Jocko Podcast - 49: How to SMASH Days When You ‘Don’t Feel Like it’, How to Deal w/ Passive-Aggressive People, Advice for SOF Newlyweds

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:06 - Jocko's Biggest change of opinion. 0:39:23 - Advice for Newlywed Special Operations Forces Wives 0:55:06 - BJJ: Best ratio of Drilling to Sparring.  Dealing with Spazzes on the mats 1:13:46 - How to deal with Passive-aggressive People 1:27:16 - The best argument against Extreme Ownership 1:39:51 - Following Stoicism. 1:53:06 - How to deal with days when you "Don't feel like it." 1:56:24 - Interesting Internet, Onnit, Amazon, and Jocko Store stuff. 2:10:40 - Closing GratitudeSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 49 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. It starts off quietly. When you're young, you don't quite know where it comes from. And at first you don't even know what it is. But you know it's something. You feel it. You feel it growing. You're just a child, but you feel it.

Something inside of you and at some point that thing It crosses over it goes from being something that you don't fully recognize something that you don't completely understand It goes from that you it is you It is your emotions sadness and happiness and happiness and and passion and anger and joy and it is rage and those things those emotions they burn and they burn hot they're a fire that grows out of control they fuel your mind and your body and your soul becoming an individual instead of a child you release the inferno you burn what you touch and you ignite those near you in that fire you're out of control and people around you the other humans the normal humans

they do their best you to calm down they tell you to get a grip they tell you it isn't healthy scared of that fire in your soul and so they tell you that you are crazy and because the anger and the rage and the sadness are so brutal and so hard to suffer through you begin to listen to those people and so you begin to subdue the fire stop feeding it you start to get those emotions under control and at some point you realize this is better better to control those emotions better to starve those passions you begin to shut them down you You are a child, no more.

No more angry youth. Now you are an adult. A responsible adult. You control your emotions. You don't let them control you. And the anger and the rage and the sadness, they begin to wither up. Just memories.

When the anger and the rage and the sadness fade, so does the passion. and the happiness and the joy. And of course, because it happens slowly, the creeping disease, you don't notice it. It isn't a bolt of lightning or a violent explosion that kills them but a slow, slithering death. Catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

As you look into your own faded, lifeless eyes, you see something, something you recognize, something subtle and worn, but something still filled with a subdued what that felt like, what anger and joy and horror and happiness felt like, and you wonder what happened to them. And you realize that in order to control your passions, you destroyed them. But let me tell you, they aren't dead.

They cannot so easily be killed. They are there and they are waiting to be released again. And no, you don't have to let them get out of control, but you can certainly let them out into the wild. You can dance with them. And of course, while you need to balance them and maintain the upper hand over your emotions, You can still relish in their glory, but you have to expose the nerves, feel the pain, feel the frustration, the sadness, the shock, the anger.

And in those adverse moments, then you also get to feel the laughter, the joy, the gratitude, not indifference that fuels greatness. And it is conviction, not tranquility that drives execution. And while we must not ever let our emotions dictate our decisions, we are not here to eradicate our emotions. Control them? Yes, of course, you must maintain control of your emotions. Keep them in check. Yes, by all means, emotional restraint is a necessity. But destroy them?

No, that is not what we do. So let your guard down. Ouse your weaknesses. Take some risks. Open up your fragile soul. And those embers, those smoldering embers, that you have tried to smother, but that are ready to ignite again

and become an inferno of energy and of power, feed those embers. Light that fire again, stoke it with air and fuel and more fire and let it. Let me echo. Good evening. Those were just some thoughts I had as I was thinking about, you know,

one of those dichotomies in life. And obviously I talk a lot about maintaining control of your emotions, but we can go too far with that idea. And I wanted to remind myself that if we take that idea too far, we're actually gonna regress backwards in a negative way. My opinion. And last part,

podcast for a little bit long, which brings us to straight up Q&A today. Yeah. Questions from the interwebs. Yeah. Bring it. Oh, you got some comment? Best way to submit questions just because people have been asking me. Okay.

Twitter, right? Or. Twitter's really solid. Facebook. Facebook is also good. Yeah. Instagram, don't. Yeah, I don't.

I'm on Instagram, but it's harder for me to compile those questions when people hit me with those. They don't stand out as much. They're in a caption of a picture, 27 comments down, and it just, yeah, not the best way. Not the best way. Yeah. Facebook, Twitter. Every once in a while, people will submit them through the store. Mm-hmm.

And. Possible way. Yeah, it's good, but you kind of do run the risk. of there being store issues that are pressing and then I'm like okay let me get back to this question whether it be to forward it or whatever and so you run the risk of it may be getting shuffled to the bottom or something yeah I'm trying to think there might be a more efficient way to do it yeah maybe I should just be doing a one maybe I should do for each podcast on Facebook say hey if you have

questions for the next podcast ask them on this thread right here that might be a way to do it. What about an email questions at? That might be a good idea too. Yeah, that might be a good idea. Interesting. All right. If only I knew someone that knew how to set that up.

All right. Speaking of questions from the interweb, what do you got? First question. Jocco, what is the biggest turnaround on stance slash opinion you've ever made? Now, this is one of those questions that I sat there and thought about it for a while. And then I realized that the answer was sitting right in front of my face,

literally sitting right in front of my face. And that is this. It's the podcast, the book, the social media, all of it. Because I've talked about this before. I was raised in the SEAL teams to be the quiet professional. And as a matter of fact, one of my one of my favorite seals when I was a young, young guy at Team One, this guy was just a, just a total badass frogman. And I learned a ton from him. And he was actually, you know some people say, oh, that guy's good at everything?

This guy was actually awesome at everything, like everything that there was to do at shooting, at fighting, at climbing, at tactics. Everything that he did, he was awesome at. And he was super, super hardcore, just tough. And in fact, one of the stories about him is that when he joined the Navy and he had to come to boot camp, I guess, in San Diego, he paddled a kayak from where he lived to get to San Diego. And he was 17 years old, by the way. He was just a 17 year old kid joined the Navy when he was 17 and then had no way of getting here. So, okay, take a kayak, put it in the water, and paddle to San Diego. That seems to be the smart way to do things.

Sure. And so back in the day, he had a hat, and he had this hat. And this is before you see seal memorabilia everywhere. You just see it all over the place. He had this hat with just a trident on it. Nothing else, just a trident. And then under the trident, it just said the words, the silent option.

And I always thought to myself, yes. That is it right there. That's us, right? The silent option. No fanfare, no news, no parade, no fame or fortune or glory of any kind. No, none of that. The silent option. That's it.

And pretty much everybody that I looked up to in the SEAL teams had that kind of attitude. And there's something that is obviously so pure about that, that attitude. So selfless. that none of what you did as a seal was ever for any kind of recognition ever. And that to me was sort of the code. Now, there were people that stepped out from that code. And while it certainly wasn't encouraged, it wasn't really ridiculed either.

I mean, people did it. People wrote books. And it wasn't looked that down upon at the time, unless you were a bad team guy. If you were a bad seal or if you were a guy that had a bad reputation, you would be crushed in the seal teams amongst the team guys in the community. Now, civilians, they don't know the difference, right? I mean, to civilians, how can they tell?

They just, a seal is a seal is a seal. So they're good with it. But in the teams, if you had a bad reputation, your reputation would get even worse if you broke the code. So when I retired, I had zero intention of going public, right, of becoming this. And then when I started working with civilian companies and Laif and I formed a company Eschelon Front and we realized pretty quickly that there's a big need for people to learn what we had to teach.

And really quickly, the demand for us to write this down and be able to. able to give it to people grew and it was really obvious to us so when that started when we when that started and we started wrote it down and then that started to transform this idea of what we had written down started transforming into becoming a book like a legitimate book I got really nervous and scared and kind of almost sick right I was definitely definitely very very very weary about it. And I think I did some little self-sabotage along the way. Just a little bit here or there.

You know, I just, well, I don't know. You know, this is probably not going to be. You know, I think I did some of that stuff. I'd have to, I'd have to think about it. In fact, I know I did some of it. Because it's kind of an all or nothing proposition, right? You're either do it or you don't do it. And I guess you could try and use like a pseudonym.

But then that doesn't really, that's not me, right? I'm not going to even, I'm not going to make up a personality, right? And not be. be me, right? So that wasn't really an option. And furthermore, I knew that that doesn't really last either. I mean, the pseudonyms eventually people figure out who they are, and so that's the way it works.

And I think the thing that finally made me say, okay, I'm going to do this, is that I'm, as I decided like, okay, I'm going to do this, I just kind of knew I wasn't going to be anything else other than what I was, right? I'm not going to try and put on some persona or be something that I'm not. I'm just going to be me. And I've got, you know, that's what I'm going to do. And so that's what I did. You know, the me that is here is just me.

There's no, nothing special. That's just who I am. And that's all I did was basically expose what I am to, you know, people in the public. Now, the thing is, now that I actually am out there a little bit and people can kind of see me in the world, right? There's definitely some things that I don't like about it or I shouldn't say I don't like it. There's some challenges, right? There's some challenges there. For instance, you're being watched all the time.

You're being followed and being, you're being judged. And those things right there are coincidentally the exact same kind of challenges you face when you're in a leadership position that I face when I was in leadership position. Oh, people are watching me. Oh, people are judging me. I'm used to that. That's what it was like when I was in the SEAL teams. And just like when I was in the SEAL teams, I always tried to stay true to what I believed in and what I believed was right.

And not to say I never made mistakes, I obviously did, but I always gave it my all to do the best job I could do and to take care of my guys, my brothers, and my friends. That's what I always tried to do. And really, that's all I'm still trying to do, is just to give something back, to pass on some of the things, some of the little things that I learned along the way.

And really, when I get the feedback from my SEAL teammates, from guys that are still active duty in the SEAL teams, from soldiers and Marines that are retired, or guys that are still on active duty, or guys that transition to the civilian world, all those guys, guys from the front lines that are on the front lines right now. And then guys that are law and law. enforcement and firefighters and when all those that whole crew that whole group of people send me some

kind of thanks it's awesome and in addition to them and I don't know if this is surprising or not but I hear from just everyday normal people to civilians right businessmen laborers entrepreneurs builders, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, software engineers, doctors, men and women, girls and boys, young and old,

just every imaginable size, shape, color of person from every walk of life. And I hear from them. And when I hear from them and I see that they're getting something out of this, that makes those little challenges of judgment and scrutiny,

it makes all those worthwhile to me. Because once again, I feel like I'm part of something that's bigger than me, bigger than myself, something more powerful than I could ever be by myself, something stronger than I could ever be alone. And for me, to be doing what I can do to help that, and to have that, to have trying to help be both the task and the reward. It's a reward to help people. That, to me, has made it worthwhile. Yeah, I could see that.

Okay, the silent professional. The quiet professional. Yeah. And the silent option. Yeah. Two different variations on the same theme. Is that? Because if that wasn't there, I would imagine you'd get a bunch of,

hey, look at me. I was such a badass. and all these stories and, you know, because I think that, like, what you and Leif have and even this podcast and stuff, sure, there's, like, references to war, but it's not about, like, ooh, let me spin all the cool tales that,

the war that I went through and stuff like that. It's more about, like, the actual principles of leadership and what can be effective, you know? Even though I know the general public would probably want to hear every last cool story on how you saved this person or, you know, killed all these bad guys or whatever, you know. Everyone will want to hear that.

I would want to hear that. But that's not what it's about. That's not like what you're going public with, you know. It's more about like, okay, this valuable stuff, that is tried tested in basically the harshest of conditions, you know, that work everywhere. And like, that's the valuable part. I don't even know if that's even, like, seeking glory in any way. Well, again, I've said this before You can say that you're not

Trying to seek glory But then when you write a 300 page book about yourself You know what I mean? And then you have a podcast about yourself It's like it just is what it is Like there's no That that has a level of Of self-centeredness

That you can't I mean you can't avoid It can't deny right I can't deny like actually know the podcast is It's a podcast and I talk on it for two hours right that's me talking yeah so there is a there is a level of that that you can't escape from and I talked about this before but that book the electric coolate acid test which I don't know maybe I'll do but it's it's about the hippies and the drug revolution well this one part of it where this guy is listening there he's up in Hayd Ashbury in San Francisco and he goes on this

tangent about how what they're saying is me me right me me me me Look at me. And when I read that for the first time, I was like, oh, I never want to be that person that's saying that. And that's that, but again, the dichotomy here is, I have a podcast, I have a book. And that book is me and the podcast, me. And so it's unavoidable to have a podcast that you talk on

and not have it somehow be about you. It just doesn't happen. So that's a real challenge. And I do my best to mitigate that. Right. But you can't stop it. It is factually a podcast that I'm in. It is factually a book that I wrote.

Right. You know, it's a book that factually Laif wrote. So that's just what it is. And so you can't take those away. The only thing that mitigates that feeling from me is, again, what I just said is when you got, when I got soldiers, Marine, when I got sealed teammates of mine, that are fired up. And they're saying, hey, that was awesome.

Thanks for that one. This was great. I never knew that or whatever they're going to say. Right. And then on top of that, you know, you get civilians that are saying, hey, I stopped using drugs because of your podcast. That is awesome.

I don't like drugs. And so when somebody tells me that they stop using drugs because of the podcast, that makes me feel very gratified. When somebody calls me up, I just had it, or somebody on Twitter just said a guy's like 53 years old. And he said, hey, I've lost X amount of pounds, 40 something pounds. And he said, I just did the first legit pullup of my life. 53 years old.

53 years old just did the first legitimate pullup of his life. He's like, thank you. That is worth the daggers that stick me in my brain because, I know I sold out. Yeah. I sold out. But that's what it is. Is it just in your, I mean, do you get like scrutiny from people at all for,

quote unquote, selling out? Or is it, or do you think, yeah. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, that's what I would think. And it is, because the whole dynamic, I mean, yeah, I mean, you got to be like Jocko podcast. It's called Jocko podcast. It's about me, you kind of have to do that.

Yep. I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, a small element of that that you have to include about yourself for credibility reasons, all this stuff. But then aside from that, it's valuable stuff. It's not glory seeking stuff at all. This is like stuff

that's helpful. It'll help like if you the stuff that you can benefit from this podcast from the book. If your neighbor if the people in your neighborhood all incorporated these principles into their life, it'd be a better neighborhood. So it's not like, you know, I'm just this

you look at me. I'm a warrior. You know, it's not that. No, no. So it makes it worth it. I mean, I mean, I dig it though, like tradition. If, let's just say if there is like a person who's like, hey, you know, like, hey, I dig what you're doing, but you shouldn't do that. That's the code. That's the tradition.

That's the code you sold out. I would understand that. But I think that's just like you're not looking at the big picture. Yeah. Yeah. No, it definitely was when I hear back from, when I hear, like I said, when I hear from active due mail to, when I hear from my seal bros that are that are telling. me this is awesome that that's that makes it worthwhile to me and uh that's sort of why I keep doing it that and again these civilian folks that are out there that are that are just

changing their lives and and again I whenever they say oh thank you I say I didn't do anything you did it that guy that did his first pull up his first legit pull up in 53 years of life you know what that's awesome I didn't do that pull up he did he had to put all the work and all he did was change his attitude and get in the game and now he's, you know, having a much better situation in his life. Because your life is better. If you go from zero poles to one, your life just got better. Your life just got a lot better, as a matter of fact.

Yeah. So, yeah, but it was interesting as I sat here and talked about the, or I thought about the question, the biggest turnaround. I've been really pretty steady in my beliefs for a long time. I mean? About this, you mean? No, just in general. Just like in general, if you were to interview me now and you interviewed me 10 years ago,

They'd be close. I was probably a little bit dumber 10 years ago. I was dumbed dumber six months ago. But my broad beliefs would be somewhat similar, right? Yeah. And so I was thinking, okay, what's the biggest turnaround? And then I realized, oh, yeah, obviously, this is a huge turnaround for me. And there were guys that, you know, when guys in the SEAL teams found out that I had a book coming out.

There were definitely some guys that were like, dude, what are you doing? And then they'd read it and say, hey, man, credit. It's cool. All good, you know, and that's the way it is. Let's say you were to not rewind life, but you're take the jaco from before, before Ramadi, how about that, jockey from, and then the idea was introduced, hey, like, what did you feel about that? Like if someone went and wrote a book and did, you know, did a podcast or something like, what was your take on it back then?

But generally, generally negative. That's why it's a big turnaround. Right. Because if you told me that years ago, I'd be like, oh, you know, we're quiet professionals. We don't do that kind of thing. So here I am. Mr. Quiet professional. Yeah.

That's so quiet. Not so quiet. Still a professional, though. Trying to keep it professional. It's definitely trying to keep it professional. Yeah, man, it's good. Yeah. Is there, you know how like some, you know, people who change their attitude on things all the time?

sometimes get frowned upon. This is just in general for being like a flip-flopper. So you see it in like politics and stuff. But isn't that kind of good if your ideas about things always are updated? Yeah, it's okay with me. I don't mind if people change their opinion over time as they bring on new knowledge. But there's a point where that becomes ridiculous. Right.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it kind of depends on why they're changing their mind. Yeah, that's true too. So if it's like with the introduction of new facts and stuff like that, and then they're like, okay, I didn't know all that. Now, you know, it paints a broader, you know, more accurate picture. So now I feel this way. We're starting to feel this way about it.

But there's a, there's a bias, you know, talk about cognitive bias called, it's called, I think it's called backfire effect. And it's the opposite. So like new factual information will come in. And the tendency is to be like, is to dig deeper into your current belief. Oh, for sure. In fact, I can, I can talk about that. I've seen that happen before.

And when I've seen that happen is people, the way that they first learned to do something in the SEAL teams is the way they believe is correct. And you have to beat it out of them. Like old, as we learn new tactics, wherever some guy went to their first training at a SEAL team, wherever they went and whoever taught them, that's sort of what they believe.

And anyone else that comes in with a new idea will be, oh, yeah, man, you don't know what you is. No, that's not the best way. And so, and I figured that out real quick when I was in training, when I was running training. And I realized, oh, oh, I got to get over this barrier of, you know, this guy learned it at this team or wherever. And or he learned it from this guy. And so he's got to have that in his head that that's the only way to do things. Cool.

Just got to just got to, I wouldn't aggressively attack it, of course. I'd say, oh, yeah, that's a great tactic what they do. Yeah, and you know what? What we're about to show you actually mixes in with that tactic good. You might want to, you know, it's something you could use along with your tactic. and then they realized that the tactic we're teaching is superior because we've evolved right I had to evolve we learned tactics new tactics all the time the fundamental principles didn't change but the execution at a tactical level would change because we got better updated yeah well

it's it's called war you know we went to war and as soon as we went to war we started figuring out some of the stuff where that we had been taught didn't really function the way we it's it was literally like pre-UFC martial arts yeah yeah that's what I'm saying right you know pre-UFC martial arts If you learn that if I touch your neck in this particular manner, you're going to fall down and nothing is going to save you from that. And if you get taught that, you might believe it. Yeah. And then somebody punches you in the face. I know.

Or does a double leg take down on you and slams you into the ground. Yeah, when you try to hit their neck or something. Yeah, when you try and karate chop their neck. So it was the same thing in the seal teams. We had tactics that had evolved during a peacetime environment in a bubble. And so when the war started, we said, oh, okay, we need to do an immediate check on all these things. Yeah. My friend was in from out of town this past weekend.

We watched the fights. And the guys were in this specific position, you know, standing kind of from the back there. And he asked, he's like, hey, couldn't he just, like, throw knees and give him, like, the meanest Charlie horse right there? And then we were like, it's not, we don't say it's not condescending or anything. But if you don't know, you don't know. Yeah, it's like, so we said, no. I mean, yeah, you could, but that wouldn't do anything. I mean, I don't think you even feel that, you know.

Not during a fight. Not during your UFC fight. How I put it was, I said, Charlie Horses are for when you're cruising and you see your friend, you're like, oh, you're like, oh, you do it. And it hurts him. He's like, oh, you know, but no, when you're in fighting, like, yeah, you don't really feel a Charlie horse. You know, now that being said, if somebody, if you're in a position and somebody

starts dropping 12 to 6 elbows onto your thigh. And they're big enough. And they're big and you're kind of stuck there. You'll feel those. And you'll see a guy, even in the UFC, you'll see a guy make adjustments and move because he doesn't want to take, you know, 12 of those shots.

That's not going to be fun. Yeah, my example was a leg kick. So a leg kick is essentially can be like a Charlie Horse. You know how like, you give your friend a Charlie Horse? Exactly right. And that's the point. Yeah. The point is like what you would,

Think is a common Charlie horse like with your friend or at school or whatever like oh like an elbow or you punch it or even you need it or whatever Is different than like the kind of Charlie horse that will be effective in yeah and but in a fight in an MMA it takes even 99% of the time with leg kicks it does take multiple yeah It takes rounds worth of leg kicks before you can actually affect the guy it might slow the guy down a little bit He's a little less apt to to be have weight on that front leg or whatever but then you know you see see there's been fights that have ended because third or fourth round the guy's been kicked in the leg 47 times and it's it's just easy he breaks yeah yeah it's just yeah again just one of those things like if if you don't know you don't know you think that's how it is and then get updated information yeah there's much in the world that looks like that if you if you don't know it seems like it'd be easy yeah and it's not easy and jiu jiu jitsu is a classic or m m m m ms example that but there's so many things i mean even a normal sport you know baseball yeah how hard can it be to hit that ball all sports actually yeah all sports uh rock climbing

you know you look and say oh that do let me just grab that thing right there yeah no hold on yeah just hold on no it doesn't work that way yeah football like you know when they dropped the bar it's like oh my gosh you couldn't even catch that pose right in his hands okay so tray you you're a football now of course they're trained to understand but you you know that's kind of part of the point you know Them being trained made it look like it's so easy. You've seen it done all that all those times. And what's interesting is when this transfers over into the interpersonal and the leadership realm. Yeah.

And it's the same exact thing where if you don't know, you don't know. And you see people that are, you know, younger leaders or they're not very experienced. And they'll be making the same kind of rookie mistakes or have the same kind of opinion of why don't we just tell them to do this. Oh, that's very easy. why you can't tell them, just tell them to do that. You just tell them to do that. They're just not going to listen to you. Right.

Because they don't have respect for you because you don't have a relationship with you. You haven't built anything up yet. So you can end up with the same thing in that aspect of life as you do in a war fighting aspect of life as you do in a sports aspect of life. It's all the same. Yeah. You got to learn the skills. You got to practice the skills. Yeah.

Even like shooting a gun. Yeah. Oh, super easy, right? Yeah. Let's see somebody knock out. You know, it's a skill. It's a skill. I mean, it's easier.

It's obviously easier to kill someone with a gun than it is with a knife or with your bare hands. It's an easier method. But, yeah, you see, you know, you see this all the time. You see little gun fights where people shoot 20, 25 rounds at another guy and they don't hit them. Yeah. And they're only 10 feet away, you know? So shooting is easier, but it still is a skill that you need to practice. No man in this not to mention just all the like input they like just firing it you know you know like on movies the guy will be like one hand you know whatever boom boom boom a real a more accurate representation of how we would go is like you know the kind of movies where the girl but they totally demean women a lot of the times when the girl grabs the gun and she's like ah and she shoots it and then like it flies out of her hand oh yeah that's probably pretty accurate if you never shot a gun well yeah someone's never shot a gun before yeah the first time i ever took my wife to a

to teach her shooting and she was kind of that way you know kind of scared and intimidated and she was kind of almost shaking a little bit and a half an hour later I had her doing quick draws from the holster gunning down targets I said yeah you're over it now aren't you she says shut up and reload my magazine I'm like okay cool we got this you know you ever seen those videos online I mean I don't know how much time you spend watching videos online but they're more just for entertainment but of people like shooting like big guns And it hits them in the face and stuff. Those are good.

If I'm going to spend time watching videos, I'm watching actually guys that are good that have some knowledge to put out on shooting. Right, right. Stuff you can learn. So check. Although you can learn from watching somebody get your face with a shotgun when they shoot it wrong. All right. Awesome. Next question.

I had a few questions relating to my family life for guys who join the seals. My boyfriend is interested in taking the pass. So this is coming from the girl. Oh, okay. Interesting. Jock, you have mentioned being married while a seal. Was it hard on you on you and your wife and family? Advice for a newlywed.

SoF candidate. That stands for soft, special operations forces. There you go. So this is actually, this was two questions. And basically from the other side. And, by the way, everyone that's asked, can I bring my wife on here? My wife has given me the stern negative. She's not coming.

You know why? She's a legit quiet professional. She's just a legit quiet professional. He doesn't want any of this. Glory. Glory. No, she did it just because she loves the job. So my wife had said no.

And someone said, you know, I said, went back and forth to somebody on social media. And they said, hey, flank her. Hey, Ben. She knows this game, bro. She's not going to get flanks. It's super easy. But what I'm doing is kind of playing a long-term game. I'm playing some seeds and whatnot, trying to get her.

Maybe to think about. how she could help some other folks out there. So, you know, we're trying to work through. There is some flanking activity going on. We're going to see where it goes. But to this question, being married to a guy that's in special operations or in the SEAL teams or whatever, it is a hard life in many ways. And, you know, the SEAL teams, we had a 90% divorce rate, by the way.

A 90. And I think it's come down a little bit. I'm not 100% sure. I don't know what the current numbers are to date. But man, when I was a young kid, everybody was divorced. You know, guys were just getting married and divorced all the time. So here's the couple things that I would tell you that I think made my marriage last, right? Aside from my wife being awesome, of course, right?

Full credit. But here's a couple things. Number one, you have to respect the fact that the job is the number one priority. And that is completely different from what a lot of people think. And I don't mean to be offensive by that, by saying that, but the job has to be number one. And for me, and I've said this before on interviews, the job was the most important thing to me. And my wife didn't take offense to that. She didn't, when I said, hey, I'm going to work, but it's Saturday, doesn't matter.

You know, oh, I'm going, I'm not going to be coming home tonight. Why? I'm going to work. And then I'm going out with my friends because we're going to. to go and hang out because that's what we do. And she never would get offended by that. Instead, she realized, okay, yeah, his job is the most important thing. He's got to take care of himself.

He's got to take care of his guys. He's got to take care of his job. He's got to take care of the country. So I am number two. That's cool. You know what I need to do is help support him. And so that is what was happening. And so what that means is your wife, in this case, you, young lady, that's asking

this question, you need to be an independent person, right? you you need to be self-sufficient. And that's not just self-sufficient with, you know, being able to clear the toilet when it gets clogged up and, you know, call the plumber when the water heater breaks and handle all that administrative stuff and all the tasks around the house and provide, you know, take care of the finances.

Because your husband's going to be gone. He's going to be gone. He's going to be on a workup. He's going to be gone a lot. And so you've got to be able to handle all that stuff. And on top of that, you have to be self-sufficient emotionally, emotionally self-sufficient where you don't need to have this constant, you know, constant flow of affection coming from this guy who has a bunch of other things to worry about.

Yeah. Right. So that's hard to do. And it's hard. I think that's one of the problems. I mean, that's why there's probably a high divorce rate, because it's hard to find a girl or a woman that can do those things. Yeah.

Right? So it's that that will make, that's part of the solution here. Now the husband, obviously, big things you've got to do is leave your job at work. Right. And don't bring it home with you. And I've talked about this before. You know, in the SEAL teams, you don't have to, when you get done with work, you change, you put on your civilian clothes.

you go home so you're not bringing that with you. That's sort of a psychological moment to change and get those out. But there's also the attitude that you can carry over very easily because the seal teams and special operations in the military in general, but definitely the seal teams is a hostile environment with your friends. Your friends are not supportive, caring, nurturing friends. No. Your friends are just savages, right? Everything.

They're looking for weakness. It's all fun. But it's all just a constant, it's a constant just battle, verbal battle, verbal abuse all day long. It's fun. Like, we're having fun with it. That's the sick sense of humor. You know, when Tim Kennedy was on here and they made that movie Range 15 and all that, that kind of sick, twisted sense of humor is what you're living in.

And there's a real problem that occurs when you take that little six sense of humor and that abusive personality that you develop at work and you bring it home. And that happened to me when I went to college and all of a sudden I wasn't around any team guys anymore all day long, no more team guys. And then here I am. And what do I do now? I come home from going to school all day, which was annoying. And then the first person I talked to because I didn't talk to when I went to school unless I was asking them a specific question about some. knowledge or some thing that was happening in a class. Other than that, I didn't make any friends.

So I'd come home and I want to socialize. What was the only way I knew how to socialize with people? Cutting them down, abusing them. And that's a little bit strong. But, you know, definitely making comments and trying to have a good time through cutting people down. And so, you know, and I've talked about this before, I think somebody's kind of grabbed on to this but you know for instance you know before I was going to college when I was just in

the teams my wife would make dinner whatever it is she makes it hey cool thank you appreciate it when I was going to school all of a sudden not around team guys anymore I want to have some fun when I come home and you know she'd cook me something and I would have some comments about it right and eventually and it was very clear when she said this to me she didn't think a big deal she just goes hey I'm not a team guy you know right you know I think I said something about this dried chicken that she made My wife has always had some issues getting moist chicken made, right? It always, I don't know, she's paranoid about food poisoning.

But when she cooks it, man, she cooks it big time. I mean, she goes the distance, right? She will cook that thing until, you know, you got to bring a gallon of water to the table just to get through the meal. So she's actually got a lot better in the recent years. So anyways, back in the day, I'd say, she'd say, oh, you know, I made you some chicken. and I'd say, oh, can you just go ahead and bring me three gallons of water to the table? And then it was one of those comments that I made one time where she says, you know, I'm not a team guy.

And I kind of laughed and I said, oh my gosh, look what I'm doing. I'm treating her like a team guy. And she's not a team guy. She doesn't need to be treated like that. So I just put myself in check and got myself under control and treated my wife like the good person that she is. So there's that. There's communication. It's and this is this is a weird thing because everyone's going to say communication, but my point here is don't expect

Communication right don't expect to be a one of my buddies Was married and We were going on to play this is a long time ago. He was married he had three three kids been married to you married his high school sweetheart blah blah blah and he lived in Coronado where where the seal teams are. He lived there And his wife he lived there with his wife and one day he He dropped off his car. He had to get his car worked on or something like that. And he said,

we'd been at the SEAL teams for five years. He's married the whole time. Been a SEAL team won. And one time he says to his wife, hey, you know, he calls her and says, hey, can you come pick me up? Because we got to go somewhere, blah, blah, blah. And she goes, yeah.

She says, where are you? He goes, I'm at the team. And she goes, where is it? And Coronado, by the way, is only like a mile long. And so it was a classic example of he never told his wife, even where the buildings were

or what he did or anything like that. And that's just the way it was. And a lot of successful seal marriages that I've seen, there's not a lot of, hey, this is what I did at work today. And hey, this guy's a jerk. And hey, we're trying to make this happen. And hey, I got in trouble for this. There's none of that.

There's just like work. And then there's what we have, right? And I think that you've got to separate those two. But what I'm saying is this idea of communication happening all the time, it's not going to happen all the time. It's not going to. And I don't think it's beneficial. When I was overseas, I wouldn't call my, you could, you could call your wife, you know, basically every day if you wanted to.

I didn't call my wife every day. I don't want to call my wife every day. It makes time slow down. It doesn't speed it up. Just don't call. Call like once a week. That's what I did. Call my wife once a week.

Hey, how you doing? I'm fine. How's everything at home? I would just ask her questions about home. Didn't tell her anything that was going on ever and just said, oh, yeah, how's this? Oh, yeah. Did you get the, you know, how's the car? And did you get the water heater fixed?

And how's the kids doing in school and blah, blah, blah, blah. Ask her questions because otherwise you're going to start talking about your world and then that's going to make them worried and concerned and everything else and you don't want that So you don't need to talk to somebody every single day that you do it. That's neediness. That's emotional That's what I was talking about earlier with with being emotionally Independent, right? You got to be independent. You can't need that like security of hey, call me and talk to me. No, actually I'm not going to call you. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to talk to you. I You go do your thing. I'm doing my thing. You know, on top of that, I think it's cool if you want to set some goals, you know,

together, make a little team, you know, you're trying to make some things happen. You're trying to make some financial goals or some family goals or some house goals. You know, we want to get new carpet. I want to put some new wallpaper up. Whatever, you know, I want to add a, you know, just do stuff and make those goals. Maybe we make some jiu-jitsu goals together. That's always good. my wife was really good at jiu-jitsu she's kind of stopped training when she started having babies

every 18 months and all that what but you know we used to have a blast training jiu-jitsu all the time so i obviously recommend the jiu-jitsu to help all relationships yeah working out together is another good one you know even if you can't get those jiu-jits together you can you can you can just work out you know work out together and that's cool and then you got to give each other some space Right. Got to give each other some space. The guy, the guy, he's a team guy, he's a special operations guy. He's going to hang with his friends sometimes, and that's the way it goes.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's the way things work. And you know what? She's going to go do the same thing. So that's okay. Yeah. So I think those are the main things. You know, JP, when JP was on here, he made a good point of put each other first, right?

Pretty simple point. That goes a long way. Yep. That goes a long way. Yeah. Which is contrary to what I said, which is like the team is going to come first. But that's your job. Yeah.

And I think you can still put your team as the number one priority and doing your job as your number one priority. Because that's the thing. I said this a million times, right? Hey, listen, darling, the reason I have to do my job well is because this is what we do. We fight and guys are going to be trying to kill us. So the best thing I can do for our relationship is stay alive. Yeah. So that means, and not only that, but I got these guys that also need to be.

to stay alive for their wives. So we're gonna work hard, we're gonna train hard, we're gonna play hard, we're gonna know each other better, we're gonna bond and all those things are gonna happen. And that's how I can best support this family is by kicking ass at my job. And if you're a smart wife, you'll go, that makes sense to me.

And it'll be okay. So in putting your job as a number one priority, you're actually supporting the family and you're putting your spouse first because you're trying to take care yourself take care of your team so that you can come home when when it's time to come home yeah yeah jp made it i mean the put each other first that's kind of like a like a like dated it's like you got to remember that you know because you know how like you're on you're on two

different pages you know oh yeah you got to put you're gonna you're gonna remind yourself yeah yeah but man it helps helps a lot have you have you've been doing that lately Implementation. I like how JP put it. You know, we just put each other first. It's real like, dang,

that kind of resonated. I don't like using that word, but it resonated, you know, where don't you like using that word? I don't know. You know those words, you know certain words

just sound dumb coming out of your mouth. Is that one of them? In my opinion. It comes, sounds down out of anyone's? No, out of my. I think it sounded pretty good,

actually. Oh, thanks, Paul. All right. But yeah, that was a good. Good luck.

By the way, good luck to these guys that are trying to get in the special operations community. Obviously, I loved it, and it was awesome for me. And I'll tell you, my wife, there was definitely hard, man. It was a hard, it's a hard path. And when your husband's over on deployment and you're home and guys are coming home, wounded, or guys are getting killed overseas, that's going to be, that's hard. And that's one of the things that I talk about the strength. of the spouses and the independence to be able to deal with those hardships when they come,

that's real stuff. And so to the women out there that support these guys, God bless you. Yeah, that point you made where I think it's probably just habitually a little bit when you treat your wife like a team guy, you know, like how, because that's how you're used to, like, bonding with people you like, you know? So in a way, it's like it's good. Yeah, I treat you like good. Yeah, man, it's not a one-way street, man.

You can be doing that. I had the same thing because that's how me and my brother, we just, that's it. The whole thing is like, so you can make the funniest joke about the other guy, you know? And then so Sarah was like our friend before we got together. So she kind of, and she didn't like that even from the beginning. But once you're kind of like in the relationship, she kind of got a lot of and she constantly constantly like, I'm not your, you know. And of course. I'm not your brother.

Yeah. I'm not your brother. I'm not your friend. Like that kind, you know. But, but of course, if you're not looking at. it as like a two-way street, you're like, wait, you should be happy I'm treating you like this, you know? This is my way of showing affection.

Exactly right. You should be happy, right? No, no. No, that's a different person you're talking about, you know? Anyway, next question. BJJ, question one. BJQ one? It does mean question one, yes.

There you go. What's the best ratio of drilling to sparring? And question two is, what do you do? do if you roll with someone new to Jiu-Jitsu and they're over-aggressive like the beast took over and they want to hurt people. I don't think they really do, but the adrenaline rush takes experience to manage. What's a good approach on the mat to let them know that they're being reckless and wasting energy without sounding like a douche? All right. So question one, the ratio of drilling to sparring. I'm probably not the best person to ask this question,

Because I like to roll. Nobody's the best person to ask that question. Maybe, but I like to roll, and I should probably drill more, but I like to roll. The rolling is the funnest thing. We were training yesterday, and we got done training yesterday, and we were sitting there, and we were watching some other people training stuff, and I was like, man, I just love Jiu-Jitsu. It's so fun. Will we do an hour of rounds?

And so I just got done, and I just said, man, J-Jitsu is so fun. It's so fun. And so I like to roll. And drilling is not as fun, right? When I said, yeah, we did rounds, that means we were just rolling for those you that don't train. Well, first of all, go train. Go find a place to train.

And by the way, all these people that ask me questions about if they should train or you? Yes, you should train. You've got a million different reasons why you shouldn't train. Like, what was the one? You just respond to somebody on social media. It said, you know, hey, what if the only option I have is a place with just white belts? All the way belts. Even the instructor.

Even the instructor's a white belt. Is it worth it? Yes. It's worth it. Go on YouTube. You can learn a billion different moves on YouTube and go start rolling with these other white belts and you guys are going to get better. And, you know, it doesn't matter.

matter what the belts are. So, you know, whether you're that person or whether you're the person that says, I can only make it once a week because I travel, go once a week. Yeah, there you go. If you're the person that says, hey, man, I got, you know, this knee injury and I can only roll like one day before it gets too sore. Okay, roll one day. And you know what? If you can, it doesn't mean you have to, every time you get on the mat, you don't have to go psycho, right? Which is what I guess we'll get to that question. But if you can't roll super hard, then just roll a little lighter and roll what you can. And we get guys, some of our really dedicated jiu jit-to guys, they get hurt, they still come and train.

They can't even roll, but they'll come in, hey man, let me just work my whatever I can do. Let me work my arm lock. You know, that's the one motion I can do, so I'm going to work that. And that's cool. So I think you should drill more. I think I should drill more, but I just like to roll so much. And I'll tell you, I think this does change a little as you get better because, I mean, obviously a black belt doesn't need to drill as much as a white belt does

because a white belt has a lot more moves to learn. But everybody should drill more. And I think if I was to say something like probably a third of the time you should be drilling, maybe I'll say something else. You learn a new move. Drill it until you're good at it. Then you won't need to drill it anymore. And the other thing about drilling is and drilling is awesome.

Drilling also, I could drill a move 15,000 times. drill only and when I go to roll with somebody I won't be able to do it it it doesn't mean you'll be able to do it in fact I still got to do it a hundred more times live against another real active human before I can pull the move off that's the way it works occasionally there's a few moves that either they are that simple or you have a natural ability to do them that does happen sometimes where like occasionally I'll get I there's some moves that just make sense to me right and I've always as soon as I learn them I can do them that's rare I mean it's it's that happens 10

percent of the time. Most of the time, I learn something and I try it and I get stuffed and then I got to try it again. I got to make my own little adjustments to it and then I got to do it again. That's the way Jiu-Jitsu works. So drill a bunch. All right. Question two. Someone that is going level seven psychopath on the mats. Is seven the highest level? Ten, right? I guess. But seven is still pretty high. We're not 100% sure what the highest level is. I don't think it's been seen yet. It's not level one. Yeah, it's definitely not level one. This guy is above normal cycle level. I'll say this, well above normal cycle level.

So, first of all, if you're a higher belt, you just shut them down, right? You just shut them down, smother them. I like, if I get someone that's going really super crazy, I will immobilize them to where they cannot move and I will let the rage drain out of them. I'll just let it drain out of them and I'll, you know, just let the rage drain out. And then I'll submit them. And then I'll submit them again. And I'll just do that over and over again.

And then I'll probably just, you know, have a little chat with them. Like, hey, man, you just relax a little bit. Because all that going crazy is not helping you get better at what we're trying to do here. Now, when you tell somebody to relax, you tell them don't use strength. Of course, those are the things that no one can actually apply, right? Very seldom can someone say, you, yeah, I guess I say, hey, man, just relax. And they go, oh, okay, cool. and you have a nice roll of them.

No, it doesn't happen. They go even harder. Yeah. So that's what you're going to do. You eventually just keep wearing them down and say, hey, man, you know, I'm telling you've got to relax. You're not going to see you. You're not going to see as much if you're so going psycho. Now, so that's if you're a higher belt.

That's what I do. Control them, put them, you know, force them to accept their fate. And that will help them move down the path towards relaxation. Now, if you're a lower belt, you can either. fight to the death, which is fine, and kind of joining their mayhem, and if you want to do that, that's okay. Or you can work your technique, right, and get dominated.

So guy comes in, and you know, you two are about the same level, but he's a lot stronger than you, and he's going crazy, and you just go, okay, you know what, I'm just going to work my technique the best of my, I can, and I'm not going to escalate this. And you know what?

You're going to get tapped out because you guys are at the same level, but he's using all the strength, and you're not. Now you're going to get better at Jiu-Jitsu, but you're not going to notice that for a while. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So what happens?

you get caught up in their ego trip and you start going just as hard as they're going and that's the way it works. Now, if you can just say, you know what, I'm just going to keep relaxing with this guy and eventually I'm going to learn more than him and that will happen. You will learn more than the person that's going psycho

and then you can put them to tap. So, you know, also as I was, Tim Ferriss sent some email out the other day and it had a quote on there from Leo Tolstoy. And it said, everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. And I was like, that's interesting. And I immediately thought of jiu-jitsu because I try and explain this concept of people in jiu-jitsu.

And that is when you're going especially against someone that's bigger than you or stronger than you or someone that's going crazy and they're using all of their muscles, the way this translates in jiu-jitsu is in jiu-jitsu, everyone thinks of moving the other person. But what you need to focus on is moving yourself. And there's some really clear examples of this. But this is just translates into life. It translates into life, you know? This is what flanking is, right? If I come up against you and you've got a big ego and you're not budging on anything, I'm not going to continue attack that way.

I'm not going to try and move you. I'm going to move myself into a better position. So I thought that was a good thing to think about you when you're rolling with somebody that's big and going crazy. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good thing to think about. all day, every day about everything. Especially, you know, people who are who are like, hey, oh man, I need a job.

And that's, you know, this is nothing new words. Dang, I need a job, you know. Dang, there's no jobs out here or whatever. And that's kind of an example of that, you know, where don't look at it like a job needs to be presented to you, you know. You have to kind of. You need to maneuver. Yeah, yeah, change yourself.

So, you know, you can do the work that people, need, you know. Concur. Don't move the world. Move yourself. Don't try and move your opponent. Move yourself. Yeah.

The guy, or drilling and sparring. You were kind of trying to move me a lot yesterday. FYI. Oh, I moved you a lot. You were trying to move me a lot. Whatever.

You were coming with a really aggressive, really aggressive methodology, I'll say. Yeah. Default. The default aggressive. The drilling, in my experience, if you ask different people. I thought you were getting frustrated.

I was. And I saw it's like, oh, he's getting frustrated. And I thought to myself, he's getting frustrated at me. And the reason I was like, I almost fell into your game psychologically because as we're rolling and you're getting more and more frustrated. So you're being more aggressive. And part of your, it seemed to me, part of your frustration and your aggression was that I was not fully disengaging, but I was not getting into this game that you were in.

And as I saw that you were going to keep coming with this, and I said, you know, I don't want him to get frustrated, you know, at me. So maybe I'll play this a little bit. And then I said, oh, wait, I'm truly actually doing Jiu-Jitsu. I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu. I'm just straight doing Jiu-Jitsu. I'm not, I'm totally not getting into this head-banging competition. No, I'm going to be over here.

Yeah. I'm going to be over here. So I thought that was. Isn't that kind of wet and not whack? It's actually really good how that worked. Because if you remember, I kind of started to lose it mentally. Not like temper wise or nothing, but like basically there's like a little small short list. I don't know if you know this.

I've mentioned this, but not in this depth. There's a small list of things that I'm working on with you. It's like a small thing like where if I can remember to do this, you know? Because you're the kind where like to defend a certain. thing, you've got to focus really hard in defending it. But the drawback to that is when you start like really focusing on defending it, all it takes is one little, yeah. So there's like a few things that it's like, dang, I get it.

It's like a balancing act. I don't want to forget here. I don't want to forget here. You know, so it's like that. And a lot of times, and it's by my own evaluation. It's not based on like X. It's in my own head. Like, okay, like I feel good about this is coming along, you know, kind of thing.

And whether you notice this or not towards, towards the end, like it might like it was just done gone the whole my whole thing it was just gone yeah it's all just blind rage and that's what I was truly thinking I was thinking I was thinking he's getting mad at me but I'm really doing actual like yeah the purest form of jiu jitzu which is hey you keep coming with all that and I'm just going to keep adjusting and making other things happen yeah it's like it's like this cycle you know oh that was fun but yeah it was good though we're all thinking back the the the drilling um different people have different philosophies on on drilling yeah because i mean like surfing you know like okay

when you drill a move it's like hey okay do the arm bar you know do the whole transition to the arm bar and then you know just drill that when you first learn the arm bar it's going to have more value because you have to just know the fundamental movements of the arm bar and just like how you said like it's going to be different when you do it live do it live yeah so once you kind of get the fundamental movement of the arm bar, your legs got to be here, they got to do this certain thing, your arms position,

his stuff, all that stuff. Once you kind of get that down, it's like then you step into the value being, now you got to know when to do it, how to do it, you know. I don't know if I've ever said this before on the podcast.

I've said it when I teach jihitsu. This is something I say, okay, let's say 10 things that you have to do right to make a move work. Okay. 10, you've got to put your arms here. put your hips here you got to put your grip here whatever those 10 things are that you

got to do I can teach you about four of them yeah okay maybe I can teach you five maybe Jeff Glover or Dean or or a good instructor can teach you six or seven maybe even eight of those components mm-hmm there's two more components you're only gonna figure out on your set on your own yeah you're only gonna figure out where to distribute your weight by yourself you're only gonna distribute you how to time what the execution of the move is by yourself. You're only going to figure out how to feel what the other person and when they're vulnerable to the move.

You're only going to get those by doing it live. Only going to be doing it, getting it by doing it live. So those are the components. And you know, there's more than 10 actually. There's probably like 80. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Little components that you have to do. And what's cool is when you really focus on a particular move, you have all these components

just lock solid. And when someone's really good at a certain move, they just, like, there's, there's so, there's, they've been in that situation so many times. Yeah. They've been in that situation so many times that it doesn't matter. They, you're doing something, they already thought of that. They've done, they've been in that position. Like there's a position in Jiu-Jitsu, for those of you that don't know.

There's a position in Jiu-Jitsu called 50-50, which we originally called Kakaweko, which Dean kind of, I would say, started because he did it in ADCC in 2003. And it was a position that we were doing all the time. at that time, but no one else was doing it. And now a bunch of people do it. Ryan Hall's made it famous, and he's the one, I don't know who coined the phrase 50-50,

but he's got Academy called 50-50. Yeah, been there. It's good. Nice. So, but it's a position where you're fairly neutral. Your leg positions are neutral, so you have the same leg position, and so it's who knows the position better will win.

And so this position that they call 50-50 now, which we used to call Kakarako, it's actually Dean calls it 90-10 Meaning hey I yeah I have a 90% chance or you have a 10% chance because I've spent Months sitting in this position so When you get someone that really knows a position well that puts you it that puts you at a massive disadvantage if you're going against them Yeah, because you guys both know the drilling part of it, you know, but he knows the one million different other and elements in light like surfing you know like you know when you first take surfing they're like hey

you know let's do it on the sand when there's it's just that's basically drilling oh yeah yeah you're drilling standing up and paddling then you got to the actual waves and man the waves that's you know it's different it's a little different and again these principles from jihitsu they apply to everything that you're doing and when you're going through a leadership situation if you've seen it before if you've seen this kind of person's at it's like i just told that story about hey it's a that's learned something. The first way he learned it in the SEAL teams is the way he believes it should always be.

Once I had experienced that, it was much easier for me to handle. Yeah. You know, so anytime you can open up your mind and pay attention to what's going on around you, it's going to make you better at handling all these different situations

that you come across in any environment. Absolutely leadership environment. You get the person with the giant ego. You get the person that wants to take over. You get the person that's scared to step up. You get with all those things. You get someone that's being disrespectful. How are you going to,

I've had that before. Let's just go. Let me approach it. You know what I mean? So the more you get to handle these different positions, or the more you can research them and drill them because the drilling does pay off. You know, that's what all this gathering of trying to gather knowledge

from various books. And when you see something in a military situation, like I see all these things in a military situation, I go, oh, okay, oh, I see what they did here. Oh, I see what Hackworth did here. I see what Patton did here. Now, I'm no patent. I'm no Hackworth, but at least I have a heads up.

At least I've seen this scenario before. I've gone through a mental drill of how it got handled. Now, there's components that I need to figure out on my own. But I've got the bulk of the move there. I recognize what's happening. It puts me at a little better situation than having no idea what's happening and just getting flanked.

Potentially. Yeah. Very potentially. And the guy getting nuts rolling the spas. Is the name for that guy, by the way. It's a spas. Yeah. White Belt Warrior.

Yeah, sure. There's that. I think that's overall just kind of part of the game. There's so many different ways to like deal. I mean, as a higher belt, I mean, you kind of, I mean, I don't think you have the curse of knowledge, but you're, you've been a high belt for a long time. So my. Are you talking to me personally as an individual? Yeah, yeah.

So when you get a guy who's like, when you first start, like my memory is the first starting and going with big, big strong guys who are getting nuts. It's, it is hard to deal with, man, straight out. Yeah. And if you're smaller, it's. It's even, you know, it's even harder. And you could go, oh, man, Jiu-Jitsu doesn't work, right? If you don't, if you're a blue belt and you get a 200, if you're a 160-pound blue belt and a 300 or a 280-pound college wrestler comes in.

Yeah. And it's his first day. You're not going to be able to hand. You're a very good chance. You might be able to catch him. You might be able to catch him. Yeah. But it's no guarantee.

No, it's unlikely to. I mean. Yeah. It's hard to core. Yeah. Yeah. But you might be able to. So I blew a guillotine on.

Yeah. Well, maybe a blue belt may be a little challenging. Purple belt. Now, purple belt. Yeah, yeah.

You start to, different ball game. See the holes. Yeah. Yeah, but those, and yeah, if you're,

and I'm just completely speaking just from experience and thinking of it right now. But there are little things that you'll see come forward, like little tactics you can use to someone who's just bigger, strong, and spaszing, little tactics you, and not to say that you'll,

like, you know, end up tapping. or whatever, but certain things that will be successful in your situation. So all you do is you kind of remember those things, kind of work on that and wait until you see the next little thing. Okay. Then after a while, as your game develops, it'll be like, oh, shoot, you have this handful of

things that works on these types of guys, you know? Glover, he, like, does best against, he goes, yeah, guys that are big and strong are, you know, sort of his game matches really well against them against Jeff. Yeah. Because he's just so fluid. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Jocko. Like yourself, I tend to have low opinions slash expectations of people. My question is, how do you act friendly with someone when you know they're trying to play passive aggressive power games with you? Say you know a person and you know he's a snake, but social and work situations demands and expects that you act like their friend. How do you reconcile that within your mind? Or is that not being fake?

I know you're going to say play the game, but do I really have to play these snake games just to get ahead in the world? All right. So first of all, from the first part of that, this Blankent statement that I have a low opinion of people is actually factually not true. I don't come out of the gate with a low opinion of people. That's actually not true. I have high hopes for people that they're going to do well, but I don't have expectations that they're going to perform. There's a difference there, right? I don't view people in a low.

My opinion of people is not low out of the gate, but I don't layer heavy expectations on them because that's unfair. So that's number one. I set the bar low so people can pleasantly surprise me, but believe me, I don't have a low expectation or a low opinion of people. Now, the question, yes, you absolutely called it and what I was going to say. Play the game. Right?

Yes, that's what you're going to do. Now, let me put it this way. You got snakes. Okay? If you don't learn to play with the snakes, you're never going to get the anti-venom from their fangs. You're never going to get them figured out. And if you don't figure out how to get the anti-venom,

the snakes are always going to own you. So you've got to learn how to deal with snakes. I had a kid. How was a team two? kid from Arkansas or something. And we were out in the hills somewhere and there was a rattlesnake. And he grabbed that thing like he was picking up a,

like he was picking up a pair of socks. It was like no factor. Boom, walked over, picked up the snake, whacked it against the tree. I said, okay, the dude knows how to deal with snakes. And it's the same thing here. People are snakes. Does that mean you just avoid them

and you're not going to play the game? And the worst thing, you know what you don't do with the snake? You don't walk over and get all, like, intimidate them and get in their face. And so it bites you, you know, and poisons you, right? So, yes, you've got to play the game. People like this exist, right? And so let's say, let's take a, let's say you take the moral high ground

and you refuse to work with and accept and be humane with these snakes. Okay? If that's what you do, now, guess what? Now the snakes don't like you. now they see you as a threat and now they attack and like I said this is when they bite and they poison and they kill you and what good are you now you're dead so you can't help anybody when you're dead you can't achieve your goals you can't help the team you can't accomplish the mission because you are on the moral high ground now let's say that you learn to play the

game you learn how to handle those snakes like that young boy from our from Arkansas You learn their moves. You get the antidote. You get the anti-venom for their poison. And you actually, in this process, you become immune to their attacks. And you reach a point where they actually don't attack you because they're familiar with you. And they trust you. And when that happens, then you can overcome their weapons.

You can rise up. you can get control of them and you can utilize them for your own purpose, right? Now, if that purpose was something that was self-centered or something that was for your own good and not for them or not for the team, then it would be a form of manipulation and it'd be pretty negative. But if all you're doing is trying to get these snakes on board with the program to help the whole team win, we got no issue with that. We got no moral issue with that.

I got no moral issue with me treating people nicely to try and get them on board with the program. so that they can help our team win. I got no issue with that, moral or otherwise. So that's the answer, I think. You know, when the time is right, you be nice to those snakes. When the time is right, you put that little stick with a noose around the end of it.

You put it around their head, and you collect their venom. And you can use snakes to do things like kill rats, right? Snakes can be used for some kind of good at some point. Now, I know it's hard, right? I know it's hard and is it being fake? Maybe it is. Maybe that is being fake.

But you're doing it for the good of the team. So again, it's not for personal game. That's a huge difference. And also, if you think about this idea of being fake, if you would be nice to people to help the team win, then isn't that actually you? Right? So how can you be fake by?

being you, right? If my, if what I do is, hey, I help people and I get in their head and I'll I'll be nice to them so we can win. If I do that, that's me. That's not being fake. That's actually what I do. That's not being fake. So I think regardless, in the end, it is something you have to do. You do have to play the game. And that is how you're going to help your team win. And it's also, if you want to get those snakes to come over to the light and get away from the darkness, you're not going to do it by trying to kill them. All you're going to do is offend them and they're going to attack you. Like I said, if you show them a good example, if you're productive.

And when you get all that stuff done and you accomplish your mission and what you do is you say, hey, it wasn't me to accomplish the mission. It was the snakes. They did it. You know what? Those snakes start to stand upright. They start to defang themselves. And they start to realize that maybe they can do some good out there too.

I like the snake analogy. Hey, he started it. Yeah. That, Oh, commentary. Like, go. No, no,

no, no way you're saying, you know, how you slowly build that relationship, whatever. Yeah. That part's hard because it takes, like,

time. It takes time. The more harder than time is it takes the stomach. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You got the guy

that you know is a slimy guy that's just looking out for himself. And you got to go, hey, man, what's going on? Yeah. Hey, Bill,

what's happening? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a great weekend.

Thank you. Yeah. How was your weekend? Yeah. You know, so you're in that mode and you got to gut through that. Because you know you're a good person. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. I think. Yeah. Especially passive aggressive. Like that can be tough. A lot of times it's way easier if I'm like, if I launch a confrontation against you,

it's way easier mentally to be like, okay, we're in a little battle right now. It's easy. But if I just do like one little dig and then kind of walk away or something like that, It's like, oh, man, that can be way more like trying on your mind, on your patience, you know? And then when you battle through that, right, or the idea of I got to battle through this. Okay, this is going to be hard. Just, you know, mentally, whatever. I got to battle through that.

Oh, but guess what? You got to do that for a long time. That one time that you think that was hard, all right? Well, you got to keep on doing that. It's a continual seething evolution. Yeah, that's what makes this. It does make it challenging. But I think if you just know this, if you know, if you can see the light,

You know what you can do too? And I hate to use this word because it seems to be a trendy word right now. You got to gamify it a little bit. You know, when somebody does something passive aggressive to me, I'm like, oh, score. I'm going to have fun with this. Hey, you're right. That was a really good job that your team did over there. You know, when they say a little dig at me.

Yeah, I think you guys did fantastic. I didn't foresee that at all. Yeah. You're crushing it. I say, oh, oh, that hurt. But guess what? I'm going to win in the long run. I just won a little battle against you.

Yeah. And don't let these little things. Don't let the little things bother you. Man, think about the big stuff. You've got big stuff to worry about out there. You can't let the little things bother you. And are you on the right path? If you're trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, man, it's all good.

It doesn't matter what else is going on. I'm good with it. And that's what I mean by kind of the light at the end of the tunnel. Like you know, that's where I'm going. This is just part of the thing. You know, I see the whole path and the thing. And it just makes it easier when you kind of know that. But when you're at that time,

Fast and regressive is the worst man The kind of where I see you talk about passive regressive being the worst I don't This is not like this thing that bothers me Yeah I don't know it doesn't it's never been a big issue for me When somebody's passive aggressive with me I just

Okay cool I see the game we're in I'm gonna play yeah I'll play that game I'm good with it man see if you can just look at it like that Look at it like that Yeah man it would make it It would almost make it the opposite situation Like it would almost be pleasurable Because I don't

I've never had a big issue with some guy that's being packed. I've never had that. Yeah. I'm like, oh, I see what's a little shot right there. You know what? Come throw some credit at them. I'm going to flank them.

Yeah. They're going to be good. Not worried about that person. That person's not really secure in the first place. Right. And they're sort of one of these slimy snakes, right? That are trying to make things happen. That's okay.

I'll just just help them. Help them out. You know what? You're trying to be past for Greas Mel, but bring you out in the open. Bring you out in the clear. Not enough, not an offensive way. But you know what?

I think you're right about that. I think you could do a better job here. Come on and help my team or whatever. Because when they're doing that, what are they attacking? You're attacking your ego. So if you just get over that thing and just say, you know what? No big deal. That's good.

Oh, I see what's going on here. Let's bring it out in the open. Bring it out in the open. Expose the ambush and just say, hey, buddy. Oh, yeah, we're good. Let's move forward together as a team. How's that sound? I'm down.

Hard one to contend with for Echo Charles. else. You know what? And I'm thinking about this. I'm like, yeah, that sounds so easy. But you know what? I realized it's one like I care about the person and they be passive aggressive. Like or if I care about like their opinion or something like that. Did I say that you had to offend them? No, no, no, no. It's not in that way. Not in the way where like I might offend them. But if like you care about what they think, you know. Okay. And they're like. What's wrong with that? I guess nothing. There's nothing. But I guess maybe that's more my sensitivity to it is. I mean, coworkers. Maybe I haven't had coworkers in a long time. I guess you're a coworker, but you're not passive aggressive. But nonetheless, I can see. You're more aggressive, not passive. Maybe it would be in a situation, like maybe a coworker situation would be the kind of situation that I'm like thinking about where people will be more sensitive than it's just. You know what? Actually, the other day you and I had a conversation.

You might have been being passive aggressive. No. Maybe. We were trying to do something. And you said, hey, you know, I'm just not sure if this is like really something we should do. And I was like, cool, don't do it. No, okay. That wasn't passive, it's passive aggressive.

That was like, it was different. It was like trading lightly. You know, sugarcote, you know, like it wasn't necessarily straight dope. You gave me a little bit of a indication. Yeah, like understating it. I said, oh, there's something going on. Some kind of ambush here. I said, okay, come on out.

We're good. Let's bring it out in the open because I'm good. It's not that. It's like, you know, I respect your opinion. Let's go with it. No factor. Make that happen. That's how I roll.

Yeah. Passive aggressive is the kind where, like, you know, if I'm mad at you for something. And then I'm like, nope, all good. But meanwhile, my body language is saying, you know, it's like that kind of stuff. Is that even passive aggressive really? That is what passive aggressive is. It's like, it's like, oh, it's all good, but then like little digs or indicating other stuff. It's like this weird thing.

It's, yeah, it's super whack. Yeah. Like I said, when someone's being that with me, I'm going to bring them all the way out. I'm going to bring from passive to just straight aggressive so that we can get through it. Because I'm not going to get this thing. If we're on a team, why are we going against each other? What's probably at the root there is just ego situation. You can put that to rest, you're good.

Hard though. Hard to put that ego in check for all of us. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, coworkers are your peers. So, you know, it's natural to kind of care what they think even if you don't like them. You know, it's just, I think it's just natural. Yeah, of course.

People want to do a good job and, yeah. And want other people to think that they're doing a good job. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. So when they start throwing jabs, it's okay. You know what? Why are they throwing a jab?

Maybe you're not doing as good as a job as you thought you were. And now it's taking a little shot to your ego. So let's address it. Let's figure out what the issue is. Yeah. Yeah. This is like Jitsu. Yeah.

I've done this move. I've seen this move before. Rock and roll. Next question. What is the best case you've ever heard against extreme ownership? And what's your response? Or alternatively, are there situations where extreme ownership is the wrong answer? If you've never heard an argument against, let me propose two.

Okay, one. Extreme ownership focuses too much on achieving victory through focus on strategy and tactics. Let me, before you even go there. I got asked a question at the muster. Is there such a thing as too much extreme ownership? And I said, well, yes, there is actually such a thing as too much extreme ownership. For instance. And I actually broke it down to the fact that there's two types of extreme ownership that you're going to have, internal and external.

Internal is I own everything and I know that. but I'm not sitting here telling everyone, right? External is, hey, guys, I'm going to own this. This is me. This is mine. So you can easily see from there where you can overplay your hand of external extreme ownership. For instance, Echo, you're in charge of this project that we're doing. I want you to do it like this because I own it.

Like that's obviously wrong, right? So if I'm trying to get people to do things, if I'm trying to use decentralized command and all I'm telling me, everyone is like, this is my project, I own it. Echo, you do this. This is your part of the project, but the project is mine, right? Does that motivate you in any way?

Okay, so we're not going to do that. That would be too much extreme ownership. It would be too much outward extreme ownership. Now, if, so what I want to do is I want to say, Echo, this is your project. I'm going to set back, let you run this thing. I think you've got a really good idea and vision on how this is going to work, and I think you could actually do a better job than I can do.

So here's the goal that we're trying to accomplish. And if you just come up with a plan and tell me how you're going to execute it, I'm standing by. Now you're like, oh, Jocco is trusting me to do this. That's pretty cool, right? That's awesome. So now we have a good thing going. So that's where I'm going to keep my ownership internal. I'm not going to project it on you to keep it internal.

Now, where this flips is the project fails. And clearly the example now becomes crystal clear. Because now, if I use external ownership and I'm saying I should use external ownership. And when the boss says, hey, Jocko, your team failed on this mission, I'll say, you know what? We did. I made some mistakes here. Here's what I did wrong. Here's what we made the wrong investments.

I didn't allocate resources well here. My fault, we're going to get it fixed next time around won't happen. Okay, that's cool. I'm now correctly using excessive extreme ownership to take ownership of the project that you actually screwed up. Sure. Now, obviously, the wrong thing would be, hey, Jocko, this project failed. And I say, oh, that's because Echo dropped the ball on this. He didn't get this done in time and Echo's got issues over here.

Now that's not good. I want to take, I don't want to use that. I'm keeping my ownership internal. I'm being lame, basically. So, yes, the argument against extreme ownership is, yes, if you take too much ownership of a project and you're not using enough decentralized, command. That's why there's a dichotomy between those two. There's a dichotomy between extreme ownership and decentralized command. And if I use too much extreme ownership when I'm

trying to execute decentralized command, it's not going to work right. Now once a mistake happens or there's failure, that's when you step in and take ownership. And by the way, you should have taken ownership all along to make sure that the project didn't fail. But these things happen. You don't win every single time. Don't care who you are. Now, he gave a couple examples. I'll let you proceed with the question, good sir. Okay, he's going to propose two examples. Okay, extreme ownership focuses too much on achieving victory through focus on strategy and tactics, but not assessing whether war was worth fighting in the first place.

For example, maybe you prioritize and execute and cover and move and institute decentralized command to become the leading buggy whip manufacturer in the country. Right before Henry Ford releases the Model T, or maybe you built the tightest, sharpest, most aggressive sales team in history, but the product they're selling is preying on the weakness of poor or ignorant. Okay. So this is fairly simple. And in the book, Extreme Ownership, I believe chapter three is called Believe.

That is you've got to believe in what you're doing. And part of believing in what you're doing is understand why you are doing and what you're doing and how it is beneficial in the world, right? So for instance, both these examples would fail the test of believing in what you're doing. They would fail the test. Anyone that was in the transportation industry at the turn of the century and would understand that the buggy, the horse and buggy, was doomed when they started seeing reliable cars come out on the streets. And somebody that truly exercises extreme ownership would step up, would adapt, which is another key concept of extreme ownership, and lead the transatlanticism. and lead the transition from buggy whips to this new technology of cars.

So it's okay. It's not you're going to step up. You've got to make changes. That's part of ownership is looking and assessing. The other example where you're leading extreme ownership, you're leading something that is preying on weak people, well, then that doesn't pass the test, right? That doesn't pass the test in believing what you're doing

because if I'm like, hey, you know what I'm going to get out there and do? I'm going to get out there and pray on extreme people. Yeah, you know. That's what I'm doing. Now, of course, if you have a person that's a sociopath or doesn't care about others that are only out for themselves and they exercise extreme ownership

in order to accomplish an evil mission, well, yeah, that's going to be bad because people that take ownership of things can make things happen. And if their cause is evil, then that's going to be bad. It's going to be a bad situation. So, you know, the thing that's inherent in extreme ownership is a true understanding of the mission and belief of the mission. And the knowledge that you're doing the right things for the right reasons, which is why these two examples are actually non-issues.

And then he gave another example. What's example number two? Yeah, example number two is the time and focus commitments required to practice extreme ownership come at, too high a cost to your family who didn't sign up for this for, you know, didn't sign up for this mission. And in the end, the gratification of having achieved your objective won't be worth what you've

given up in your personal life. Perhaps substantial ownership, quote unquote, is a better fit for most people. Okay, well, let's just not forget that extreme ownership is not just about

business. in any stretch. It's about life. And you have to own the outcome in life. And that inherently includes balancing between what you do for business and what you do with your family. Now, I'll tell you that we hear all the time about how extreme ownership actually saved marriages.

Not hurts them, but saves them. And, you know, the husband will stop blaming his wife or vice versa and look at themselves and see where they can improve. Instead of blaming your wife for what's going wrong, you say, oh, maybe it's not cool that I do this particular thing that I know annoys her, right? Take some ownership of that. They take ownership of the relationship and the problems in the relationship

and they fix them instead of making excuses or passing the blame. So extreme ownership is going to help that family. And if you listen to the podcast with JP, with JP to Nell on it, which is number 46, JP is taking ownership of his marriage, which actually were divorced at the time and applied the simple laws of combat, right? Simplify, cover, move, and got his marriage back on track.

And so extreme ownership is not 100% focused on business. It's focused on life. And the dichotomy is also there that I talk about all the time that you have to balance all the opposing forces. It's a chapter in the book called the dichotomy of leadership, right? You've got to balance these opposing forces in your world. Now, one of those opposing forces is balancing the pull of your family with the pull of your work. And yeah, you can go too far in one direction.

You can go so far in one direction that you lose you. You can go so work so hard and do such long hours that you lose your family. You can also do the opposite where you don't do enough at work and you focus so much in your family that you lose your job. Which one of those is a good outcome? Neither. That's why you have to balance. Neither one of those is a good outcome. That's why you have to balance.

And by the way, it's one of those things, too. I've seen this happen with friends of mine that have gone on sort of a breakdown, kind of downward spiral in their life. I think this is problematic. People start having trouble with their marriage, right? And they quit their job. And they think, oh, now I'll be able to spend more time,

but now a sudden they don't have any money. And it turns into a disdemeanor. And I always say, look, man, think about this. Your job is how you provide for your family. So let's have a plan before we move in this direction. You got to balance. Because if you throw everything, like I just said, if you say, okay, my job's, you know, I'm too stressed out. And I'm just going to leave my job and just focus on my family.

Now you've got no income. You've got a whole new level stresses coming at you because who's going to put the food on the table. Yeah. So. Kind of like when guys, they stop working out after they get married because, oh, I got to focus on my family, my kids, you know, and they stop working out. But, oh, health down, you know. Health down. Yeah.

Energy down. Yeah. You know, you become a low energy father. We don't want that. That's bad for everybody. That's bad for the whole family. So, yeah, that's another thing. If you got, if you got your wife or your husband is saying, hey, you know, you're working out all the time.

Or, you know, I don't like this. Say, hey, here's the benefits. Yeah. Do you want me to be around for an extended period of time? You want me to be alive past 60. Do you want me to be able to defend our family? Should there be some kind of an encounter? I know I do want to be able to defend this family.

So yeah, I got to spend a little extra time on their gun range. Yeah, I got to spend a little extra time on the Jit too mat. Yes, I'm going to work out. I'm doing that. You think I'm doing it for me? I'm doing it for us. For us, yeah. I'm doing it for us.

Now, of course, you've got to balance that too because you can go overboard there too. Yeah. So you've got to be. Be careful. Like working out is not to be confused with going to the gym. There's a huge separation there. Yeah. So guys will like go to the gym or even the jih Tzu mat because let's face it,

there is a big element of social, you know, that social component in Jiu Jitsu. What do you mean? What do you mean? When you go to Jiu Jitsu, like you, there's a lot of hanging out. You mean talking to other humans? Yeah, you're friends. Yeah, of course. Of course.

So some people, they'll be like, hey, I'll go to Jiu Jets. Jitsu. Meanwhile, new baby, whatever. Hey, I'm going to Jiu-Jitsu. But then they'll roll for the hour, hour and a half, and then three and a half, four hours later, they'll come home. I was doing Jiu-Jitsu. Here's the benefits. I'm like, yeah, you did the

jiu-jitsu for hour and a half. The other, for however long, you were cruising with your friends in the lounge, drinking assa'i. Yeah, don't do that. So don't confuse it. Don't confuse it. You got to have balance. Or use it. You know how people will use it. Well, I got to go, but meanwhile. Yeah. That's good. And you know,

These questions, what I liked about him is he's saying, hey, you know, basically put the extreme ownership attitude into the UFC cage and let's see how it does in these problem examples. So I think it does all right. Or just get your home gym, you know? Yeah, I definitely recommend the home gym. Jocko, do you follow stoicism? Did Zen practice lead to your thoughts about detachment and ego? So I get asked these questions. the other day on Twitter.

And as you know, when I'm answering Twitter, I'm doing pretty terse answers because I'm answering a lot of different questions. What is terse? Short. So this one, in particular, I remember the answer, someone said, do you follow stoicism? And I wrote back, no.

No, don't. And in a while later, I get, you know, the thread back. And the guy come back and said something along the lines of, like, you know, I don't know what it is you don't agree with With stoicism, it's very similar to what you believe or something like that. It wasn't being a jerk. He was just like, you know, what's wrong with you?

I don't, you practice stoicism. And here's the deal. And I'd love to come back here and tell people how learned I am and how well read I am about the philosophies and the ancient cultures and the Eastern religions and all matters in the world philosophical. But the fact is, I'm not. I'm not. And actually, when I was a kid, and by the way, kid for me lasts a long time. I mean, kid for me goes pretty recent, you know, I mean, six months ago, I kind of concerned myself a kid. But when I was a kid, the teachings of philosophers and of the ancients, those, that information was transmitted by academics, right?

by teachers or by professors, professors, and to be blunt. And Frank, when I was a kid, there was a lot of people in that realm, in the academic realm, that didn't exactly command my respect. Now, they were people that went to college. I wanted to learn from people that went to war.

That's what I wanted. Now, the part that I missed was that, Many of the ancients were warriors and their teachings were important. And through my own arrogance looking at these professors and these teachers, I don't know going to learn anything from that person. I'm going to go in the military. I'm going to learn from a gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps. That's what I was thinking.

But the fact is the reading and the studying and the schooling did not really lead me to any of my beliefs or values. It was life that did. It was the things I experienced that brought me to this place where I am right now, not the books that I read, not the classes that I attended. And like I said, of course, part of this, a big part of this was just my own ignorance and ego, me saying, what can these professors teach me? And that's why a footnote right now, caveat or or secondary thought, everyone out there, when you have the opportunity to learn, take full advantage of it. And I know now, again, I know now that you can learn from anybody.

You can learn from anybody. Everybody's got something to teach you. So open up your mind. And that being said, since I was too stupid and arrogant to learn oftentimes, to learn from books. and teachers, I had to learn from life. And as I look now, yeah, I see similarities between, again, I'll use the word beliefs, but I think that's a strong word, but I see similarities between what I think and the other philosophical thoughts throughout the ages.

And I think that's partially, I think that's actually not even partially. I think that's because there really are some universal truths. for humanity and for people. And I think that if you walk the path of life and you pay attention to what's happening around you and you're exposed to joy and you're exposed to suffering and you're exposed to love and to hate

and to war and to peace, I think if you have led down that path and you have followed down that path, I think that all the paths, they kind of arrive at some place that's fairly similar. And the term that they kind of use is this term of enlightenment. And again, I think that's definitely too strong the word for what I'm trying to say,

but that's sort of a broad term that captures it. but I think these paths they all lead to a similar form of enlightenment and I don't think it really matters what terrain you went through or what specific path you took I think that we see that the path looks very similar and it says the same things when you get to the end it says to be disciplined It says to keep your ego in check. It says to keep things simple and work hard and tell the truth and believe in what you say and what you do and treat other people with respect. And when you start getting overwhelmed with the emotions, you've got to detach from those.

And I think that there's things like those that are just universal truths. And I think you can find them in what the Buddha said or what Marcus Aurelius said or what the Bible says or what any number of religious or philosophical teachers, I think they're all pretty similar. And I think you can learn them from those ancients. Or I think you can find them yourself. And unless you're, of course, too stubborn and arrogant to listen and hear the lessons of the past.

But if you're not, I think you can get there. and that's sort of how I arrived at again. The word is too strong, but the way I think, I'll put it to you that way. The way I think, it's where I ended up. And I didn't get too much direction along the way. And now it's really obvious. I mean, when you look at, and I'm sure we'll do Marcus Aurelius at some point,

you know, because his, you know, Stoic sayings are awesome. And they totally match. And I wish I would have, I wish what I would have learned about Marcus Aurelius in sophomore year in high school. I said, wow, this guy's got it together. I'm going to listen to him. He was a warrior.

But I didn't do that. Why? Because the guy that was teaching me, I was saying, no, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. This guy's some teacher, right? Yeah. There's a reason they're called teacher. So they can teach you, but you got to be willing to listen and learn.

So, you know, I always try and I've talked about this. when we talked about the Jocko Academy, right, having a school, I always talked about tying this thread between all this history in the world so that people, so the kids can understand what it means and where it came from. And I think that that's something that I never made those connections when I was a kid.

I never made those connections in high school, you know? Even when I was going to college, I went to college, I was pretty old when I went to college for a college student. I think I was 27, right? So I was a mature, allegedly mature. I wasn't mature. You know what I was trying to do when I went to college? Get good grades.

Beat the teacher. It was me against the teacher. The contest was grade. I'm going to beat you. I wasn't saying, you know what? This guy really has a lot to show me. This guy really can learn a lot from this. I can apply this in my life.

No, I wasn't saying that. I was too stupid. I was too arrogant to say that. So what did I do? Studied hard, memorized what they told me to memorize. That's what I did. I wasn't.

I was focused on the grade, not on the learning. Now I'll tell you. that's not an excuse for oh i'm not going to worry about the grade i'm just going to learn no wrong answer i'm saying this specifically for my kids that are probably listening to this and they'll say like well dad you know i'm focused on the learning negative you focus on the learning good you still get your a that's what you get you still win you still win so that's i guess you know again i'm i'm sorry and i think sometimes people get caught up in like it's a you ever heard me

say, talk about when we got back from my first deployment to Iraq. And we actually when I was in T.U. Bruiser with Laif, we had a saying. It was a joke. It was a weeweeb, which stood for when I was in Baghdad. Right? When I was in Baghdad, because a lot of people now, everyone had done one deployment to Baghdad. And so anytime they were having any kind of a conversation, they'd say, well, when I was in

Baghdad, and we go, weweeb. So you'd get some guy, some instructor or some. some cadre from the training from the training attachment that'd be like when I was in Baghdad we did this every time and it's okay it's a we web right because it's a way of saying oh look to I this is this is confirmed in the past and therefore it's correct right and I always said man you can't say that you can't say we we right you can't say when I was in Baghdad you can't say this is the way this is I learned what you say should be able to stand on its own two feet that's my point so I think a lot of times people say oh well Mark Carceralia said this or the Buddha says this. And therefore it's correct. They very well might be correct. But let's get the argument not to use their quotes. Why don't you come up with something to stand on your own two feet?

Again, nothing wrong with using the guidance of the ancients, right? There's nothing wrong with that. That's brilliant. From all these books, the Bible's got all kinds of things in it that are very impactful, great, great proverbs to live by. But you know what? Where'd they come from? And why not figure out how to use them or how to make them stand on their own two feet?

Were you not just pointing to, you know, well, it says this there. The book says this. Mark Saralia said that. Buddha said this other thing. No. No. Let's develop our, not develop our own, but let's make sure we test what we're saying. We believe in what we're saying.

That's how I ended up where I'm at. So, you know, kind of a rough path to take. some things in life you've got to learn on your own though yeah yeah a lot most of the time that's the best way yeah unfortunately a lot of things you got to learn only through experience we we web we we when i was a bag there just just like rank just like i can't say like echo i outrank you therefore you'll do it this way yeah just like that i also can't say echo i did it this way in the past therefore it's the correct way to do it those are equally bad arguments don't do them.

Yeah. I hear that a lot. You know, especially when I first got into reading, I'd, well, most of the than I'd hear it, I'd kind of think about that where I could be like, hey, you know, if I come across a situation where I'm going to apply some knowledge that I learned, and if I'm in a situation where I got to convey

the merits of that knowledge, you know, it does feel weird to be like, hey, the book said it this way. more like you're just this like blind per like you don't really understand the value of of what you learn you just oh it said to do it you know if you have to if you have to refer to the source without if i just say oh echo we need to do this way because the book said this right no that's not a good answer what you should be saying is you know i read this and here's why i see it apply and here's what this book says but this is where i think it you know you can use it maybe

to help your your arguments but don't let your argument rest on this thing thing. Yeah. That's my opinion. Know yourself. I'm going to go ahead and 100% agree with you. And I was going to say, unless that book is about putting together your computer, then you just follow the book. But when you really think about it, still, it still holds up.

You should understand the computer and how it works. Yeah. I'm not going to get into that game. Anyway. All right. Let's go one more. Okay. What do you do on the days when you're just not feeling it?

those days those days when I'm tired or worn out or just basically sick of the grind what do I do on those days I go anyways I get it done even if I'm just going through the motions I go through the motions I don't really Want to work out? I work out. I really don't want to hammer on a project. I hammer on the project. Don't really want to get up and get out of bed.

Yeah, I get up and get out of bed. Now, these could be signals that you need some time off. And those signals might be right. They could be correct. But don't take today off. Not today. Wait until tomorrow. Don't give in to the immediate gratification that is whispering in your ear.

Shut that down. Do not listen to that little voice. Instead, go through the motions. Lift the weights. Sprint the hill. Work on the project. Get out of bed. Now, as an overall rule, I do not like procrastination.

You need to get things done. But if you are going to rest, that is one thing that you should procrastinate on. That's the one thing I want you to put off until tomorrow. And if, when tomorrow comes, you still feel like you need to rest or you need to take a break, then okay take it but the chances are you won't you won't need that rest chances are you will realize that the desire to rest was just weakness it was just the desire to take the path of least resistance the downhill path the easy path and by simply going through the motions you overcame that path and you stayed on the righteous path,

the discipline path, you stayed on the war path, which is right where you know that you belong. And I think that's all I've got for tonight. Echo, before we go, is there any way that people can support this podcast? Well, yes, there is actually. All right, yeah, we'll go over a couple ways.

The supplements. that's more supporting yourself ultimately because you do get 10% off and you get good supplements which is rare mind you but anyway on it is the company it's on it dot com slash jaco that's how you get 10% off um alpha brain for your brain shroom tech for your performance body performance warrior bars for your stomach yeah bro we I was in where my friends came over from Arizona's past weekend and I worked out or whatever that we're still cooking so I busted out a warrior bar and we're cruising and all the kids

to two years old, three years old, six years old and then they ate my warrior bars kids and there's a little bit of spice to it did they then start getting after it? Yeah but in the spirit of accuracy they had been getting after it big time even before that but Anyway, the point there is that they do taste good. Even three-year-olds don't mind a little spice. That's how good they taste.

Yeah. Not to say that you're a three-year-old if you eat them, though. They're good for it. They're warrior bars. Yeah. Buffalo meat, gluten-free, by the way. They didn't call them three-year-olds. No, no.

They didn't call them formula. They didn't call them that. It's warrior bars. Yeah. No, they're good, though. When I go on trips now, like I go to speak with a company or I'm going to work with, they you know a lot of times they provide lunch a lot of times now there's warrior bars oh man that's advanced there's there's they're they're they're fully engaged yeah we're

doing which is awesome and you mentioned us training thank you for that by the way bringing that up again um i was going to take some shroom tech just to be like today's the day and i didn't Mm-hmm. That was problematic. You understand. And I also, you know, when we got done yesterday, I kind of led you in. I said, hey, you know, man, you know what? Here's the deal.

Because just for, just to put this in context, yesterday not a good day for Echo on the Mass. Here's the thing. It started good. Okay. In my opinion, given my trajectory learning on it. It wasn't a great day, right, for Echo on the map. It was a day of, of, of, you know, I say either you win or you learn, bro, I learned a lot. Yes.

Yeah. So we get done. And, you know, we're doing a little debrief. We got big Andy there too. And I went over to something with Andy. I was like, hey, man, I'd really feel this good for you. And I'm able to do it. And I sit down next to Echo.

And I said, hey, man, you know, I don't know. You know, today, you just, you know, normally when you roll, you feel like, you know, about this level. And then today, you felt about, I don't know, about maybe 19% worse. And of course, he didn't have his, his, his podcast rash guard on. So I, he was actually thinking I was going to tell him there was some real. But maybe there is something real there. I don't know. I don't know.

Probably. Nonetheless, yeah, so it could be attributed to one of those two things. I didn't take Shroom Tech. And I didn't have my rash card. So one of those is then, I think. Well, I like what you're doing. instead of blaming me. Yeah.

You're taking the blame on yourself. Yeah, what's the saying? A really good craftsman blames his tools. Yeah, I think that's the actual saying. Anyway, back to the shroom tech. That's a good one for performance. Alphabet, good too. Anyway, ony.com slash jaco, 10% off.

Support your wallet. alleviate it by 10%. Or give it a 10% break. Yeah. There you go. And it supports this podcast. You know, it's like a circle of support. Like, Onet supports us.

We, like, support on it. We think that technically, even if On It wasn't, like, we weren't sponsored by Onet, I have TrumTech. I've been taking TrumTech from before that. So it's kind of like, you know, anyway, circle of support there. Another good way, Amazon. The Amazon click through. You go to the website, jocoblogast.com, click through the Amazon link.

It's also in the store. click through before you do your holiday shopping or any shopping. That's a really good way. The key there is to remember to do it. It doesn't cost you anything. What do you put a sticky key on your computer? Yeah. That's a really good way to support this podcast.

It does a lot. Cost you nothing and provides good support. And it's really kind of invisible to you. you other than that little motion. So that sounds like a really good way to support the podcast. It's kind of like you ever watch. Jeff Bebos, right? That's his name, the leader of Amazon.

Bezos. Jeff Bezos? Yeah. Hey, that guy seems to have enough money at Amazon.com that thrown a couple shillings at the podcast here. Seems like a good plan to me. We support that. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. Clicking through Amazon is, you everyone, You know when you watch Saving Private Ryan? Yeah. You know at the end when the support comes, it saves everybody. Yeah, it's not that big of it. I mean, we want the support, but it's not saving people's lives. But it's kind of dope like that.

I'm saying, you know, it's good. Yeah, click through the website. That's cool for your holiday shopping. Or just some duct tape. Somebody sent me some Penn State duct tape. Who's that? Did Debbie? No, that wasn't Debbie.

That was Sarah. Sarah. Sarah. Yeah. Now everything's covered in Penn State duct tape. Yeah, I know. Speaking to which, speaking to Sarah, Armstrong. Yes.

The girls' t-shirts are in. I didn't announce that before. People have been, you know, in the game and kind of seeing them. But yeah, okay, the girls' shirts are in. Their V-neck, their shirts, worthy women, four colors. Black. Approved. Gray.

Approved. O.D. Green. Approved. Pink. Ah! Pink. Sorry, Brad. You got, what do you call it?

Outvoted. Yeah, vetoed. You got vetoed. You were literally the only one who didn't want pink. Seriously? I know. It's like your podcast and all this stuff. Anyway, they're good, man.

I think they came out good. We got some good reviews from Allie. Allie, by the way. Allie and Cassie. A lot of times when they send the, you know, the package that they send. the packages. These are,

for those you that don't know, that's the crew. Yeah. That behind the scenes. That packages up. That packages. Yeah.

And they get after it. Like, they, like, Ali will be, like if someone's from, I forget where, but it was like,

Dale King was one of them, or she'll write like, go Cubs or, you know, like if you're, if you're in Chicago or something, she'll be like, go Cubs.

And she'll write it on your. Personal message. Yeah. Yeah, because she's like, you kind of feel like, you know the You know because really when you think about it it's like oh shoot I know how big they are because they're shirt side

I know where they live you know kind of thing I mean it's not like they're gonna stop nothing like that But I'm just saying they they kind of they're into talk you but they'll support your local baseball team yeah yeah I need be nonetheless the whole reason I bring it up even they were like dang these are really good shirts Okay we get the message good they're pink pink summer pink summer OD green Discipline equals freedom, women's shirts, money. Also, of course, rash guards, 19-ish percent improvement. So far, holding up, that claim has been holding up.

UFC fighters confirming, Jocko confirming with me when I didn't have my rash guard, and I was 19% less effective. Anyway, and they happen to look really good according to the feedback I've been getting. So anyway, if you go to jocco store.com, you can look at them, And look at the girls' t-shirts and the other shirts on there. If you like them, get one. Support that way.

Represent. Also, hoodies, yes, of course, hoodies are out. Chilly outside. Yeah, it is. It's like a heavier way. It's not the heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy. Those four heavies, I think. Yeah, it's not like snow, you know.

But two heavies. Well, because someone emailed me. I got to remember all the people who actually asked these specific questions, but he was like, how heavy is it? Is it? well it was the brand cart car heart cart heart car heart yeah is it like i i understand a card heart that that's gonna you know provide this and you know as far as warm straight up arctic situation yeah yeah exactly right so that's a good example so i'm like

you know how is it comparatively it's not that it's not arctic conditions it's like like okay conditions what conditions coquea what's that monaicaia how about that it's monarchy condition. Cocay is a mountain on Kauai where you go up. It's like it's yeah, it gets kind of cold. If you have any other references that no one understands, that's cool. Do it. Anyway, it's like, it's almost the heaviest as far as hoodies go.

But anyway, they're good. Check those out. If you like them, go ahead, support that way, grab one of those. Keep yourself kind of warm or like it, you know, as far as when you work out and stuff. Or just wearing them. So yeah, there it is. Of course, subscribe. YouTube.

I'm putting more videos. Currently, I'm putting more videos. I'm putting more. Put one the other day. I'm put one today. They're like little bite size, like bits, you know? Because sometimes you don't want to listen to the two hours, especially on YouTube.

You just want to listen. How do I, like, recover from setbacks at work? Jocko McNuggets? Yeah, exactly right. So you can, you know, you can look at them for, like, short or time, like three to, I don't know, eight minutes or something. Or if you know, if you know someone who's like, hey, you were asking me this question, remember?

you send them that advice it's like shareable advice kind of thing anyway that's on YouTube yeah so subscribe to YouTube you can support that way and iTunes of course oh you got a problem here's a two and a half hour podcast it's like when people are like

hey I'm trying to get over the situation at work and then they say hey read this book I'm like bro I go to work tomorrow yeah yeah I need to know now yes exactly so it's kind of the same situation with those YouTube like bite sides videos Or you can just revisit the subject matter. You know what I mean? Like if you listen to it, let me go, yeah, let me revisit it.

Reenforce, exactly. So there you go. And then, yeah, write a review on iTunes. It doesn't take you long to cut those things out, doesn't it? Because I think you should just put a massive number of those out. Yeah, just to be on there, right? Yeah, a lot of times I'll think of it in terms of like, you know how when you put out the podcast every week? It's like, ooh, the new one's on.

Let me check it out. So a lot of times I just, I'm like dogmatic. in that way where I think just through habit, I think of it that way. So I'm like, okay, I'm put a bite that way. You just put one. Can't let it marinate for a little while before you put it in. But yeah, I shouldn't think about it that way. It just needs to be on there.

Think of it this way. Instead of thinking it that way, think of it this way. When you put one out, that's five minutes and 56 seconds long. Five minutes and 56 later. Latter. Moments later. That someone's waiting for the next one. Yeah.

So hook them up. Take care of some people. Echo Charles. All right. Let's do that. I'm in. Yeah, and boom, there you go. Good.

A couple other things. Jocka white tea, if you want to get some of that, it's probably, probably going to be the only beverage you're ever going to want to drink every again. And I think that there's a time coming in the very near future where when you go to a bar or to a club out at night to have a good time, I think in the future, the only thing that they're going to be selling in the bar and the club. in the restaurant it's just jockey white tea there's not going to be any more beer no more whiskey no more wine no more of poison

that tastes like gasoline I declare that those days are numbered and I think it's going to be time people are going to be wanting to drink something that makes you smarter instead of something that makes you dumber something that makes you stronger

instead of making you weaker something that makes you healthier instead of making you sicker. Dang. So that's why I think people are going to be on it. Amazon, you can get some of that while you're also on Amazon. If you like this podcast and what we talked about, you can get a book. And this is sometimes people find the podcast and they haven't read the book

Extreme Ownership by me and my brother Laif Babin. That's pretty normal, right? And sometimes it's the opposite. Yeah. People got the book and then they found the podcast. So either way, but I'm just confirming if you're a person that listens to the podcast, the book is also there.

You can grab that from Amazon. And also, if you kind of want to keep these conversations going with Echo Charles and myself, you can find us. We will be on the interwebs. All of the interwebs. On Twitter, Instagram,

and of course, we even on that is booking. Echo is at. at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And finally, thanks to everybody for listening. If you're in uniform, thank you for serving. Thanks for taking the fight to the enemy. Thanks for stopping criminals. Thanks for putting out fires.

Thanks to all of you in uniform in service. And the rest of you troopers out there, fighting your own fight make it a good fight make it the kind of fight that win or lose you walk off the field of battle knowing you gave it everything you could give and you had nothing left in that fight that fight that I'm talking about is life and while I was talking about going through the motion some times when you just haven't got the intrinsic drive to go full on at a task let me tell you what when it comes to life don't just go through the motions live live fight the good fight live don't just go through life don't just get through it instead get after it

So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.