The Tim Ferriss Show - #107: The Scariest Navy SEAL I've Ever Met...And What He Taught Me

Starting point is 00:00:00 microphone check jocko how are you sir i'm doing pretty good how are you feeling splendid especially given this this cocktail of adrenaline that you've been feeding me at this altitude i can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking can i answer your personal question now what is Now would have seemed the perfect time. What if I could be out? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. Me, Tim, Paris, show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually

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Starting point is 00:03:17 This is Tim Ferriss. And welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they are chess prodigies like Josh Waitzkin, actors and governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or anything in between professional athletes, you name it. I want to talk to them because you find that at the very highest level, at the top of the top in each field and across those fields, there are commonalities.

Starting point is 00:03:42 And I want to tease out the morning routines, the habits, the favorite books, and so on that you can apply immediately to your life to level up. And this episode is no exception. This episode was a very intense episode. My guest is someone who very rarely does any interviews, Jocko Willink, J-O-C-K-O. He is a legend in the SEAL community. He's also 240 pounds or so, 230 to 240 pounds of lean muscle. He would routinely tap out 20 or so Navy SEALs as a

Starting point is 00:04:14 workout since he's a Brazilian jujitsu practitioner at a world-class level and also trains professional MMA fighters in his spare time. But dialing back to the beginning, Jocko grew up in a small New England town, enlisted in the Navy after high school and spent 20 years in the SEAL teams. During his second tour in Iraq, he led SEAL task unit Bruiser in the Battle of Ramadi, which was some of the toughest, most sustained combat in the SEAL teams since Vietnam. Under his leadership, task unit Bruiser helped bring stability to Ramadi and became the most highly decorated special operations unit of the entire war in Iraq. Jocko was subsequently awarded the Bronze Star and Silver Star. After that, returning from that deployment, Jocko served as the officer in charge of training for all West Coast SEAL teams,

Starting point is 00:04:58 which means he designed and implemented some of the most challenging and realistic combat training in the world. He also spearheaded the development of SEAL leadership training and therefore personally instructed and mentored the next generation of SEAL leaders. In 2010, Jocko retired from the Navy to co-found Echelon Front. That's E-C-H-E-L-O-N. Never knew how to pronounce that. Echelon Front, a leadership and management consulting company, which teaches leadership principles learned and proven in combat to help others lead and win. And this is very interesting because you can view combat in many ways as sort of an exaggeration of many States and situations that one experiences in other areas of life,

Starting point is 00:05:34 including business. Jocko is last but not least the author of a brand new book, extreme ownership. That's the title. And we get into what that means. I am really enjoying this book. Extreme Ownership, subtitle, How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. I highly encourage you check this book out. Even if you just read the intro and chapters 1, 6, and 12, even if you just do that, the book is worth many times the price. So check it out. I highly encourage it. And you can find Jocko at echelonfront.com, E-C-H-E-L-O-N. And also on Twitter, I am helping train him to use Twitter. A lot of these guys, the Navy SEALs and other divisions of the military do not like to be public facing, but Jocko is going to be on Twitter. So at Jocko Willink, J-O-C-K-O-W-I-L-L-I-N-K.

Starting point is 00:06:28 And you can probably also check out a photo of this guy, which you have to see. And as always, you can find all show notes, links to everything we talk about at 4hourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, all spelled out, or you can just go to 4hourworkweek.com and click on podcast. And you can also find all previous episodes. So without further ado, please enjoy this very intense, very insightful conversation with Jock Willink. We do get into the weeds and I implore you. I encourage you to bear with us. If we get into a bunch of military specifics, because there are gems throughout this conversation. And even if you only take one or two away, it is well worth the time

Starting point is 00:07:06 invested. So thank you for listening and please enjoy. Okay. We are live at Casa Ferris. Jaco, welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Yeah. Thrilled to have you here and looking at your bio and talking to people who know you, the number of topics we could discuss are many and extremely interesting. But I'll start with this tea. What is this? I suppose it's a pinkish colored liquid that you've been consuming and that you've shared with me. It's a pomegranate white tea, which I believe hits your soul pretty well. Well, I was surprised because I expected to have low caffeine content. I was like, sure, I'll try the tea. It sounds like, you know, with the pomegranate, I'm like, maybe it would help with my cramps or something. And I'm pretty well lit

Starting point is 00:07:55 up for someone who drinks, you know, pu-erh tea, oolong tea, I guess sort of a veteran of indirect caffeine consumption with leaves. I've been impressed. How long have you been drinking this? I don't, I forget when I stumbled upon it, but we used to do some desert training back when I was in the SEAL teams, actually, when I was running the training on the West coast. And, uh, I would have to sit through the platoons briefs as they were getting ready to go out in the field and do a field training exercise. And the briefs were about an hour long and we'd be on three or four hours of sleep a night for a few days. And so at some point I discovered this stuff and I would start drinking it when the brief kicked off. And by the time the brief ended, I would have taken copious notes and

Starting point is 00:08:40 be ready to get after the platoon commanders that were trying to give good briefs. And I'd get after it. You'd be fired up for feedback. Affirmative. And you mentioned that you don't normally consume caffeine. Is that true? I do not normally consume caffeine, no. What are some examples of when you reserve or when you do consume caffeine? What's the use of caffeine?

Starting point is 00:09:06 Some kind of long drive, you know? So, you know, even my first deployment to Iraq, we did longer patrols in the vehicles and I would have, you know, right in front of my seat. So sort of hanging in front of my seat, I'd have a flashbang grenade and then another flashbang grenade and then a frag grenade, which is the grenade that kills people, and then another frag grenade. And then the next three pouches were Red Bull, Red Bull, Red Bull. So if you're going on a long patrol, and I know it might seem strange that you would get tired, but you would. And so you crack open a Red Bull and get after it. And that's the kind of occasions I would save the caffeine intake for. What now, we haven't spent too much time together. We've been hanging out, and you had an iced tea.

Starting point is 00:09:47 I had a couple of coffees, and I feel like I've just belligerently, unnecessarily punched my adrenal glands for so many years that the coffee pretty much does nothing to me. But you're an intense guy, which is meant as a compliment. What do you like on three Red Bulls? More Jocko. And how did you get the nickname Jocko? Actually, my parents gave me that nickname. Oh, they did? Yeah. My real name is John, but ever since I was born, I've been called Jocko. So that's what everyone knows me as.

Starting point is 00:10:31 And, uh, when you, and of course we're going to talk a lot about your time deployed and, uh, training other, um, other people, but let's take a look at your physique. So, so we were introduced through, uh, Peter Tia has also been on this podcast. Very funny, very smart guy. And he said, you have to ask Jocko about his weight gain. Now, this is not bad weight gain, because right now you're about how much, would you say? 230, 235. 230. If you were green, you'd be the Hulk. You're a big guy and very fit.

Starting point is 00:11:02 But when you entered these seals, how much did you weigh? 174. 174. How on earth? Well, that's when I started SEAL training, I weighed 174 pounds. And how did that transformation take place? I mean, was it just a growth spurt or were you facilitating that with resistance training? How did that come about?

Starting point is 00:11:23 So I entered SEAL training at 174 pounds and you know, everyone's seen what SEAL training is like. It's a lot of pushups, a lot of pull-ups, a lot of dips, running, swimming, obstacle course. Uh, I just ate what they fed us, which is they feed you a lot. And in that course of SEAL training, I put on, I think I graduated 185 pounds. And then once I was done with that and started getting in SEAL platoons, you know, and we all lifted heavy and wanted to be big and strong. And so I lifted heavy and ate a lot. And I think I put on, I was up to 200 in my first platoon. And then after that, I got up to about 225. And now depending on what's happening in the, in the fight game and who I'm training with and what they're preparing for. I'll go up to 240, 245 if I need

Starting point is 00:12:07 to, and then come back down once those events are over. So in other words, if I'm training a guy that's a heavyweight or fighting a heavyweight, then I'll put on some weight so I can simulate that better. What type of training would you suggest for people? What type of regimen? What might a workout or a week look like for someone who wants to, let's just say a male 25 years old who wants to add, uh, lean mass. What would you deadlift and squat deadlift and squat? I mean, I think that's the universal answer, right? Does anyone say anything different when you ask that question? I don't ask, I don't ask many people, but you have have you have such an incredible range of weight over that period of time that i had to ask i mean i think that is the right answer um i think the

Starting point is 00:12:50 eating is a lot harder than the training in some respects at least for me i mean i got up to i'm walking around about 175 right now but i did to beat a friend in a bet which didn't even involve money so i'm not sure why i subjugated myself to this or subject myself to this, but I got up to like two 15. Uh, the eating was the harder component. I remember being on a deployment on a ship. And so the food on the ship is not good. You know, you're on a six month deployment on a ship and I was a seal. And when you're on a ship as a seal, you're not, you don't have, you don't have a job other than just to work out. This is especially, you know, in the nineties. So it was a totally different world, the dry years, because there's no war going on. And I remember, you know, we're all just trying to get huge. And I remember getting, uh, plates full of chicken McNuggets or whatever brand they'd

Starting point is 00:13:39 serve in the Navy. And I would just be sitting there at a table, you know, for 40 minutes after chow was done being served. And I'm just looking at these chicken nuggets and hating them and putting them in my mouth and forcing them down in order to gain weight. So yeah, stupid, stupid, but requires dedication. And there's something to be said for, you know, to use one of your terms, I'm a world class chicken nugget eater when I need to be. Let's talk about the MMA and then we're going to come back to military. When did you first get exposed to jujitsu or martial arts? So I'm on my first deployment, 1992 or 1993, and I'm in Guam and there's an old SEAL Master Chief named Steve Bailey and he was kind of known as a badass.

Starting point is 00:14:33 In fact, he was known as a badass and the reason he was known as a badass is because he was a badass. And so this is pre-UFC. No one knows anything. And he has been training for a year or something with the Gracie's up in Torrance. And he took a bunch of us new guys and said, Hey, does anyone want to learn how to fight?

Starting point is 00:14:56 And of course, absolutely want to learn how to fight myself and a couple of the guys. And, uh, you know, he was like a high level white belt, maybe even a medium level white belt, but it's you know no one knows all new so you know he taught us you know the rear naked choke the arm lock how to escape the mount and possibly an americana yeah and posting on the chest into

Starting point is 00:15:20 right and so with those moves you know and there's a lot of, you know, being in the SEAL teams, you're constantly, I mean, it's a, it's an environment where there's lots of escalations, you know, in a platoon. And so you're constantly scrapping and wrestling and fighting and, you know, uh, that's part of it. And so, but with these basic maneuvers that I learned, I could do well, you know, and it was, it was bad-ass. So that's when I started it. And then I, you know, I didn't really see that. It didn't really have the vision. You know, I thought that it was, you couldn't see where it would go. I thought it was a finite thing. I know these seven moves, everyone that stepped up to me. Now I've been able to handle,

Starting point is 00:15:59 I'm good. I'm, I, you know, I'm good. And it wasn't until one of my other buddies, uh, who was a seal who was in that initial pack with me, um, a guy by the name of Jeff Higgs. And he had kind of, he had gotten out of the seal teams and he had just dedicated himself to training jujitsu. And one day he came to my house and you know, we were even when we were both idiots. Right. And then he came to my house one day and he says, Hey, you want to train? And I said, well, yeah, absolutely. So we went over in the grass across the street from my house and you know, he, he had just gotten his purple belt. So you can imagine a purple belt in 1995. Yeah. I mean, you know, he was just completely beyond, you know, anything I knew. He tapped me out a thousand times and I said, Hey, where are you

Starting point is 00:16:43 training? Give me a place. And that was it. Went down the next day and signed up for unlimited classes. And I took three classes a day until the present time. Three classes a day. Yeah. I mean, I would just go during lunch. I'd go to the, the beginner class. I'd go to the advanced class. I would just get after it. And who was he training with? Do you recall who he was training with? Fabio Santos. Fabio Santos. And let's flash forward to the current day. Who are the primary teachers you've trained with? And what's the current status of your jujitsu and training? Well, long story short, myself and Dean Lister, we ended up not being with Fabio anymore.

Starting point is 00:17:24 And we ended up kind of going out on our own. Dean went out on his own. I mean, I was, I was, you know, an active duty seal, so I wasn't a full-time jujitsu guy, but, uh, but I was a full-time main training partner for Dean. And so we left and we ended up going to a couple of different schools and eventually, uh, opened a big gym down in San Diego. And we have Dean Lister and Jeff Glover, our primary instructors. What's the name of the school? Victory MMA. Victory MMA. And what was your experience opening a business as an active SEAL? How did your military experience help or hinder that? I'd say it was typical stuff. Hey, okay,

Starting point is 00:18:06 let's figure out what the plan is going to be, how are we going to put it together? You know, it was opening a gym. We weren't, you know, planning, it wasn't, it was a lot less than even planning a regular seal mission. Um, in a lot of ways, which again, planning seal missions is no, is no, you know, high intellectual task either. I mean, you got bad guys, you're going to go kill them. That's, that's not super advanced. And of course there's technology and timelines and all that, but it's not, it's not rocket science. And so I, you know, we did a good job and opened up a big space and teach a bunch of jujitsu. So, okay, got got it so as far as sort of tactical implementation not the most

Starting point is 00:18:48 complex thing that you've done what would you what would you put on the uh the higher level end of complexity in terms of things that you've spearheaded or uh had to tackle up to this point you're well there's there's two types of complexity that you that you know we could talk about here there's the actual complexity of the mission, which again, in generally is not going to be super complex, but what is complex is yet you're dealing with human beings who have, you know, all these variables, emotions and problems and issues and egos, and that's the complexity in anything. And so that's from a leadership perspective, that's what I've found to be always the more challenging thing. You know, that's always the more challenging thing

Starting point is 00:19:28 is dealing with people and getting people to, you know, conduct operations or carry out missions in a way that is most efficient, most effective, especially when, you know, they could get killed doing it. And, you know, you're asking guys to do things that are very, very dangerous where they know they could die. And so that's, what's complex. That's what's complex. And, you know, you're asking guys to do things that are very, very dangerous where they know they could die. And so that's, what's complex. That's what's complex. And, and it transfers over to the business world where you've got to get, you know, a group of people, it's the same thing. You've got to get a group of people to carry out a mission and that, you know, in the most

Starting point is 00:19:56 efficient and effective manner. So they both have that in common. And I think that is usually the more complex pieces, the leadership of human beings. Sure. And I think that is usually the more complex piece is the leadership of human beings. Sure. Well, I mean, it makes me think of, I guess, Custom Auto, who worked with Tyson for so long and really took him to his first world championship belt. He said, you know, everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face. And I think that when you have something that's very simple on paper, but there are a lot of unknown or uncontrollable variables, the plan is just a starting point.

Starting point is 00:20:31 But then you have to adjust in the field. And obviously when the stakes are as high as they are, when you were deployed, I can see how that would be infinitely complex, potentially, depending on how sideways things go. How did you become a SEAL? What's the story of you becoming a SEAL? Well, I grew up in New England. And I actually grew up in a little town in the sticks of New England. And I was kind of a rebellious kid. In fact, I was a pretty significantly rebellious kid. And I know it seems counterintuitive. But you grow up in new england um one of the most rebellious things that a human being can do is join the military and almost the the ultra rebellious thing you could do because you know it's very uh you know i grew up with a bunch of hippies you know the kids were hippies they were dead heads they were smoking pot and i was not into that

Starting point is 00:21:23 and i was so so they thought they were rebellious because they were smoking pot and I was not into that. And I was, so, so they thought they were rebellious because they were smoking pot and doing acid and whatnot. And, uh, I don't know, you tell me who was more rebellious. Cause I ended up becoming a commando for my whole life. I think the, the, the sort of pot and hacky sack scene, I've spent a lot of time in Vermont and New Hampshire. That seems kind of par for the course. It's like sort of conformist rebellion. But what was the path that you took then? At what point did you enlist? So I actually, 1989, and Panama happened. The invasion of Panama happened.

Starting point is 00:22:00 And four SEALs were killed there. And when I saw that in the paper, I was, I guess the word would be ashamed that I was not there. The Vietnam War was over, so we weren't seeing headlines all the time. And all of a sudden, there's guys that were dying for our country, and I was not there. And right after that, I went down to the recruiting station and said I wanted to be a SEAL. And what happens after that? So then I went to boot camp, which is Navy boot camp, got done with boot camp. And boot camp is separate from BUDS. It is separate. And then you go to a school where you learn a Navy trade, and then you start BUDS. So buds. So started buds in, I think it was April of 1991. So this was right after the Gulf war. So from my perspective, leading up to the Gulf war there, you know, there were some reports. I remember hearing them on the news. They're

Starting point is 00:22:58 saying there's going to be 40,000 casualties in the first 24 hours. I don't know if you remember that, but I remember that. I remember that because I was in the military and I was going to SEAL training. I was in China when I saw the announcement on television. So here I am thinking, okay, this is going to be, I'm going to get some, I'm going to go to war. All these guys are going to get hurt and injured, killed, and I'm going to go to war. And the war kicks off and 72 hours later, it's over. And I hadn't even started SEAL training yet. So I was, you know, pretty bummed out. I know that sounds crazy, but you know, I was pretty bummed out because that's what I wanted to do with my life was be in combat and be some kind of warrior. And now the chance had just dissipated in 72 hours.

Starting point is 00:23:40 Uh, but you know, it was the reality of what was happening. So went to SEAL training, went through and went over to SEAL Team 1. And in, let's say bootcamp, just for people listening and for myself, quite frankly, who are not familiar with what happens in these different phases, what is the objective of bootcamp in the case of the boot camp that you uh attended and then buds for instance because i think a lot of people are familiar with the term like hell week and they think of buds as a disqualifying phase right the objective is to weed out the people who aren't suitable for combat or leadership or fill in the blank but what what what are what are the objectives of boot camp so boot camp is boot camp is to turn a civilian into a military human.

Starting point is 00:24:30 And they teach you all this basic stuff. I'd say the key thing that they teach you in Navy boot camp is attention to detail. So you've got to do all these tasks. Because if you're in the Navy, you're working on an aircraft. And if you make a mistake working on the aircraft, people die. So it's very attention to detail oriented. And they just teach you the basic structure

Starting point is 00:24:46 of the military and imprint that on your brain. Right. And then, and then SEAL training is, is what it is, what you said it is. It's weeding people out. And what is the, of the say incoming, I apologize, I'm going to massacre the terminology here, but of the incoming class, how many people go into buds and how many people make it out the other end? It's, it's, it's about an 80% attrition rate, 80% attrition. So 20% make it through. Yep. And, uh, do you have to ring a bell? Is that natural thing? How does that work? Can you describe the,

Starting point is 00:25:18 yeah, they have a bell and if you want to quit, you can quit at any time. And if you want to quit, you walk over to this bell that they carry on all the runs and they have it in the back of a truck. And, and if you want to quit, you can quit at any time. And if you want to quit, you walk over to this bell that they carry on all the runs and they have it in the back of a truck. And if you want to quit, you go over and ring the bell and then you're done. Then you're done. What did you find most challenging personally in the buds training? If anything, you know, the thing with buds is, um, you know, I was not good at anything. I wasn't great at anything. I couldn't run fast. I couldn't swim fast, but I was like, okay at everything, which is actually better because you didn't have a single failure. I didn't have these areas of weakness of huge weakness. Now, again, I was not, believe me, I'm not saying I was great at it at anything. Cause I really

Starting point is 00:26:00 wasn't. I finished the middle of the pack on a run in the middle of the pack of a swim. Uh, there were some guys a swim. There were some guys, a couple of guys that I remember that were at the other end of the spectrum. We had a guy that played college NCAA water polo and he was a phenomenal athlete and he quit because he couldn't get through the obstacle course. I had another guy in my class that was an Olympic gymnast alternate and he quit because the water, you know, doing the stuff in the water got to him. So for me, luckily I grew up in the water and I grew up in new England. So I was used to the cold that didn't do anything to me. And you know, all you had to do was get the passing and put out as hard as you can, you know, like for the runs, I had to run as hard as I could to pass the runs. It was a sprint, uh, because you couldn't modulate. You didn't know how long

Starting point is 00:26:49 the runs really were. They'd say they were four miles, but you had no idea what they were actually going to be. So you just had to run as hard as you possibly could. That's what I had to do. Right. That's gotta be a, quite a mind trip. I mean, to start a run when it's not a primary strength and know you have to go all out without having any idea of the length. Well, you'd know it was going to be around four miles. I don't want to make it sound like we had no idea, but it was, you know, it'd be four and a half miles, you know, four and three quarter miles or whatever. Did the people who made it through, the 20% who made it through

Starting point is 00:27:25 buds, um, did the people who showed the most promise in buds end up performing best in the field? Not necessarily because buds isn't, isn't much more athletic, um, event, you know, it's about athleticism. A lot of it, a lot of it is also, you know, don't quit. And, you know, I hear some people say everybody thinks about quitting during SEAL training. And I, I absolutely did not think about quitting at any time. You know, there was nothing if they could have killed me and it would have been fine, but I definitely wasn't going to quit. And, but when you get to the SEAL team, yeah, there were some guys that, that you, that were studs athletically, but they were not great seals when they got to teams. And there's also guys that are studs athletically that were studs in the seal teams. So it's,

Starting point is 00:28:13 it's hard to put a, a scientific answer around that. Yeah. We'll come back to the training. Cause I just, I loved talking about in any types of commonalities or patterns that you've spotted in a couple of different areas, but I'm going to ask you about the bottle, the battle of Ramadi, but I want to first ask, where did you get this mental toughness? So this, this not thinking of quitting, even if it killed you, was that developed through athletics as a kid through something else is, is your entire family like that? I mean, where did that come from? Where did that drive and stick-to-itiveness come from?

Starting point is 00:28:52 I'm not 100% sure. Some of it, I remember my dad was definitely, you're not allowed to quit at anything ever. So that leaves a mark, right? Sure. Also, I think that I grew up and I started listening to hardcore music and I had a hardcore attitude. And so I think that growing up under that influence, that and watching war movies and a product of that, of that influence, of those mantras that you'd hear in some hardcore song that's about, you know, getting after it. And I think that that left a mark as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, could you describe the battle of Ramadi and, uh, explain what that is for people who may not even recognize the name Ramadi? So the battle of Ramadi. So Ramadi is a city in Western Iraq in a

Starting point is 00:29:48 state or a province called Al-Ambar province, which is the largest province in Iraq. And Ramadi is the capital city. And the battle of Ramadi that, that I fought in was in 2006. And at that time, most of the, or many of the insurgents had been pushed out of Baghdad. Many of them had been pushed out of Fallujah because the Marine Corps did a very substantial effort through Fallujah and cleared it out. And a lot of those enemy had gone to Ramadi. So in the summer of 2006, the epicenter of the insurgency was in Ramadi. And so that's where my SEAL task unit deployed to. And that's where we fought. How long were you there? We were there for six months. For six months.

Starting point is 00:30:37 How would you describe that experience to people? And I know that's a very broad question, but for lack of a better way to approach it, because I mean, we can really peel back the layers. But when people ask you, what was that like? How do you answer that? Well, for one thing, it was my second deployment to Iraq. So my first deployment to Iraq was all completely different in that the insurgency hadn't been really truly established yet. And we, as a country, this is 2003, 2004. And so we were doing very well, you know, at least everyone thought we were, and we were winning. And, you know, I always talk about that deployment, like we were rock stars because we'd, you know, one o'clock in the morning we'd drive out of the gate and go capture a bad guy and bring them back

Starting point is 00:31:28 at three o'clock in the morning. And it was like, we were rock stars, you know, we'd, um, we had such a tactical advantage over the enemy and it was just pretty, pretty easy. Mm-hmm. We always worked with seals only. It was just, it was just easy. Um always worked with SEALs only. It was just easy. Tough, of course. I shouldn't say easy, but it was less challenging. And on that deployment, it was like we won everything. And we felt great. We felt great about what we did. We felt like we accomplished our mission. And if those were the challenges of combat as an individual, I felt like I did a good job. Right. You're well equipped. I did a good job. And, and my troop did, my platoon did a good job. We did a good job. And it was, it seemed like we passed a test,

Starting point is 00:32:18 you know, like, cause you know, at that time we hadn't had sustained combat operations for a long time in the SEAL teams. So we felt pretty badass. So now you fast forward to Ramadi in 2006. It is completely different. There are insurgents that actually control a majority of the city. They have complete freedom to maneuver. They are terrorizing, and I don't use that term lightly. They are terrorizing. They are skinning people alive. They are beheading people. They're doing what you see on TV right now with ISIS. They're doing that. The civilian population is horrified, and there are 30 to 50 enemy attacks a day in the city of Ramadi. There are route Michigan,

Starting point is 00:33:11 which is a road that ran from East to West through Ramadi, which was loosely controlled by Americans would have seven to 10 IEDs attacks, IED attacks a day. So this is the statistically the most IED road in all of Iraq. And it's three miles long. Improvised explosive device? Improvised explosive device. So these are roadside bombs that completely caused the majority of casualties in the war in Iraq. And so we get there, you know, the buildings are rubbled out. The buildings have bullet holes in them. There's wrecked vehicles on the streets. There's giant craters in the streets from IEDs. And on top of all that, on an almost daily basis, you're going to some kind of a memorial ceremony for an American soldier or an American Marine that's been killed in combat.

Starting point is 00:34:07 And we rolled into that and right away I knew this is a completely different situation and we are going to fight a completely different type of battle here. Were the, in this case, I mean, looking at your opponents, were they better trained or did they just have a sort of territorial and movement advantage that made it more difficult for you guys? They had both. They had both. They had both. So there was a former military base, former Iraqi military base. So you had a lot of former regime people there,

Starting point is 00:34:46 soldiers, former soldiers that were there. They definitely controlled the terrain without question. They were allowed to fight in a completely different way than us. And by that, I mean, they have no rules. So you're fighting against someone that has no rules and you know they don't care about collateral damage we are we are very careful about collateral damage they don't care just to define that you mean taking out civilians people who are civilian casualties means nothing to them destroying a building means nothing to them um killing each other. So accidentally shooting or suicide bombers. I mean, there were suicide bombers on the regular in Ramadi. And so they have no rules. And so that gave them an advantage as well. Now, tactically they did what we did. So for example, you know, if we get into a bad

Starting point is 00:35:41 firefight, we'll call for reinforcements. Reinforcements will come to help us. We would watch them do the exact same thing. If we had someone get wounded, we would call for a casualty evacuation. They'd come and pick them up and take them back to the field medical facility. We would watch them do the exact same thing. So they had communications. They had plans. They would hit with complex attacks that would be coordinated throughout the city. So at one time, they would attack three or four different coalition outposts in the city or on

Starting point is 00:36:13 the outskirts of the city, all coordinated, not only amongst themselves. So the separate attacks would be coordinated, but the individual attacks would be coordinated where they were vicious. Usually ending, starting with machine gun fire and then rocket propelled grenades. And then their goal always was to get a suicide vehicle, a suicide vehicle bomb and drive it right into the compound and detonate and kill as many people as possible. And they did this on the regular in that type of, well, what was the, uh, what was your unit? What was your unit known as seal team three task unit bruiser. And how many people were in that unit? So in that unit, you got about 35 seals and then we have another 70 support people. So these are

Starting point is 00:37:01 people that, you know, help us fix our vehicles, get our intelligence, man, our radios and all that. So, so you got about a pretty big, pretty big contingent of support people. They're not seals, they're seal support. Got it. So about roughly like a hundred, 105 people in total, do those 35 seals, uh, do they all directly report to you? So of those 35 SEALs, there's two SEAL platoons with 16 guys each. And then we have a small headquarters element, myself and a couple other guys. Got it. And that was the most decorated special operations unit in the Iraq war. It was. What separates a good commander from a great commander in an environment like that? Out of the gate, you know, my immediate answer is humility because you're in a situation like that.

Starting point is 00:38:01 There's no way that you know everything. It just, it's not possible. And so you have to be humble enough to, you know, reach out, ask people for advice. There'd been a, there'd been conventional units. So big army units, you know, on the ground for years. And when we got there, there'd been a unit on the ground, the two to eight iron soldiers from Pennsylvania. I'm just giving them some props right now. Cause they were awesome. And they, they'd been on the ground for 14 months fighting. So we went to those guys and we, you know, said, okay, what, how can we help? What can we do? What advice do you have for us? Uh, we wanted to learn what they knew.

Starting point is 00:38:42 And I think that that was a big piece of it. And also, you know, I had an open mind when it came to the strategic mission that we were trying to accomplish. Because for many years, what SEALs and special operations and the conventional units were doing was going out into neighborhoods, grabbing bad guys and coming back to their bases. And after three years of that, the enemy attacks had gone up 300%. So clearly something was not working. And the brigade that came in and took over, again, I'm going to give some huge compliments to the 11AD under Colonel Sean McFarland. They came in with a amazing strategy, which was seize, clear, hold, and build, which meant you got these bad neighborhoods that are owned by the enemy and okay, we're going to go in there and we're going to stay there. And that was a very different strategy than anyone had used. And so that's the seas, that's the, what the seas clear, hold, and build. So you go into these enemy territories

Starting point is 00:39:46 and you actually take over a building or two buildings or three buildings and you make them your house make them your fort and so that so that's what we did and again so from my perspective uh you know for colonel mcfarland and the rest of the battalion commanders and all those commanders to have this open mind to try out a new, a completely new strategy, which was very, very dangerous. Very dangerous. I mean, I'm not an expert. That sounds very risky. It was extremely risky. And you know, there was a huge price was paid. The casualties were very significant and very horrifying. Now, despite that overall, was that an effective strategy? It absolutely was.

Starting point is 00:40:26 That was just the price that it exactly... It absolutely was. So by the time I left, the strategy hadn't... We hadn't seen the results yet. I left October 21st, 2006 by... And there were still about 30 to 50 enemy attacks a day. About five months after we left, the enemy attacks were down to one a day, two a day. From what was the previous? From 30 to 50. Wow. And then six months later, it was down to one a week and then one a month. And then soon, you know, by 2007, Ramadi was the safest place in Iraq. I mean, excluding maybe the Kurd controlled area up in the north. And do you attribute that to anything else outside of this stratagem, the seas?

Starting point is 00:41:14 I'm apologizing that I'm forgetting the others. But occupying these buildings or areas and making them your home for a period of time. Were there other tactical decisions or strategies that contributed to that decrease? So the other, well, obviously the other huge piece of this is the men and women that were fighting and God bless them all because it was a hell of a fight. And like I said, there was significant casualties. And the other focus now was to take back the neighborhoods and in that secure the

Starting point is 00:41:49 populace. So in other wars, you know, you say, okay, here's our strategic objective is to take this hill or take this airfield or, or what, or what have you. And this one, the goal, the strategic goal was to secure the populace, to make sure that the populace was safe because once the populace was safe, then it was, okay, now we're going to give you some food. We're going to give you some water. We have Iraqi troops with us. We, so we worked all the time with Iraqi troops and they're speaking the same language. And it took a very short amount of time before that barrier got broken down and the local populace of Ramadi turned against the insurgents because they were no longer feared them. And so that was the other huge tipping point was getting the, the local populace of our, of Ramadi on the side of the coalition. I imagine that would give

Starting point is 00:42:35 you a, I mean, an enormous informational advantage. Absolutely. The, so it sounds like you have humility and openness to modifying pre-existing strategies. But then there's also an experimental piece, it sounds like. I mean, how was the first experiment conducted, or how did it come to pass and be implemented, that you would go in and occupy and test out that particular approach? Because it seems like, were there other experiments like that? And I know I just asked two questions, but I'm just trying to figure out in a military structure, and I haven't been exposed to that, where I'm sure there are a lot, there's a lot of command structures in place. Were you given a lot of latitude to experiment in that way, or did it require a lot of command structures in place. Were you given a lot of latitude to experiment in that way or did it require a lot of process? So let me give you a, I'll try and give a concise answer. Doesn't have to be concise. But this is, you're, you know, you're going deep right now. Oh yeah. Which is fine. Because I guess it's your podcast. So I'll take it back to a place called Al-Kaim where the Marines did a big sweep through Al-Qaim.

Starting point is 00:43:47 And at some point when they went through Al-Qaim, the local populace started saying, hey, there's bad guys over there. Hey, there's bad guys in that building down there. Go get them too. So there was a little thought about that. Now there was a place in north of Ramadi called Tal Afar, which there's a great, uh, legendary army commander. And I'll have to McMasters. And I got to look that up. Cause I think I'm, I think I'm missing it. Yeah, that's okay. And people in the show notes can also, um, they can also do McMaster, the guy's legendary guy, but he ran this sees clear and hold strategy up in Talafar.

Starting point is 00:44:23 And it was very effective. And again, this is pre-surge. That was 2005, 2006. Colonel McFarland went and took over for him in Talifar and saw, you know, got the turnover and understood what had happened. And then Colonel McFarland got the task once McMaster left to come down to Ramadi. And he said, you know, I'm going to do the same thing there. And so that's what he did. And you know, it was, you know, one thing that's interesting is it's not a movie. And so everything was not perfect. And you'd push into some of these neighborhoods and it was fierce, fierce fighting. And, you know, you take casualties. And I think that Colonel McFarland understood that deeply.

Starting point is 00:45:13 And he also had a vision for what the victory was going to look like. So those pieces and pushing in, you know, the first time it was like, hey, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go into this neighborhood that's controlled by the insurgents and move in. And in a, in a, in a battle such as, uh, you know, uh, Ramadi, how do you define objectives, um, in the longer term, not necessarily on a, on a nightly basis, but in the longer term so that you can focus the efforts and sustain the morale for that matter. Right. And that's, that's actually a simple question, you know, okay, here's what we're going to do three days from now. We're going to go into this neighborhood. We're going to establish a combat outpost and that's what we're going to focus on for the next three days. And then once we get that thing established, guess what? We're

Starting point is 00:46:02 going to spend a, you know, four or five days there and then we're going to do it again. And grand picture, you know, strategic vision, here's what it's going to look like. We're going to have combat outposts all over Ramadi that are going to be controlled by Americans with Iraqi soldiers in them that can go out and talk to the local populace and we can secure the city. So it was, it was as simple as that. Now you take that down a level to, let's say, my SEAL platoon, one of my SEAL platoons, and they'd be saying, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go and take this particular building. And then we're going to cover for the conventional units as they come in, in a very exposed way. Because when you build these combat outposts, you're

Starting point is 00:46:39 literally doing a construction project in the middle of a combat zone. So these guys, these brave army engineers are standing with, you know, a hammer in their hand, full body armor, and, you know, reinforcing these buildings, loading sandbags, building barricades. And, you know, this is while we're being attacked. Wow. And so those guys, you know, like I said, I can never give enough credit to the units that we worked there in Ramadi. They were phenomenal and brave. And what we would do is while they were doing those missions, building out those combat outposts, we would go out to the high ground surrounding the combat outpost. So we'd sneak out into the areas surrounding the combat outpost. So now when the enemy came to attack the combat outpost. So we'd sneak out into the areas surrounding the combat outpost.

Starting point is 00:47:25 So now when the enemy came to attack the combat outpost, we would kill them. Right. And they didn't know where we were in the beginning. And eventually, you know, they'd figure out where we were and come attack. What was the sort of division of expertise, like among the 35 seals, uh, under your command in so much as, and again,

Starting point is 00:47:50 I, I, I have to apologize because my, what I know of seals, some of it has come from guys who've been deployed, um, who are friends of mine, but a lot of it comes from seeing films,

Starting point is 00:48:01 right? I mean, it's, it's a lot of the exposure that civilians have here, but, uh, and some people say like, Oh yeah, that guy's a door kicker. You know, this guy's this, this guy is that, how did the responsibilities break down, um, across those 35? You know, it's, it's, it's a seal to seal platoons. Each seal platoon has a singular

Starting point is 00:48:21 leader that's in charge of the whole platoon. And he's got some subordinate leadership underneath him. And then you've got these guys that are have their specialty craft whether they're snipers whether they're medic guys corpsmen whether they're breachers which are guys that blow up blow things up blow open doors uh riflemen grenadiers point. So you've got these various skill sets inside. What is a, I apologize, the rifleman and then what was the other word? Grenadier. Are they the same? No, there's two different.

Starting point is 00:48:53 It depends. So a rifleman is basically a guy with a rifle, which we generally wouldn't have because almost every guy in a SEAL platoon is doing something other than just shooting his gun. Like I said, he's a radio man, so he's calling in for fire, calling tanks, calling casualty evacuation, anything like that. The sniper is being a sniper. The machine gunners are machine gunners. A grenadier lobs grenades at people. So that's what a SEAL platoon is.

Starting point is 00:49:22 Now the experience level in a SEAL platoon is, you know, you've got guys that have never deployed before. And we had probably out of 30, 30, whatever guys, we probably had a dozen that had never deployed before. So it was their first deployment to Iraq and it was, you know, pretty Epic first deployment to Iraq. Um, and then you've got guys that have varying level of experience inside the platoons. And, you know, some guys had deployed to Iraq one,

Starting point is 00:49:49 two or three times. And that's probably the level of experience. And did you have, um, what were the size of groups that would go out and say, uh, a nightly raid or something like that? And again,

Starting point is 00:50:02 I apologize. I'm playing the civilian role here. So I'm not going to get everything right. something like that. And again, I apologize. I'm playing the civilian role here. So I'm not going to get everything right. But like, what are the, would the core group be sort of like a six or seven? We would task organized depending on the mission. So if you, it's important to remember that we were working with Iraqi forces. So we had these other people with us that we could use as bodies to do, you know, some of what, some of the work, right. Some of the work. And so, you know, what we'd send six, seven, eight, nine, 10 seals out with eight, 10, 12, 20, 40 Iraqis. And then it's the whole spectrum. Cause sometimes we'd send an

Starting point is 00:50:40 entire seal platoon out, you know, 16 guys with 40 Iraqi soldiers or 50 Iraqi soldiers. And sometimes we'd send, you know, five SEALs out with five Iraqi soldiers to do some kind of an overwatch position, a little smaller, but you know, we still had a minimum that we needed to take out. What is an overwatch position? Overwatch position is kind of what I talked about earlier, where you get the high ground. Got it. Or maybe not necessarily the high ground, but often the high ground. That's the tactical, that's the tactical advantageous position on the battlefield is to be on the high ground. Who are other people, uh, in the military alive or dead

Starting point is 00:51:15 us or elsewhere, um, who you really respect as a sort of strategists or tacticians? Obviously I talked about, uh, Colonel Sean McFarland, who was just fantastic. And, you know, he was, he was, and I don't know if I'm necessarily right on this, but, you know, general Petraeus, uh, who wrote the manual on counterinsurgency. So he's obvious and he, you know, orchestrated the surge and he's brilliant. And in my opinion was the critical player in really turning the rest of the war. Again, we were pre-surge, but I think they used the success in Ramadi as a reason to sell the surge. Like we can do this in other places. We did it in Ramadi. So, you know, from my perspective, both of those guys were, uh, were just outstanding.

Starting point is 00:52:15 And when you, when you look at, and the reason I was asking about the, the smaller groups that are sent out, say the, the eight to 10 seals with then the, uh, the, the Iraqi colleagues. What distinguishes a good leader in that type of situation or in Bud's or elsewhere? I mean, what have you observed and learned about what makes a good leader versus a good or mediocre or a bad leader? Again, it's the immediate answer that comes to mind is humility because you've got to be humble and you've got to be coachable. You know, that we would fire guys later when I was running training, we would fire a couple leaders in every, from every SEAL team because they, they couldn't, they couldn't lead. And 99.9% of the time it was, wasn't a question of their ability.

Starting point is 00:53:06 It was a question of their ability to listen and their ability to step outside and see that maybe there's a better way to do things. Uh, so that's, that's number one. And number two, I would say is a, an individual who is balanced. And, you know, I talk about, there's a, there's a phrase that I use. It's the dichotomy of leadership. So lead in a leadership situation, you're constantly balancing these opposing forces. So do you have to be aggressive? Absolutely. Can you be too aggressive? Yes, you can. Um, can you be, do you need to be courageous? Yes, you do. Can you be foolhardy and get people killed? Absolutely. So there's all these balances. Can you be too close to your men? Yes, you do. Can you be foolhardy and get people killed? Absolutely. So there's all

Starting point is 00:53:45 these balances. Can you be too close to your men? Yes, you can. Can you be not close enough? Yes, you can. Can you be too robotic? Yes, you can. Can you be too emotional? Absolutely. So what I find the best leaders, they have this ability to balance all those opposing forces. And, and usually when you do find a problem, you know, if you're, if you're making, if you realize that your leadership isn't working, generally you can look and say, Oh, I'm going too far in one direction on this particular, uh, force, this dichotomy of leadership. I'm going too far. I'm being, being overbearing. I'm micromanaging, you know, micromanaging is a great one, right? You can obviously micromanage your people and they won't act. They won't do anything on their own. They won't take any initiative.

Starting point is 00:54:32 And that's horrible. The other end is you can not give them the guidance that they need and, and not pay close enough attention to them. And now they don't know what the mission is or what they're doing. So there's all these dichotomies that you have to balance as a leader. And I think that between being humble and balancing all those dichotomies of leadership is what makes a good leader. And how would say the ability to listen and be coachable, what would be an example of how that manifests itself? Just how you would observe that and say, that's a guy who's good at being humble and coachable or the opposite, right? Like, so I'm looking for the things that you would observe or hear where you'd be like, you know what? I think we might have to let that guy go. Yeah. You'd see a guy in, again, now we're going back to training.

Starting point is 00:55:18 We put these guys through very realistic and challenging training to say the least. And I know if there's any guys that went through training when I was running it right now, they're chuckling because it was very realistic, psychotic. And we put so much pressure on these guys and overwhelm them. And you know, a good leader would come back and say, I lost it. I didn't control it. I didn't, I didn't do a good job. I, I didn't see what was happening. I got too absorbed in this little tiny tactical situation that was right in front of me. They'd, they'd either, they'd make those criticisms themselves about themselves, or they'd say, what did I do wrong? And when you told them they'd nod their head, they'd pull out their notebook, they'd take notes. And, and that right there, you know, that's a guy that's going to,

Starting point is 00:56:08 that's going to make it, that's going to do it right. And then you get the guy that comes in and he's immediately saying, uh, you know, you say, well, what'd you think of the operation? And if it was a disaster, he'd say it was a disaster. And you go, well, what went wrong? And immediately it's, well, my assault team leader didn't do X and my mobility commander didn't do Y. And I told those guys I wanted them to over there and they didn't go there. Finger pointing. Immediately finger pointing. And that's just a telltale sign. You've got a guy that's not humble enough and coachable. And it's an awful thing. And you can try and change people. And sometimes they would change, but it's difficult to get them to change.

Starting point is 00:56:47 Some people are born with that characteristic. And it's a bummer to see because if you can't fix them, you can't fix them. Right. And they're not going to listen to anybody. Well, it sounds like self-awareness is also a big component of that, to have the awareness to kind of step outside and objectively evaluate yourself? I, I, you know, I call it detachment and you know, that's one of the things that early on in my leadership career, I actually remember when it happened, I was probably 20 something years, 22 or 23 years old. I was in my, I was in my first SEAL platoon and we come up, we're on an oil rig in California doing some training and we come up on this level

Starting point is 00:57:34 of this oil rig and it's never been an oil rig before. They're very complex. There's gear and boxes and just stuff everywhere on these levels and're see-through. You can see through the floors and you can see it's a complex environment. And we come up and we all get on this platform, on this level, and everybody freezes. And I'm kind of waiting and I'm a new guy. So I don't really, you know, I don't feel like I should be doing anything. But then I said to myself, you know, somebody's got to do something. So I just, what's called high ported my gun. So I just lifted my gun up towards the air. Like I'm not, I'm not a shooter right now. And I took one step back off the line and I looked around and I saw what the picture was. And I just said, you know, hold left, move right. And everybody heard it and they did it. And I said to myself, Hmm,

Starting point is 00:58:24 you know, there's that, that that's what you need to do. And so I realized that detaching yourself from the situation so you could observe it so that you can see what's happening is absolutely critical. And, and now, you know, when I talk to executives or mid-level managers, I explained to them that I'm doing that all the time. I, I, it sounds horrible, but it's almost like sometimes I'm not a participant in my own life. I'm an observer of that guy that's doing it. So if I'm having a conversation with you and you know, we're trying to discuss a point and I'm watching and saying, wait, are you being too emotional right now?

Starting point is 00:58:59 Or, you know, wait a second, look at him. He, you know, cause I can't, I'm not reading you correctly. If I'm seeing you through my own emotion or ego, I can't really see what you're thinking. But if I step out of that and now I'm seeing, I see the real you. And if you are getting angry, if your ego is getting hurt, if you're about to cave because you're just fed up with me, whereas if I'm raging in my own head, I might miss all of that. And so that detachment that takes place as a leader is critical. And you're 100% right on that. How do you instill that or try to teach that? Is that something people...

Starting point is 00:59:38 I feel like that maybe more than the humility seems to be a coachable skill. And part of the reason I say that is because I've found that whether it's a cognitive behavioral therapy or stoic philosophy for that matter, you can in small increments condition people to have less of an extreme emotional response and to try to observe themselves. And I suppose that there's some Buddhist thought that would translate to that as well. But how do you teach, how do you help teach someone that ability to detach? So what we did to teach them was put them under extraordinary pressure where to fail to detach from the situation and step up and away from the problem would result in failure. And I had a great experience where one of my, uh, one of the guy that actually took my job over as the troop commander

Starting point is 01:00:34 and a very close friend of mine, he, he got hurt. So he was, he was going through the training now and I was running the training and we were going out to a place called Nyland, California to do land warfare. And again, this is desert operations. You're patrolling in long distances, you're hitting targets and we have like high level laser tag guns that we use to shoot. And, and it's very, we put a lot of pressure on people. There's helicopters, there's smoke, there's bombs,

Starting point is 01:01:05 there's all kinds of stuff happening. And this guy, this buddy of mine, he was supposed to be commanding and all, but he had broken his neck about, I don't know, six weeks prior to this. Was that on like a ropes course or command a helicopter? It was climbing a ship. And the guy above him fell and broke his neck.

Starting point is 01:01:23 And so this guy who's, who had been in Ramadi with me and, you know, did an outstanding job and, and amazing effort and was brave as to a fault, you know, we're lucky he's here. So he, so, so the land warfare training takes place and he comes out and I said, Hey, just come out and watch with me. And so he comes out and you know, we're, we're, we're watching and we're out on one of these field training exercises. So all this mayhem starts and there's bad guys up in the hills and there's bombs going off and there's smoke everywhere. And, but from our position, which we were standing next to the guys that were in it, and he looks at me and he says, you know, it's so easy when you're not in it.

Starting point is 01:02:10 And I said, this is how it was for me when we went through. I was up here and he was like a light bulb went off. You know, he said, I saw you. You know, like he would, he kind of saw me like that and said, how does he know what's happening right now? So the ability, easy in so much as when you're the outsider looking in you can see what to do what's going exactly and when you did it you were not necessarily physically removing yourself but sort of mentally yes pulling the perspective back so you could observe it so so if you take someone like your your uh your friend who has this realization like, oh, holy shit, okay, that explains a lot.

Starting point is 01:02:46 Because if you could create this perspective, you would have a huge tactical advantage. What type of exercise would you put someone through where the consequences were so significant that they would be forced to detach in that way? I mean, these are just exercises that we do. And you know, like I said, so we would use lasers. We had this advanced laser tag system where you get, you can get shot at 300 meters. And if you go, if you get shot at an Island and your beeper goes off and says you're dead, then you're dead. Right. And you're going to have to get carried out by your buddies, which is awful. And you're going to get, they're going to get hurt, sprained ankles, everything else. It's a nightmare. And then, and they're also now they can't maneuver as well. So now what happens when they get attacked again, which they're going to,

Starting point is 01:03:35 because it's going to be Murphy's law out there and the problems compound. And if the leaders get bogged down in those problems and don't step back, we'll literally, we would kill all of them. Right. And they'd come back with their, with their heads down and say, you know, what the hell just happened and what can we do better? And then, you know, we'd, we'd, we'd have this talk with them. And, you know, it's one of those things. It's like when you, it's like when you're growing up and you don't listen to anybody, not that you don't listen to people, but some lessons you have to learn through life and through experience. And so that happened. And the guys at varying levels, some of them would be able to go, oh, I just saw it. Okay, now I can make this happen. And that would happen as well where I would see there,

Starting point is 01:04:22 like in Terminator, when the beginning of the Terminator, they said on August 27th, 2016, the machines became aware. You could see their leadership switch happen. And all of a sudden they'd go, boom. And then I know my job was done. And they'd step up, they'd take a step back from the situation. They would look around, they'd observe, they'd make good decisions and good calls, and then watch them progress out of it and finish the problem and do well. And then I knew that I had done my job. They'd become aware. They became aware as leaders. Yeah. This is, in my mind at least, related to not panicking or at least being able to think in the midst of panic.

Starting point is 01:05:08 Uh, and there's so many examples of this, I mean, in sports and elsewhere, but I remember doing some, uh, convoy and evasive driving training with a bunch of executive types. I mean, these are not military guys, uh, just really for the experience. And part of the training involved splitting up into two teams, having sort of an ambush team and trying to go get a broken down car with a person passed out inside. They might be dead. They might be passed out back through basically a finish line. And we got to pick teams. And I happened to be, I guess, one team leader. And I picked the guy who had the best evasive driving skills to be sort of the victor one driver. And then I was in the passenger side with comms. And everybody had paintball guns.

Starting point is 01:05:57 And we had to keep the passenger side and driver side windows down so we could get nailed. And there were also drivers trying to take us off the road and whatnot. In any case, as soon as the paintball started flying, this guy just gunned it in a straight line. No response to comms, no response to anything, even though under the pressure of sort of mock competition with the evasive driving and so on within cones, he'd been spectacular. How do you either pick people who are less likely to have that, that just go into a blind kind of red zone where they're unresponsive, uh, or, uh, prepare people and condition them so they can actually function when the shit starts. Yeah. And that's exactly right, what you just said. We desensitize them to being in horrible situations

Starting point is 01:06:48 and we condition them and work with, keep putting that pressure on them until they can get through it. Got it. So it's just, it's a matter of exposure. And most, most guys do, you know, most, most guys, they go, okay, I'm used to this. And then, and then it'll

Starting point is 01:07:05 be up a level for real. It'll be up a level. So you'll, and most guys will be good there too. You'll have a couple fall out there, but, uh, but the seal teams does a very good job of applying that pressure and conditioning you and desensitizing you to horrible situations so that you can deal with it when it comes. So I want to talk a little bit, we're just going to shift gears a little bit, and I know we're going to bounce around a lot, but so I've heard of your workouts when you're deployed. And one guy said, I don't know if this is true, that you would, uh, you know, roll with like 20 guys in a platoon as, as a workout and just tap out like 20 guys. Is that true? Well, yeah. I mean, you're rolling with guys that don't know anything. And so in order to get good training in, I would just have guys, you know, come in, you know, every 15 minutes.

Starting point is 01:08:00 And, you know, I, I, you know, I remember this particularly when I was at team two and I would just have the guys come in every 15 or 20 minutes and just, you know, roll with them. And then another guy would come in. So yeah. But I mean, I was, you know, better than them at jujitsu. And so it's not that I was any tougher. I just knew more. When you look at, uh, of course, you know, many very good competitors in jujitsu MMA. When you look at the, the top performers in that world, and then some of the top performers you've met in the seal world, uh, what are the commonalities, if any? Well, let me talk about jujitsu first. Uh, one thing I noticed about jujitsu is there are,

Starting point is 01:08:46 when we get to that, when you get to the world class level of jujitsu guys, there is a stratification there between guys that have a natural God given ability that is above and beyond normal human. It's above and beyond what a normal human being would do or should be able to do. And there's not many of those people. Who would you put, who comes to mind when you think of that? I think Hicks and Gracie, who, you know, I've trained with him and yeah, he's, I was, I was a

Starting point is 01:09:27 blue belt when I trained with him, but you could feel that this guy is not normal. Uh, Dean Lister, who's my training partner forever. And you know, I've rolled with guys from all over the world and Dean Lister is at another level. I've never rolled with Marcelo Garcia, but, uh, you know, just from watching in competition, you can see that he has that as well. And then the next, and I mean, that's, there's not a large group of people at that level. And then the next level down is guys that train like maniacs and they're great athletes. And that's, that's, and they're awesome too. You know, those guys are the world champions, et cetera. Um, so that's, that's that and they're awesome too you know those guys are the world champions etc so that's that's my estimation and and having rolled with guys on both ends of the spectrum

Starting point is 01:10:15 you know dean is an example because dean has won world championships training a minuscule amount compared to, you know, what a normal person would have to train to get there, which I don't know if that's a compliment or, uh, uh, uh, you know, a negative, but you know, it's, it's true. Yeah. It's, uh, now in, in the SEAL teams, as far as the, the high performers, I think it's the people that, you know, it's a certain level of focus, I think. And again, a certain level of open-mindedness and a certain level of dedication to the task and to the craft that they're dealing with. And you get guys that are just super passionate about the job. And if you're super passionate about the job and the SEAL teams,

Starting point is 01:11:08 you know, there's a really good chance you're going to be one of the top performers because you're going to put in all that extra effort to, to do well. What are you world-class at, um, that people might not realize? Uh, well,

Starting point is 01:11:21 first of all, I think world-class is a, is a strong word. It's a strong word for, I, I, sorry to interrupt because I, because I'd say I think world-class is a, is a strong word. It's a strong word for, I, sorry to interrupt because I, because I'd say I'm world-class at, uh, you know, just about nothing. Um, and, and as far as what people might not know about me, one thing that's interesting about me is I live a fairly compartmentalized life where, you know, my jujitsu friends would not meet my seal friends who would not meet the

Starting point is 01:11:46 people that I work with in a leadership situation or in a, in a civilian sector business world. So there's people that don't know that, you know, I'm a really good jujitsu player or that I work with big companies and help their leadership. And so there's that. But if i had to say you know what uh the skill set that i have that i think helped me was number one taking complex things and making them simple and then being able to communicate that simplicity to other people is number one and And number two, the ability that we already talked about to detach myself from situations, uh, emotionally and mentally, usually not physically. You have to be able to do it without detaching physically. But those, those things would be what I would say my talents, if I had any, because, you know, I'm definitely not the fastest, not the strongest,

Starting point is 01:12:45 not the, uh, not the most flexible or whatever, and not the smartest. But it seems like, um, you know, it's very interesting. Mandana would say the same thing about like, I'm not the best dancer. I'm not the best singer. I'm not the best this, but I think like yourself, she's kind of a, um, what a five tool player, like a baseball player who can like hit for power, hit for getting on base, can field, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, and it's the collection of those tools that makes you say a world-class commander or something like that. What is your, what do, what do your morning routines look like on an ideal day? Like what

Starting point is 01:13:21 is the first 90 minutes of your day look like? When do you wake up? What is, what does that look like? So I wake up early. I wake up at 4 45. Um, I like to have that psychological win over the enemy. And you know, for me that when I wake up in the morning and I don't know why I'm thinking about the enemy and what they're doing. And I know I'm not active duty anymore, but it's still in there that there's a guy that's in a cave somewhere and he's rocking back and forth and he's got a machine gun in one hand and a, and a grenade in the other hand and he's waiting for me and we're going to meet. And when I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking to myself, what can I do to be ready for that moment, which is coming, which is coming. And, uh, so that, that propels me out of bed that, and I, I work out early in the morning. Uh, so you wake up at four 45.

Starting point is 01:14:37 What's the next thing aside from like brushing your teeth and doing the usual, uh, do the usual start working out. And I try, ideally I like to get done with my workout by the time the sun comes up. And so now if there's waves, you know, I live by the ocean, so I'll go surfing and get done with that. And what is the morning workout? What does a typical morning workout look like? Uh, I, I, you know, I do a lot of pulse pushups and dips. I deadlift and do squats. I do sprints. I mean, it's everything that everybody knows. It's everything that everybody does, right? I swing kettlebells, uh, do burpees, you know, it's, it's all that. And it's like a 60 minute workout. How long is it?

Starting point is 01:15:18 It depends. It depends on what's going on. Um, I will, I'll try and do some strength movements to be strong, you know, deadlifts, cleans, clean and jerk, something like that, uh, to make myself stronger. Or even if it's, even if it's something like just dead hang pull-ups and I'm just maxing out, but I, I'll do something like that to make myself stronger. And sometimes that can take a while, you know, cause I'll just want to relax and, and, you know, hit singles or doubles, um, on deadlifts or cleans or whatever. And then when I get done with that, I'll do some kind of, uh, some kind of metabolic conditioning of some kind, you know, I'll be sprinting or rowing or swinging a kettlebell or, you know, lighter weight, clean and jerks for reps or something like that. So that's what it

Starting point is 01:16:02 looks like for me. So you finish training when the sun comes up, hit the waves since they're there, which is a good policy. And what happens then? You know, I'll come back and start doing normal human stuff. Right. That's when the work begins. Yeah. I have a know, I have, I have a leadership and management consulting business, so I'll have clients to talk to. I'll have emails to push out. Um, and, and I'll, I'll start taking care of that business. I normally don't get hungry until 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. So around 10 or 11 o'clock,

Starting point is 01:16:43 I start wanting, you know, to, to start to graze on some food and I'll do that. And, and then by, by noon I'm, I'm feeling pretty hungry. Like I need some lunch. And, uh, what is, is, what is your diet generally look like? Generally looks like steak, steak and chicken and salad paleo ish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm no, you know, I'm no stranger to having some mint chocolate chip ice cream or some Ovaltine or whatever. Uh, you know, again, I'm not, I'm, I'm not, you know, a competitive bodybuilder. And so, you know, I, I'll eat some normal food. Right. You can indulge when the, when, when the spirit moves you, when you think of the word successful, who are the first people or the first person that comes to mind?

Starting point is 01:17:38 So for me, you know, the, the part of the world that I've seen is a very dark place. It's a dark place. That's what war is. And when your job, which my job was, was to expand that darkness in many ways. I mean, it's, war is about killing people. And so for me, when I look to someone that's successful, it's someone that brings some light into that darkness. So for me, the first people that come to my head are Mark Lee, who is one of my guys, first SEAL killed in Iraq. Mike Monsoor, one of my guys, second SEAL killed in Iraq, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. And Ryan Jobe, one of my guys, wounded in Iraq, blinded in both eyes,

Starting point is 01:18:55 made it home, medically retired from the Navy, married his high school sweetheart, got her pregnant and finished his college degree. And after his 22nd surgery to repair the damage that was done to his, his head and face, there were complications and he died as well. But all of those guys, in all that darkness, they and fight and die like a warrior, that to me is success. And those guys are my heroes. What do you, what do you struggle with? And I asked that because, uh, I mean, we've, we've only just met, but it's hard for me as a civilian to fathom what, what you and your friends have been through. Um, impossible for me to fathom.

Starting point is 01:20:31 Um, and I mean, it makes me just feel ashamed for ever complaining about a bad day or a hard day. Uh, given what you guys have experienced and the stakes that are involved and the sacrifices and the, that are involved and the sacrifices and the sadness and tragedy that is a part of that job. What do you struggle with, whether it's in the business sphere or like, oh my God, Richard Branson, he's got it all figured out.

Starting point is 01:21:11 He's doing everything perfectly. He's just, he's on cruise control, hitting home runs every time he gets a bat. And as I've slowly gotten to know, not necessarily Branson directly, although I have met him before, I realized like people all have, and this is something that you talked about, that detachment. You know, when I find myself, I've always had kind of impatience and anger issues. And it's helped me to be aggressive in sport and in business and in negotiation, but it's also caused some problems for me. But I've realized that one of the ways I can tone that down is by realizing like everyone has, everyone is fighting a battle, you know, nothing about in some way, but what, what are the things that,

Starting point is 01:21:51 that you find difficult or that you struggle with or have struggled with? It's, it's, it's an interesting question because, and this is a filler answer in case you couldn't tell that. Cause when I start off with, it's an interesting question, that means I'm not really quite sure what to say. Um, I've, you know, I've been, I've been lucky. I've been blessed. I've had, you know, a life that I would not trade with anyone in the world. Um, when you talk about Ramadi, I, that was the highlight of my life because I was leading men in combat, which is something, which was something that I always wanted to do and something that I felt that I was destined to do. And when I was in that situation, I knew that I wasn't,

Starting point is 01:22:53 I don't look back and say, Oh, I wish I would have enjoyed that. No, I knew it then. This is it. This is, this is what you have been waiting for your whole life and what you really have been preparing for your whole life. And I was lucky to be there and I was lucky to have, uh, incredible guys to work with both in my unit and in the other units, the army and the Marine Corps that we worked with. I was lucky enough to have guys that were so brave and so dedicated. And I will use the word fearless, not that they didn't have fear, but that they overcame it all the time. And so I'd say if there's anything that I struggle with now, it's just that does anything else matter? Is there an answer? No. The answer is no. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is close. And so you have to deal with that. And, and I don't struggle as a strong

Starting point is 01:24:01 word because I don't sit there at night, you know, wishing I was back. Well, okay. I do do that. You know, sometimes I, I often wish I was back, but I don't dwell on it because it's gone. And I'm so happy that I could be part of it and that I was able to work with such tremendous guys. And, uh, I try and keep their memory alive every day in my own head. How did you, when you were active, reconcile the risks that are inherent in that job with family, with your family? Well, first of all, I actually, when I had, when I was young, you know, I, I thought that I was going to die. I thought I was going to die in combat. There was no war going on. This is ignorant thought, right? This is young, stupid, um, you know, unknowledgeable idiot saying I'm only going to

Starting point is 01:25:01 live to, I'm never going to make it to 30. Right I was good with that. Cause I had, you know, nothing. I was a single guy that was, uh, wanted to go out and destroy the world. You know, that's awesome. Then, you know, as I got older and I realized, Oh, I'm actually going to live to be 30 and probably 40. And so I had to, you know, work through that. Um, and you know what? I got married along the way, had kids. And I actually, when I had kids, I actually felt more ready to die because, you know, I had left my fulfilled, I fulfilled my, my, my, I left, I left children. And so I actually felt like I was okay with that. Um, which I guess that's bad, but you know, men have been traveling and fighting for thousands and thousands of years since the beginning of

Starting point is 01:26:02 mankind. And I knew that as a warrior, that's okay. And sometimes men don't come home and the families drive on and that's the way the world works. So I didn't really have much to reconcile there. Now, as far as division of time and having a family, I can tell you, I was very lopsided and unbalanced in that situation. The SEAL teams to me was everything and nothing else mattered. Well, I shouldn't say it didn't matter, but it was definitely on a much lower priority. And I remember actually my wife sent me an email when I was on deployment and she, you know, she's very independent doing her thing. And she sends me an email that says something along the lines of, Hey, you know, send us a picture of where you sleep. Fair enough. You

Starting point is 01:26:57 know, they show the kids where, where I sleep at night. And so I went up to my room and we had some old, uh, Saddam palace that we had taken over, not really a palace, the Saddam house that we had taken over. And that's where we lived. And I had the, one of the rooms in this building. And so I went up and I took some pictures, some digital pictures of my bed and I looked at him and I said, Oh, wait a second. And I went into a folder that I had and I pulled it out and I took out pictures of my wife and kids and I hung them up on the wall and I took pictures and I sent those home and I took the pictures back down because I didn't want to be thinking about my wife and kids when I had men's lives at stake. And that's how I

Starting point is 01:27:50 compartmentalized and did what I did, what I had to do, which was be dedicated to my guys, to the mission and to the country. And at that point in time, you know, it had to take priority over everything, took priority over everything. I mean, my guys, they had families they had to go home to. I can't be thinking about this other stuff. So there's a little reconciliation. Who are, uh, now that you've entered the, the civilian world, are there particular non-military leaders, whether they're CEOs or maybe outside of the private sector, you admire or look to in some way as role models? You meet these guys and girls and a lot of them might as well have been in the SEAL teams. They're aggressive,

Starting point is 01:28:49 they're making things happen. And yeah, I admire and learn from them all the time, you know, and, and I think they get the same thing from me and that's why I'm in business, you know? So, uh, absolutely. There's some, you know, America is the greatest country on earth and, you know, capitalism is what makes this country one of the things that makes this country so great. And those folks that run these businesses are, you know, part of that fabric that makes America great. So, absolutely, they're incredible people. And they have the same faults that SEALs have. And they make the same mistakes. And they get involved emotionally with stuff.

Starting point is 01:29:26 And their ego gets in the way. Of course, just like it happens with SEALs, it happens with them. And they make the same mistakes where they don't explain the mission to their troops or they don't break it down from a strategic level to a tactical level so that people on the front line can understand. So it's all the same mistakes. And that's, again, that's kind of why we're in business now. Right. Humans will be humans. Exactly. Group dynamics will be group dynamics. Unfortunately, that is correct. And when you were talking about the detachment, it made me think of quite a few years ago, but I had my first sort of frivolous lawsuit come in, which completely paralyzed me. I mean, I was so

Starting point is 01:30:06 intimidated and shocked and fearful. And it ended up getting completely tossed out, but it took a long time and a lot of money. And I ended up developing migraines. I started clenching my jaw to the point where I had these shooting pains and I had to get a mouthpiece. It caused a whole cascade of health problems and issues. And I remember talking to a number of my buddies who had been in business for decades and at very high levels. And one of them, I won't give his full name away, but Pete, really hilarious, but brilliantly effective executive. He goes, Timmy, he's like, you're too fucking nice. I should have sued you just because you should get used to it. And he's like, starts talking to me, treating it like such a

Starting point is 01:30:48 non-event. It was just such a non-event for him. And I couldn't compute it at the time, but now I've just realized like some of these things are a cost of doing business. And if you're going to be aggressive and push the envelope and step into environments that are uncertain, because that's where a lot of rewards are potentially, you're going to be aggressive and push the envelope and step into environments that are uncertain, because that's where a lot of rewards are potentially, you're going to deal with these things. So now I'm at a point like I've been exposed to that enough times, not necessarily frivolous lawsuits, but just legal headaches, because that's a sort of a side effect of having a very vigorous free market on one hand is you have some legal complications. And what I've tried to figure out for myself, spending time with people who have been deployed and done the realistic training that you've referred to, I mean, some of which is just beyond intense as they've described it to me. I've wanted to take myself out of this sort of keyboard shackled experience from day to day and expose myself to more of these stresses,

Starting point is 01:31:56 to try to toughen myself and inoculate myself against future uncertainty and things like that. What are skills or experiences that you think every man should have? I mean, there's a whole, there's a whole list of those. Oh yeah. No, I'm interested because quite frankly, I feel like, and I've had female friends say this to me where they're like, you know, I meet a lot of guys, like I date a lot of guys, but there just aren't many men out there anymore, which that we could dig really far into that. And there's, there's all sorts of complicated sort of gender questions and topics that could raise, but just putting all that aside for the time being, I think a lot of folks like myself even, and I experienced

Starting point is 01:32:43 this when I was doing the four hour chef and really got back into doing hunting and field dressing and trying to build things and working with fire. And I was like, wow, I feel like I'm slowly becoming maybe barely manually literate compared to my great-grandfather who was chopping wood every day, building stuff, fixing things that broke, etc. So what would be on that list in your mind? I mean, if guys are listening to this and you know what, I want to toughen the fuck up just a little bit. If you went bare bones basic, you're talking food, shelter, and water, right? Do you have the skills to bring those things to the table and make them happen? I think that's a very basic place to start. I can tell you that from my perspective, and I actually gave a speech at one of my buddy's weddings. And I said that there was three things in my life that made me feel like a man. And when I say feel like a man, it doesn't mean bow up and feel like a man and when you when i say feel like a man it doesn't mean bow up and feel

Starting point is 01:33:47 like a man it actually means the opposite actually means i'm confident enough that i don't need to bow up and i don't need to meaning puff up your chest puff up my chest and i'm a badass yeah and uh the first one was that was actually jujitsu was learning how to fight and knowing that there's not a question that if I get into an altercation, I can handle myself. I a hundred percent that, because when you're, when you don't know jujitsu or you don't know how to fight, then you question that in the back of your mind. And how do you, how do you answer that question? You act like an asshole, right? You, these are the guys that, you know, run around in a bar, get in fights with people because they don't know. They don't,

Starting point is 01:34:29 they're not confident that they can handle themselves. So that was number one. Number two is going into combat because again, there was a big question mark of, you don't know for sure how you're going to react in those situations. And I felt pretty good that I knew how I was going to act, but you know, you need to, you need to check the box. And so I checked that box and I knew that I was going to do fine and that I did fine and that I was brave and not scared and was able to detach myself and make decisions and make things happen. So that was good. And then the last one was getting married and having kids because now all of a sudden I have other humans that are directly relying on me for as their, you know,

Starting point is 01:35:20 their soul kind of leader and, you know, realizing that this is the most important thing. You have to make this the most important thing in your life. And you're out of that game too, you know? So you're no longer trying to, you're no longer trying to impress, you know, a girl or whatever, because you got a girl. Right. And so there's a, there's a level of, you know, I don't care anymore, you know, that, that is also nice. So those, those three things were for me were kind of the, where I was able to say, okay, you know, I'm good now let's focus on being a good, a good guy and moving forward. But those were, those are, those are three good ones. The, the, on the jujitsu side, I,

Starting point is 01:36:03 that's the only one that I can speak to, having done a little bit here and there and also Muay Thai and whatnot. But I think that it's so valuable on so many levels because not only do you know you can handle yourself, but if you think you're a tough guy and you go to a good gym, you get taught really quickly how untough you are. And so I just remember, for instance, I was training at

Starting point is 01:36:25 Fairtex ages ago here in San Francisco. And one of the guys who was a trainer, his name is N, E-N-N. And he was a southpaw. So I trained with him because I'm a southpaw. The most unassuming little dude you've ever seen in your life. Calves the size of my torso. But otherwise, you would never guess in a million years. And he had terrible fashion sense. And so he'd wear these huge baseball caps that would cover his entire head. So he looked like he was about seven years old. He was only like five foot one, five foot two. Huge baggy t-shirt, baggy pants.

Starting point is 01:36:52 So he just looked like average guy who's going to be some type of manual laborer. And people would mistake him for being Mexican. And I just remember he went out to this bar because the gym was on clementina street which was between howard and folsom i think around no i'm sorry yeah it's between howard and folsom between fifth and six which is a it was a terrible place to be when when uh when i was training there and in fact alex gong the owner was shot in the chest and killed um basically while I was there. And by a guy stuck in traffic,

Starting point is 01:37:28 it's an insane story, but suffice to say that he goes out to a bar and I was at a fly in camp at the time with a bunch of other guys. And this guy pulls a knife on one of the other trainers. Why? Who knows? And so everybody kind of backs up and they're like kind of two groups facing each other and one of the guys is like i'm gonna fuck you up and to n who looks like he's like a

Starting point is 01:37:52 tiny little guy and he just throws the nastiest roundhouse kick you can imagine like basically breaks the guy in half like it's a lego figure being broken by a gorilla and then that was just the showstopper but it's just i think once you train by a gorilla. And then that was just the showstopper. But it's just, I think once you train with people like that, you're like, I am never going to pick a fight because you never know who the end is. Right.

Starting point is 01:38:13 Absolutely true. And, um, and I, I think it's very, uh, it also, that confidence and that humility,

Starting point is 01:38:20 I think transfers to so many other areas. Uh, because you realize like, wow, you know, I thought I was the cat's meow. I thought I was the king of the hill in areas A, B, C, D, or E. But you know what? That's probably not the case. On the combat side of things, what are stressful experiences that a civilian might expose themselves to that could, I know not perfectly simulate it, but to perhaps give them that type of fear inoculation or conditioning on some level?

Starting point is 01:38:55 I think any of those, you know, rock climbing, parachuting, anything that has a real, real danger to it, which both those things can, you know, and do. I think those, those can definitely help. I would say those are, those are a couple of good examples. I'm sure we could sit here and brainstorm about it, you know, cause, cause as soon as you put simulation, you know, we could say paintball, right. But, but there's no real risk, risk in paintball. They're just a zero. So it's cool. And you can definitely get somewhat conditioned to that panic and that stress level because it hurts. You get hit with a paintball. You know, ow, ow, ow.

Starting point is 01:39:35 But it's not the fear of death, which the fear of death is, I guess, the real thing that we're talking about. That's the benchmark. Yeah. You overcome that fear of death, and then what's there to be afraid of now? Right. You know? Well, you and I were sitting here,

Starting point is 01:39:54 we're in my house, and you noticed the Musashi that I have out over there, this historical novel about Miyamoto Musashi. And I think that, I don't know where it came from and I can't really pinpoint it, but the reason I have that there is to remind me that

Starting point is 01:40:14 if you're constantly afraid of death, I mean, you're paralyzed in so many facets of your life. It really prohibits you from making even effective decisions, right? So one could say, well, you should love your family and have the photos up. And it's like, well, if I really want to love my family and go home to see my family, maybe I shouldn't have those up as something

Starting point is 01:40:32 that's going to occupy a part of my brain. I need to be effective in the field for me and my men, right? No doubt about it. So it's thinking not about that first move that looks good on paper and to everyone around you, but thinking about the second, the tertiary effect, et cetera. Um, do you have, um, are there any books that you've gifted to other people? Uh, uh, or, or what would you gift to someone? There's so for books, there's, I think there's only one book that I've ever given and I've only given it to a couple of people. Uh, and that's a book called about face by Colonel David Hackworth. And it is huge. Have you ever heard of it?

Starting point is 01:41:15 I haven't. And, uh, I was just looking for, Oh wait, here's my, here's my pad. And, and interestingly, I looked for it today on, on to see if I could download a digital, and I don't think it's available digital, which surprised me. So Colonel David Hackworth was the tail end of World War II. He was in Korea. He was highly decorated in Korea. He joined the Merchant Marines or something when he was 15 and got into the army again right after World War II. So he kind of got raised by those World War II veterans.

Starting point is 01:41:51 And then he was in Korea and he was in Vietnam and he was just absolutely borderline worshipped by the men that he led and by some of the senior leadership and just a great book. And he was a rebel, you know, and, and he did question the way we were doing things. And what's controversial about him is that he's the guy that said to Walter Cronkite, or he said he's the first guy in Vietnam that said, we're not going to win this thing. And so he's kind of, you know, blacklisted by much of the army. But, you know, as you dig into that, what he was really saying was, we're not going to win this thing if we keep fighting how we're fighting. He recognized that we needed to do a significant paradigm shift in the strategy that we were executing over there. And, you know, it's like you've heard, Hey, we've never, we never lost a tactical battle in Vietnam.

Starting point is 01:42:50 You've heard that, right? And there's plenty of people that will say that all day long, but if you and I are leading a platoon and we take our platoon out and we hit a booby trap and it kills three of our guys or two of our guys and wounds another three, and there's no one to shoot at. And weevac those guys and we come back to base who won that right and you know he recognized that so the metrics that were being used were sort of uh not not a smoke screen but they were at at best the wrong metrics in a lot of cases i had that book next to my bed in ramadi and i literally read it every night i would you know that'd fall asleep. I'd go up, read a couple pages, just open any, and you'd find something in every... It was very comparable. They were working

Starting point is 01:43:34 with the South Vietnamese army, and guess what? They were corrupt, and they were scared, and they weren't the best soldiers, and we were working with the Iraqis, and guess what? They were corrupt, and they were scared, and they weren't the best. and we were working with Iraqis and guess what? They were corrupt and they were scared and they weren't the best. There were so many parallels between the two. And so that's the book that I've given to some, a couple of close friends of mine that, that, you know, I wanted them to have about face. The other book that I really, that I, the other book that I've read multiple times is Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian. Yeah. I don't know that book.

Starting point is 01:44:06 You don't know? Oh, okay. So it's written by Cormac McCarthy. Oh, fantastic writer. So this is his best book. And, you know, I was an English major in college. And so, you know, I was forced to read all kinds of books. And, you know, obviously Shakespeare is kind of the pinnacle in my mind and this cormac mccarthy

Starting point is 01:44:27 is the guy that i think actually has that and if you read blood meridian then there it is right and i think what what i find so gripping about it is you, I talked earlier about the darkness of the world, and this is a historical novel based on a group called the Galantin gang that were killing Indians. And they ended up killing everybody. Uh, if you had black hair, your, your scalp was going to be taken and And that's what it's about. And it's completely epic. But for me, it communicated to me a guy, Cormac McCarthy, was able to show the darkness in humanity.

Starting point is 01:45:19 And there's nothing good about that. There's nothing pleasant in any way, shape or form in that book, but that's in many ways, the world that I lived in. Do you think there is, I struggle with this myself because part of that, and when I say struggle with, what am I struggling with? How much to voluntarily expose myself to darkness? Because I have sort of ups and downs that I can tend with. And a lot of people in my family just hereditarily deal with this. But I feel like on one hand, I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish. I don't want to, I don't want to just put on my

Starting point is 01:45:59 rose colored glasses and believe that everything is okay. Everyone has everyone else's best interests in mind, right? Because I've had friends who've been kidnapped. I've had nothing that compares to what you've experienced, but I've seen enough glimpses of this like brutish nastiness that on one hand, you know, I wonder as a civilian, should I not look at that stuff? Should I try to shield myself, you know, develop a basic level of protection and skills, but otherwise shield myself from it because it's not my job to have to look that in the face. And in fact, it will darken my view of humanity. Or should I really like stare it directly in the eyes and recognize it for what it is and become

Starting point is 01:46:48 acquainted with it? And I don't know why I think about this as much as I do. Maybe it's because I have enough friends who've been in the military that it's, it's sometimes a topic of conversation, but what are your thoughts? I think that in order to truly experience the light and the bright, you have to see the darkness. And I think if you shield yourself from the darkness, you'll not appreciate and fully understand the beauty, the beauty of life. And again, you know, I go back to the sacrifices that I saw guys make on the battlefield and it's in the complete darkness of the world of the human soul. And you see that there's no, there's no nothing brighter

Starting point is 01:47:34 than somebody that lays down their life for their friends. And so I think if you want to understand the beauty and the glory of the life you have, it is good to know and understand that darkness. Now that makes sense. What are, what are common mis, what are some of the most common misconceptions about, um, Navy SEALs or, and you can pick whichever one you want to tackle. Um, what, what, um, inaccuracies bother you about SEALs or the military for that matter that are common in movies? Well, one of the things that I, that I talk about when I talk to businesses, because businesses think that, um, you know, if you're a military guy, if, if you're, if you're, if Tim is military guy and

Starting point is 01:48:33 I outrank you and I tell you to go do something, you're going to go do it with a big smile on your face and you're going to make it happen. And so that's the, that's the misconception. And if that was true, then military leadership would be the easiest form of leadership in the world because everyone would just obey your commands. Right. And it couldn't be further from the truth. Now, it would work if I outrank you and I tell you to clean the toilet. You go, okay, you outrank me and you go do it. But then you multiply the intensity there times infinite to where I'm telling you you need to go charge a machine gun nest and you going to die. If you do it, are you going to listen to me? I wouldn't want to,

Starting point is 01:49:09 you wouldn't want to, and you may or may not, right? You may or may not. And I need to be a leader. I need to actually be a leader too. If I'm going to get you to do stuff, I need, I need to lead you. I can't just order you to do it. So that's the biggest misconception is that, oh, if we're in the military and I order you to do something, you're going to have to do it. Now, again, you're not going to disobey the chain of command, but you know, there's stories of seals in Vietnam. So many stories from seals in Vietnam that have told me, oh, they got tasked with a mission to go out and do X. And they looked at the mission and said, you know what? That doesn't make any sense. I'll tell you what, they'd go out patrol 100 yards

Starting point is 01:49:49 outside the wire, sit down in a little rice paddy somewhere, wait two hours, come back and say, yeah, the target wasn't there or the ambush didn't happen or whatever. They would just blatantly disobey those, not blatantly, they would- Surreptitiously. Yes, surreptitiously disobey orders. So that's one of the big challenges. Another thing I'll get is I'll meet with a CEO and he'll say, I can't wait for you to get in here and whip my people into shape. So in their mind, they're thinking that if I come in and yell and scream and make people do pushups like a drill instructor, that that will somehow, you know, create a paradigm shift in the strategy and the culture

Starting point is 01:50:30 of their company. We both can laugh at that because it's completely false. And, you know, I think it, it, it comes very quickly as I start to talk to them about what's happening inside their company. They realize that, you know, what we do from a leadership perspective is infinitely more about brains than it is about brawn. And the brawn stuff is from the movies and it does not work in reality. When you mentioned the seals in Vietnam sitting right outside the tripwires or whatnot, made me think of Band of Brothers towards the end. I don't know what your opinion is of that entire series. Awesome. I've watched it multiple times.

Starting point is 01:51:09 My mom, I grew up, my mom is very fascinated by World War II. So letters from Iwo Jima and so on. So that fascination was passed on to me. Hardcore History is an amazing podcast for listening to, whether it's World War I or Genghis Khan or otherwise. I completely second that. Oh, so good. I tell people about it all the time. Yeah. Dan Carl is amazing. Uh, but in, in band of brothers, you know, they, they were tasked with, I guess, a raid towards the end. It's like, we've, we've already won this. And this is for some type of

Starting point is 01:51:41 guy. Is this for someone who wants a promotion back you know thousands of miles away and um so they made the decision you know to kind of sit it out uh i don't know why i felt compelled to share that i just i think i think the band of brothers for me more than anything else that i've observed gave me i felt like i had a window into sort of the pain and suffering and courage and sacrifice that was involved in a battle that is, I suppose, in many ways, very, very different from the insurgent sort of counterinsurgency warfare in terms of terrain, right? I mean, when you have a bad guy like Hitler, it seems like in retrospect, everyone's on your side. But if somebody as a civilian wants to get a better understanding of the experiences that you've had, aside from the books you recommended, what are other – are there movies or documentaries that do it justice? Restrepo.

Starting point is 01:52:40 Restrepo. Which I'm sure you've seen. I have seen. That's a heart-wrenching film. It's unbelievable. Heart-wrenching film. There's an hour-long, I think it's History Channel. It's actually called A Chance in Hell, The Battle for Ramadi, which is about the battle

Starting point is 01:52:54 for Ramadi. I like Band of Brothers. I love the Pacific. Did you see the Pacific? I've had it recommended to me multiple times. I mean, it's the Band of Brothers in the Pacific. So it's absolutely phenomenal. And I had read several of the books that, uh, the Pacific is based on Eugene sledge. Just, you know, uh, I'd read his book with the old breed. Um, yeah, I'd read a bunch of those books so i kind of knew and understood it and and that's just a phenomenal just a phenomenal

Starting point is 01:53:27 epic story and it and it does you know it it it got to me like when i was watching it i got that feeling you know that feeling i remember there's one scene where where they're walking you know they're walking through the jungle on some island in the Pacific and nothing has happened yet. And I had that feeling because it's just like the feeling you'd have in Ramadi and you'd, you'd be walking down the street. If, if no shots had been fired yet, it's this, it's this feeling of, of anticipation, but it's fear. It's anticipation. It's the unknown. And it's the waiting.

Starting point is 01:54:10 Sounds eerie. It's the waiting for it to happen. And you know, it's coming. And I got that feeling watching, you know, watching the Pacific. And that was in one of the early,

Starting point is 01:54:18 early ones. And I said, wow, this is nailing it. Well done. Yeah. I have to watch that. That's been,

Starting point is 01:54:23 this is, this is sort of the, uh, definitely the, the final Yeah. I have to watch that. That's been, this is, this is sort of the, uh, definitely the, the final push. I need to watch that. Um, what,

Starting point is 01:54:31 um, what would you put on a billboard? If you had a, if you could have one billboard anywhere, what would you put on it? You know, one of, one of my,

Starting point is 01:54:51 one of my kind of, I guess my mantra is a very simple one and that's discipline equals freedom. I've found that, you know, as a, as an individual, the more disciplined you are and it's counterintuitive, right? disciplined you are the more freedom you actually have and you know you and i both know if you wake up early you you get more done you and you end up with more free time so the more you manage your time the more disciplined you are with your time management the more free time you end up having the more disciplined you are you know physically with your diet with physically the more freedom you have because you can do more disciplined you are, you know, physically with your diet, with physically, the more freedom you have because you can do more stuff. You have more freedom. So the more disciplined you are, the more freedom you have.

Starting point is 01:55:31 And what's interesting is how that transfers over to both military units and the civilian sector that, you know, imposing or when an element or in a unit or when a company is a disciplined group, they actually end up with more freedom. So, you know, I had a SEAL troop. We were highly disciplined. You know, we had standard operating procedures for just about everything that we did. And you'd think that that would restrain your creativity, but it actually doesn't. The more disciplined you are, the easier I could say, Hey, you four go take down that building. And they knew what to do because they were highly

Starting point is 01:56:09 disciplined. I knew what they were going to do because they were highly disciplined. We understood what parameters they were going to stay within because we had standard operating procedures to follow. So that discipline, both on an individual level and as a group equals freedom. And just like anything else with leadership, you can take that too far. You know, you can, you can discipline, uh, an element or a person so much that they, they break down and they no longer have creativity. So just like the dichotomy of leadership, you can go too strong with discipline and they end up breaking down, or you can give them too much freedom and they break down in the other direction. Yeah, this is, uh, this, I'm really glad that you mentioned that because I, um, I've realized in a way that my, when I struggle the most kind

Starting point is 01:56:56 of existentially or, or really just creatively, it's when I have the fewest constraints, I want positive constraints. I need, uh, I need a, like a, I need boxes, not so that I have to stay within the box, but that I can start at least coloring inside the box. And, uh, that's part of the reason I've been so excited to adopt, you know, this rescue puppy Molly, because it forces me to regiment and structure my day in such a way that I can then plan around fixed objects. And I think that whether it's in the military, at least in my experience in business, you want to reserve your creativity for the things that require creativity, not for what should the steps be when I'm doing a room clearance. It's like, no, no, no. You want a standard operating procedure so that your brain cycles are allocated to the places where you need those brain cycles, right?

Starting point is 01:57:51 That's 100% right. And so I've realized in the last few months for myself that what I thought I wanted, right, which is freedom in the form of infinite options, is not actually what I want at all. It's very stressful. And you end up burning calories. You burn 10 calories in a million directions, you're fatigued and you didn't get shit done. And so I'm actually in a way trying to figure out how I can say no to a thousand things

Starting point is 01:58:18 so that I can be fully creative on one or two things. And part of the reason I enjoy doing this podcast so much is that when you talk to people who've operated at the highest levels in any field, this kind of stuff comes up. And after a while, it's like, Ferris, idiot. Do you get the message yet? You've heard meditation from 80% of the people who've been on your podcast. Maybe you should chill the fuck out and like sit down for 20 minutes every morning. Uh, but the, the, uh, I want to talk about ownership and, uh, could you explain your book and why you decided to write it? So, first of all, while I was still in the SEAL teams, you know, I had guys, cause they, they,

Starting point is 01:59:02 once everyone knew I was getting out, I had guys saying, hey, you need to write this stuff down. You need to pass on these lessons learned. And I did that in almost a doctrinal way, and I captured those lessons learned and passed those on. And then when I started working with civilian companies, Leif and I, my business partner, we started hearing the same thing, which is, Hey, do you guys have a reference? Can we, you know, what if we want to hand out some stuff to the rest of our people that couldn't make this and Hey, you guys really changed the way this group is operating. We want to spread that to the rest of our groups. Do you have a book we can give them? Do you have reference material? And, you know, eventually we said, okay, we, we need to write something. And so, you know, from, from my perspective, this is, uh, an opportunity for us to pass on

Starting point is 01:59:52 the lessons that we learned and relearned that have been, you know, some of them, some of the, some of the lessons we learned and talk about have been around for thousands of years. And some of them were, were discovered a little bit more recently, but they are definitely solid and they've been very well tested in a variety of environments, starting with the harshest environment of them all, which is sustained violent urban combat. And then they've, we've brought them to dozens and dozens of companies and we've keep hearing the same thing, which is these work. What, what's the explanation behind the title actually came from an email that I sent to a, uh, company. And the email basically said, when I was in the SEAL teams and I was a troop commander, so I was in charge of task unit bruiser,

Starting point is 02:00:54 and we were getting ready to go on deployment. And occasionally the Commodore, which is a couple ranks above my boss, actually one rank above my boss is a guy named the Commodore, which is, you know, a full bird Colonel. If you're in the Marine Corps or the army, and he's kind of in charge of all the SEAL teams on the West coast. And so he would have occasional meetings where he'd bring in us, the troop commanders. And we're like the frontline guys. And this is West coast of the U S West coast of the U S. And the story that I told in this email was that he would go around the room because he wants to get some direct feedback from the troops. And he'd ask somebody, okay, what do you need? And these guys are my peers. And someone would say, well, the boots that we have

Starting point is 02:01:38 are okay in the hot weather, but we're getting ready to be in a cooler environment. We need new boots and we need them by this date because that's our next training block. Okay. Got it. And he gets the next person say, you know, when we're out at the desert training facility, there's no wifi internet. So our guys are disconnected and you know, we really need to get wifi out there. Okay. Got it. And the next guy would say, we need more helicopter training support. Cause we don't feel like we're working around helicopters enough. and we really need that. And eventually he'd get to me. And he, you know, Commodore would say, Jocko, what do you need?

Starting point is 02:02:10 And I would say, we're good, sir. And I was stating the obvious, which is if I have problems, I'm going to handle them and I'm going to take care of them. I'm not going to complain. I took extreme ownership of my world. And the way that worked twofold was when I did need something, number one, it was something significant. It was something real. And when I told the Commodore, Hey boss, we need this right here. I would almost get it instantaneously because he knew that I really truly needed it

Starting point is 02:02:46 And so I had written this kind of told that story and and talked about extreme ownership and to and owning everything in your world because the other piece of that is you You complain, you know people complain they place blame on other people and finally You know if your boss if tim's boss isn't giving you the support you need, whose fault is that? Whose fault is it? If your boss is not giving you what you need, whose fault is that? I suppose it's my fault. Plenty of people, plenty of people will say, well, it's my boss's fault. No, it's actually your fault because you haven't educated them. You haven't influenced them. You

Starting point is 02:03:19 haven't, you haven't explained to them in a manner that they understand why you need this support that you need. And so that's extreme ownership. That's where the title came from. Or you've made them, like you, I suppose, alluded to, you've made them immune to your requests because you're the boy who cries wolf. Exactly. And if you're constantly needy, they will determine that nothing is important or it's not a real urgent important request. And that really, I mean, that's extreme ownership in a nutshell is you're taking responsibility for everything in your world and there's no one else to blame. And when we do talk about bosses, I tell this to people all the time because I always hear a complaint about people's bosses. And I tell people that I worked for every different type of boss you could imagine, superb tactical geniuses that were incredible leaders of men. And I've worked for people that

Starting point is 02:04:17 didn't know anything and were horrible. And I had the same relationship with all of them, which is I built up trust with them so that they trusted that I was going to do the right thing. And they gave me the support I needed. And that's a, that's a, I took ownership of those relationships to make sure that that was always the case. And that's another piece that I, you know, if you have a problem with your boss, it's not your boss's fault. It's your fault. And obviously, it's the same thing down the chain of command as well. What are some of the principles or lessons that the companies you've worked with have found most valuable? Well, cover and move is a big one. Cover and move.

Starting point is 02:05:02 Cover and move. So if you and I were going to attack a building across the street where there was enemy, I would get in a window here and I would start shooting at them. Covering fire. Covering fire. And you would move. When you heard me shooting, you would start to move and you'd find a better tactical position. And then once you got in a better tactical position, you would start shooting. And I would move.

Starting point is 02:05:24 And eventually we would get to a position where we could kill the enemy and take down the building. So that's called cover and move. And honestly, when I started talking to companies, I said to myself, well, how do I translate an actual gunfighting tactic? That's all it is, a gunfighting tactic. How do you translate that to a company, to a business? And as soon as I started talking to, you know, businesses, uh, I mean the first business I talked to, I realized that guess what? Every single business has multiple different elements within it. Whether it's, you know, you've got an operational group, you've got a manufacturing group, you've got a sales group. And guess what? All those elements have absolutely got to work together, cover and move for each other. Because if I'm the sales guy and I sell something and you're the manufacturer and you don't manufacture it in time or it's faulty or whatever, we fail. We fail. And if you manufacture a bunch of perfect units and I can't sell any of them, guess what? We fail. So that's a huge one that people really grab onto because just about every company

Starting point is 02:06:28 experiences some need to cover and move. And there's so many maxims that are memorable from the military. I mean, one that I only got exposed to a few days ago, and you mentioned it when we got started right here, was the fact that I have two recorders. And so what is the expression? Because I was trained very early on to think about single points of failure, actually, in my first job, which was mass data storage. So you always want redundancy. They're all about redundancy, whether that's a rate array or anything else. You don't want a single point of failure. So what was the expression that you used again? Two is one and one is none. So it just means have a backup.

Starting point is 02:07:10 It means have a backup. If you only have one of something, it's going to disappear. Yeah, it sure will. And the structure of the book I really like, and I spoke with Pete about this, is... Can you describe it? Because it seems like every chapter has a story from combat. There reflects a principle. Then you explain the principle, and then you use a business story to show how that translates. Exactly right.

Starting point is 02:07:33 And what do you think is a part of the book that people might not pay enough attention to that they should pay more attention to? I know there are aspects. For instance, in the four-hour chef, I'll give an example. People focus, when I'm talking about an accelerated learning framework, they're like, okay, deconstruction, got it. Selection, doing the 80-20 analysis, got it. And then sequencing, cool, got it. And then stakes, setting up consequences, they kind of gloss over it. And I'm like, no, no, no.

Starting point is 02:08:06 If you don't have a sufficient incentive, like a punishment or reward, all that other stuff, the how-to stuff, doesn't matter. But they gloss over it. And I think I take responsibility for that. Maybe I didn't highlight the importance enough, but what are areas of the book or chapters, anything that comes to mind where you're like,

Starting point is 02:08:22 you know what, people might gloss over this or pay less attention to it than they should. Well, I think, I don't know if this will answer your question, but what's been interesting on the feedback we've gotten is we have different people find different chapters. They latch onto different chapters. And so there's even chapters where we said, hey, maybe we should take this chapter out. I don't know about this chapter or that chapter. And we even got some feedback said, Oh, take this chapter out and literally would get someone saying, Hey, the best chapter is the chapter that someone else told us to take out. So I think that people are going to identify very easily what relates to them. And, you know,

Starting point is 02:09:04 there'll be a high point of this completely relates to me. And there'll be some other ones. Oh yeah, I've seen that before. Not as much because of, you know, maybe that's a, a, a, a skill area that they have. So they don't, they don't really need to work on that. But that's where I've, I've found most interesting is that the variety of answers when people, people like the different sections and, and they get something out of the various chapters. That's a really good sign, by the way. And I know we're chatting about this book

Starting point is 02:09:32 and I'm excited to see what it does in the wild. What I've noticed for the books that I've written, which are way, way too long for any sane person to write them, reading is a different story because it's going to be like a choose-your-own-ad own adventure book. But when I've done proofreading and I've had friends read, the rule that I've decided on is to remove something, you need a consensus. To keep something, you only need one person to love it. So if I have one person who says, I love this part, it doesn't matter if nine out of 10 people say, I hate it. It stays in.

Starting point is 02:10:05 That's a good rule. Because you don't need everything in a book to apply to every person. It's just like if you had a commanding officer, not everything that person would say would equally apply to you if they're dealing with groups as you have dealt with groups

Starting point is 02:10:22 and teams. So that's a very promising sign. There are so many questions I could ask you. I don't even know where to start. Let me take a quick glance at a few things here, because I know we want to grab some food in not too short order. Jocko hungry. Jocko order. Jocko hungry. Jocko hungry.

Starting point is 02:10:48 Jocko smash. I don't want Jocko to smash me because I would be helpless. What do you talk to about SEALs more versus civilians? As opposed to, I mean, obviously you have the camaraderie and common background of the warfare experience, right? But aside from trading those stories, what do you tend to talk to SEALs about more versus civilians? Straight to the point when you're when i when i go and talk to seals i spend time a little more

Starting point is 02:11:32 time talking about well number one i talk about the tactics like the the actual on the ground tactics of what was happening and that's that's valuable lessons learned. Another thing that I talk about in depth is around the piece of risk mitigation. Now, as you know, in the business world, risk mitigation is huge. And as a matter of fact, the first time I ever spent the day with a CEO and he said, what do you think of this stuff? And I said, well, it's kind of like what I used to do risk mitigation. But when you're talking about your guys getting killed, it's a whole nother ball game. And I remember a conversation I had with my commanding officer. And so this is the type of thing that I would tell SEALs. We're not on deployment yet.

Starting point is 02:12:19 So we're still back in America. And my commanding officer brings me in and he says, Hey, Jocko, you know, he knew we were going to Ramadi. He knew Ramadi was really bad. And he said, before you go on any operation, I want you to think about if it is worth, if it is worth the risk of losing one of your guys. And I said to him, sir, I, I don't need to think about that. I can tell you right now, there's no operation you can give me. You can task me with that is I would trade one of my guys for not going to happen.

Starting point is 02:13:09 That being said, we are going to on deployment to Iraq. We have a mission and we have a job and we have a duty to execute that mission and we will take risks and we'll do everything we can to mitigate those risks. But if we're going to take zero risks, then we might as well just stay here in San Diego, California. So that's the kind of thing I think that, you know, cause people can be very risk averse, even in the military, uh, it can get very, very risk averse and it's, and it's understandable, you know, it's understandable that you say, look, is this worth the risk or not? And my point always was, you have to just mitigate the risks as much as you can, but there are going to be risks you're going to have to deal with. Absolutely. Well, in a military context, I mean, it seems like a huge risk is not making a decision,

Starting point is 02:14:00 which is a decision in and of itself. And when and when I look at say, you know, the layered Hamilton's of the world, uh, there's an incredible big wave surfer or some of these, uh, just interviewed Jimmy Chin, who's, uh, one of the key climbers. I mean, he's effectively a professional athlete in this documentary called Meru, which is about this, uh, the shark's fin. And I want to say it's India, but it might be Pakistan, this rock face that has defeated the world's best climbers for 30 years. People view all of these people as massive risk takers. And when you actually sit down and talk to these guys, you realize they are expert risk mitigators. And I think it's very easy to come to the mistaking conclusion in business, for example,

Starting point is 02:14:48 that you only win big if you bet the farm. And in fact, when I talk to some of these companies here in Silicon Valley, for instance, that have become worth billions and billions of dollars, some rightly, some maybe in the irrational exuberance of our current day, but many, I think rightly so. You see that in my experience, in no cases have they bet the farm. They have evaluated the downside. They've tried to measure the maximum allowable downside. They know not only kind of their bet and their bet size, but when they're going to fold. They have an exit strategy for minimizing or capping losses. And unfortunately, I think that the kind of renegade risk taker gets romanticized in a lot

Starting point is 02:15:41 of different spheres, including business, and they get the magazine covers in some cases because it makes for a good story. But there's a huge survivorship bias, right? Because you don't get to see, you know, the nine out of 10 who tried the same excessively ballsy move and got their balls chopped off. You don't, they don't make it to the magazine cover. I often talk about the fact, I'll get up and brief a bunch of missions that we did, you know, and when I get done, I'll be saying, you know, I didn't brief you guys on any missions that we didn't do. You know, there was missions, plenty of missions that we looked at, we weighed the risk versus the reward.

Starting point is 02:16:15 And we said, you know what? Not worth the risk. And so we did the exact same thing. I think you're a hundred percent right. It's a, it's a very high level risk mitigation is, is the same in business and in combat. Yeah. And it's, um, you know, I remember hearing an expression, I don't know who to attribute this to, but it's like, if you cap your downside, the upside takes care of itself. Um, and I'm not sure that that applies in every circumstance, but it's a, might not be a perfect guideline, but it's a helpful guideline where

Starting point is 02:16:41 it's like, if you take enough shots and you've constantly capped your downside, if you have a couple of outliers that give you disproportionate upside in the long run, I mean, you're going to average out ahead and beat most people, especially the people who are cavalier. Um, who's the, who's a historical figure that you identify with? If any. You know, I talked about David Hackworth and I definitely identify, I would, you know, I look up to him. And by the way, you know, he became, you know, a peace guy.

Starting point is 02:17:23 I mean, that's where he ended up, was living in Australia as a premier, leading the pack on anti-nuclear weapons. So it's not your average guy. A historical figure? That's a tough question. I'm not sure what my answer would be. Yeah, I'll stick with Hackworth. All right. Hackworth it is. What is something most people would be surprised to know about you?

Starting point is 02:18:00 Again, I think it's the, uh, the same thing I talked about earlier with the fact that they expect – I have a certain look to me, you might say, that I look like kind of a serial killer combined with some kind of a psychopathic steroid mutant. So people I think have a little – You saw my text to my girlfriend i was just trying to prepare i i think uh there's some kind of surprise yeah i think when people hear me string a sentence together and say oh okay so i think that's surprising to a lot of people makes me think of this comedian jim gaffigan really funny guy who is like uh you know he's talking about how attractive people have it really easy because he's like, and then there's a beautiful woman and she has a book and people are like, Ooh, she's beautiful. And she can read double threat.

Starting point is 02:18:53 But, uh, no, you're, you're very good at stringing senses together. Uh, do you have any bad habit or bad habits that you're working to overcome? Bad habits. Hmm. Let me, I can rephrase non-ideal habits or what are you trying to improve about yourself? I'm trying to improve everything all the time. I mean, that's a much easier question because, because I want to be faster, stronger, more limber, uh, smarter, quicker, wittier, always everything, always trying to improve. So if you were to prioritize those currently, let's just say over the next 12 months, which are the areas that you're hoping to most push into overdrive or improve upon? I think I literally wake up every day and I'm trying to do

Starting point is 02:19:48 all those things. I don't know how I'd prioritize them, which, and the reason I think is because they're not mutually exclusive. One of my, one of my, one of my laws of combat is prioritize and execute, which means if you've got multiple problems going on, if you try and handle them all at once, you will absolutely fail. So prioritize and execute. You look at what problems you have, you pick the most impactful one or the biggest threat, and you solve that one. And then you move on to the next one and the next one and so forth. But I can definitely read and work out and stretch all in the same day. These are not mutually exclusive things and I'll do them all.

Starting point is 02:20:29 Well, you're right. And I mean, I guess it is in a way kind of, it could be viewed as a trick question. I was reading a number of transcribed lectures by Krishnamurti and he talked about, and I'm probably butchering this by paraphrasing it, but the fact that people talk about changing one small thing at a time. And I do think there's a place for that

Starting point is 02:20:50 in behavioral change and certainly applies to things like dog training or human training, operant conditioning and classical conditioning and blah, blah, blah, shaping and all that. But there are cases where the elements are so intertwined, you can't change one without changing all the others. And so you do have to kind of, you know, try to, you can't eat the elephant in one small bite at a time. You have to try to eat the whole fucking elephant. All right. Let me ask a couple of cheesy questions just because I'm feeling the spirit move me here. You walk into a a bar what do you order from the bartender water water do you not drink alcohol no you do not no caffeine or very limited caffeine no alcohol what other what other things um

Starting point is 02:21:39 are there any other things you abstain from that would surprise people? Perhaps. I don't think so. Okay. Uh, what do you listen to? What type of music do you listen to when working out? So I, I grew up listening to heavy metal and hardcore music.

Starting point is 02:22:04 Uh, I grew up listening to heavy metal and hardcore music. Primarily Black Sabbath was kind of my indoctrination into that world. Good choice. I remember one of my buddies growing up, he was praising Black Sabbath and he said, music throughout the history of the world has been meant to make people feel better and bring them joy. And black Sabbath has absolutely nothing to do with that. I think that's, you know, that darkness again, you know, we're going back to that theme of darkness. And I think that black Sabbath was the first group that I heard that I said, that's what I feel. What is that? And I, and I latched onto it. And, you know, from then I started saying, what's harder, what's darker than that. it and you know from then i started saying what's harder what's darker than that and you know i ended up listening to a lot of hardcore uh i'll give a shout out to

Starting point is 02:22:51 black flag oh yeah black flag black flag my war side two which if you if you listen to black black flag you'll and even even me when I was growing up, I thought, yeah, these guys are okay, whatever, no big deal, punk rock, but you get to my war side too. And there was a paradigm shift and it was a completely new thing. And that was another, I had black flag, my war side too, on my record player for, you know, maybe even a year where that's just what I listened to. So, you know, that, um, and then, you know, again, a lot of the hardcore stuff that I grew up listening to, I still listen to that today. It's still, you know, on my, on my iPhone and what I plug into. Uh, if I was to say some of the more modern music

Starting point is 02:23:42 that I listened to, I'd, I'd throw out the White Buffalo. The White Buffalo. Yeah. Who's a great, just an incredible musician. And what's incredible about him is he writes songs and sings songs that have impact and leave a mark. And he plays acoustic guitar, and it's not heavy metal by any stretch of the imagination, but it is hard, and it is raw, and it is true.

Starting point is 02:24:16 And one of the few concerts I've seen in the last 10 years has been White Buffalo, White Buffalo, White Buffalo, and White Buffalo. So I've seen him a bunch of times. Every time he comes around, I go and see see. I'll have to check that out. White buffalo, I won't even get into it, but very interesting mythological or sort of traditional Native American associations with the white buffalo also. People can Google that and check it out, but you can go deep looking into the stories associated with the white Buffalo also, uh, just a few more questions. If you could give yourself your 25 year old self advice, what would it be?

Starting point is 02:24:53 Yeah. So I'm 25 years old. I'm at seal team one and I need to know that you don't know everything. And, and, and right now I know that right now that I don't know everything and I still have a ton to learn. And it's like, kind of like, again, we'll go back to jujitsu, but I told that story earlier when I first learned a couple of basic moves, I thought I knew jujitsu. I thought it was good. I got it. Yeah. And then, you know, now, and you know, I've been training for 20 something years and I know that I, there's still tons. I know, I don't know a quarter of what I need to know, a 10th of what I need to know. And it's the same thing with everything in life. You know, you're gonna, you've got to have an open mind. You've got to be ready to learn all the time and always, always be seeking out that knowledge because it doesn't just smack you. You know, you've got to

Starting point is 02:25:46 seek it out and talk to people and, and that's how you learn and get smarter. What, uh, how, how old are you now? If you don't mind me asking, I'm 44, 44. What about your 35 year old self? So now I'm, I'm in Ramadi and looking back now, I would say relish that moment, which I did, but I would say relish that moment. Jocko,

Starting point is 02:26:22 this has been fascinating and a real honor. I appreciate you taking the time. Where can people find more about you, about the book, about your company? Where are the best places to visit you? Everybody listening, of course, the links and so on to everything we talked about in this discussion will be at 4hourworkweek.com and just click on podcast. But where can people find more about you and your work online? So we have a Facebook for the book that's coming out. Extreme Ownership is where you can find that on Facebook.

Starting point is 02:27:00 We have a Twitter for Extreme ownership as well. And Leif and I are both extremely inept at social media. So we're trying to make some improvements there. And as we get people interested, we'll do more. And I actually have a Twitter account. I think I've posted one Twitter statement. It's kind of weird. You know, I, I always feel like I never liked people that just like talked for no reason. And I kind of get the feeling when you're posting something on Twitter, you're kind of talking for no reason.

Starting point is 02:27:36 And so, I don't know, maybe as people start to ask me questions on Twitter and now I have a conversation because to just sit there and talk, it feels awkward to me and not right. To describe the burrito you just had, perfect strangers on the internet. I will, I'll tell you what I'll do. After we get off, I'll show you how I use Twitter for extremely fast information gathering and polling. And I think you'll find that interesting. I'm sure I will. Because there are some very practical applications. So guys, I will link to all of this.

Starting point is 02:28:13 Website is, I always mispronounce this is it echelon or echelon it's actually echelon echelon e-c-h-e-l-o-n front.com and i will link to all this stuff but i'll say it anyway uh follow jaco so that he is forced to interact on twitter, which is sort of the antithesis of the act more, talk less ethos that I so respect. But I will show him some interesting ways to implement it. At Jocko Willink, so on Twitter, at J-O-C-K-O-W-I-L-L-I-N-K. And Extreme Ownership will also be on Twitter and Facebook. I'll link to all this stuff, but that will be in the show notes. Jocko, thanks so much. I really appreciate the time.

Starting point is 02:28:54 Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. All right, man. We'll get some food to be continued. Guys, let us know what you thought. Check out the book. You should really check out the book, Extreme Ownership. I've been reading it. And very highly actionable, very easy to digest. You have lessons wrapped into stories. So you have some sugarcoating that will help compel this and propel this into

Starting point is 02:29:19 your brain so you can actually use this information. And as always, thank you for listening until next time, learn, experiment, test, and educate yourself. This episode is brought to you by 99 designs, your one-stop shop for all things graphic design related. I've used 99designs for everything from banner ads to book covers, including sketches and mock-ups that led to the 4-Hour Body, which later became number one New York Times, number one Wall Street Journal. And the brainstorming, a lot of it took place with designers from around the world. And here's how it works. Whether you need a t-shirt, a business card, a website, an app thumbnail, whatever it might be. You submit that project and designers from around the world will send you sketches and mock-ups and designs.

Starting point is 02:30:11 You choose your favorite and you have an original that you love, or you get your money back. It's that straightforward. And many of you who are listening have already used it and created some amazing things that I'll be sharing in the future. But in the meantime, if you want to see some of my competitions, some of the book covers, as well as get a free $99 upgrade, go to 99designs.com forward slash Tim. That's 99designs.com forward slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years,

Starting point is 02:30:55 and they now have more than two and a half billion dollars under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc.

Starting point is 02:31:20 And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why the value of wealth front is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss, harvesting, rebalancing

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Starting point is 02:32:35 because I'm not allowed to here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account, but just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest

Starting point is 02:33:09 for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. It's fast. It's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Now I do have to read a mandatory disclaimer. Wealthfront Inc is an SEC registered investment advisor. Investing in securities involves risks and there's the possibility of losing money. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Please visit Wealthfront.com to read their full disclosure. So check it out, guys. This is one of the hottest, most innovative companies coming out of Silicon Valley, and they're killing it.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #107: The Scariest Navy SEAL I've Ever Met...And What He Taught Me

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #107: The Scariest Navy SEAL I've Ever Met...And What He Taught Me

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