did she want to go to a restaurant with her friends when she didn't know what the food choices were going to be?
And she ended up,
she studied nutrition science in college.
and she
She did a 10 week class that was on cooking where you had to learn how to cook food.
You had to learn how to,
and they made all these wonderful,
like incredible meals,
you know,
four course meals,
five course meals.
And she went through this course and she didn't eat a single bite and she got done with that.
And she was like,
this isn't right.
And that's when she called my wife and I was like,
I think I need to talk to somebody because
I'm thinking about food way too much.
And,
um.
Sure enough,
you know,
so she went and started going to a therapist and it helped her out a ton.
And she's like,
well,
you can check her out sometimes.
She's an incredible jujitsu player.
I think I remember you posting one time when she got a gash about her.
If it's the right girl.
So from that perspective,
although I've never done any of the therapy myself,
you know,
obviously
I'm super happy that my.
daughter,
my middle daughter,
uh,
participated in it.
And it's,
and it definitely,
she says it helped her out so much.
And I would ask her the same thing,
you know,
like,
what are they asking you?
What are they talking about?
And so,
you know,
I think,
uh,
with cert with people,
if you feel like you need to get some,
somebody to help you sort things out,
then I think it's very helpful.
And this is another thing,
you know,
I had,
uh,
I didn't really understand any of this.
I had Jordan Peterson,
who's a clinical psychologist on my podcast.
And
It was the first time that I realized that people can have mental issues that a person that trains in a certain way is going to be able to help people get through those issues.
And the way I,
you know,
the way I talk about it now is like when you're,
when your car is not running correctly,
you take it to a mechanic and you get the car fixed.
And so the same thing can happen with your head that,
and I,
oh yeah,
it was,
you know,
he explained to me.
how you get somebody that's got a fear of needles,
how you get them to overcome the fear of needles.
But what was interesting,
so it's called exposure therapy.
What was interesting was
I have written a bunch of kids'
books.
And in one of the kids'
books,
the kid in the book is overcoming the fear of water,
doesn't know how to swim,
is afraid of water.
And his uncle takes him through exposure therapy.
Oh,
first we're going to go to the river.
Then we're going to wade in the river.
Then we're going to walk in the river.
Then we're going to dunk our heads in the river.
Then we're going to tread water in the river.
Then we're going to swim.
And then we're eventually going to jump off the bridge.
And it was just exposure therapy.
And it's actually something that I had done.
with my middle daughter who was not afraid of water but she was afraid to sing in front of a group and she wanted to be in the school play so i did exposure therapy with her first putting her i said hey go in your room and sing the song your tryout song go in your room shut the door and sing your song i'll be outside so
she did it and then the next day i said hey i'm gonna crack the door open sing your song and the next day i left the door open and the next day i stood in the hallway and the next day i stood in the doorway then the next day my wife and i stood in the doorway then And the next day,
my wife and I sat in the room.
Then the other kids watched,
then the neighbors came over,
and then she got the school play.
Awesome.
But that's just exposure therapy,
and that's something that I was able to figure out.
But these people that are therapists,
they actually have protocols for various issues that people might have.
So as far as therapy,
I think it's a thing that is very beneficial to some people.
And if you need it,
go get it.
And then what was the other thing?
Emotional intelligence.
so what
When you say emotional intelligence,
what do you mean by that?
Yes.
Funny enough,
I just had a friend ask me that very thing.
So to me,
I think what emotional intelligence means is one,
kind of owning the room,
understanding what this person is feeling,
how this person responds to a particular way of communicating.
Some people are going to respond to what it is you say.
Some people are going to respond to how it is you say it.
Some people are going to respond to your body language.
So understanding that.
Then I think taking it another step further is understanding what it is that they're going through.
not necessarily knowing the details,
but seeing that,
hey,
like you mentioned before,
when you were talking about somebody who's burned out,
maybe this person isn't showing up at work like they normally do because they've got something going on in their lives.
So you're aware,
you're attuned to that.
And then lastly,
I think there's a piece of emotional intelligence that is knowing what it is you're experiencing and then how what it is you're experiencing affects others around you,
right?
You have this energy that you bring into a room if you're feeling good,
if you're feeling positive.
But then you also have a negative energy that you can bring into a room if you're feeling kind of down.
So that's that's what I mean.
Yeah,
no,
I thought there was some connection directly between therapy and emotional intelligence that you were asking me about.
And I'm not necessarily.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
I can help.
Yeah.
So,
yeah,
emotional intelligence.
And by that,
all that definition obviously is critical for interacting with other human beings in life.
And,
you know,
clearly understanding how the way you behave and the way other people are behaving is.
really important.
And speaking of kids books,
this is another thing I,
I,
uh,
in another one of my kids books,
there's a bully who's picking on the main character.
Who's named Mark.
Who's actually named after Mark Lee,
but the kid's name is Mark.
And he's getting picked on by this kid,
Nathan James and Nathan James is making fun of him.
And Nathan James is calling him names.
And Nathan James is just a real jerk.
And he goes,
the kid talks to his uncle,
who's a seal uncle Jake.
And he says,
you know,
I want to beat this kid up.
I've been training in jujitsu.
I'm ready to beat this kid,
Nathan James,
up.
And he says,
okay,
well,
you can,
but first you got to try and figure out why he's acting this way.
And so
Mark basically does a reconnaissance spy mission and follows Nathan James home.
And as he's following him home,
or first he observes him for a few days at school and he's a slob.
He eats crappy food,
eats potato chips.
His socks don't match.
Like he doesn't care about his appearance.
uh,
wears the same jeans every day to school,
just a real slob,
you know,
he's thinking,
doesn't care about anything.
And eventually he follows him and he realizes that on his way home,
he's picking up cans.
He's returning cancer.
He can buy some stuff at the seven 11,
follows him to his house.
He lives in a little like one bedroom apartment above an automotive repair shop.
No one's home.
Here's yelling and screaming when the mom finally gets home.
So he realizes that this kid comes from a really tough situation.
And instead of beating him up,
he decides he should probably try and help this kid out and feel some sense.
So yeah,
obviously a extremely important part of life is understanding other people's perspectives.
And the way that you do that is by communicating with them and asking earnest questions and getting to know people.
Yeah,
I actually have on the bookshelf over here,
not the one behind me,
I have some of your Way of the Warrior kid books,
man.
I love that you've taken your tough kind of persona.
uh that everybody like if if people look up navy seal in the in the dictionary there's going to be a picture of jocko willent beside it right you're stuck with jocko and uh and then at the same time you're writing kids books i think that's uh phenomenal it's talking about the dichotomy of leadership that is a huge dichotomy so but
yeah the way of the warrior kid books kid series fantastic man good stuff well one of the things that that helps to
actually the main component of like,
whether it's great leadership or emotional intelligence is understanding and actually getting to a place and,
and exercising like detachment.
You know,
I listened to you in a human podcast,
Jocko,
and you went off on just the,
just this one piece of,
of what detachment is,
what it does for you,
what it looks like in business and your life.
Um,
and I was really glad you got to that place because,
um,
one thing we do within mindfulness and meditation is we just like
we don't want to be attached to things.
Like we definitely don't want to be attached to our emotions because they make us,
you know,
bad leaders,
assholes,
like,
you know,
not the people they want to be.
So what is it about?
Um,
I love your story.
If you can share it with our community,
like how you realized how incredibly profound detachment is,
and then how you ended up in integrating that into basically,
you know,
the man you are today.
The story is,
and John,
you'll appreciate this.
we used to do go plats,
gas over platforms and out here.
on the West Coast,
we would go and hit oil rigs that are up off the coast of California.
And we're doing one of these clearances.
I was a new guy,
but we were done with our workup.
We're in our pre-deployment workup cycle.
So we did our full workup and I was a new guy,
mouth shut,
ears open,
youngest guy,
most junior guy in my platoon.
I was actually the youngest,
most junior guy in my first two platoons.
But I was,
so this was my first platoon and done with land warfare,
done with jungle warfare,
done with
CQC.
uh cqb i think we called it at the time close quarter paddle and then we're out there doing gas oil platforms and we're we're coming from the water line up so you know you get the the structure and we come up out of the water on a ladder and we eventually get to this big the
first big level of a gas oil platform it's called the cellar deck and it's sort of where the real gas oil platform starts and it's a big giant area covered with all kinds of equipment and
gear and pipes and just,
it's just a clutter.
It's a maze.
And as we,
as the guys ahead of me in the assault train came up the ladder to the cellar deck,
they realized it's a huge area that needed to be cleared.
And as they realized that they made the tackle call flood,
which means,
Hey,
we need everyone up here to clear this.
And so,
you know,
I'm whatever,
fifth,
sixth,
seventh,
eighth guy in the train or whatever.
So I come up and it's left,
right,
left,
right,
left,
right.
And I,
you know,
I come up and go left and I'm.
moving down and I'm scanning for targets.
I'm looking down the side of my weapon.
And so what we end up with is like a skirmish line where behind us is the ocean.
And in front of us is this massive,
confusing,
complex maze of a area that needs to be cleared.
And I'm looking down my weapon and
I'm scanning for targets.
And like five seconds goes by,
10 seconds goes by,
no one's making a call.
15 seconds goes by.
I'm waiting for my platoon commander.
I'm waiting for my platoon chief,
my LPO to make a call.
No one's making a call.
And finally,
I just can't take it anymore.
And I'm staring down my weapon and I just high port my weapon and I take a step back and I look to my left and I look to my right.
And what I see is every other guy in my platoon is staring down their weapon and scanning for targets,
including my platoon chief,
including my platoon commander,
including my assistant platoon commander,
including my LPO,
my leading petty officer.
Everyone staring down the sights of their weapons and no one's making a call.
And so I look at it and it's like a real simple call to make.
And I just summoned up the courage.
I'm like,
hold left,
clear right.
And I braced for someone to smack me upside the head.
And sure enough,
instead of getting smacked,
the platoon passed the call.
Hold left,
clear right.
Hold left,
clear right.
Hold left,
clear right.
We on the left held.
The people on the right cleared through.
We carried through.
We cleared the rest of the target.
Got to the helo deck on top,
which meant we were done.
And we get ready to debrief.
And now I'm thinking I'm going to get smacked in the head because I was running my mouth as a new guy.
And instead,
the platoon chief goes,
hey,
Jocko,
good job making the call on the cellar deck.
And I said,
cool.
And for a moment,
I thought,
yeah,
that's right.
I'm badass.
Then I thought to myself,
wait a second.
How is it that I am the youngest guy in this platoon,
the most junior guy in this platoon,
and I knew what to do?
And my platoon chief didn't and my OIC didn't.
How did that even happen?
And I realized it was because I took a step back and I looked around.
I didn't get tunnel vision down my weapon.
And that what I now call detaching,
detaching from the chaos,
detaching from the scenario in front of me and detaching from my own emotions because,
of course,
I'm fired up.
I want to engage a target.
That's what happened to everyone else.
They're all fired up,
all emotional,
all want to engage a target.
And so
I started applying that.
In land warfare,
I started applying it in urban warfare.
But then most important,
I started applying it interacting with just people and making sure I wasn't getting emotional,
making sure I wasn't.
that I was seeing as much as I could see,
looking around,
seeing different perspectives.
And it was really the foundation of my life.
And then from there,
again,
I've had,
in my second platoon,
we had a terrible platoon commander who was a tyrant and egotistical and arrogant.
And we had a mutiny against him and we got him fired.
And the guy that took over for him was a legendary seal.
best guy ever,
had gone up through the enlisted ranks to senior chief.
So almost to the top of the enlisted ranks before he got commissioned,
he had been stationed at every different type of SEAL team.
He was an underwater demolition team.
He was at SDV.
He was at a boat team.
He was at our tier one team.
He was a plank owner at our tier one team,
just a legendary guy.
He had combat experience.
No one had combat experience in the 90s.
He was in
Grenada. And so he was a legendary guy.
And yet when he took over our platoon,
just the most humble guy,
let us run things,
listen to what we had to say,
never like raised his voice ever.
And that's the guy that I always tried to,
that's the guy I always tried to emulate.
And so that's where the detachment came in,
followed up by the hard dose of humility from that platoon commander in my second platoon.
Yeah,
I can kind of relate to both of those.
Actually,
I can relate to the first story from the other side.
I had target fixation when I was doing it.
doing CQC.
So for those listening,
that's close quarters combat,
basically learning how to clear a house.
You start with learning how to clear a room,
then you clear hallways,
clear a house.
And man,
I was,
as a platoon commander,
I got target fixation on clearing one particular room.
And I remember an E-5 doing very similar thing to you,
Jocko.
And afterwards we did the same thing.
I was like,
Hey man,
I screwed that up.
I got way,
I got front side focused,
right?
There's a time to be front side focused.
And then there's a time to step back and take a look.
what's happening around you have that overall situational or tactical awareness.
And the other side is the humble badass.
When I checked into SDV Team 2,
that was my first team,
you may know this guy,
Warrant Officer Johnson.
He was a wojo is what we call them.
He was this older redhead guy and he was a crusty bastard.
We check in or I check in and
He walks down.
He's like,
all right,
guys,
we're getting ready for PT.
And I look at him.
I'm like,
what the?
This old man is going to be leading PT?
That old dude freaking brushed us,
brushed us.
And I remember,
you know,
after a year and a half at
SDV Team 2,
he had had heart surgery.
And he was complaining about how few push-ups he was able to do after having heart surgery.
And it was several hundred a day still after heart surgery.
I was like,
this guy is a machine.
But anyhow,
I digress.
You know,
coming back to the cost of discipline,
and I think this is kind of a similar question to what we asked earlier.
When it comes to living that life of discipline and presence,
I mean,
we talked about kind of discipline and presence both being together.
They're not mutually exclusive.
What do you think,
from your side,
what's the cost of not doing the work?
I guess that's where you start living in chat.
shackles or you kind of start living as a prisoner of not doing it.
What do you think?
I think the real extreme case of that is when you see somebody that's homeless and addicted to drugs and reliant upon people giving them money so they can get enough food to survive.
I mean,
that's sort of the ultimate form of slavery,
at least in America,
in my opinion.
Like,
oh,
you are addicted to drugs and you require other people to be able to sustain yourself.
That seems to me,
and that begins with someone that,
oh,
I want to have freedom.
I want to do what I want.
I want to party.
I want to drink.
I want to occasionally do some drugs,
you know,
whatever the case may be.
And I think you see where that ends up.
So yeah,
I think you're,
you just,
you just end up in situations that are not ideal.
And,
you know,
and I'm not saying life is always ideal.
Like life is hard and there's things that are major challenges in life.
And sometimes there are things in life that you can't take ownership of.
For instance,
your kid gets some kind of a horrible disease that you have no control over it.
Well,
how do you take ownership of that?
Well,
you take ownership of how you respond.
And it's the same thing.
You know,
you lose your job.
Look,
you got cut.
You worked hard.
You did a great job.
The company made bad decisions and you get fired.
How do you take ownership of that?
Well,
you take ownership of how you respond.
What are you going to do?
What's your next move going to be?
And so I think even in situations where you can't necessarily take ownership of
events that occur.
Now,
I will tell you,
caution,
word of caution is you can take ownership of a lot.
Most people can take ownership of a lot more than they think they can.
You start getting
You didn't get promoted,
and you start thinking it's because the boss didn't like you.
And that other guy's always a brown noser.
And you come up with a bunch of different excuses instead of saying,
wait a second.
what could I actually do better?
How could I actually feed myself?
So we can,
generally speaking,
have more control and ownership over what's going on in our world than we think.
But occasionally things happen that completely beyond your control,
and then you take ownership of how you respond.
And going back to the question,
discipline and taking action and making things happen offensively is vastly superior to sitting back and waiting for them to happen to you.
Yeah.
Well,
yeah,
that's what you mentioned.
when I listened to you on Tim Ferriss 2016,
like I love you just,
it was just you and the microphone and questions.
And you talked about aggression,
you know,
and how it's really essential for effective warfare.
Like not like waiting for the battle to come for you,
you go create the battle and fight it.
Well,
how does,
obviously that works very well in warfare.
How does that translate into life and then like into leadership and business?
Well,
the way it translates into life and leadership and business is the things that you want to have happen in the world aren't going to happen by their own.
Very few of them will be.
If you sit around every day with your plate out waiting for a good deal to come onto your plate,
it ain't going to happen.
You need to go and make things happen in the world.
And listen,
we say at Echelon Front,
we say default aggressive.
It's something that I've written about.
Your default mode has to be I'm going to take action.
Now,
the reason it's called default aggressive is important.
Can you override your default?
Of course you can.
And there's times where it's like,
yeah,
you know what?
This doesn't make sense right now.
There's,
you know,
we talk about operations that we conducted,
but we don't very often talk about the operations that we didn't conduct because like,
oh yeah,
we weighed the risks.
We looked at the situation.
We said,
you know what?
This isn't looking good.
High risk,
low reward.
We're not doing this.
Are there times where you say,
hey,
you know what?
We're best to pause a moment,
but the majority of the time and I say it's seven out of ten seven out of ten times
Action is gonna be a better thing to default aggressive taking action making things happen
Things aren't going to occur in the world the way you want them to be by chance
They're just not they're just not the world is gonna do what the world's gonna do you you have to like impose your will on It sometimes and make things happen.
So that's where that mindset comes in is
being default aggressive and making things happen.
Fortune favors the bold.
Yeah,
exactly.
And I have both of those quotes on my thing.
But one thing that by taking aggressive action is going to yield is results.
And that's like,
and then you get results,
you get data,
and then I can make a change.
Like I could shift.
Right,
exactly.
Exactly.
Because the results you might get might not be good,
but at least you learned that that was a bad- Exactly.
Exactly.
It's always like,
try,
try again.
And kind of on the opposite of aggression,
you mentioned earlier humility.
And that's like,
I mean,
why has that been so important for you,
for leadership,
for your life?
And understanding that and also like having kind of both like this aggressiveness,
but also like,
hey,
I can,
I know they're not the same,
but I think you know what I'm getting at.
Yeah,
to me,
humility is definitely the most important characteristic for a leader,
for a human being to have.
And,
and the reason that that has been so clear to me is it became,
became very clear.
Like I said,
growing up in the SEAL teams,
working with arrogant leaders and how terrible they were and working with humble leaders and how awesome they were.
You see that enough times and you start,
oh,
you do even an idiot like me can figure a little pattern recognition.
But the other thing,
one of the examples that I bring is like the last few years I was in the SEAL teams,
I ran the training for the West Coast SEAL teams and we would.
occasionally have to fire a SEAL leader,
like a platoon chief or a platoon commander.
These are experienced people.
Platoon chief might've been in for 15 years.
A platoon commander probably done one or two other deployments.
And these are during the combat years.
And yet when we would fire one of these SEAL leaders,
the reason we would fire one of these SEAL leaders wouldn't be because he didn't know how to shoot his weapon.
Wouldn't be because he wasn't in good physical condition.
Wouldn't be because he didn't know how to work his radio.
We would fire SEAL leaders because they lacked humility,
because they thought they knew everything.
They didn't listen to anyone else.
They thought that their plan was the best plan and their ego is just out of control.
And therefore,
they're going to cause massive problems on the battlefield.
And so that's very clear.
And,
you know,
interacting with any other human being in the world,
like when people's egos are out of control and they don't listen to anybody else,
they think they know everything.
It's just a terrible place to be.
It really is.
So,
you know,
I often say the most underrated tool of leadership is.
listening,
listen to what other people have to say.
Yeah.
And,
you know,
that listening and then carrying it one step further is,
is admitting when you screwed up.
Right.
Uh,
uh,
I had this,
uh,
senior chief instructor at Bud's where I don't obstacle course.
And I forget what I'd done.
I,
I'd screwed something up as a,
you know,
as a boat crew leader.
And I,
he witnessed me say,
sorry to my guys.
And he pulled me aside.
He's like,
sir,
don't you ever apologize to your men.
And I thought in that moment,
I was like,
well,
this guy is a SEAL instructor.
He knows everything.
I'm not ever going to apologize to my man again.
And then I thought,
you know,
a little bit later,
I was like,
that is the worst piece of advice
I've ever gotten.
Yeah.
I see,
I see your face,
man.
And,
and yeah,
I,
what do you,
what do you think about,
you know,
admitting when you've screwed up or what do you have to say about that?
You know,
I've,
I,
here's a trick question.
I,
when I talk to companies,
I talk to people,
I'll give them this question.
How often do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong?
So,
so let me ask you,
Will,
how often do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong?
What do you think?
How many times,
how many times a week do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong?
I don't know.
Half the time.
I'm not sure.
How many times a week?
A number?
Yeah.
I'd say 150.
Like 150 times.
What do you think,
John?
Do you think that's in the ballpark?
Well,
I would say that it depends on how many decisions you make.
And I would say it's probably a one for one for every decision you make.
You're probably saying,
I'm sorry.
I've,
I've.
mess something up.
Check.
Here's the real answer.
The real answer is I almost never have to admit that I'm wrong.
And the reason I almost never have to admit that I'm wrong is I almost never put a flagpole in the ground and tell people I'm 100%
right about this.
I never say that.
There are so few things in the world that I say,
you know what,
Will?
I'm right about this.
We should do it.
I never say that because how can I know what the future is going to bring?
So
I'm more,
much more apt to listen to what you have to say.
And if someone presents an idea to me,
I'm going to try with all of my power to support their idea.
And clearly,
you know,
if I make a mistake about something,
yep,
I'm wrong.
But I don't have to do that very often because
I very seldom put,
put money on the table and say,
here's what we should do.
I know this a hundred percent.
I don't know.
I can hardly ever say that again.
If there is some,
if something's illegal,
immoral or unethical,
okay,
cool.
Those are things that are,
that's different.
But if we're talking about making decisions about which is the best way to go or what's the best way to move forward,
I'll offer my opinion.
Sometimes I have to make a decision as the leader of a business.
But when I,
even when I make that decision,
I'll say,
okay,
here's our first iterative step.
Here's the first thing we'll try.
And we're going to be able to recognize that I'm wrong if this happens or this happens.
And if it looks like we're going to be right,
then it is.
probably going to be this or this and we can continue but yeah i i i really encourage people not to dig themselves in right don't don't dig yourself flexible be resilient you know what i mean like be buoyant like i mean i think that's like beef that's so important for for
life in general like this is one thing that we constantly come back to in mindfulness is like having your debillion the ability to adapt to be resilient to like change when you need to and you dig yourself in
Like,
you know,
you're,
you can,
I don't know.
It just doesn't seem a good,
a good way to powerful position to be in.
Yeah.
And just keep an open mind with everything.
And another thing that this is very good for is when,
when people get emotional about things,
I don't like people lose their temper,
which I haven't the,
you know,
the big,
the running joke with me is I only lose my temper with my printer or copying machines.
Right.
That's because printers and copying machines are evil.
But
No kidding.
Like I haven't yelled at anyone in my family and never,
never had like an actual argument with my wife.
Uh,
but like,
it's just,
and,
and part of that is from the fact of like,
oh,
I don't approach something as if I'm right and you're wrong.
I approach something as
I have an opinion and I think I might be wrong about it.
Cause you seem pretty emphatic about your opinion.
So let me listen and pay attention to what you're saying.
And chances are you're going to be right and I'm going to be wrong.
And I'm so okay with that.
It's ridiculous.
And it just,
it prevents a lot of,
I think,
emotional drama when you don't get wrapped around your own ideas and think that you have the best plan and think that you have the best idea.
I think all that stuff is,
is,
is not healthy.
And this is something you learn in the SEAL teams.
Like you,
you're planning for a mission.
I'm in charge of the mission.
I'm the platoon commander or I'm the troop commander.
I'm in charge of the mission.
I,
I still don't know what's going to happen.
Like,
like it's,
I have an opinion,
but I don't know what's going to happen.
So am I really going to,
am I really going to put.
My relationship with John at risk,
when John says we should attack the target from the east and I said we should attack it from the west and I can't articulate to him clearly enough my opinion.
Well,
then,
you know what?
Why am I going to like override him when I can just say,
you know what?
Let's go with your plan.
Let's make it happen.
Awesome,
man.
Well,
coming up on the end here,
Jocko,
so much great wisdom here.
Appreciate it all.
Wrap it up with just a couple of last questions.
there.
One is if someone's listening.
not if,
when they are listening,
right?
If you were to tell them one place to start for developing that discipline,
where would you say to start?
And then the last one,
what have we not talked about that you want to talk about?
I think,
again,
I'm sorry to tell everyone this.
You don't have to wake up early,
but just try and wake up the same time every day and try and wake up with enough time that you can at least think.
And maybe do some kind of physical activity before your day starts.
I don't care if you're going to wake up and you're going to do 10 minutes worth of burpees.
That's pretty legit.
Yeah.
If you,
whatever you can do to get a little bit of a jumpstart on the day and be a little bit more ready for the day.
And after you do that for a little while and get up the same,
I get up the same time on the weekends.
You know,
I just get up at the same time every day.
And if you do that,
I think that's a really good place to start.
You get up early and you do some kind of physical activity.
I think that's a very good place to.
start feeling good and start seeing a pretty,
a pretty quick result from the discipline.
Because very quickly you'll be like,
oh,
my day was pretty good today.
And by the way,
you'll start being more tired at night.
And that's good.
Cause then you go to bed earlier cause you woke up earlier.
And so
I would just say,
try and wake up,
you know,
early enough that you're,
that you have a little bit of a jumpstart on the day.
Maybe it's 20 minutes earlier than normal and try and wake up that same time every day.
And I think that's a good place to
impose discipline in your world and start seeing some benefits from it rather quickly.
And then as far as things that we haven't talked about,
that's on you guys.
I'm sure you can answer questions.
I guess the last one is,
I was going to say,
how can people find you,
but you're pretty out there,
man.
What's the best way for them to find you?
Get more of your Jocko fuel that I know you're sipping on there.
What else?
Yeah.
It's all,
you're right.
It's pretty easy to find.
jocofuel.com originusa.com echelonfront.com jaco.com there you go that's that's it just all the common stuff it's solid you're on a google google search but uh yeah i appreciate you guys having me on yeah man thanks for being here uh will i'll turn it over you wrap it up no i mean i mean i mean jaco i think you probably have enough courage to do this but like you've never meditated before what if we do like a one minute meditation now so you can say
Yes,
we meditated on the men talking live on this podcast.
If you want,
we're just going to sit in stillness for one minute.
All you have to do is exercise your detachment skills,
which are already wonderful,
apparently.
And we're just going to,
this is how we honestly,
we close the show with a little practice at the end.
Because we want to continually encourage our community to practice.
And this is part of the discipline that we bring into the world.
So if you would indulge us for one minute.
Yeah,
let's go.
Before we do that.
Sure.
Is surfing meditation?
Oh,
man.
Yeah.
Is jiu-jitsu meditation?
I knew you were going to go there.
And are back squats meditation?
Because I've had this discussion with a few meditators.
Yeah.
Some people have said yes.
Some people have said no.
No.
No,
I mean,
here's what I mean.
Let me just say.
So one thing that we have a meditation course right now that's running,
and one of the ways that I kind of pull people into the conversation of meditation is like,
is the aspect of non-doing.
Like surfing,
you're doing stuff.
You know,
jujitsu,
you're doing stuff.
But what's really helpful is also take the opposite perspective and that's non-doing.
And when meditation is just like,
you're sitting with,
whether it's your breathing or whether it's like with your giving a loving kindness meditation or just being aware of your emotions,
like getting into that non-doing space is essential because like you,
again,
like you understand perspective and you leverage perspective often.
And when I'm sitting in meditation,
I just gain more perspective.
because I'm not in the active,
the doing space.
I'm in the non-doing space and I'm just trying to access a little bit of stillness.
And from that place,
there's just like a whole well and resource inside me that just makes me a more effective human being in the world.
Have you ever surfed before,
Will?
I try.
Yes,
I have,
but not enough.
But what you got from me,
Jacko.
Surfing specifically is,
you know,
you paddle out.
Yeah.
You have to wait for waves.
And so surfing...
has a little less doing look then there's days where you're paddling the whole time and the waves are crazy and it's nuts but on a mellow southern california day you're out there
And you're totally detached from the world.
And you're waiting for waves.
And it's like you have nothing,
but you're not doing anything,
is my point.
So that's one possible one.
And what sports do you do,
Will?
I mean,
I used to be a basketball player through college.
Like right now,
I go to the gym a bunch.
Like
I'm actually just,
I'm a big hiker.
I just scheduled a big hike in Peru.
Going to see the Rainbow Mountains for five days at 17,000 feet,
which is kind of fucking ridiculous.
Very challenging.
My wife just got back from
Machu Picchu.
Yeah.
She just went to go there too.
Yeah.
My wife just did it.
It's like beautiful.
Yeah.
I'm excited to see the Rainbow Mountains.
Apparently they're out there.
There's this beautiful rainbow-like striations on this actual rock of these mountains.
It's like I'm very excited to go.
Very excited to go.
Yes.
I haven't gotten a clear answer whether it is or is not,
but we'll go for it.
What do you got?
I'm ready.
We're just going to do,
we're just going to drop in and we're going to do one minute of just finding our breath and just trying to remain still.
We did it on the range,
Jocko.
Like I'm sure you did breathing,
box breathing or something.
I did it trying to calm my heart rate down when I was on a sniper rifle,
funny enough with Wojo,
Warrant Officer Johnson telling me what to do.
And then before getting in the CQC house,
but yeah,
we didn't call it mindfulness or meditation or anything in the teams.
That's for damn sure.
Well,
I'm getting my timer ready.
You know,
so we're definitely creating a little container here.
So I'm not going to go too long or I'm not going to go more than a minute.
What we're going to do is we'll,
you know,
find a seat.
We're going to just take a few breaths.
And after that third breath,
we're just going to be still and follow our breath.
And I'll guide us a little bit along the way.
And thank you for indulging us,
Jocko.
But yeah,
find that seat.
And everybody that's listening,
you know,
let's all meditate together in this moment.
Let's just start with a nice little exhale out.
Close the eyes.
If that's safe for you,
I'll just take these three breaths in,
big breath through the nose.
Let it go out nice and easy.
And these breaths are just to help to get us in touch and calm down our nervous system.
And a couple more of those in,
big belly breath.
And let it go.
One more inhale.
let it go and just drop into that stillness clock's running and all we're doing here is just simply feeling the flow of our breath in our belly or maybe the way it's passing through the nostrils and key element here is just detaching but also just being with things as they are trying
to impose our will or our ego in any way
Just coming back and being with the flow of the breath as it is.
Three,
two,
one.
All right,
guys.
Beautiful.
Take one big breath and let it go.
There's my alarm.
Jocko,
how was that,
Jocko?
It wasn't too bad,
was it?
It was okay?
Good to go.
Thank you.
Really appreciate you having here,
Jocko.
Thank you for this,
for everything that you're putting out there,
for being on the show today,
for all the wisdom you've imparted with us.
Yeah.
I'll wrap it up.
Thanks.
Thanks,
Jocko.
Been an honor.
And thank you for,
you know,
again,
sharing your wisdom and for our audience.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'm sure you got a lot from this.
Until next time,
everyone,
take care.
Bye-bye.
Thank you for joining us today.
We hope you walk away with some new tools and insights to guide you on your life journey.
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