Jocko Podcast - 118: Always Find A Mission. And Win. With Dan Crenshaw

Episode Date: March 21, 2018

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:25 - Dan Crenshaw 0:26:06 - Getting Hit with an IED. 0:44:06 - The next mission: Politics. 1:04:38 - Support:  JockoStore stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission, THE MUSTER 005 in DC. Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi, with Jocko White Tea,  Onnit Fitness stuff, and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), Way of The Warrior Kid 2: Marc's Mission, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, and Jocko Soap. 1:51:50 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 118 with Echo Charles and me Jock O'Lewink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I need a mission. We all need a mission. That's what life should be is a mission. That's what gives your life purpose and focus and drive and ultimately satisfaction. Now, that mission can be.

job you work at it can be providing for your family or it can be getting better at jiu-jitsu or stronger at Olympic lifting or starting a business that you want to grow and build and take over the world and sometimes people ask me what to do if they don't know what their mission is or what their mission should be and I tell them if they're in that situation to go help someone go help someone go help someone else make that your mission because that will make you better and it'll make the world better and eventually from that you'll see what your mission is now I was lucky because from a young age I had a mission I wanted to be some kind of

commando and eventually I ended up hearing about the SEAL teams and decided that that was the best place for me and that's where I went and once I got to the SEAL teams I had a new mission which was to prepare for war and that's what we did and then eventually war came and then that was the mission to take the fight to the enemy to close with and destroy them through close combat And that's what we did. But eventually For me

And for everyone in the military It ends Maybe because of retirement or maybe because of Family obligations or maybe for medical reasons But for every warrior eventually The war ends And that career ends and that mission ends And I've talked to

a lot on this podcast about how important it is to find a new mission. Once the war is over for you and you've done your part, you have to find a new mission. Well, tonight we have a guest on who pursued much the same mission as me for as long as he could and who has now found a new mission that he is on. So, Dan Crenshaw, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Jocko. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Real honor.

Thanks for coming on. And let's just start at the beginning a little bit for people that don't know who you are. Let's talk a little bit about, I guess we'll talk about Katie, Texas and at the same time, also include Ecuador and Colombia about your childhood. Absolutely. Well, like you said, I grew up in KD, Texas. I had six generations of Texan flowing through me, my dad's side of the family. And my dad was in the oil and gas industry our whole lives. So when you hear the things about Ecuador and Colombia and even Egypt and Scotland, those are all the places we lived over the years because of his career, anybody in the oil and gas industry in Texas knows that. It's a pretty common theme. Um, you know, I like to talk about some of the challenges that I went through from an early age. And, uh, what kind of what drove me or maybe, maybe drove my, that that capacity, that mental capacity that you need to become a seal. And, um, you know, that started with my mother.

And my, my mother got, um, diagnosed with breast cancer and I was five years old. And she fought it hard for five years. And she never quit. She never complained. I never saw it. And if she did, I never saw it. And she just took care of me and my brother every day right up until the end. And she eventually lost that battle when I was 10 years old in 1994. But she instilled in me what I think are American and Texas values of integrity, respect, and just never quit. Never quit no matter what. And don't feel sorry for yourself because she never did.

She truly never did. And she asked, where she told me before she died, that I would sort of Great Heights. And I don't know what that meant at the time. But I think we know now. And not long after that, you know, when I could start reading books and grab the first Navy SEAL, Dick Marsenko, novel, Rogue Warrior. Your book wasn't out yet, Chaco, otherwise. Yeah, Rogue Warrior. That came out when I was already in.

As a matter of fact, it came out right as I showed up at the teams. I'm pretty sure that's right when it came out. And obviously it created some turmoil in the teams, but it was pretty interesting, especially because I knew guys that had worked for Dick Marsenko. And that was pretty interesting to talk to them. And to be totally frank with you, most of the guys that worked for Dick Marsenko loved him.

And as a matter of fact, a couple of the guys, that I respect. There's one guy, as a matter of fact, that I work for. And this was a couple years later. As a matter of fact, it was around 1994 because I was in a seal platoon and I was talking to this guy that had worked for Dick Marsenko. And I said, hey, you know, how was Dick Marsenko?

How was it to work for him? And he looked at me and said, best CEO ever. Yeah. And this was from a guy that I have utmost respect for. So I thought that was pretty cool. Even though, you know, his book, you know, the book is, it's, I'd say it's a Holly Wood-ish book. Yeah.

And, you know, the statement in there that everyone always laughs about in the teams is the statement that every seal on his team could bench press 500 pounds. Right, right. The number keeps growing. We're not going, we're not even going to make it realistic. We're not going to make it realistic. We're just going straight to 500 pound everyone on the team. Right.

And that's just patently untrue. And what sucks is when you do that with that thing, well, then people start looking at the book and going, well, what is you? true and what is not. Right. So, and although from the way it's been described to me, the events in that book, a lot of them are compiled. So like this little thing happened on a training event and this thing happened on a training

event and this thing happened on a training event, but they'd all be compiled into one big story. Right. So it's kind of like a Hollywood book. It's a, it's a nonfiction-ish story. But 10-year-old Dan Crenshaw didn't know that. He was like, I'm going to bench 500 pounds. No problem.

Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here without, uh, that series of books, frankly. You know, I'd probably still have two eyes, but nobody needs two eyes. That's a luxury. We'll get to that in a little bit. So, yeah, I mean, that, you know, once you've, once that, and you know this, most seals operate this way, or at least they have this same story of, yeah, it was from a young age. I had a mission.

I knew what it was, and every decision I made from then until the moment I got into bu. was was was was just to prepare for that now when you did you did you I know you lived overseas what where'd you go to high school so it was to high school in Columbia okay yeah and what did you play sports down there I played soccer okay because you were in Columbia yeah so you're gonna play soccer kind of like what they had it was that soccer it was that or soccer it was that or volleyball and then you applied from college from Columbia yeah yeah and okay this is this is kind of an important question because a lot of people ask me this question all the time you were definitely wanted to be a seal what made you

make the decision between going to college and you ended up going to Tufts yeah ended up in in Massachusetts so at some point you said to yourself okay I could enlist tomorrow and go to boot camp and you know be a seal within the year or I can go to college for four years and you know then apply and I'll be in an on officer and a leadership I get asked that question all time for me when I was 18 years old the answer was real easy like oh I can be a seal within a year Sign me up yeah, and and that's what I did and for you you obviously took a different approach and People asked me all the time which one is better and I I tell them that there's advantages and disadvantages to both of them But what made you decide you're gonna go officer style from the get go?

Maybe you know along with my mission of being a seal my whole life that the a symbol similar mission of I wanted a college degree as well. I wanted to knock that out. And then, you know, I wasn't well informed enough to really speak about the difference between an officer and enlisted back then like I am now. But I did want a leadership role. It was important to me based on what I'd read and based on the movies I'd seen that I was in a leadership role. Did you see Navy Seals? Was that, obviously. That's Leif Babin's answer to why he became a SEAL straight up. He's like, oh yeah, yeah, Navy Seals, Charlie Sheen gets him. I mean, I mean, I didn't just see it.

You know, we had it on all the time. So, the greatest movie ever. You know, so a combination of wanting a leadership role. Maybe knowing to, you know, was I really ready at age 18? You know, I wanted it, but I also wanted to be prepared. Yeah. And I was able to think ahead enough to know that maybe I can't swim all that great just yet. We might need some more practice.

Got it. But it was mostly like, it was mostly, I'm going to go to college first. Got it. That's been my life path. That's what I'm going to do. And so that's what I did. And I ended up at Tufts University, mostly because of its international relations program. That was my focus.

It was foreign affairs, international relations, politics. And I did a minor in physics just because, like, why not? Yeah. Because that sounds like fun. Yeah. It's quantum mechanics. It's awesome. You speak Spanish.

Obviously from growing up in Columbia too. So are you fluent in Spanish? Pretty fluent. That's legit. It's kind of a little rusty, but we can get back. And you did ROTC at, yes. Was there any seals there?

Like prior seals that were instructors or anything like that? No. Well, no, there was at Harvard. So a lot of these guys doing master's programs while we're doing ROTC. They're not attached to the unit, but I did have the opportunity to work with some guys. And, you know, just get that mentorship. you just, this is the kind of workouts you might want to be doing.

I mean, just the basics, because you just have no idea going into it. Do you think kids overprepared for buds now? I think it depends on the kid. I often mentor guys who want to go through, and sometimes they do focus a little bit too much on, especially things they're good at. Like, I'm running 10 miles a day. It's kind of like a five-minute pace. I'm like, stop running.

Never run again. You're good at that. Move on to the next thing. Yeah. You know, focus on your weaknesses. Guys just don't understand the little basics. I don't know if they over train. I haven't worked with enough to really know.

I talk to people and they send me messages all the time and they're on this two-year training program to get ready for buds. And I'm like, hey, train for two months and then go. It's not that hard. If you played a sport in college or you played a sport in high school and you can run, like you'll get in good shape there. And it's going to be a challenge But waiting around, especially when there's a war going on

That you don't really want to miss Yeah, like that's a big deal to me You know, and I tell these guys this war's not gonna last forever And you know, I showed up at the team in 1991 Just missed the first call for it and it's you know we I didn't shoot my weapon at the enemy for 13 years And that's a long dry Hard 13 years and so yeah you don't miss out on that stuff No, you don't

One of my old team guy buddies it was like 1971 and he thought the Vietnam War was going to end and he's down at the Marine Corps recruiter saying

I want to be a door gunner in Huey it's interesting that there's you know you always hear about the protesters and whatnot but there's kids that want to fight oh yeah we do have a

there's a warrior class in in America that I think we should be proud of and be proud to be a part of because it's a They're good people with good values, and they want to do the right thing for their country. So you show up at Buds. So you get to be good done with college. College is college, right?

Does there anything particular you want to say about college? No. Okay. Well, cool. Because I don't particularly want to hear about it. College happened. Yeah, college happened. And so you show up at Buds and any issues at Buds?

Yeah. You know, I started my, I started with class 261. About Tuesday afternoon of my first hell week, my stress fracture developed into a pretty noticeable fracture. And I got the old question, are you hurt or are you injured, Mr. Crenshaw? And you really want to be injured because you better not just be hurt

because then you're just quitting. And I was injured pretty substantially. I mean, you know, stress fractures are pretty normal injury and buds. Okay, so when I'm sitting there talking about people don't prep enough, If you're like actually you should prep more, do you think you could have run more preparing for buds? I would have, I ran plenty. I would have focused a little bit more on strength and conditioning.

You know, something I just didn't know how to do back then. Because what happens in Buds is, I mean, you're going to go to failure. You're going to go to failure no matter what. It's going to happen on the hour, every hour, maybe every 10 minutes all the time. So guys who overprepared, they can't understand why they're failing so much, right? And that messes with their head. So maybe that's what you mean by over-preparing. Because that's what I mean by.

Like, I think guys get too confident in their abilities. And they just don't understand why they're hitting a wall all the time. Whereas, like, guys like me are just like, I just, I expected to suck. So it's really not a surprise. But we're just going to keep trying no matter what and just never quit. And quitting is never an option. The other problem is if you over-prepared, maybe it becomes an option. This isn't the case for everybody.

but I've seen some of the best in shape guys quit because it was just, they were like, maybe it was an option for them. Like, maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't. But if you, you should never go into buds thinking that way. And that's why a lot of guys who make it through, I think, have this story that, well, I wanted to do it since I was 10 years old.

So it was just never an option for me to ever quit. So, yeah, you do need to prepare enough to make sure your muscles, when they do fail, aren't putting all the strain on your joints and your knees. That's what happened to me. because it just happened over time and over time. You're limping a certain way, and that causes a fracture eventually

because there's too much pressure being put on your bones. So, you know, or I just had weak genetics, you know, which is the more likely story. More likely answer. So I got rolled back. I came back again with 264. And, you know, you know, there's that two-mile run you do in Hell Week. It's like Tuesday or so of Howl Week,

and it's a time. I don't even know. You went through a long time ago. Well, it's like a Tuesday or something. It's a timed run. And if you get in the top five, you don't have to do it again. And then everybody else has to do it all over again. And you get to rest under a boat and, you know, eat sand or whatever they let you do.

Much on that sand over there. And, you know, my first hell week, I was dead last. I mean, just way, like, not even close, right? Because I was limping the whole time. And my second hell week, I was first place by maybe five minutes, you know. And maybe because I knew what the game was. But everybody does, actually. The word gets around.

You know, it's, but it was, it was a message maybe to myself of like, we're going to, we're going to not only do this, but we're going to crush it. And I'm going to feel good about it. I'm going to rest under that bone and eat my sand while everybody else is running. Frankly, it was really cold, so I kind of wish I'd been running at the time, but whatever, I won. The closest story I have to that is we got done with a four-mile-timed run. And when we got done, the people that are.

that failed and I didn't fail, but there was a bunch of people that failed. And the instructor, who was a really a perfect instructor, meaning that his attitude and the way he carried himself was epic for buds. And he was the senior chief of the phase. It was dive phase. And the guys come across and he's collecting the guys that fail,

which was probably at least half the class. And then he says, because I'm fair, I'm gonna go ahead and let you do this time run again. Get on the line, ready, go. And everyone had to run another four-mile-time run. Well, not us, but the people that passed got to not do it. But the people that didn't pass, which was half the class, had to go and just run another four-mile time to run right then

to see if they could then pass it. Yeah, because it's much easier to pass. On the eighth mile, you're definitely doing a lot better. Yeah, especially after you've put out as hard as you possibly could for a four-mile-timed run, which I actually had to do every time. I failed one run in Buds. I paced myself. I said, oh, you know what, I'll just pace myself.

I'm not going to put out as hard as I can. I'll save a little bit for later. And that didn't work. I failed because I'm not a fast runner. And so from then on, it was just a sprint as hard as I could go for the whole damn time. Yeah. Unlike you, I didn't win any races in buds. It's literally none.

So you get done with and you show up. So now it's 2000 and what? What year is it? This is 2007. Okay. Yeah, 2007. Yeah, finishing buds, 2007. and I'm moving NSQT.

Oh, that's right. Laif Babin, putting me through Jocci. Nice. You know, I was, I was, I was, uh, indoctrinated early on. Right on. Right on. Bruser stories. Check.

Check. Yeah, that's awesome. And then from there, you rolled to team three? Team three. Yeah, it was Team three with Fallujah in 2008. And then, um, back with, in Vermonti in 2010 with, uh, trial with platoon, you know, yeah, your old troop. You know, going back to Leif running that course, it was in,

Because what that course used to be was almost like an administrator course. Hey, here's how you write e-vowls and they had a little tiny bit of Dashings of of of tactics in it, but it was here's how you write evals here's you how you write Navy messages and just that kind of stuff. Yeah, and you know, we knew that these kids needed to train because in Ramadi I had guys that were first platoon guys out ground force commanders. Yeah, and we wanted to make sure these guys knew what to do on the battlefield and and it was awesome that Laif went there and started rehashing that program and did a great job. I think it was very valuable. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so then you got done with that. Then you showed up at Team 3 and you went right on deployment. Right.

I mean, Team 3 was already on deployment. So they had just deployed, you know, and you know how that goes. It's the cycle of graduates. So we met up with Team 3. I was in Fallujah for a little while. I was down in Baza for a few months and actually stayed on deployment to meet up with Team 5. and help them transition, you know, as we were setting up another debt out there in Basra. Great first deployment and learned a lot, got to work a little bit.

And then came back to Iraq in 2010. And another great deployment for me because I was able to take over as platoon commander when my platoon OIC had to relieve another platoon OIC. So, you know, we were going through the entire targeting cycle, working with multiple Iraqi partners throughout Ramadi and throughout all of Al-Ambar. We got to operate throughout the entire province, even a little bit in Baghdad. So just an amazing experience for a young J.O. Who wouldn't normally be put in that position and working with some of the best people I've ever met.

You know, we talked about before. I won't name names on the podcast. But, you know. Well, your OIC was a great guy that got moved. That's why he got moved. And obviously, they had confidence in you to move you, to move you. up into the platoon commander position, which is an interesting thing.

I had a group of business people and they, they, there was a guy that kept saying, well, no one can take my place, you know, and then he was surprised that he wasn't getting promoted. And, you know, explain to people, if you don't have a person below you in the chain of command or two or three people below you in the chain of command, that can take your job, well, then you're gonna have to stay

in your job and you're not gonna get promoted. So that, that's proof that you're OIC, like I said, who's a good, great guy actually he's supposed to come on the podcast at some point but he's a great guy and he had groomed you and taught you everything he could do and and made you ready and trusted you to say when the when the boss came to him and said hey I got to fire a guy I'm going to move you over to Afghanistan is your is your AOC ready to take over and he could confidently say yes he is and that's that's awesome and that shows that he was a great leader to to kind of prepare you

properly for that situation good point. I mean, that is that is part of leadership and management. It's making sure that below you and above you is is squared away. Yeah. And I would do that when I was running training. I would always kill, you know, theoretically or what is it, virtually kill the platoon commanders. All of us. Yeah, and sometimes I'd kill all of you. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, there'd be some, some, some buddy carries happening for extended distances. Yeah, I was a little bit. I was a little bit crazy at that point. And, you know, I was good training. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's, I was coming home from Ramadi, and I wanted to make sure you guys were ready to, ready for the worst possible case scenarios, you know.

So then you get, so you do that, you finish out that deployment, and that was a solid deployment. You were, you were running a bunch of stuff. That sounds like a good deal. And then what'd you do when you came back? So it came back, moved over to support activity one. And as you know, they run intelligence support operations for the SEAL teams.

It's a fairly normal transition to make as an officer and for a lot of listed guys too. But what that ended up what really what that translated into is back on deployment 2012 with my platoon again, SEAL Team 3, Charlie Platoon in Kandahar province. So on that deployment, this was one of our more kinetic deployments. I mean, it's Afghanistan, it's Kandahar, there's IEDs everywhere. I mean everywhere. I mean, to the point where, you know, our TTPs or our, you know, our SOPs, our standard operating procedures were, hey, we're on patrol, we're getting shot at. Don't even move. Don't even look for cover.

Because as soon as you move, you hit an IED. I mean, they're just, they're that prevalent throughout the entire ground, not just on pathways, not just in doorways, in the most random of places. These guys are just burying these things at a whim, you know, and then. and it's chaos out there. And we know they're not that great at shooting at us, so we'd rather just take it. So I'm going to take a moment just to emphasize what you just said,

because it's really important, and not everyone will understand it the way you went over it quickly, almost from a tactical mindset. So I just want everyone to understand. What he's saying is when, at this point, the IEDs were so bad that if you started getting shot at by the enemy,

the obvious and common, and practice that everyone in the world instinctively and by training has is you immediately hit the ground and seek cover and you get behind a log you get behind a piece of terrain you find somewhere to hide from the bullets that are coming at you and what Dan's saying is during this deployment the IED threat was so high that when the enemy started shooting at them instead of finding cover to hide from the bullets they would rather just stay put probably take a knee but not dive behind something because there's a likely chance that there was an IED there.

Yep. That's that's crazy. It is. It is. You know we've seen multiple guys get blown up and usually our partners, our Afghan partners who are patrolling with us because you know maybe they're just not as careful or maybe they're the equipment they're using to detect IEDs in the ground. They weren't using it properly. Whatever the case may or maybe just because it's bad luck and they're just everywhere. And you know, it's... And there's more, you had more Afghan partners than Americans. Oh, by far.

We would sometimes go in operations with about 100 Afghans and maybe 12, 15 seals. Yeah. Because we're doing entire clearance operations through villages. You know, we're going house to house. We're shaking hands. It's a little bit of shaking hands. It's a little bit of on security, you know, either defending ourselves or going on the offensive. It depends on the situation.

But, you know, we round everybody up. We talk to them. You know, we meet with village elders. So it's, it's, it's a little bit of your, I guess, you're more typical unconventional warfare tactics of we're trying to meet and greet the population, while also, you know, being prepared for battle. And, and, but the hardest part of that was certainly the IAD threat. You know, only single file lines.

Everything we ever learned in training of different formations and, you know, staggered, etchelon, whatever it is. it doesn't apply. It all, it all gets thrown out the window because it's, it's only about single file, what has been cleared, what hasn't been cleared. And you could, you could veer from that a little bit depending on what area you're in and Kandahar, more mountainous areas, less IDs. But even then, I've got a story, you know, these guys, some of our guys take a, take a, take a, on the high ground, then a little hilltop. I mean, just in the middle of nowhere. I mean, middle of no, I can't emphasize this enough. It is the middle of nowhere, right? And, they sit down and this pop goes off. It was a blasting cap that went low order, which means it didn't blow up the main charge, like a 15, 20 pound charge. It would have killed all three of them right then and there. And I mean, I want to say that again, middle of nowhere.

There was no reason for there to be an IED right there, but there was. And this was out in the mountains. And this wasn't even in the, you know, the southern Candahard district, which is truly just a minefield everywhere. you know so you know the can't emphasize how bad the threat is there and even even taking a small high ground position behind a rock

like you know this is what the kind of things we ran into and um so that was that deployment it was a lot of fun and uh but it was it was a hard one for us you know on month six about six months in this was June 15th

2012 um I was hit by an IED blast by one of these, again, they're everywhere. And it was the one day we spent in Helmand province. So we went to Helmand on a last-minute mission to support some Marine Special Operations Forces out there. And as the early, you know, we always fly in about the middle of the night. We do that so that the enemy can't arm the IED. So the IEDs are everywhere, but they're not always armed.

And if they keep them armed, they run out of batteries and they don't work anymore. So there's a little bit. bit of tactical consideration there. But, you know, as the early morning hours come and the daylight starts to hit, we start to move around and we start to clear out this one compound and hadn't been totally cleared yet. And one of my Afghan interpreters was responding to a call, runs in front of me and completely gets dismembered by about 15 pounds of explosives underneath them. And all I know is I got hit with something. It kind of feels like you're getting hit by a truck

while a bunch of guys in the truck are shooting you with the shotgun. That's sort of what it feels like. And, you know, my immediate reaction was feel my legs, right? So I feel my legs and everything's still there. You know, I know something is wrong. What was your distance from the IED?

A couple feet. I mean, it's so, I mean, because I would, yeah, a few feet. Where you and me are, probably, is about, just across the table. And, you know, lots of pain, pain everywhere, but not in my eyes. So I was completely blinded, but, you know, totally under the assumption that I just had dirt in my eyes. And I remained under this assumption that there was really nothing wrong with my eyes for, frankly, for weeks to come.

And we'll talk about that. But, you know, I didn't lose consciousness. I knew what was happening. I could hear the moans. Everybody thinks that when somebody gets their legs blown off, they're screaming, like in the movies. It's just never the case. It's a very different, like, visceral sound of pain. And it's, and I've heard it many times now because, you know, this, this happened to us a couple times.

And so I heard that. I knew, I knew that Rachman had been hit because I could hear him. And, you know, one of our, one of my teammates tells a story where he, he got hit with a foot in a building next store. I mean, and it was, and that's how they knew something had gone terrible. wrong. And, you know, the medics come to me. There's nothing they can do for me. They sort of just wrap up my eyes. They know something's wrong. I really don't, frankly. I just, I keep assuming there's just dirt in my eyes and that it'll be fine. And eventually we get taken out of there. I was able to get up and walk to the helo because, you know, you don't let somebody carry you

when they've got a firefight to finish. And we get on, and as soon as the medics on the helicopter see me, they put me out right away, and I don't wake up for days. So when I do wake up in Germany, they told me my right eye had been removed, and I'd probably never see it again out of my left eye, but there's a chance. And again, kind of self-deception kicks in. I'm like, so you're saying there's a chance? We'll be fine. Just get the surgery done, get me on a plane to back to Maryland, to Walter Reed Hospital where these surgeons are, and let's do this. And they're like, it's going to be a day or two. I argue. We argue. You know, that's how it goes for the next couple days. I can't really move. I can't get up to use the bathroom. My body is completely swollen and

and shredded, really. I mean, there's no real permanent injuries to the rest of my body, but it's in such a state that, like, is that just shock wave from the blast? I think shock. And I was, I had a ton of shrapnel just throughout. I think I was swollen, might have been muscle atrophy from being in a medically induced coma for so long because I've been there, been that way for five or six days, but really couldn't move. And just wrapped up really tight because, I mean, you can see the scarring a little bit.

I was just, it was kind of been through a meat grinder a little bit. And I was also, I was hallucinating wildly. So everything I saw was Afghanistan. I was lucid. I understood what was around me, but all I could see was an Afghan guy sitting next to me. or an Afghan village. It's almost like phantom pain, but with your eyes.

And there's a medical term for it that I can't remember. But it was just an odd and terrifying experience because it wasn't, I knew it wasn't real, but it's just everything I saw. And eventually got back to Maryland on one of our medical flights. And my wife was there waiting for me. and, you know, we began to have that conversation about, okay, what's the next surgery? Because I had to remove the cataract. I mean, that was, that was the issue.

There was a lot of shrapnel in my left eye, the eye that was still there. And, you know, the issue was, could we, can we safely remove the cataract and will he ever see again? And if we do do that, what are his chances really of having decent vision? And, you know, we prayed and we, and I look back on it. And, again, that, you know, we call it self-deception, but it was, really the strength to stay sane and believe that I was actually going to see again. And I truly believe that was God's strength, just working through me, just allowing me to believe in something impossible. Because otherwise, I would have gone nuts because people sometimes ask me,

what's it like not knowing if you're ever going to see again? And I always answer, I don't know. I don't know what that's like, because it was never, that was never my mental state. My mental state It was always, it'll happen. It's just a matter of time. And then I can finally get back to my platoon. You know, the issue for me was like, when are we going to do this? You guys told me six weeks. All right, let's schedule it.

It was insanity. Yeah. I mean, that's obviously when I hear this story, I think of Ryan Job who was with me in Ramadi, and he got shot in the face. And, you know, it was a similar situation where, you know, clearly his eye, one eye was gone. but his other eye appeared to be intact and he could actually see after he got wounded then he got put into a

he could see what was happening and walked into the Kazavak vehicle but you know they put him into a medically induced coma and when he woke up he couldn't see and then it was the same type of thing that they were telling you they were telling him which is look there was some nerve damage were not sure and his attitude was very similar of like well it'll be okay and you know it'll come back

um but you know what didn't take very long before the doctors were like no no um it's it's it's not coming back and i forget the timeline you know i forget the timeline because it's it's kind of a kind of a a blur together um but yeah for him it was he had a great attitude but but You know at the end It didn't happen And you know and that's a guy that was still like And he also still wanted to come back and get back with his platoon and was telling me you know don't worry I can smell the enemy and I'll know where to shoot

Let me back sir so yeah The fact that you were able to recover is awesome awesome and you know It's a It shows It should show people that, you know, even though you had a great attitude, the threat of never being able to see again was very, very real, very, real. Oh, yeah, and it truly was. I mean, we had miracles occur in the operating room, multiple occasions, and doctors were just amazed that not only could I see again, but see well again. It was, because they're in their minds, they were like, well, if we do this surgery and his retina doesn't detach like we think it might, he'll still have.

you know, crappy vision, you know, because his corny is all destroyed. I mean, everything's a mess in this eye. And, you know,

we'll get him some decent glasses so we can kind of live his life, but he's pretty much permanently disabled. And I just didn't listen. I don't even remember these conversations. Like, I think I blocked them out.

And, you know, it's because the first surgery was we've got to remove the cataract. Okay, that went well. All right. We removed the cataract,

great. You know, and the next step is to put a lens implant in your eye. Like, like anybody normally would, when they have cataract surgery, that's just the normal thing to do. We ended up never doing that

because it's kind of like replacing a window pane on a normal eye, but if the frame of the window is completely destroyed, then you have to sew the window pane to curtains, and that's never a good policy. So they eventually refused to do that on me, even though I was demanding it constantly. But because I wanted to see again,

I wanted to get back, and I didn't want to wear big, thick glasses, which is what I have to wear now, or this specialized contact. But then another problem occurred, which is a hole in my retina that was expanding. And this is, again, it's kind of a normal, you know, if you're over 50, this might be a normal thing that occurs, and then you have a pretty routine surgery

to get rid of it and to stop it. But for me, it was incredibly fragile. But we had to do it. So I went blind again for six weeks recovering from this surgery. So, you know, I was truly living in darkness for a long time. You know, and not always, thank God, I wasn't hallucinating the entire time. That stopped after about week one. you know, just or just after my major surgery,

my first major surgery, but I went blind again. And another miracle happened because they truly thought I wasn't going to make it through that surgery either. So after, when you were blind again for six weeks, going into that,

did they tell you, okay, you're going to be blind for a period of time and it's going to take time to deal? Yeah. Just, yeah, because of the recovery process, they put a gas bubble in your eye

so that it puts pressure on the back of your retina and you have to be face down for six weeks. It's just the, the weirdest. What the hell did you do for six weeks face down to bed? I got one of those massage chairs where you know you plant your face down and I had audio books going all day long. It was great. Yeah. And by great I mean not great at all. Yeah. By great you mean awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Starbucks and audio books. You had to stay face down all the time or you and that six weeks goes by and then they eventually remove the gas bubble and it dissipates yeah so there's eventually a point

where you're like okay it's gone now i can i'm allowed i'm allowed to look straight again and then and then it's just you know refitting your eye with the bright eye wear you know like glasses and contact so i can actually get back to a normal life and and frankly that took years uh it you know it's i eventually i'll just i'll skip to the end about two and a half years in i finally got got uh referred by the navy to an outside clinic that does these amazing contacts. There's only one company in the world that does it and I can see 20-20 with it.

Now, not up close. You know, my vision's complicated because I have a cataract, but I actually see 20-20 vision at distance, which is, I mean, just not even close to what they thought was possible. So, but despite all that,

I mean, before that two-and-a-half year mark, I still had decent enough contacts to survive. I mean, they just weren't comfortable. They kind of drove me crazy. and all I cared about was getting back to the team. I was almost going back to Team 3. The command wouldn't let that happen in the end just because I couldn't get the medical waiver to do it.

So I stayed at what was now called Special Reconnaissance Team 1. Again, we do intel support for the SEAL teams, and I did a troop commander there. So in charge of about 50 personnel, a mix of SEALs, intelligence specialists, all sorts of really great people that, as you know, support the teams and intelligence matters. And deployed to Bahrain, worked with Joint Special Operations Task Force out there, working,

you know, all throughout the Persian Gulf, working on classified programs there, working in Lebanon as well. And coming back from that, told I had to eventually get out. I mean, I had to start the medical retirement process. But before I did, I truly, I wanted to serve again. it was extremely important to me. So this deployment to Bahrain was about 2014. By the time I was really told I had to medically retire. It was around 2016. But, you know, this process takes up to a year. And I ask that I, you know, be able to serve again in some capacity. Let my, let my,

the specialties that I had acquired over the years at SRT1 be put to use in the Pacific. So they deploy me to Korea for my last deployment in the end of 2016. And as soon as I got home from that, I was medically retired and had to find my next mission. You know, like you talked about the earlier on in the podcast. I mean, life truly is about mission. And, you know, I'm getting into politics now, running for Congress in Houston, Texas for the second district. And I talk about this a lot.

And from a political philosophy standpoint, if you don't give people a mission or you don't encourage people to find their purpose and their dignity, you have a failing society. It's so important. And you're not, you know, even think tanks talk about this, like American Enterprise Institute.

Like our policies need to promote a sense of mission for people and help people understand that they have value in this world. They're here on this earth for a reason. And if you're not constantly seeking out what that value is that you contribute to society, you're not doing your job. And we need to help you do your job if need be. But you do have value. And you must find that purpose in life.

And guys like us, I think, can't survive without that constant mission. And, well, we see it all the time with all vets. And when they get, and I talk about this all the time. The vets that get out that have another mission, they focus on that mission and they go kick ass. The vets that get out and don't know what they're going to do that flounder around without a direction, those are the guys that end up in trouble because they don't have a mission. And so they go and drink a beer, then they have another beer, and then they could get prescribed pain medicine for their back, which hurts, which sucks. And they go down this bad road.

And I believe a lot of it is because, you know, they just need that next mission. But you got done with, so 2016, you didn't roll right into politics. You rolled to, you went back to college. Right. I had no intention of politics. Did that become, did that become, you looked at what you're going to do next? and you said, okay, well, how else can I serve? How else can I move forward?

What's my next mission going to be? And you decide you're going to go back to school. Back to school for, I knew it was going to stay in public service. So I knew my next mission was going to still be government. I wasn't exactly sure what. I knew I wanted to do, I wanted to be able to implement policy and strategy and take that tactical experience because I had built an understanding of what policy in D.C. looks like on the ground.

And actually because the reason I was hurt that day in 2012 was because of an Obama administration's, you know, policy of always wanting boots on the ground battle of damage assessments for any close air support. So because earlier in that day, Marines had called in close air support on a compound they were taking fire from. For some reason, they wanted guys to walk across minefields and go take pictures of it. Right? That's not good policy. Now, it's not a victimhood story. Don't get me wrong. I mean, there was a battle going on. We wanted to go.

I don't care really what the reason is. But from a policy perspective, that's concerning. That that kind of pressure is being put on our two star and that's what drove that mission. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So it's great to see somebody like General Madison right now who says the opposite. I will not waste my troops time with these kind of things. And he's on record, you know, after we dropped the mother of all bombs while back. He's on record saying, I will not.

not waste my troops time going to count the dead bodies out there. That's just good policy. So, you know, I wanted to take that experience to Washington. And the natural next step was get the right education. So the Harvard Kennedy School of government is where I went. Got a master's degree in public administration, focusing more on national security issues, economic issues, and a little bit of political, U.S. politics. How long was that school? I just did a year, one year program. And, you know, it's kind of the accelerated executive style program that you can apply to if you're, if you're older and you actually have some life experience. What's the intensity level of that? As tense as you make it, I took, I took about four extra credits more than I needed to.

So I was busy because I, you know, it's not like going to college where you're just getting through it. I think I would highly recommend anybody, you know, you do a master's degree later on in life. You're really going to get the most you can out of it because you care about learning. you're there for a reason because you have purpose and you know why you're there. So I got a lot out of it, honestly. And it was really an amazing year. I mean, you hear from the greatest people. I had, you know, Bush's Deputy National Security Advisor teaching us.

I had, you know, the premier experts on counterproliferation policy teaching us in class. I had Reagan's chief economic advisor is my economics professor. I mean, you just can't, you know, these people don't speak in terms of like, this is what we think happens in the White House. No, they're like, when I was in the White House, this is how it got done. I mean, that's the kind of the level of instruction that you're getting. So I was really happy to get that education. And it truly applies to, in my current role as running for office.

I'm glad I was there. But I hadn't necessarily thought about running for office even after I graduated. I was looking at more policy jobs, you know, because I don't have the political connections. I don't have the background and money and the donor network. works to really to jump off on a campaign right away. We thought about it in the long term sense, for sure, but not in the short term. And I was working with Pete Sessions, Congressman P. Sessions on Capitol Hill for a while getting legislative experience there and working, doing some consulting, and eventually came to a head where I was about to take a job either doing

counterweapons and mass destruction policy for the Department of Defense or go run for office because my congressman Ted Poe had just announced retirement. And we prayed about it, we thought about it. We had the right backing from, you know, some well-connected people that I think God just put in front of us at the right time. And my wife and I went for it. You know, she was all in, was all in. And that was it.

I mean, I've already come back to Texas by this point to help with Hurricane Harvey reconstruction. It was out volunteer in my old hometown of Katie. My parents didn't flood. They were, they were living, they've been living in spring, which is just north of Haiti for the past 13, 14 years. But, you know, neighbors needed help. Neighbors still need help. It's, it's still pretty devastated in Houston. And, you know, I think the decision became easy that we knew this was the right choice.

Like, this was the right mission. If I cared about nuclear proliferation policy, what better place to affect it for them from Congress? If you care about helping flood victims, no better place than elected office. if you care about border security, which Texans do, no better place than public office. If we care about protecting Americans and protecting the sanctity of the seal teams

and pushing the right policies from the defense level, then elected politics is where I can do it from. And so the decision was easy. It was the right choice for us. We knew we were doing it for the right reasons. We know we are still doing it for the right reasons and we're not going to quit.

So with all those things that you said that are real positive about Having a political career. Yeah, you must have also been looking at the the nightmare gut check just mud slinging That you're gonna have to go or that's gonna be thrown at you and all that and your family getting The microscope on them and watched all the time and no privacy and all that how did you weigh those things out and did you think about those? things as well absolutely it's it's by far the most concerning thing about politics I mean if anything drives drives you out it's it's that you know and frankly the experience hasn't been too bad yet I mean I get attacked for silly things here and there I've got a you know one of one of my opponents what

I would call one of his cronies there's these there's these corrupt they call them the slates in Harris County which is Harris County is Houston and these three slates are essentially three political mailers that go out and they they they target senior citizens especially and they make it sound like there's these these these conservative review type of magazines you know these something with authority behind it but really they're not really they're pay to play and it's just one author and they pick who they like based on what kind of money they were able to get out of the deal and then they trash everybody else so you know they put mine it they put my they put my bio on there doesn't say anything about who I actually am it just says I'm homeless and don't have a job and would like to become I mean it's it's absurd right and most people read it and they think this is this this can't be serious so and actually it got me a lot of votes because people would look me up after that and say oh well this is this is who this guy is maybe I will vote for him after all but but unfortunately that's politics and that's that's the world we live in even though the you know the Harris

County Republican Party has publicly denounced these so-called slates because they send out these voter guides and, you know, they've denounced them, but people don't always know. People aren't, you know, sometimes a lot of folks still rely on those. So you're battling this kind of corruption. You're battling this establishment. I mean, you know, we always talk about the establishment in politics, and I never really knew what that meant, I think until I saw behind the curtain, and now I truly understand. And it's this class of politically connected people and the donor class that really just stick

together. And it has nothing to do with policy or doing the right thing for the American people. just how much money do you have? That's all that matters. And it's not, it's not all that matters. We made it into the runoff after last week's election, which was March 6. There was nine candidates in my primary. And on an election day, I came out far and away first place. We beat out overall in the election, I was second place, but we beat out. So just to again explain that a little bit for people that aren't paying attention to the election, you are in the fight, You're going against nine other candidates.

Going into the election, obviously there's some people that vote early through mail voting, and they just vote early, and you were behind there. But then as your campaign picked up and people started to actually see who you are, when people came to vote on election day, you won election day,

but you didn't win all the votes combined because of the people that had voted early and whatnot. Got it. That's correct. But it shows the trajectory and the momentum of what you're doing. doing right we've got some great momentum that we're excited about and and even put in even paint a broader picture you know we started this late november and the election was

march six that's that's a very little time for anybody to get a campaign together so and we're going up against um one of my opponents had probably will have ended up spending when the numbers come in between six and seven million dollars which is a record for self-funding for a campaign like this um another opponent you know similar similar very high spending very much self-funded and it was already a state representative, so had some kind of campaign machine in place. You're trying to catch up. You're trying to build a campaign team and a message within almost no time at all and no money whatsoever. That's not an easy task in only a couple months.

Usually you start like a year out if you're going to run for Congress. But that just wasn't the case here because Ted Po announced retirement about mid-November. So we had a lot to overcome. We built that momentum quickly. worked hard, worked hard, got the message out, met as many people as we could, and, you know, it worked. We snuck out of that third place spot because, as you said, so we were behind during early voting and mail-in voting because that stuff happened so early. There was just no way for my momentum to catch up in time, but by election day, we were far and away first place

and we're able to sneak into the runoff. So now we're in the runoff, and that's May 22nd. So we got another two months to really prepare and get our message out there. And I think we're excited about it. And I think it's going to go well. So you talked about this a little bit. You talked about money, right? Money. And as disturbing as it is, what's driving so much of who wins these elections is who has the most money because that's how you get the advertising. That's how you get the mailers. That's how you get the word out there. I mean, if you don't have the money to pay for advertising, then no one knows you who you are and you don't get any votes. So as disturbing as that is, without money, you have a real hard time.

I mean, you've done an amazing job with the limited amount. I mean, how much money did you go into that last election spending? We ended up spending total about $200,000. So we were outspent, you know, 30, over 30 to 1 easily. And I would say more if you count what everybody else, you know, what first and second place also spent. against me. I mean, you know, something to be proud of. So I think we could raise $200,000 and you went up against somebody that spent $6 million.

Right. And yeah, like I said, unfortunately, money drives so much of these elections. And that's why you end up with those people that, I mean, I know you can't, well, technically or possibly, but you're not supposed to be able to buy an election, right? Right. But, I mean, the person. that you talk about that spent six million without that money

I mean where would, there's a female right? Where would she have been without spending that money? I'm assuming she wouldn't have been anywhere. No. So she was able to buy herself at least third place. Right. And maybe if she had another more money she would have been able to buy herself first place.

Possibly. That's a scary thought. It is. I mean, you know, I don't like the way campaign finance works. I don't think you should be able to self-fund that much for a race. I understand that there's, you know, I understand that there.

some good arguments to make that you can self-fund, you know, over what the individual limit is. But to that extent, I mean, it's, you know, it truly creates a donor class of politicians. And like, that's just, I don't think that's what we want as American people. And it's up, but it's up to voters in the end to decide. It's up to voters to see through that. And, you know, I always encourage just go out and do your research, you know, just do enough to go on the websites of each candidate and get a feel for who they are. Watch them.

Watch their videos. see how they speak, see how they would represent you, see how they would articulate your values. You know, we put up YouTube videos all the time. You can always watch me in interviews. You know, we're coming or listen to podcasts. Listen to Jocko's podcast. And, you know, because you want people to get to know you. And you need to be out there with folks. You need to be meeting people everywhere you go. And that's how we won. You know, that's how we've built that connection with the voter. That's how we built momentum, just getting out and meeting people. and inspiring them and connecting with them, that's, that's, that's, that's still works.

And we proved that. That's one of the things that you did while your opponents were spending a bunch of money, you put on your, uh, running shoes. Yeah. And ran through your entire district. Right. I did. Uh, it limped a lot of the way too.

Because, uh, we talked about over preparing. Well, sometimes you can underprepare. And, uh, when you're running a campaign, there's not a lot of time to get your running in. And so I started that 100 mile run. And, um, it was going well. You know, so, I want to back up a little bit. We plan this a while out. It was going to be five days, run across the whole district, really show that dedication. I want to get on the ground. I want to

show the dedication to every inch of this district. And with whatever publicity we get out of it, we're going to use it for a good cause. And we set up a GoFundMe account. It's still active if you want to donate to it. It's GoFundMe.com slash rebuild Houston with Dan Crenshaw. And that money goes to three particular volunteer groups that I was able to identify and vet that are still out there every day rebuilding people's homes. I mean, that is still going on. I always try to let everybody know if you're a contractor, if you've got any expertise, please come volunteer in Houston. We are backed up to, you know, it is tough to find a contractor these days. Even if people have the money to pay for it, they still can't get any availability. The demand is so high that the prices have

gone way through the roof. We need more people there nationwide. So, you know, please come to Houston. There's work for you and there's good work. There's a lot left to do when people need it. So, and these volunteer groups are out doing it. You know, for five, seven thousand dollars, um, between five and seven thousand dollars, they can rebuild a whole home because all their labor is free, right? It's volunteers. And they, and they do a great job and they're working in a lot of these neighborhoods where, or individuals just can't do it themselves. And it was, it was just great to see that. A lot of church affiliated groups always out there helping. And, um, you know, it makes you proud to be a Texan, makes you proud to be an American. So we finished that run,

you know, by, by day three, it was certainly limping through most of it. Um, you know, you know, It changed out my shoes. Day five were running pretty well again, but it was tough. But it was fun. It was great. It was a great experience. You see people honking at you, maybe because you're in their way, maybe because they're supporting you. I don't know. But, I mean, it was just, it was pretty incredible experience to see the supporters out there to see just, you know, it was great. We went and that was when early voting started. It was, we voted on day one of that run. And, you know, two weeks later on election day, we wrapped it up and it was a good night.

It was a run pins and needles. It was until 2 a.m. that we knew that we'd actually come into second place by 155 votes. So if you think anybody says their vote doesn't count, doesn't matter. That's wrong. It truly matters. I mean, every single vote mattered. I can't thank every volunteer enough. Can't thank every supporter enough.

because a lot of people went out and they maybe got 10 votes here and there, maybe 100 votes here and there. You know, individuals were able to do that and put us over the top because they believed in the message. They believed in our candidacy. And it was just, you know, it's humbling. And it's almost, you feel a weight of responsibility when people put their trust in you like that as you should feel it because you don't want to disappoint them. You know, you can't let your supporters down. And I truly feel that way about every vote. So what's next right now?

Well, it's the runoff. It's the runoff. It's just me and Kevin Roberts. And just, you know, it's May 22nd. Early voting starts again a couple weeks before that. And it's a lot of the same. You know, we stick to the basics. We professionalize our organization.

We ask for more money. Please donate at crunchofferconverse.com. And we move ahead. So that's actually real, though. Like, you kind of joke about it. And I know you're like most good here. human beings, you feel uncomfortable saying, hey, give me some money. But the reality is for you to take this to the next level that you need money. And so when you say that kind of jokingly,

that the reality is, if you don't get that money, it's going to be really hard to swing an upset. Right. And so, so that's, what's the, what's the website? It's crunch off for Congress.com. C-R-E-N-S-H-A-W-F-O-R-C-R-C-C-R. You can donate there. You can check out the candidacy there. You know, see our interviews. your YouTube videos or commercials, my bio, everything. It's all in one spot. Follow us on Facebook. We've got a pretty exciting social media presence.

That's how we get a lot of our word out because, you know, it's cheap and it hits the right people. So crunchoff for Congress.com. And, you know, that money, we spend it wisely. It doesn't go to anything silly. It's, you know, we need it to send mail to voters, you know, to get our message out. We need it to put out radio ads. We need it to buy T-shirts for volunteers and to buy yard signs so that people can put them in their yards and create that upwelling of support where everybody's got a Dan Crenshaw sign.

That's how we do it. And it's, but it's, we work our butts off. I promise you that. We work for, we work for every vote out there. And I truly believe that's how it should be. And that's how it be in Congress. Yeah, that's awesome. And I know you're on a kind of a time schedule today.

And I know you've got some other things that you want to do here while you're out here in, Sunny, San Diego, which isn't too sunny today. But I think we just hit everything of how people can best support your cause. And obviously, I'm in Crenshaw for Congress. On Twitter, you're Dan Crenshaw, Texas, TX. Correct. So at Dan Crenshaw TX. And then on Facebook, it's pretty easy to find you.

Yeah, there's just Dan Crenshaw. Yeah, Dan Crenshaw for Congress. At Crenshaw for Congress. It's pretty easy. Yeah, I just searched Dan Crenshaw, and you popped right up. So that's it. Well, you know, obviously, I just want to say before you take off, thanks for your service. Thanks for your sacrifice for this great country.

Thank for what you've done, for what you're doing, and thank you for what you are going to do. And appreciate everything. I appreciate that, Jocko. You know, the service isn't over. You know, we find our purpose, we find our new mission, and this is it for me. You know, it's helping Texans. It's given Texans a representative I think they can be proud of. We are so often just disgruntled and ashamed of our politicians,

and we don't really think they're working on our behalf because we don't always elect people who truly put service before self. And, you know, part of this campaign is convincing those that we do have a future. And we do have a future of leaders that will attract. people to conservative values and keep those values alive and again give us a leader that we can be proud of. Awesome. Well, I think they'll definitely find that with you. Thanks for coming on and it's an honor to be here until you come back on once you get the W. Once you get the win, come back on and you can explain to us where you're going from there. Absolutely.

Tell you how we did it. Get out and vote. May 22nd, everybody. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. So Dan has left the studio, but he's also left some very good ways to support him and what he's doing. And Echo Charles, speaking of support, yeah, maybe you could tell the troops how they can support this cause. Sure. If they want. If they want. If they want.

And while they're supporting. this cause also support themselves with themselves which is important if they want you know you heard I just said yeah very important I said important yeah you said it correct yeah two T's in now on yeah normally there's no T's in it for me yeah yeah important yeah kind of like the British accent sometimes they don't say the T's too and sometimes they same really solid you know like they say snap back to reality they don't say that T reality or reality see.

They say it. Nonetheless, back to support. Yeah, if you want to support, support your joints. This is how you support your joints. If you didn't already,

Jocka supplements, good supplements. Crill oil, Super krill, Jocko super krill oil and joint warfare. Supplements for your joints. Maintain them.

Also, discipline, pre-workout, pre-mission, cognitive enhancer, plus physical Enhanceer. Force multiplier.

Force multiplier. There's layers. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's like a blend. It's a good blend. Yeah. I am running low on the krill oil.

I did not take my own advice for the subscription. Yeah. So I had to manually get some more. But hey man, that's life sometimes. If you want to get on the subscription thing,

re-up every, what is it, month? Right? Because it's a month. Apply. Yeah, yeah, yeah, however much you take. And that's the smart way to do it. Totally is. Joint warfare, too.

Did you mention joint warfare? Yeah, fully. It's the one. I think the combo is the best way to go, for sure. Recommend the combo. Nonetheless, you get them at origin, mane.com. Good way to support and support yourself. That's a big one.

Also at origin, main.com. There are geese and rash guards for your jiu-jitsu journey if you have chosen or will choose to go on that jujitsu journey. There's no reason why not. You should go on the jiu-tizu-you-jit-tray. And if you're going to ask, what if I'm small, big, large, overweight, underweight, old, young, the answer is start jiu-jitsu. Yeah.

How do you get in shape for jih-jitsu? J-J-Jitsu. Yeah. That's what you do. Yeah. You know, Tim, Tim always says, like, oh, you know how he's been out of the jiu-jitsu for long time. Yeah, yeah. And he'll be like, well, okay, yeah.

I'm going to get back in shape. No. You're looking at the wrong way, man. No. Yeah, you go back to. Jiu Jiu Jiu Jiu Jiuza get you in shape yeah you'll be you'll be fighting this you're gonna suffer a little bit but might even suffer a lot probably a lot it's hard gotta be hard mentally for a guy like Timbo because he's a

purple belt yeah and so he's gonna come and get beat by some white belts I mean not white belts buy some blue belts yeah some blue belts because you know some blue belts they bring it yeah and they keep and they can keep bringing it they've been in there because I got the cadizh yeah yes so Tim would be like come back and then and it adds that level of anxiety because you know when you feel yourself gal well you probably don't know this but if you feel yourself gassing and you're like shoot i knew i was gonna gas now you're really gassing now that anxiety goes up and gas some more that's that how it is he'd want to avoid

all that stuff that's what i think but you know that's when you put all these weird expectations in yourself that's my opinion in the jiu jihitsu so just going to jiu jiu jitsu and when you do you're going to want a ghi if you do ghi if you do ghi because you can do no gie as well but when you choose a ghee I recommend you recommend I think there's only one recommendation I agree in all seriousness there's only one recommendation yeah and I've been through a lot of geese I have a lot of key experience yeah we'll say a significant amount of key experience and the origin gee has proven legitimately to be the best one kind of by far too yeah there's this one that I used to use it's that was good was fine

and it was like good yeah there's There's a difference though. There's a difference between this geese good. Yeah. And then you get an orange and ghee. Yeah. Right? Yeah, you know it's funny like you know how like when you get a new ghee and Rashgard or whatever and you're kind of fired up a good train because you got your new kid with the new yeah you know it's yeah you know it's that it's that it's that feeling didn't wear off like for a while did you feel that like when we rolled when we were both wearing new origin yeah I did you fired up yeah yeah because like yeah did you think maybe it was gonna be the day? For the record, I always think Do you always think it's going to be the day? Always, yeah. Dang. Because maybe one day there will be the day, too. You know what?

I always think it's going to be the day too. Maybe it's not, though. Maybe it will. I don't know. Could be the day. Anyway. OriginMane.com. Get your ghee there when you choose to get a ghee.

There's compression gear, too. Rash cards. If you do no ghee, there's rash cards there too. All Made in America. Yeah, I was going to say, all made in America. Yeah. Which is, like, it's no big deal. No, it's a huge deal.

Yeah. It's a huge deal. Made in America in Maine in our factory by awesome workers and it's not the kind where by crafts Crass people crafts crafts craftsmen crafts person Cras people because people man there some of them are females yeah, but they're craftsmen. Yeah Men doesn't mean you're a man. It means you're human Yeah, as far as I know like modern man like mankind man. Yeah, yeah there you go. So crafts mankind Crafts mankind. Nonetheless, all made in America, yes. And that is a big deal.

And it's not the kind where it's like, yeah, let's import all our things or whatever. And then we'll quote unquote make it in America where you tick the one checkbox that it's like, yeah, technically it's made. It's not that kind. It's the kind where they grow the cotton in America. What do they do after they grow the cotton? They harvest the cotton. They harvest the cotton. Well, they can dye the cotton and they weave the cotton.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of steps all done in America Yeah Blend the cotton because it's not just cotton It's an athletic that's one of the problems with the old geese They're all made just with with cotton they're like like crap Yeah, and then why would you not get modern technology? Well, why? Because they don't have They don't do Jiu Jitsu where they're making the geese

Yeah, now so like little issues that come up in Jiu Jiu Jits just little ones or big ones or whatever one that come up in Jiu Jiu Jitsu they don't know put it you put it you put a origin ghee in the dryer it's dry like quick yeah yeah and because it's not all cotton yeah because if you remember in the teams cotton kills sure cotton kills because it gets wet and then it's heavy and makes you cold jams you up yeah it doesn't dry quick enough yeah get the blend going yeah then you're good to go there's all kinds of different weaves too which is cool and let's go to origin main dot com you can check out with whichever one you want hey if you want something get something also what you want to do is go to the immersion camp if you want so

jujitsu immersion camp it's not like a training camp for ADCC no it's an educational experience yes like you immerse yourself in that you can modulate to the level of your personal commitment to getting after it yes so some people will be there and they're going to be really sore every day because they're going to be getting after at heart. Some people are going to be brain. Their brain's going to be more sore than their body

because they're going to be more looking at it from the education that they're going to need of learning new moves and techniques. So that's what's cool about the immersion camp. Or some of us, nothing's going to be sore because maybe it'll be sore for a little while and then we're just going to cruise a little bit, exercise the brain more and then the button. You go back and forth.

Do whatever you like. Yeah, and there's a lot to go around. And it's kind of fun, too. That's the thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's cool to hang out with just a bunch of people that are gonna do Jiu-jitsu for seven days Yeah, and then they get like five tons of lobster and you don't have to stay there the whole time Yeah, there's a there's a there's a there's a there's a first part and a second part You know it's like the first few days and then you can do this the second few days and then you can do all them if you want

So August 26 through September 2nd yeah, yeah, we're gonna be there you know who else is going? No big deal Dave Burke Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah Dave Burke got the bug you know that? I Oh, yeah. He's got the bug. Yeah, he'll call me for just, like, verbal advice. Oh, he's, he'd be texting me about, like, guard passing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like positions. I'm like, oh, really?

Hey, let's do it. Let's communicate about guard passing via text. Yeah, amen. You know what he's catching people with? Americana. Yeah. And it's good. It's an interesting conversation because, you know, he says, oh, well, the Americana is, like, what I use the most right now.

And I told him, like, the Americana. is actually not a really effective move yeah right against a anyone that has trained for a little bit right purple belt you're not gonna you might catch a blue belt in an americana purple belt probably not gonna happen I did catch a black belt in americana the other day and and it was like shame right like i got caught with america yeah in this this particular black belt was like shame he he hung his head in shame he was like he goes americana yeah but i explained to dave the reason that the Americana is effective for him right now, the most effective, I'm like, is it the first submission that you learned?

Yes, it is. So he's practiced it the most, and he's figured out all the little nuanced things that you have to do right in order to make the move, a move work and the Americana work. So he's figured out some of those things because he's tried it a bunch. Even when he missed it, he learned something.

He didn't even know he learned something, but he learned something. So he keeps trying. And he got good with he, so he's good at the Americana. He's not going against people that know how to defend it yet, which is going to be a problematic. So you got it, you got to, that's what happens. But isn't that part of the whole learning process though? Because that, yes.

Same thing. I mean, remember when, I mean, I'm assuming you had similar experience where, yeah, you do Americana's and you'd get them. Oh, I did certain moves for years. Like, like, like for, when I first started you, my first good move was the Ezekiel. In fact, I used to call it the easy kill The easy kill, yeah That's what I thought it was called But it was, I learned it like one of the first submissions I looked

And then I just tried it all the time And I got pretty good at it And then you realize that it's not that hard to defend the Zekiel Eventually when you start going against better guys So then you got to move to the I think the next move that I actually started doing a lot of was the Camera And I spent a couple years at Camer And then I sort of spent a couple years at Crucifix

Then I spent a couple years at the straight footlock Then you know so And you know just getting good at those positions Yeah, that's how. But Dave Burke, back to my point, he's coming. He's coming to the camp. Yeah. And you know who else is, oh, we'll see who else is going to come.

We'll see if, we'll see if Laif, we all have to work. Sure. Yeah, we block this off, though. Yeah, yeah. Which is sweet. Yeah, it's really good fun. So yeah, cool. Go, man.

If you can make that, make that. What's the date down again? August 26th through September 2nd. Oh, yeah, and if you want to, if you do want to come, you can go to origin, And you go to a merchant camp and you can sign up Yeah, you can come and hang out. It's good a good. Eat lobster if you like lobster. Yeah, if you like steak. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Hang out in Maine Visit our factory. You know, which is awesome

I think you can go like paddling stand up and stuff. Stand up paddle boarding and stuff. Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Yeah Also good way to support yourself if you choose to vary up your work up make it a little less boring. You always make make it sound like I do these boring workouts and I just realize I've been taking that abuse for for quite some time my workouts are not boring oh yeah in fact they're boring and hard so they're hard yeah here's the thing where what boring is like just a complete matter of opinion you know so to me if you're going to do 20 rep squats brus rest 20 reps until you're like that's kind of boring and have you ever done it before yes you've done that work not your exact one but yeah I did do 20 reps squats some in fact

yeah done 20 reps squats that you can only squat 10 times well that's physically impossible but no yes it is if you can only do it 10 times you can only do it 10 times you can do it 20 times no that's it's it that's not how works no all right right Hey look take my word for it you can physically do it ten times mentally do it 20 times Okay, so you do it so you imagine you do it 20 times okay, so look you can physically do it ten times That I guess technically you're right and I don't want to listen I don't want to split hairs But you're still not right if you can do it ten times but you can do it 20 times because look if you can do something 20 times you can do it ten times So yes but what you're saying is something that you know max out at ten times the weight you use to make

max out it 10 times you do it 20 times physically impossible mentally impossible apparently for echo oh man see anyway back to the workouts maybe that's where them skinny knees come from no bra maybe maybe no maybe anyway if you want to vary up the workout go to audit dot com slash jocco get some cool kettle bells yeah get some battle ropes get a mace get two maces a heavier one and a lighter one boom Formulate a more interesting. I use them. So my workouts are interesting.

All right. Well, there you go. You have an interesting workout. We'll do it that way. That's what I would, what do you say? Suggest. Okay. Anyway, go there.

Onet.com. Good stuff in there. Don't get addicted to the website because it'll have a lot of good information to on there. Because you could. No less. Also, good way to support. When you get the books that Jocco sometimes reviews on this podcast, I organize or we organized them on joccopodcast.com, click on the top.

It says books from the, from the episode. I got all the books listed there, including little articles that, you know how sometimes you'll cover an article. I'll list those on there, too. How much research would you have to do if you knew nothing about this podcast or me? How much research would you have to do to figure out that we read books on the podcast and that they're all on joccopodcast.com? The reason I ask this is because I've had I've had people ask me on social media like a week ago

Like on Twitter like do you like to read? Yeah, right like that's a crazy for you don't have to dig very deep right? Right to to know that answer. Yeah, right? Do you like to read? Right that this is a really Low level question that doesn't take a whole lot of research to figure out. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. I guess is that laziness or is it like, hey, this guy seems pretty accessible. I'm just gonna ask him, there he is. I wonder if this guy likes to read. I don't think the likelihood of it being laziness,

because obviously it's gonna be different for different people, but the likelihood of it being laziness is pretty low, I think. I don't think it's laziness at all. I think it would be a mix or one of these things. Yeah, they just wanna ask you a question that, you know, that you're gonna have an answer to. Yeah. Or maybe they're just new or maybe they know you from

Extreme Ownership and you know I know you wrote this cool book Hey do you like to read in general kind of thing maybe they don't listen to your So I'm being too harsh being too judgmental on my part if you're if you're if you're jumping to that conclusion that it's laziness Yeah, don't question you like to read Yeah, like we literally have a podcast about books that we read Yeah, and and then people say do you have a list of books do you wreck do you have any books you recommend Yeah. Do you have a book list?

Do you have a reading list? These are all things I get asked on a regular basis. Is this kind of like the time I ask you, hey, do you know of any gun ranges? You said, yeah, go on Google and search gun ranges. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel the same tone. Here's the thing, you never really know when people are coming in the game. You don't know what, you know, what their deal is or where they're coming from.

So, yeah, like maybe, or maybe, maybe they just heard you on. Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan and was like boom this guy's super interesting Let me go straight to him and start talking to him kind of thing or start asking questions Rather than going on the internet let me research who this guy is and what he likes and doesn't like to do Etc. Am I am I lazy in the fact that when I want to know something I'll Google it? No, that's not easy Okay, I don't yeah, no that's not I don't think so As opposed to what? I don't know saying going to school and study Being at first, I guess that would be the, you know, alternative.

Nonetheless, if you are feeling not lazy, actually this has nothing to with laziness, because this is more a convenience that I think would be beneficial, or I thought would be beneficial for people who are looking for the books that you cover and ways to get them. That's why I organize these books on Talk About Gas. Yeah, the website.

They're all there. They're all there by episode. And by chance, they're kind of in order of preference, an order of the way you, almost the way you should read them. Maybe I'd have to shift some of them now. Yeah. I should put them in a different order because there's some books that I read again. I was like, man, this should be near the top.

I mean, about face is number one, right? You should read that book first. Yeah. People ask me that all the time. Well, what? What's your favorite book? I've already read extreme ownership. Is there another book you recommend I read?

Well, and I've read all your books. What books should I read next? About Face by Colonel David Hackworth. Yeah. That's like your main one. Yeah. So anyways. Yeah, makes sense. I mean, I organize them by episode. Yeah, yeah. Most recent episode right with book. But if you go back to episode one, which there's no book, but two, there's a book. And if you go in that order of reading, that's a good progression to get through the books properly. I don't see. Gotcha. So if you, if you want to read your book, Jocko's book list. In order of importance. In order of importance, you go in chronological order per podcast. Yes. With books. That's recommended. Because not all podcasts have books. That's recommended.

Well, there it is. Again, just click on the books and boom, it takes you there, boom. Click through there. Get your book. Easy way to, good way to support. Takes it to Amazon. All good. Continue shopping if you feel the need to, like if you're shopping for Valentine's Day.

Not that already passed. What's the next one? Easter. Carry on. Easter gifts. Sure. Good. Those chocolate Easter bunnies and the eggs.

You know how you, you go Easter egg hunting, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hell of all my kids do. Sure. Well, my youngest kid does. Yeah. There you go.

My other kids don't care. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. You know, they're older. After a while, you kind of figure it out. Kind of. Still fun, though, can be. Nonetheless, click through that. That's a good way to support.

Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. Leave a review. If you're in the mood, leave a review. Here's the thing. I'm not saying, hey, leave a review. I'm not saying to leave a review. But I think sometimes people, they want to leave a review, but they don't, like, think about it, you know?

And then one, let's say I get reminded, like, oh, shoot, I want to leave a review. And I get reminded, I'm like, boom, then I'm going to go leave a review. That's a good one. I read all the reviews. Yeah. And I've read them on the podcast before when they're really funny, or I've quoted them on social media. Yeah. So there's that, too.

Yeah. If you write an awesome review. Well, it doesn't have to be awesome, but if it's funny or it's good or it's creative. That's what I should have said. If it's a creative review, there's been some really good ones. Same thing with Amazon reviews for tea and books and whatnot. There's a lot of people that get after it. They get colorful, for sure.

I don't say colorful. The main thing is layers. Layers. They put a lot of layers in there. Some people are real good at the layers. Very impressed with that on many levels. I see what you did. Nonetheless, subscribe if you want to support that way, that's a good way.

Thanks for the people who have subscribed. That's a good deal. It's much appreciated. Big deal. Also in YouTube, subscribe to that if you want, if you like the video version of this podcast, or if you want to watch and or share excerpts of this podcast.

Three minutes, one minute sometimes. You haven't made any one minute ones. Six minutes sometimes. You should make some one minute ones. Okay. That'd be good. The one you just made is good. Thanks.

The time is running out. Yeah, that's like a what do you call. Did we settle on enhanced? Enhanced. I think it's called it. Enhanced excerpt. Enhanced excerpts, which means that Echo has gone and put his cinematic flare. No, I would say I put some music on it and I put some text on it.

There it is. Some cinematic flare. It's enhanced a little bit. That's all. There's a cinematic flare there. Yeah. All right. Well, there it is.

There's some of those on there. That video as well? By the way, no big deal. When I got to the gym today, Carl, he's like, hey. Yeah. Carl, Santiago. Yeah. he says hey

I saw you on World Star we're that's when you know you made it we made it straight up popular culture yeah popular culture we're on World Star World Star if you don't know what World Star is

it originally was for fights that's what I knew it for yeah that's how it I think that's how it gained yeah I think it was just scraps it was for it was for like music videos I think hip hop music videos and stuff like that then you get you know I used to I would watch it

because people would film street fights. And I like to watch street fights. Sure. Learn a lot from street fights. And what's funny is it became such a popular culture thing that when people would be recording the fights that they're gonna then put on World Star, they would be saying World Star.

World Star, yeah. During the fight, someone would be filming and saying, World Star, this is going on World Star. Well, now guess what's on World Star. That goes video. We made it. Jaku's on World Star, World Star. Dang, that's good.

Nonetheless. Cross cultural boundaries. Yeah. Hey, World Star. World Star. Make it happen. You did. 100%.

But yeah, YouTube, you know, subscribe to that. It's all my people at World Star. Thanks for put me on there. Yeah, it was good. That is good. Awesome. So yeah, YouTube. Good one, good way to support.

Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocco Store, obviously. Jocco store.com, obviously. That's where you can get shirts, T-shirts some travel mugs on there some rash guards more rash guards this is like jocco gear rash guards So compared to how would you compare them to the origin because actually they're made their origin Yeah they're similar they're you know they're more like geared toward like toward like jocco well let's Yeah let's say this that from a from a visual perspective

There's a way that jocco gear looks mm-hmm and there's a way that origin gear looks yeah There's some areas that overlap. There's some areas that don't overlap. Some of the, let's call them, color combinations that my brother Pete Roberts puts together, they wouldn't be allowed in the Jocko store. Yeah. They wouldn't be Jock gear.

Correct. And there's some things that Jock gear does that wouldn't be appropriate for origin, because origin is a little bit in the other direction. Sure. The overlapping areas, all good. Yeah. But if you want your gear,

Made in America there's one place to get it done right. That's our factory up in Maine. True story. So yeah, boom you can get rash guards there as well. Some patches. Those are restocked. A lot of people were hitting me up. That's so for patches. Yeah. It's weird that people have to hit you up that you just don't pay attention to the stock and say, well, running low, I should order more. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's not that important to you. No, no, no, it's important. So I got a handle on it and I think I have a solid system where, you know, We're gonna run into way less of that, if any, that type of situation. Some women's stuff on there, some hats on there. Because it does mean a lot to me.

Yeah. Just, I'm saying. That's cool. So maybe I should be more, I should do a better job of expressing how important it is to me for people if they want patches to be able to get one. Yeah. Maybe I haven't, I obviously haven't done a good job. Yeah, it's your fault. It's your fault.

It is. So yeah, Draclster.com, that's a good, good way to support. Also, psychological warfare. If you don't know what that is, that's an album. An album, not a music album, it's a spoken word. Spoken word with tracks, jocco tracks. And each track is designated, formulated, engineered. It's engineered is what it is.

To help you through little points of weakness that you might run into on your campaign against weakness. Like if you want to skip, I always say if you want to skip the workout, if you're like, hey, I'm too tired. I don't feel like it I don't feel like it I start with that one because that's essentially why this whole thing exists because that does the issue that was the genesis of this album yeah was echo questioning how he could overcome these moments of weakness or how I do and I just kind of answered one of them and he said do we record those things yeah you know what's funny is that I asked you that before and it wasn't that specific question but it was essentially that question and be

like hey what do you do and then you look You kind of gave me a look and more like as if your feelings don't matter kind of thing You basically pulled the jocco and it was like it doesn't matter if I got asked this the other day I got asked this similar you know someone said hey do can you tell us a little bit more about your morning routine like what you Like what you can you know you get up early but can you tell us more about your morning routine? I was like yeah listen My morning routine is extremely extremely important So here's here's the steps of the jocco morning routine First of all you set your alarm clock you set all your alarm clocks you set the first one at 430

You set the next one at 435 you set the next one at 440 and you have your backups By the way you don't set your backups at the same time because you don't want to be fumbling around with three alarm clocks in the morning It's a good tip I said then you get done with that then when the alarm clock goes off You get up you get out of bed then you go and it's important that you get your toothbrush out I did that brush and then I use 46 brush strokes on each side of my mouth and No more no less and then I spit three times So yeah I'm like here's the morning routine dude you get up and you go yeah, yeah, well then again no I know Yeah, I know but it's like the reality is is someone gonna write down my morning routine then follow the exact same thing and would that be good for him?

Maybe I don't know well here's into the morning routine then get up and go get up and get up yeah but here's like some people they they they focus on and this can be beneficial from from what I hear they focus on or I they identify certain things they do in a morning routine that helps them that like sets them up mentally or whatever I'm not anti morning routine and I've I actually wrote about in the in the field manual it's like more the the morning routine starts the night before yeah yeah the morning routine starts when you get your gear ready because you want to be fumbling around

in the morning don't wake don't set yourself up to fumble around with things in the morning right that's just a bad thing don't do that so you you do you have your gear ready you know for me I may I'm very systematic in pretty much yeah the way I'm saying yeah exactly and but you you know I have like all my workout gear is in the bathroom on hangers you know per shorts shirt on each hanger there's six of them they're all the same there's no thought process that's needed they're all matching and I have the same kind of socks all my socks are the same I do have black socks and white socks but one drawer is just completely white socks all the same you grab those you put those on

boom you brush your teeth boom you take I take my supplements in the morning and at night but I take my micro oil and my my joint warfare boom and then I go hit it how much water do you drink it's it's it's I drink when I'm thirsty I drink and then if I'm I don't measure it yeah so you don't be like okay no makes Yeah, I dig it. I drink when I'm thirsty. I eat when I'm hungry. But if you drink water when you're thirsty,

you're already 2% dehydrated. Okay. Well, I drink a little bit more. I drink about 3% more than... All right, there you go. So you're 1% over hydrated or hydrated within... But, well, you know how I'll drink a whole thing. Like, you know, the mugs that we have,

they're 30 ounces, by the way. I'll drink a whole thing of that. Just routine, that's kind of the routine. But what like in the morning? Yeah You like you pound it? Sure if you want to call it pounding why do you drink it? Because you want to stay hydrated. Yeah, but get the water back in there man get it get it get it okay That's good for you water is good for you by the way. Yeah, yeah, no doubt better than soda in the morning You ever drink a coke in the morning? No bro. It's like it's like hey we did these monster mashes in the back in the

Derms and so my son was doing a monster mash with us when he was like six or seven years old what's a monster mash is like you You do rope climbs and you do a sprint. Oh, okay, work out swim, and then you do pull-ups and then you and they put little things in there sometimes So one of the things that they had to do was drink a coke through a straw So you're like doing pull-ups and a rope crime and then they got a coke You told me this. Yeah, and so he he he he I think that was the first time you ever tried soda Yeah, and he's like yeah, yeah, it's nasty. It's well there's it's a Curetum of wanting soda though. Yeah, the way There's two elements to drinking a soda, especially for the first time, is, okay, it tastes weird.

Sweet, sugary, and carbonated. Yeah, the carbonator will burn your mind. It feels like it's burning your mouth. Yeah, you can't do that. Little kid. It's messed up right in the middle of the workout, too. Check. Don't do that.

Well, you keep in mind, you just described your morning routine. You answered the question that they were asking, you just answered it. That's why I said, look, I'm not trying to be negative against morning routines. Yeah. And there's pretty much what I do. but the reason is I think people think, oh, if I have, if I knew your morning routine, then I'd know what the secret is. Yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, man, the secret is get up and go do something.

That's the secret. Yeah. I'm not going to, here's the deal. Here's the deal. I'm not going to sell you my morning routine as the solution to your problems. Now, I will say that if you fumble around in the morning, it's going to cause you problems throughout the day. So don't fumble around the morning. Set your, set your life up correctly so that you're not fumbling around.

That's good. I'm not gonna sell you my morning routine as a solution to your problems. Yes, I'm not gonna do that. But I will say that if you do have a good system that you go through in the morning, it will set up your day correctly. Yeah, that's why I think people ask.

That's why people want it, and I get it. Okay, so I'm not trying to be like a jerk, right? I'm not trying to be that negative. I guess I'm kind of making fun of, yeah, you're making fun. I'm making fun of morning routines a little bit, but at the same time, I have one and I, and I stick to it.

Yeah, but I think what you said. That's the thing. That's the thing I don't I don't actually have something and I stick to it like I do this is what is I follow the functional thing that works And you stick to it yeah and I stick to it so that's that But I do I didn't like design my morning routine Right I didn't see I'm gonna design this perfect you know it's like I know what works It's functional and that's what I do I do things that work Yeah, and everyone else wants to know what works okay well there you not everyone figured out on their own what works

I guess so here's the thing your morning routine you're you're ultimately right and I think this This is super important not to forget or not to like misinterpret where you know you just the quote you just said like your morning routine is not going to be the solution to your problems kind of thing. I think that's what people do think. I think that here someone with a level height in my opinion, I don't know, but this is what it seems like where someone with a level head and they want to look for just that just that one thing that's going to help them just a little bit.

You know? So they're going to be like, hey, let me let me formulate a good morning routine. I don't know that much about effective routine, so let me look into that, just as a little helper. Not the solution to my problems, which I think some people may kind of miss. No, you're right. And that's why, like I said, I'm not belittling

the idea that a morning routine is helpful because it certainly is. Yeah. It might add some, some tiny bit of help to your day. Yeah, some benefits. Some benefits, thank you. It might benefit your day, which is positive. Will it cure your overall

Problems of life? No, but you know what? It's a good place to start. That's why we say wake up early, right? Yeah, that's part of the part of the part of the routine so yeah, but even how you I guess I am being a jerk Yeah, but here's the thing. So yes, let me just let me just like like like yeah like yeah like yeah, yeah, I'm not trying to make fun of it I was but I'm not anymore. It seems like you're making fun of it for people because this is what it may be sounded like when someone asked you what's your morning? routine it sounds like you you're kind of with this presumption like you're presuming or assuming that they think it's going to solve all their problems that's kind of what I am being a joke yeah yes but in that very specific direction like if someone says hey look I'm always looking for things to benefit my day my effectiveness you know I do this and do that and I found that this even helps a

little bit here and there hey what's your morning routine maybe I can incorporate one or more things of your routine maybe into mind that'll give me a little bit of help too I don't think you would have came off like that you know definitely that would have been a very good question yeah here's what I do yeah so there you go so you can how you said the question like you're kind of impersonating yeah yeah yeah what's your morning routine like making them sound all darky yes sorry sorry sorry everyone no not so good so good we got to the bottom of it you're drinking water another drink you can drink is you can drink

something called jocco white tea sure it's available on Amazon now This is the only tea available not only in America but in the world that comes within 8,000 pound deadlift guarantee Yeah, so there's no other tea. I never see some out there that are that are that are they say 6,000 They say they can get you six thousand pound deadlift. Yeah, there's I've seen I've seen 7200 Right? 72 you see this 70 to some teas somewhat some white teas say they'll get you 7200. There's only one White tea that'll get you the guarantee I'm guaranteed 8,000 pound deadlift.

Good. There's some layers on the T, which I kind of remembered last time, but I didn't want to interrupt you, you talking, is first episode of this podcast, absolute first one. Oh, yeah. I think the only one that doesn't start with, this is Jocco Podcast. That's because you had a different vision of the podcast.

At the time with, no, yeah. Nonetheless, it started with... You were thinking, you were thinking this podcast is gonna be 100% cruising. That's what it felt like That first one, that's what it felt like Yeah In your mind

Yeah In my mind And if you listen Yeah now you could see I was not I was not ready to cruise I came in there with a game plan Yeah

And the game plan did not say cruise on it The game plan said get after it What was funny is you shut it down so quick Right when you heard it You were like Hey you know You want to cut it at this point Not the not the little conversation

Like we just rolled into a conversation Yeah But here's the thing with that conversation As far as the layers go We talk about white tea. Yeah, you called it chai. Yeah, no, because I was trying to remember what kind of tea that was.

I don't know about the tea, especially back then, nonetheless. You were always on the pomegranate. Yeah. That started when I was in the dirt. Oh, man. That's how. So anyways, you can get that.

You can get it on Amazon, and then you can start deadlifting properly. Yeah. There's some books that you can get. Way of the Warrior Kid. I get questions all the time about how you should raise your kids and not just how to raise them

because people know how to raise them but they're not how to raise them like they know what they want the kids to they know the values that they want the kids to have but they're not sure how to give them the values right they don't know how to do that so it real simple get them this book way of the warrior kid

that that's you know discipline eating habits working out dealing with bullies how to study all those things are in there these are the things you want not just your kids but the children of the world to have these type of qualities and now on top of that we have way the warrior kid two which is called Mark's mission talks about some important lessons controlling your temper overcoming fear of failure working hard saving money being frugal

dealing with verbal abuse helping other people starting businesses yeah I said that And Becoming a leader Again, there's no human being That would look at the lessons from way of the warrior kid and would say I don't want my kid to have that Quality no the qualities are in there So there's that

And if you want a good example of a warrior kid Check out Irish Oaks Ranch.com Or you can get soap that's a hand-made by young Aden Who's 12 years old? has a business no big deal he's making soap yeah was interesting goat milk soap yeah that soaps actually good like to use oh for sure let's face it you know how you have your friend and you know his wife makes soap on the weekend sympathy purchase scenario yeah you know and you so you got some and it's beautiful it has

the little packaging and then you say all right it's soap let me go ahead use some soap and you're like this isn't like usable soap this is a novelty decorative It was a cool little educational experience because he asked me you know he was making soap and he's and he reached out to me his dad is A farmer also a firefighter, but he's a farmer anyways his dad and I were connected I buy meat from his dad and You know he said oh my son wants to get in touch with you but so as we're going through the process He sends me like his label for the soap yeah and you know it looked nice but I'm it went back with you know this needs to be in OCR standard yeah so anyways yeah it's cool little learning process and yeah you can get that soap you can support a kid that's a warrior kid and The jaco soap motto which I give Aden no credit for sorry a dude, you're a good kid but you didn't think of this

It took the it took the masterful marketing mind of Jocko to come up with the motto for Jocko soap which is Stay clean It's good and you know there's some layers on that too right I guess. What's the layers? Motorhead song. Oh, all right. There you go.

And you like Motorhead. And I am a huge fan of Motorhead. And you don't do any drugs, so there's that. And the reason that whenever I talk to people or people talk to me through social media or email, and they've had a drug problem or an alcohol problem. And I always kind of sign off like, hey, stay clean. Stay clean. Because that's also what Lemmy from Motorhead was saying, stay clean.

Like don't let this kill you now lemmy from Motorhead was a rare dude who Did a lot of drugs and alcohol and somehow was able to survive very well up to up to when he died drinking Incredible amounts of Jack Daniels Yeah, those some legit layers but he always would say don't do it Yeah, he's a guy that would say don't do it. It's don't do it don't do it don't do what people do don't do drugs Yeah stay clean stay clean there you go In addition to that got another book called the discipline equals freedom field manual and if this is this is a good point if you know someone that's off the path Right like people go off the path in life and it doesn't take we talked about this last time it doesn't take but one step off the path

When you're on a slippery slope. Yeah, it's a slippery slope when you step off the path so if you know someone That has taken a step off the path and they're starting to slide down get them this book to get them on the path, the right path. And there's also a chance that the person that stepped off the path is you. So get the field manual. It's got the thoughts and actions that are required to be on the right path. Make yourself better, faster, stronger, smarter. Anything else?

More physically fit and healthier. The audio version of that. is on iTunes Amazon music Google play other MP3 platforms it's not on audible because then you can't have it as an album with tracks Which we obviously support extreme ownership first book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin Over a million copies sold That's a lot of copies sold That's a lot of copies sold you know how many copies they told us would be successful? Because we didn't know any Leif and I didn't know anything about the publishing world

Wait, what do you mean? When we were getting when the book was getting ready to come out And I would talk to the we were talking to the publisher Lave and I were talking to the publisher And he says you know if this is a successful book Then you know it'll really be it'll be good to see Blah blah blah and I said hey, that's like the standard like a Certain amount that's a officially when you consider it no so I said hey what Hey I don't know anything about this what is considered to be a successful

You know what the number was 20,000 books thing He goes yeah you know we're we're printing 12,000 on this first run and if you sell if you've You know, we'll print some more, but if you can sell 20,000 books, that's, that's going to be, that's a huge success. And we'll be, we'll be proud. So here we are. We're one million deep. It's pretty cool. Yeah.

Good job, Laif babin. Good job. Good job. Both you guys. Yeah. Leif tells a story that we got home from Ramadi, and the only time I ever told him anything positive was when we got home, and we'd been home for like two weeks. And I told him and the Delta platoon commander, hey, good job over there.

So yeah, we're keep we I like to keep it real. Yeah, man and actually you know what though? Good job over there seems real simple, but I'm sure in that context it was probably the most loaded Yeah, good job anyone's ever heard yeah. Yeah, yeah, I believe you're correct Beyond the books and beyond the podcast also Eschelon Front speaking of life and me this is our leadership and management consulting company This is the thing every this is a bold statement right every problem in every organization is leadership problem that's a bold statement to make yeah and I'll say it again every problem in every organization is a leadership problem so if there's a problem in an organization the problem it boils down to leadership on some level so what we do is we fix the leadership and thereby we fix your problems it's me

it's Leif Babin it's J. B. B. Nell it's Dave Burke good deal Dave Burk. If you want to get in touch with us to have us come out and work with your company, get your leadership aligned, go to info at echelonfront.com, or you email info at echelonfront.com, or you go to the website, echelonfront.com. And of course, we are approaching the muster. The leadership seminar. The learn, you learn tactics of leadership, you learn strategies of leadership, you learn pragmaties

of leadership you learn pragmatic techniques you can execute as a leader that will make you and your team win we already expanded the floor so we expanded the floor as much as we could already because the ticket sales are going quickly and so we've got both places that we're doing the muster we've got them expanded as much as we can it doesn't matter they're both both them are going to sell out. Doing two this year only, Washington, D.C., May 17th and 18th, and San Francisco, October 17th and 18th, the whole team will be there and we will be with you if you come. We'll be hanging out, we'll be answering questions, we'll be talking, we'll be eating lunch, we'll be hanging out, working out with all of you that come. There's no green room.

There's no backstage where Laif is sitting back there in the back. With cucumbers on his eyes to relax. That's not happening. No. No we're hanging out all of us So you can register for that at extreme ownership.com. We'll see you there and until the muster You can find us by interacting and conversing and Cruising with us on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and on that Fisi boy echo is at echo charles and i am at jocco willink and once again dan krenshaw is at krenshaw for congress dot com his twitter's at dan krenshaw t x and his facebook is dan krenshaw and i'd like to thank

everyone for listening thanks to all the men and women in uniform across the globe with sword in hand and heart at the ready to fight and die for what we hold sacred and to police law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and all first responders. Thanks for being prepared. And thanks for being there when we call you in our time of need. And to everyone else out there, thank you for listening and thank you for sharing and thank you for supporting. But more important, thanks for finding your mission and executing your.

your mission, whether it's your job or your business or a charity or your family or whatever your mission is, thanks for getting out there and getting after it. So until next time, this is Dan Crenshaw and Echo and Jocko. Out.