The Dan Bongino Show - Interview With Jocko Willink (Ep 1187)

Episode Date: February 22, 2020

In this episode we interview Navy Seal, Patriot, host of the Jocko podcast, and author of the terrific book “Leadership Strategy and Tactics” linked here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250226848/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5HWtEbP8MNF8A   Copyright Dan Bongino All Rights Reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show interview series. Great guest today, Jocko Willink, author of the terrific book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. You're going to love this book. Folks, I always record these, as you know, if you're a regular listener, the intros to the show after the interview, some of the things we get into. Jocko tells us about some of his experiences as a Navy SEAL that are just mind

blowing. The story he tells about their training on an oil rig and that leadership examples they took from it is tremendous. You're not going to want to miss that. We get into all kinds of things. His experience with Brazilian jujitsu and hand-to-hand combat, conditioning. This conversation goes everywhere. You're going to love it. He really did a great job. I appreciate it. Got to pay for the show.

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pain. Omaxhealth.com, promo code Bongino. All right, without further ado, Jocko Willink. All right, I want to welcome to the Dan Bongino Show a guest who, listen, when I put it out there to recommend guests for the show, this name came up repeatedly. A guy I know I have enormous respect for, Jocko Willink. Jocko, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate your time today. Thanks for having me on, Dan. Appreciate it. So I want to get right into your new book, which I read, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

Here it is, folks. Bought it myself, a phenomenal book. I went through it and there's so much in here. I honestly, for the first time in an interview, had a tough time nailing it down to four or five good questions because you have so many great stories. You don't only talk about leadership.

You correlate it to things you've lived during your time in the Navy SEALs and just your life experience has been tremendous. So my first question for you is one of the things you hit on in the book is you would think in the Navy SEALs program, BUDS and all these complicated training programs you went through for this elite military force, that there would have been a specific program on leadership. But you make the point that they didn't really focus on a leadership specific class there, that this was kind of on the job training. If you could elaborate on that a little bit and how you picked up all these leadership traits on that on the job training, I think my audience would love to hear about it.

Yeah, it is very surprising that we had one of the premier special operations groups in the world and there was no real leadership training inside of our pipeline. And like you said, and like I write about the book, it was just on the job training. You'd watch the chief or the officer above you in the chain of command and you'd kind of imitate what they did. And of course, they try and show you the ropes a little bit and explain why they were making decisions. I know that program works okay if you have a good leader above you in the chain of command. If you don't have a good leader, well, then you might be learning bad habits. So it turns out to be pretty ridiculous. And it was a problem. And that's why later in my career,

I made it a real focus of mine to incorporate leadership training into our pipeline so that guys learned how to lead. But what I did was I just, from, from the time, you know, I was, I was the youngest and most junior guy in my first two SEAL platoons. And I was constantly watching, I was constantly paying attention to the officers, to the chiefs that I had, paying attention to what they did that made me want to follow them and paying attention to the things that they did that made me not want to follow them. And so as I learned from both the good and the bad, eventually over time, those things kind of gelled together in my head and turned into the kind of principles that I write about and teach about and talk about now. You know, ironically, Jocko, when I was an instructor in the Secret Service Academy,

I was given a class to coordinate and I hadn't been given any courses in leadership either. And I always had a deep respect for the military. One of the great regrets in my lifetime is not going into the military to this day. It's a long story, but you know, one of the things I learned, I was supposed to be leading the class as the class coordinator, the instructor. And we had a bunch of former Marines in our class. And I've got to tell you, through their five paragraph orders, these were students. I remember specifically learning from the students, gosh, that really worked well. These guys really responded to this guy.

So I think on the job training works. But you're right. In some of these elite programs, it's stunning that there really isn't a leadership course. There are clear tactics to use. And like you, I had to learn them on the job as well, even from the students. Let me get to another point in your book. Again, we're talking to Jocko Willing, author of a fantastic book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookstores everywhere. You're going to love this book. I was reading it for questions and got through the book in about a day and a half. It's that good, folks. I promise you. You tell the story in the book about training on oil platforms during your time in the Navy SEALs in the event one of them may be hijacked. And you bring up some fascinating points.

something regular civilians luckily don't have to think about. You can't just start firing willy-nilly. You got flammable compounds, an oil platform. And how when you were in that scene, you talk about in this training exercise, how there was this value for you from detaching yourself from the situation. You noticed how people in that training unit you were working with, they were focused on looking over the barrel of their firearm. But there's a value to detaching yourself and seeing the whole picture for once. If you could elaborate on that exercise and what you learned from that, I thought the story is one of the one of really the best in the book. It's very well done. Yeah, well, thank you.

That was early in my career is actually when I was in my first SEAL platoon. So I was a brand new guy. actually when I was in my first SEAL platoon. So I was a brand new guy. Like I said, I was the youngest and most junior guy in the platoon, which meant what I should have been doing was exactly what you just said, looking down my weapon, scanning for targets. And we were going through this oil rig and we got to this one level of the rig and it was a huge level. It was very complex. And you know what, one of the things that they would tell us about oil rigs is everything that you see wants to either explode or catch on fire. So you've got to pay attention when you're on an oil rig.

So my platoon, my whole platoon, we got 16 guys in the platoon. We're basically standing abreast of each other in a big skirmish line. And everyone's looking down their weapons, waiting for a call to be made while they're scanning for targets. And a little bit of time passes and i'm thinking to myself okay i i can see that i don't have any targets to engage where's the call where's the tactical call and i wait a little bit longer i wait a little bit longer i wait a little bit longer no call no call no call finally i just decide i gotta do something so i just high port my weapon you know for civilians out there that means i just you know

basically point my weapon at the sky where I'm not going to shoot anything. I take, I take a step like a foot back off the skirmish line. I look to my left, I look to my right. And first thing I see is I see that everybody else in my platoon, including my platoon commander, including my platoon chief, including the assistant platoon commander, every single guy is looking down their weapons, which means their field of view is basically the sights of their weapons. And they can't see the rest of the, the rest of the scenario that's unfolding. And yet, even though I'm a new guy,

even though I'm the most junior guy, by stepping back and looking around by detaching from that situation, I can see exactly what we need to do. And then being a new guy, I was a little nervous about actually doing something about it. Cause you, you learn not to run your mouth as a new guy in a SEAL platoon. But I knew I had to do something. So I just made a tactical call. I said, hold left, clear right. And I was kind of expecting someone to look at me and say, hey, shut up, new guy. But instead, they repeated the verbal command and hold left, clear right, hold left, clear right, hold left, clear right. It goes down the line. And then the guys actually executed the call. And it wasn't like I made some genius tactical call. It was a very common call to make, but I made it. But I think the point

there you make for leadership is a great one. I mean, even in the business world, Jocko, you see people get lost. I mean, business owners, CEOs, C-suite people admit to you every day, they get lost in the next profit loss statement and they lose the bigger picture that the company's sinking. So, I mean, I think the story when I read it, you know, it was obviously meant to be analogous to other things in life. And I see that throughout the book. And I think in the military, nobody does a better job in training our people through experience and on the job training than that. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, you picked up exactly what the point is. If you get caught up in the weeds and you start focused on the tactical battle that's right in front of you, you're going to miss out on the bigger picture. And by the way, if you're in a leadership get people that are supposed to be making decisions, people that are supposed to be figuring out where we're heading in the future. And instead they're caught up in a tactical battle and no one's leading.

So it's something to look out for, for sure. I want to note folks, Jocko also hosts a podcast, the Jocko podcast available on Apple podcasts. It's incredible. If you want to get these tidbits of wisdom, you can check in. The podcasts are very inspirational. I listen all the time. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere, fantastic show. Jocko, another point in your book,

again, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, folks, again, highly recommended book. Please check it out. You talk about the power of relationships, but you make a key point here. It's good to have a relationship with your boss, your supervisor, your officer, whoever it may be in the military

to have that open relationship to be able to talk. But you say in a book at one point that listen sometimes there's a mutiny in order which i thought was fascinating uh what exactly do you mean by that when is a mutiny in order and i think a lot of people would learn to hear from these it's a great lesson in the book you know we we actually had a mutiny uh in one of my seal pl my second SEAL platoon, we had an officer that was, look, he was just an arrogant guy. He was inexperienced. He didn't know a lot, but he acted like he knew everything. He forced his ideas down everyone's throat.

And, you know, that's a lot of times people think that's what the military is. The military is, hey, the officer barks order at the troops and the troops just turn around and obey. It doesn't work like that. You know, can it work like that for a day or two days or a week? Yeah, it can work like that for a little while. But eventually, if that's the only way you know how to lead, the troops are not going to respect it. And that's exactly what happened. So we had a guy that was making bad decisions. He was coming up with bad plans. Our platoon wasn't performing the way we wanted to perform. And so we had a mutiny and we, we went to our commanding

officer. So we went to his boss and told his boss that we didn't want this guy, you know, we don't want to follow this guy. We didn't want to work with this guy. And eventually the guy got fired. So the problem is this is, this should absolutely be the last course of action that you should take in inside of any team. Because as soon as you, you know, as soon as you go and you, you fight against your boss, I mean, it's going to disrupt everything that you're trying to do to accomplish your mission. So it's a last resort. That being said, if you've got a boss, that's trying to do something that's immoral or illegal or unethical, well, then it's time to speak up. It's time to do something. And perhaps it's time to have a

mutiny. Another situation where that might unfold is if you've got a boss, that's going to do something or direct you to do something that's going to end up getting a bunch of people killed unnecessarily. And, and that's maybe a situation where you say, you know what, we're not going to do this now, even in that particular situation, you have to be careful because Dan, let's say I was working for you and you told me to do something that I knew was going to cause massive casualties on my platoon. If I say, well, you know, Dan, I'm not doing it. I refuse.

You might just say, okay, fine, you know what? You're fired. You take one of your, you know, one of your guys that, you know, that's a yes man, you put them in there and now he goes and executes the mission. He doesn't mitigate any risk, gets a bunch of people killed. It would have been better off if I'd have just said, okay, Dana, look, I really protest what we're doing. If you want me to do it, I'll do it. Here's the reasons that I'm, I don't think we should do it. Eventually you order me to do it. I say, okay, I go out, I mitigate risk to the best of my ability. Maybe we don't,

maybe we don't do the mission that, that you really had in mind. Maybe at the last minute, I say, Hey, you know what boss, we saw this different thing and we had to make some adjustments and I'm able to take care of my guys while I'm still resisting what you're trying to make us do. So these are very tricky situations. And you know what? Leadership is hard. Leadership is a challenge and it takes a lot to think through. And having a mutiny is definitely one of the things you got to think a lot about before you execute. Well, and you make a very nuanced point there. What I believe you're getting out of the chapter is build those relationships first,

hoping you never get to a mutiny. And if you have a relationship, you can be free to talk openly and say what you think those leadership failures are before it leads to, God forbid, death and chaos, or even dreadful business decisions that are going to cave your company in. So that's what I really enjoyed. I mean, you give all of those scenarios in the book first. It's very well done. Again, I can't recommend it enough. One of the other things, I have never experienced the fog of war. Men like you, brave men and women, and forgive me, I should have said this at the beginning of the show. I can't believe I missed. I want to thank you for your service.

Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I lost an uncle in Vietnam. He died rather heroically. He was given the Bronze Star with a V-cluster, and he was saving his men when he was killed. He was shot in the back, south of Thu Duc. And it changed my family forever, Jocko. And it's one of those things that's altered my experience on how I talk about combat war and soldiers. These are not assets. These are not billet numbers. These are bleeding men and women who, when they come home, either missing body parts or missing their

lives, their lives and the lives of others are permanently altered. I know with my family, his name was Greg Ambrose. It was pre-Greg and post-Greg. My family was never the same. You know, he was, he was 19 years old when he died. And men like you who do this for, let's be candid, there's no money in this, Jocko. I mean, nobody, nobody's getting rich off being in the military. I, you know, when I went overseas and did advances with the president, I dealt with a two-star general. I think I was making more money than he was in the Secret Service. I mean, nobody's making any money off this. So thank you. And on behalf of my audience, who I know loves you, you said they wanted you on the show.

Really, I know you guys aren't seeking praise, but it means a lot. So thanks for your service. I really mean that. It was an honor to serve. And I know you serve as well in your capacity. And anyone that steps up and does what their country needs them to do. It's definitely appreciated. Well, thanks brother. Nothing like you though. When I went over to Afghanistan, I stayed in a nice Connex box. Those guys were staying in hoochies and I was like, man, you guys got to sleep in that. I mean, really the Connex box look like the Ritz Carlton compared

to what these guys, and I'll never forget these poor guys, dirt everywhere. That was the one thing they complained about all the time to me. They're like, brother, there's dirt everywhere all the time. It was driving them crazy. I'll never, ever forget that over at Bagram. One thing I wanted to ask you from a man whose experience is just incredible, again, Jocko podcast, if you want to listen to some of Jocko's experiences. The fog of war, having been a police officer, again, nothing even remotely compared to your experience, but having been in a couple of situations where firearms was involved,

you know, a shot came at our, there's that fog of war in military, in the military, it's got in a war situation has to be exponentially times a factor of 10. Can you train to overcome that fog of war in an elite unit like the Navy SEALs? Or is it an inevitable portion of combat and you just learn to maybe shrink the response time? I'd love to get your perspective on that. Yeah, well, there's definitely going to be situations where that fog is going to be there, right?

It's going to be there. You're not going to know exactly what's going to, what's going on. You're not going to know exactly where different troops are out on the battlefield. You're definitely not going to know where the enemy is all the time. You're not going to know where certain, certain weapons are being fired from. I mean, that's one thing when I took over training, after I got back from my last deployment, we would put guys with paintball guns in, in buildings to shoot at the trainees and the trainees would say, you know, it's not fair because we don't know where the, we would put guys with paintball guns in buildings to shoot at the trainees. And the trainees would say, you know, it's not fair because we don't know where we're getting shot at from.

Wait till you get overseas, my friend. You're not going to go. Oftentimes, you won't know where you're getting shot at from. So there are certain things when you're in combat, you're not going to know 100% what's going on. But as you said, what you can do is you can inoculate people to that kind of stress. You can make sure that instead of making snap reactions where they're not fully understanding what's happening, they can make smaller decisions. They can make tighter decisions. They can make quicker decisions. They can increase their or decrease their response time. So they're moving

faster. And what that allows us to do is then make other decisions quickly thereafter that are reflective of what we learned by our last decision. So these are things that you have to do. You have to do it by drilling, by training hard, by training like you fight, by putting guys in very stressful situations where they are in the fog of war. And as you get used to it, you get better at responding to it. It reminds me of that old Mike Tyson line. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. From a guy like yourself, we've been training MMA for 20 years now. I'll never forget even messing around with a friend of mine, a really athletic guy who caught me by surprise one day, caught me in some fourth grade headlock on the ground. I got to tell you, even though I'd been training on the ground, it took me a second

to think, damn, how do you get out of this again? Cause I, and he was just my friend. And I kept thinking in a street fight, gosh, imagine in combat that fog of war, but that just goes to show you your commitment to training that you can even mitigate that response time a little bit. And you get on your, you know, you get on your toes quick. It's just incredible. Um, one more question about the book. And I just want to hit on some of your Brazilian jujitsu experience. I know you work out a lot. I follow your Twitter feed. Your pictures are incredible. I, I love your take on suffering. I want to get to that in a second too. But, um, last question there's, um,

I, you know, I was involved in politics for a while as well. I decided to go run for office and give it a shot. You know, talk is cheap, man. Action matters. You got to put your name in a ballot. You want to change things. So I did, it didn't work out, but one of the people I met was very inspirational, uh, Ginny Thomas. And she told me once, you know, Dan, you know, we're the leaders we've been waiting for. Um, and that's in your book on leadership again, folks, leadership strategy and tactics. Here's the book. It looks terrific too, by the way. Um, and, and you write in your book that you talk about the most important member of the team and the most important member of the team is you. And I think people forget this often. If you could just talk about that in relationship to your book. Yeah, I go through

the book and I explain how I would tell the guys in my platoon, you know, I would tell the point man, for instance, Hey, you know, listen, point man, you're the guy that knows where we're going. You're the one that gets us to the target. You're the most important guy out here. If we get in trouble, you're the one that's going to lead us out of trouble. You're the most important guy. And then I tell the radio man, Hey, you know what radio men, you're the most important guy out here. If we get in trouble, you're the one that's going to lead us out of trouble. You're the most important guy. And then I tell the radio men, hey, you know what, radio men, you're the most important guy we've got. If we get into real trouble, you're the one that's going to be able to call for supporting assets for close air support to come and help us out. You're the most important guy in this platoon. And then I tell the machine gunner, hey, machine gunner, you know what? When we get into a gunfight, it's your machine gun that's going to give us the ability to maneuver when you put down suppressive fire.

Without you, we all die. You're the most important guy. And I tell the medic the same thing. I tell the leaders. I would tell everybody they were most important person. And the reason I would tell them that is because it was true, because what we had was a team. because it was true because what we had was a team and there's certain moments where those individuals in those particular roles were absolutely the most important and critical member of the platoon.

And that way everybody knew that they played a critical role. And that is what makes them take ownership of what they're doing and realizing that everybody in the platoon is counting on them to do their job. And when everyone has that feeling, everyone has ownership. That's what makes a solid team. Folks, we're going to take a quick break. We're here with Jocko Willink, a host of the Jocko podcast. We'll be right back.

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Go there to learn more. Now back to Jocko. All right, we're back with Jocko Willink, again, author of Leadership Strategy and Tactics, new book available on Amazon. Barnes & Noble, go pick it up today. You will not put this one down. That, I absolutely promise you, got through this thing in a day and a half. Jocko, just to switch gears a moment.

I love Brazilian jujitsu. My audience knows it. You are just, you got your black belt under Dean Lister. Am I correct there? Dean was just, I mean, he was talking about foot locks before a lot of the folks today even knew what foot locks were and ankle locks and leg locks. I got to be honest, I'm not a big leg locker. I probably should be, but I've been dying to ask you this. I've watched tons of videos with you grappling. They're all over YouTube. If you want to see Jocko on the ground, just dominating a lot of his opponents, just Google Jocko grappling. You can see it yourself. How did you find Jiu-Jitsu? I mean, it's obvious you're a pretty tough guy. You were a Navy SEAL. You're into conditioning.

It's obvious you're a pretty tough guy. You were a Navy SEAL. You're into conditioning. You're a big guy. I'm a big guy. I'm 6'1", 230 pounds. I love to lift. But I got to tell you, the first time I went on a mat with a guy who was about a buck 30 was a brown belt and proceed to kick the living rhymes with hit out of me for about an hour

and a half. It was a rude awakening about how many people out there think they can fight and then they get on the ground and they figure out this ain't the Jason Bourne movies, man. This is the real deal. How did you find Jiu Jitsu? So I was in my first SEAL platoon and I went on deployment overseas. We went to a forward operating base over in Guam. And when we got there, there was an old master chief, an old SEAL master chief. And when we got there, there was an old master chief, an old SEAL master chief. And when we checked in as a platoon, he came in to talk to us and he, you know, told us a couple of things. And he said, and by the way, anybody that wants to learn how to

fight show up at the, uh, at this Kwanzaa hut later on at, you know, 1500. So I'm a new guy. I I'm a SEAL, you know, I i figure hey i i want to know how to fight and i and i of course think i know how to fight so i go in there this old guy this old skinny guy you know probably the oldest guy i'd ever seen in my life so he was probably like 40 years old right and i'm 19 years old fresh out of seal training yeah i'm i mean i'm just full of full of piss and vinegar and he says all right guys you know i'm gonna lay down and one at a time there's like three or four of us that showed up one at one time you guys just come and attack me and and fight me and of course you know what he did he choked us all out and then did it again and then

did it again and then said do you guys want to know how to fight this is called brazilian jiu-jitsu and at this time this was 1992 or 1993 and he had been training for about two years with the gracies up in torrance california right and he was like a high level white belt at the time and he just that's all you needed to know to dominate back then and And of course that was my first taste. And once I started training, I just kept training. Yeah. You're a savage on the match, man. I, you know, my golden rule now I'm, I'm 45 and I feel every bit of it. I love Brazilian jujitsu. I mean, love it almost as much as I love my wife. I mean, my wife begs me to stop

because it's, I'm arthritic in about four or five different joints, but I'd never give it up. I mean, it's taught me, and I say this with all candor and sincerity, I think it's taught me more than my graduate degrees and college and all of that other stuff. I mean, about discipline. And one of the things on the mats

is that your politics don't matter. Nobody gives a shit on the mat. I mean, pardon my language. They don't care. I mean, this place I go to, I've trained in four or five different schools, a place I'm at now. Nobody gives a damn if you're a Republican, a conservative, a communist or whatever. You get on the mat and you know what, man, everything's easy. They don't care if you're on TV, you have the Jocko podcast. I've watched you roll with some dudes. Believe me, I've seen you dominate a lot of these guys, but they're not giving you any passes, man. These guys are

trying to choke your ass out too. I mean, it's just a great equalizer, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you're being very complimentary with my jujitsu, but the fact of the matter is I go and get beat up every single day and there's guys that are all over me and I can't do anything to them. And that's why I keep going back. I go back because I know I can improve. I know I have work to do and that's why I keep going back. You know, I go back because I know I can improve. I know I have work to do. And that's why I keep going. So I appreciate your complimentary nature,

but I'm just another guy doing jujitsu. No, it's good. It's good. I'm sure, listen, everybody loses. There's always someone better. I mean, you've always got, you know, a Gordon Ryan out there or someone who's gonna, but I've watched and I, you know,

when you've been training for a while, you can just, you know, you watch transitions, you watch how they see things. And, you know, my, my, I don't know about you, but my golden rule now in my old age, I was kind of getting at that before I got sidetracked. One of my stories is, you know, get on top. Number one, stay on top. Number two, number three, if you find yourself on the bottom, get up and get back on top. And rule number four is never forget rule number one and rule number two. I don't know about you, but I'm not into the guard game anymore. It's great. You know, when I was a kid and I was a little faster, you know, I could pull all kinds of

heel hooks out of it, arm bars, triangles, Kimuras, you know, big man, you know, I could do all that, but I just can't do it anymore. And now that I'm a big, heavy 230 pound guy who's learned to leverage my weight, I find when I'm on top, you're just not getting out unless you're really good. So that's the thing. I'd rather just sit on your way for the cops to show up, you know, sit on your side control. And then I can see everything in my field of vision. When you're on the bottom, you're limited.

You know, you're looking at the guy. You don't want to get grounded and pounded into the concrete. So, I mean, are you into the top game? Are you a guard player at all? I mean, don't see and guard too much when I watch your stuff on YouTube. Well, certainly, I mean, from a tactical perspective, being on the bottom is never good. You know, you always want to be on top if you can. Do I prefer to be on top? Absolutely. I prefer to be on top. And, you know, like I said, not only from an actual perspective, you can break contact. It's easier to access weapons if you've got weapons on you. But the fact of the matter is I train with a bunch of guys that they like to be on top too.

So it's a lot better on top than I am. And even though I'm a big guy, they're bigger than me. They're stronger than me. So it's, you know, I got to learn how to play both. And I try and be good in every different area. Yeah, I'm with you, man. I mean, I'm big into shoulder lockdowns now on the bottom, just to lock you up so you get frustrated, so I can get the hell out of there once you get frustrated enough. Do you find, you know, I watch a lot of these videos. I like to watch the old videos.

I remember the videos, the Gracie Beach videos from like 30, 40 years ago. I find those videos are very instructive because they show you before this era now where everybody's advanced now. If you got a year of training now, you're where guys were 20 years ago with five years of training. to engage in and counteract physical violence. And when you watch these old videos, I just, I warn people all the time, you always want to be able to negotiate in a situation in the street. You never want to fight. You don't want to get sued.

I'm not a thug, man. I'm not into this crap. I got a wife and kids. I'm not looking to prove who's got a, you know, whatever, you know, my bigger than, it's not my thing. But if I have to engage in physical violence, I find that a lot of people who

aren't experienced with it strongly overestimate their ability to engage in it and counteract it have you seen this too especially when you get new guys in the gym well there's there's a couple things going on there uh and i talked i got another book called discipline equals freedom field manual where i kind of break down my philosophy behind martial arts and one of the things is why I always recommend people start with grappling and really specifically with jiu-jitsu is look if you want to fight me if you approach me in the streets and you put up your hands to box with me I have a I already know a self-defense it's called run away I mean you haven't got a hold of me you hold up your hands you want to fight me thank you i'm gonna run away if you're a kickboxer and you start throwing kicks at me guess what i'm gonna do i'm gonna run away you you don't have a hold of me

the only thing changes when you defeat my primary defensive tactic which is to run away from you is when you grab a hold of me so when you grab a hold of me now So when you grab a hold of me, now we're grappling. So I have to be able to contend with that. And guess what? If we go to the ground, but I fall down on top of you, well, I can still kind of push off of you and get away from you. Okay, that's fine. So the worst case, and so that means like wrestling's good, but if you fall down on top of me and now I'm on the bottom and now I have to deal with you, look, I can't run away anymore. You're holding on to me. I've got to deal with that problem. This is the worst case scenario. That's what jujitsu teaches you. That's why I think it's

the best foundation for people to learn for self-defense. Now, the second part of what you asked is about violence. And kind of like what you opened up, one of your opening questions was about the fog of war and how do you deal with that? And I told you, look, when you put yourself in these situations over and over again, you'll get used to it. And then you talked to, you told a quick story about your, one of your friends putting you in a headlock and it surprised you and you

were calling hard and it took you a second to go, Oh, I know what to do here. Now, just imagine that's someone that, I don't know how long you've been training for at the time, but let's call it three years. Let's call it five years of getting put in that position over and over again on the mats. And it's still a surprise moment. It took you a second to adjust to it. Now let's imagine that you'd never trained before. And now all of a sudden somebody grabs a hold of you and has you and takes you to the ground and you don't know you can't, you won't even get over the shock of the violence in that situation

where you can do something smart to respond. So, you know, another thing, like I, you know, I've got, I've got four kids, I got three daughters and one son, and people ask me about self-defense and whatnot. And, and I, again, you know, jujitsu should be the foundation of your, of your self-defense. And listen, I'm not, I'm not a person that believes that if you're a 105-pound female and some 230-pound person roided out cocaine-using maniac attacks you, you're not going to be able to defeat that person. I mean, that's just the way it is. That's why we have firearms. But if you don't have a firearm, well, guess what? You might not be able to defeat that person. I mean, that's just the way it is. You know, that's why we have firearms, but if you don't have a firearm, well, guess what? You might not be able to defeat that person, but you may be able to, you may be able to,

you may be able to hang on for an extra 10 seconds, an extra 20 seconds, an extra 30 seconds where the cops can come, where someone else can see what's happening, where someone can, you know, aid you in the situation that you're in in whereas if you don't know anything in in in four seconds you could be grabbed and put into a van if you try to grab someone 100 if we the same situation 230 pound guy tries to grab a 110 pound girl that knows jujitsu it won't take him five seconds to get her in that van i promise you it'll take him 20 take him 30 and it might even make him go you what? This is too much of a hassle for me. I'm going to run. I'm going to get out of here. So every second counts in these situations. And of course, the better you get, the more use you get to violence, the better you'll be able to contend

with it. Yeah, that's a great point. And you just stay alive long enough so that the cops can respond. You know, do you know to drop your base if someone grabs you? And even I had been training 10 years. I was a new purple belt. And it took me, honestly, about two to three seconds to remember to arm frame, create some distance, get my leg around his head. I mean, I eventually got out, but I never forgot that. I was like, holy, I have done this technique seriously a thousand times. And it's still in that quick

fog of war. And again, Jocko, this was my friend messing around. There was no danger that I was going to be hurt here. Imagine it's someone again, trying to kidnap you. As you just said, you got to be able to respond or at least stay alive long enough. Listen, you're a busy guy. Oh yeah. Sorry.

Go ahead. Let me add one more thing because we're just purely talking about jujitsu right now. And that's good. And certainly from a self-defense of jujitsu is great for you. But let me just tell you, there's a bunch of other things that jujitsu do for you. You know, they add it makes you think in a different way. That whole idea that I talked about detaching. If you can learn to detach in jujitsu, you'll be able to apply that to your work. You'll be able to apply that to your business. You'll be able to apply it to your family. When you're one of your kids is getting out of hand and you start losing your temper, you'll be able to get yourself back under control. So training jujitsu, yes, it's good for self-defense and it's a good way to exercise. It's also great for your brain too. It makes you a better person. So there's a million different reasons to train jujitsu and I definitely recommend people go out and do it. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't being hyperbolic before when I said that I've learned more from my 20 years on the mats than any single thing in my life. I'm not kidding. And you know, I think you detest to this too, Jocko, you will, there's

nothing that will test your physical limits. I mean, I remember specifically, I'm sure you have these memories too, as a relatively new white belt back in Matt Serra's barn in Babylon before he even, I think he was a brown belt at the time. And I was with this guy and we were rolling for about 20 minutes and we were both white belts struggling, but we had some basic idea what to do. And after 20 minutes, I'll never forget. This guy's gi was so soaked with sweat that when he got inside control, the disgusting sweat-soaked gi had covered my face and I couldn't breathe. Now, Jocko, I'm at 20 minutes now. I was about 180 back then, about 230 now. I was a little lighter, but I could not breathe. It's going to actually lead into my last question for you. So

this is actually a good story. And I remember thinking, gosh, it would just be so easy to quit right now, but I just didn't want this guy to be, I couldn't have him beat me. I was like, son of a bitch, he's not going to win. And I sucked it up. And you know what he did? He tapped. I wasn't even doing anything. He just got tired about, and it reminded me of that old line. You know, there comes a time in both in a fight where both sides think they've lost. It's the side that perseveres at that moment that wins. And I never forgot that. I vowed I would never quit.

I would have to be tapped. Listen, even if I'm, if I got to give you the sub good, you're going to win it that way, but I'm not tapping out of fatigue anymore. You've probably had those moments too, right? But you're like, this really sucks. But you realize your limits. You're like, my gosh,. But you realize your limits. You're like, my gosh, I can go further than I thought. This is really the worst situation in a physical,

I could be in, right? I can't breathe. Dude's on top of me. His sweat is so geeky, he's covering my face and I'm getting my ass kicked. It can't get any worse. Yeah. Just, that's an interesting point that you bring up. And one thing I don't really like when people tap from fatigue, there's no reason to tap from fatigue. Look, if you're tired and you give, give me something, that's cool. You got to give me something. You can't just tap. That's not the way it works. That's not the way it works. You're not allowed to tap from fatigue. And so you definitely learn to push yourself further because no one likes when somebody just taps out. That's quitting.

No one likes quitters. Well, that leads to my last question. I'll let you go again. We're talking to Jocko Willink, author of the excellent book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Please, folks, you're a great audience. Pick this book up.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores. It is worth your time. You won't put it down. Probably the best book I've read this year and last year. So we had Randy Couture at our training center when I was an instructor there with the Secret Service. We all got to roll with him. And we got him in there with a bunch of guys. One of them was a former Delta guy who was on our SWAT team. We call him Cat in the Secret Service, a guy I learned a lot from as well about leadership. And we were sitting around during a break during the middle of the day. And I said to him, I said, you know, hey, Randy, you ever scared to fight when you're walking in the ring? You know, I thought

it was a fair question. I mean, we're all human beings. Fear is a natural part of being human, keeps us from putting our fingers in, you know, electrical outlets, right? It's a good thing, not a bad thing, as long as you manage it, and I was expecting, yeah, you know, once in a while, this guy was really tough. He said, no, I'm not scared to fight. He said, but I'm scared every time to fight tired. And I changed, I really changed my life because I didn't do cardio before that ever. I only lifted. I thought deadlift, bench press, squat, do widow makers. You'll be fine. I read Fred Hatfield stuff about power lifting. He didn't like cardio. So I never did it. And I never forgot that line. I started doing Tabata sprints after that. And even at 45, I still wreck the cardio now because I never forgot that line. I'm not afraid to fight. I'm only afraid to fight tired. I know I see your Twitter feed, follow Jocko.

You see what I'm talking about. You have some really tremendous pictures there of the floor soaked with sweat after one of your Metcon workouts and stuff. So if you just talk briefly about how important conditioning is in your, in your everyday life, one to stay healthy, but because you got to be prepared for bad stuff. And if you're fighting tired, you ain't fighting at all. Yeah. Uh, fatigue makes cowards of us all. That's a, it's a patent quote and it's definitely true. And it's something that it's something that you actually do have control over, right? Look, if you don't work out, if you don't work out if you don't train if you don't work your metabolic conditioning you're gonna gas out and

i've seen it over and over again you know you see it with fighters all the time i'd even see it with guys in the seal teams if they you know a few years into the teams they're deciding that maybe they don't need to train as hard anymore and you see these guys gassing out they they have heat heat problems on long patrols. It's it's awful. And it is the thing that's awful about it is that it's preventable. And so what do you have to do? I like what Randy said. You know, he obviously at some point in his life, he had to fight when he was tired. Probably a situation like you were in where you want to tap out because you were on the bottom getting suffocated by some big monster guy in his wet gi.

You're getting waterboarded by a guy's wet gi. You don't want to have that feeling. And I bet you he had that feeling at some point in his life. And he said, I'm never going to let myself get here again. And that's, you know, I've been very, very tired in my life. And I know that I do not ever want to be there. It makes you into a coward and I won't let it happen. So yes, train, train hard, train every day. You're damn right, man. You talk about the value of suffering and you got to suffer in that gym so you don't have to suffer outside of it, man. So God bless you, Jocko. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. My audience is going to love this interview.

They've been looking forward to hearing from you from a long time. I really appreciate it. And thanks again for your service to this country. It was an honor to serve. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate what you're doing. I hope you enjoyed that interview, ladies and gentlemen. I think you can tell if you're a regular listener by my enthusiasm. It was one of my personal favorites too. Jocko is a real patriot and a real hero. He's given a lot to this country.

Hope you enjoyed that. Please subscribe to my channel. My YouTube channel is youtube.com slash Bongino. We really appreciate it. And if you could also subscribe to our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, it's obviously the Dan Bongino Show there. We'd appreciate that as well. Thanks, folks. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud and follow Dan on Twitter 24-7 at DBongino.