The Tim Ferriss Show - #395: Jocko Willink Takeover — On Quitting, Relationships, Financial Discipline, Contrast Baths, and More

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

"You might have to make some tactical retreats in order to win the long war, but never quit on your strategic vision. Never quit on getting to the ultimate place where you want to go." — Jo...cko WillinkJocko Willink (@jockowillink) takes over the show for a special episode. Jocko is one of the scariest human beings imaginable. He is a lean 230 pounds and a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt who used to tap out 20 Navy SEALs per workout. He is a legend in the special operations world, and his viral podcast interview with me was the first public interview he ever did. Jocko spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy and commanded SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit from the Iraq War. Upon returning to the United States, Jocko served as the officer-in-charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams, designing and implementing some of the most challenging and realistic combat training in the world.After retiring from the Navy, he co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership and management consulting company, and co-authored the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. He is also the author of The Dichotomy of Leadership, Way of the Warrior Kid, and Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual. His new book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual, is coming out in January. Jocko also discusses human nature through the lens of war, leadership, and business on the top-rated Jocko Podcast.This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom. I've used this service for many of my businesses, as have quite a few of the icons on this podcast, such as Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame.LegalZoom is a reliable resource that more than a million people have already trusted for everything from setting up wills, proper trademark searches, forming LLCs, setting up non-profits, or finding simple cease-and-desist letter templates.LegalZoom is not a law firm, but it does have a network of independent attorneys available in most states who can give you advice on the best way to get started, provide contract reviews, and otherwise help you run your business with complete transparency and up-front pricing. Check out LegalZoom.com and enter promo code Tim at checkout today for special savings and see how the fine folks there can make life easier for you and your business.This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step toward finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings—from software engineer to robotics engineer, project manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. LinkedIn also has one of the largest communities to help you connect and network with people who can open doors for you, give you valuable career advice, help you learn new skills, and introduce you to new people at companies and organizations that are hiring and looking for exactly your skill set.No matter what kind of job you're looking for, or where you are in your career — whether you're just starting out and wondering what to do, switching to a new role, or starting over — there are people on LinkedIn who can help you. With more than 20 million jobs posted, there's a good chance that LinkedIn has exactly what you're looking for. Find the job meant for you at LinkedIn.com/jobs.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests.For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer your personal question? Now would have seemed an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom, which more than 2 million Americans have used to help start their businesses. Past guests even, such as WordPress lead developer, CEO of Automatic,
Starting point is 00:00:35 Matt Mullenweg, now valued at more than a billion dollars, have used LegalZoom to help with their business needs, specifically in his case, to form his company. But LegalZoom isn't just for launching your business. Their services include everything from helping you to manage changing tax laws, reviewing contracts, creating NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, important stuff, handling lease agreements, and assisting with really any other legal challenge, hurdle, inconvenience that typically takes time and effort away from running your business. The best part is that you won't get charged by the hour because LegalZoom isn't a law firm, so they won't be running the clock up and spinning circles just to raise your bill. Instead, they just ask you to pay one low upfront price for whatever it is that you're looking to get
Starting point is 00:01:20 a la carte style. So visit LegalZoom.com and check out their business section for all of their services. And if you want special savings, that's the terminology in the copy that they suggest. I don't know what the special savings is, folks, but it's titillating. If you want special savings, enter promo code TIM, T-I-M, at checkout. Capital T, lowercase I-M. Again, take a peek, LegalZoom.com and enter promo code Tim. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step towards finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings from software engineer to robotics engineer, project
Starting point is 00:02:05 manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. There's something for everybody. They have everything. It also has one of the largest communities to help you connect and network with people who can open doors for you, give you valuable career advice, help you learn new skills, and introduce you to people at companies and organizations that are hiring. Companies and organizations that are looking for exactly your skill set. And no matter where you are in your career, whether you're just starting out, wondering what to do, switching to a new type of role, or completely starting over, and no matter what job you're looking for, there are people on LinkedIn who can help you find it. With more than 20 million jobs posted, there's a good chance that LinkedIn has exactly what you're looking for. You just have to check it out. So find the job meant
Starting point is 00:02:50 for you at linkedin.com forward slash jobs. Again, that's linkedin.com forward slash jobs. My name is Jocko Willink. I spent 20 years in the military, more specifically in the Navy, and even more specifically than that, I was in the SEAL teams for my whole career. I started off as an enlisted SEAL. Eventually, I moved up through the ranks and became a SEAL officer, and I deployed around the world, And I was lucky enough to deploy to Iraq a couple of times. The first time as a SEAL platoon commander, and then as the commander of SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006. And when I got back from that deployment, I took over the advanced training for the West Coast
Starting point is 00:03:47 SEAL teams as my final assignment in the Navy and after I retired I started a leadership consulting company called Echelon Front which led me to writing a bunch of books first for adults and then a bunch of books for kids as well. And you can get those books wherever books are sold. And along the way with some coaxing from Mr. Tim Ferriss and Mr. Joe Rogan, after being on their podcasts, I started my own podcast called Jocko Podcast, which comes out on Wednesdays every week. And I talk about human nature through the lens of war and atrocities and leadership. And I would be sitting down with Tim right now, but he's off in the jungle or the desert or the mountains somewhere. So I am just going to answer your questions this time by myself.
Starting point is 00:04:46 So thanks to Tim for having me on again. And thanks to you all for listening. And here we go. The first question is from an anonymous person. How did you meet your wife? And other tips on building a family. So I met my wife when I was overseas. My wife happened to be overseas at the same time. And when I saw her, I was, I was, uh, I was kind of, uh, taken aback by my, by my wife because she was a stunning looking woman. And I walked right up to her and immediately said, you know, started talking to her, and I won't go into the gory details of that whole situation, but because I asked my wife if I could tell the whole story, and she actually said, do not do that, so I'm not going to, but I met my, when I met her, I went up, talked to her, and not only was she stunningly beautiful, she was also super nice, which was a very nice surprise for me.
Starting point is 00:05:48 And immediately I told one of my buddies a couple days later that I was going to marry that girl if I could. And we ended up, yes, getting married. The tips I have on this, I would say, well, first of all, I'll tell you that getting married is probably the most important decision that you're going to make in your life because you're going to end up spending your rest of your life with this other human being, which, which is a big task. And so you really want to make a good decision. And, and of course there's a dichotomy in this too, because if you think you're going to find the perfect wife, you're not, Or you think you're going to find the perfect husband, you're not. They don't exist. No one's perfect. Everyone's going to have their little idiosyncrasies about
Starting point is 00:06:31 them that you don't like or that bother you. And so what you have to do is you have to find somebody that has idiosyncrasies that don't bother you very much. The other thing, and I would say I got lucky in this. I would love to tell you that I was a visionary and knew exactly what I was looking for, but I didn't. I got lucky and just happened to meet this woman that had this quality, which I believe is very important. And that is that my wife was emotionally stable and emotionally independent. And so what I mean by that is my wife wasn't always relying on me emotionally to give her support about things. She didn't, she didn't really, this sounds bad, but she didn't really need me. You know, I didn't need to be there. And trust me when you're in the SEAL teams, you're not there a lot. So I think if you can find someone that's emotionally independent, that doesn't rely on
Starting point is 00:07:28 you to prop them up every day, I think that's a big benefit. And can someone go too far with that? Yeah. Cause I'm sure you could have someone that's so independent that they don't even want to be around you and that would be a problem. So, but I think we tend towards people. We like the feeling of someone that's depending on us. And, and so I think we, I think I saw guys get sucked into that over the years. So I think you look for someone that's got a little bit of emotional independence that they can stand on their own. And then, and then when it comes to just relationship and I don't know, you might want to check yourself if you're coming to me for relationship advice, but you are, so I'll put it out to you. Here's the, here's the thing when, and I have been
Starting point is 00:08:08 married for a long time, uh, 20 plus years, that's a pretty long time to be married. I guess these days, well, one of the things going back to the idea of extreme ownership is guess what? You take ownership of your relationship and you take ownership of the problems inside your relationship. If you're blaming your spouse when things go wrong, that's not going to work out really well. And when I try and think of an example, I was talking about this with someone the other day. And one example that when my kids were younger, it's always stressful. Stressful time in the family is getting ready for school in the morning. You got kids, you got teeth to get brushed.
Starting point is 00:08:47 You got lunches to get made. You got the clock is ticking. You're going to be late. There's traffic. There's all these things going on. And so sometimes you can, that, that stress can start to impact negatively the family. So I was thinking, what's the situation where you've got to take ownership? Well, let's say normally, you know, for me, I was getting up and going to work. My wife was getting up and
Starting point is 00:09:10 getting the kids ready for school. Cool. Those are our two jobs in the morning. I get ready to go to work. She gets ready to take the kids to school. So let's say the lunches weren't made and the kids got up late and my wife got up late and all of a sudden she can't get out the door because she's got to make the sandwiches for the kids. And if I look at her and say, well, you know, you didn't make the sandwiches. That's why everyone's late. I'm telling you right now, that's not going to work out well. You're blaming the person. And when you blame people, they get defensive and they start blaming other things. And they're going to blame you and they're going to blame the kids and they're going to blame everyone else. So that doesn't solve the problem.
Starting point is 00:09:46 All it does is create arguments. So instead of doing that, what you do is you take ownership, just like when you're in a, in a seal platoon or you're in a business, when something goes wrong, you take ownership of the problem. So if instead of saying, Hey, you didn't make the lunges, that's why everyone's late. Instead of you say, Hey, you know what? I noticed everyone was a little bit late today tomorrow. You know, I think I can help out by getting up a little bit earlier and making the lunches. And well, realistically, and with my wife, my wife would be, you know, my wife would say back to me, no, that's fine. You got to go to work. I, I slept in, I shouldn't have done that. So, so it immediately reverses the defensive attitude of what are you
Starting point is 00:10:23 talking about? I didn't make the lunches. Why am I making lunches? It turns it into, oh, you know what? No, you have to go to work. I'm going to get up and make, it's my fault. I'll, I'll take care of it. And, and that's, that's a great solution, right? That that's problem solved. And then people worry about it because they say, well, what if I, if I said that to my wife, you know, my wife would say, yeah, you should get up and make the lunches. And then, you know what I say, get up and make the lunches. It's you know what I say? Get up and make the lunches. It's going to take you an extra, it takes six minutes, six minutes to get the lunches made. Probably not even that.
Starting point is 00:10:52 So no big deal. Get up a little bit earlier. Get up six minutes earlier. Actually make the lunches the night before and it'll be fine. And eventually, most likely, your wife is going to say, hey, you know what? You don't need to make the lunches. I'll do it. I got it. So that's what you do. That's what you do. Just like in any other leadership situation or even in a peer-driven situation, what you do is you take ownership. And when you take ownership of things, life gets better. Give it a shot. That's the first question. Next question is from Avthar.
Starting point is 00:11:27 And the question is, what's Jocko's criteria about when you should quit and when to persevere in areas with opportunity costs like businesses? So this is definitely a very good question, especially if you know anything about the SEAL teams. One of the mottos of the SEAL teams is never quit. And I should say that's really more of a motto of the basic SEAL training that you go through, the BUDS training, the first block of training that you go through when you, when you join the Navy to be a SEAL, it's six months long. And, and the, the underlying mantra there is don't quit. And of course it actually makes very good sense in training, in that training, because that's how you make it through the training. You don't quit. And people, people, I'll get kids that ask me nowadays, you know, I want to go on, I'm going to go to the SEAL teams. I want to go through SEAL training. What advice do you have for me?
Starting point is 00:12:28 I was telling the same thing over and over again. Don't quit. That's, that's how you get through the training. Don't quit. So going through that training, it makes sense. But I'll tell you, once you get to the actual SEAL teams, you have to take that attitude and you have to put it in some kind of perspective because that attitude can be bad. And the classic example of that is the young leader, the young SEAL leader who comes up with a plan for a training mission, but maybe it's not the best plan or maybe the
Starting point is 00:12:57 circumstances change or something unexpected happens or the weather or the terrain isn't what was anticipated and the plan is not working. That's what's going on. The plan, whatever plan they came up with is not working. But that young leader has been told never quit. So he keeps going and he keeps going and he keeps going and he keeps going and he uses up all his energy and all his time and all his resources and all of his people because he had been taught never quit. So that is actually wrong. And you don't do that. If you are trying something and you have given it a solid effort and it's not working, then stop doing it and step back and assess and see if there's another way to do it. That is not quitting. That is being smart. I have a little
Starting point is 00:13:45 rule. I say, don't bang my head into something 47 times. I'll do 46. Once you get to 46, then it's like, okay, you know what? I got to try a different way. This is not working. So sometimes you have to step back. You have to quit the plan that you had and try something new. Now, the other way to frame this is by looking at it from a tactical level and then from a strategic perspective. Tactical level meaning the immediate situation right in front of you and the situation that's unfolding right now in this very period of time. So like a firefight that's going on right now or this actual battle that we're in right now. That's tactical. That's what's happening on a tactical level. And then above that is the strategic level. And this is the broad, long-term, overall objective that you are trying to achieve. So those are the two different
Starting point is 00:14:40 perspectives that you can look at this idea of when to quit. So in a war, the tactical objective might be to take a hill, right? We're going to take that hill. That's our objective right now. Whereas the strategic objective might be to remove this tyrannical regime and stop their imperialistic endeavors that threaten your own nation state. So that's the strategy. That's what you are strategically trying to accomplish. So now you look at those two things,
Starting point is 00:15:12 right? If you're assaulting this hill and it's heavily defended and the hill is fortified and has massive enemy troops, massive numbers of enemy troops in there, and you can't take that hill without suffering massive catastrophic losses yourself, it's probably a good idea just to back off the hill a little bit and figure out another way of taking it or figuring out if you can actually bypass that hill. See if you can avoid even having to take that hill. Now, that might be considered quitting, right? I'm not going up that hill. See if you can avoid even having to take that hill. Now that might be considered quitting, right? I'm not going up that hill. I'm not going to lose everyone trying to get up this hill, but even though it might be considered quitting, it also could be considered smart
Starting point is 00:15:57 because why would you waste your troops? If there's another way to go about this, if there's, there's the, and I'll tell you one reason that people continue doing this is a lot of times people will drive on a tactical mission. And the only reason that they keep going is A, because they've been told never quit and B, because their ego, their ego, their ego, they're going to stick with their plan. They came up with their plan. They want their plan to work and they're going to go and they're going to keep going until everyone's dead. That is not smart because if you backed off that particular goal, you could allocate your resources and your troops somewhere else where you might have a bigger impact. So quitting that tactical mission, that low level tactical mission, it might not only be acceptable,
Starting point is 00:16:46 it might be a necessity because let's face it. If all you do is attack Hills where everyone dies, you're not going to, you're going to lose strategically in the long run. So sometimes you got to back off. Sometimes you've got to, you've got to quit that tactical mission. And there's been plenty of times in history where that has happened. And people made tactical retreats, we'll call it tactical quitting, in order to win strategically. So when General George Washington led the retreat of Continental forces out of New York, which was a lucky retreat because there was this massive fog and they were able to do it clandestinely. He quit, but guess what? He came
Starting point is 00:17:32 back for the strategic win. In World War I, Gallipoli, some super hard fighting there, the Brits, the Aussies, the New Zealand troops, French as well. And they had really hard fighting. And eventually they realized that this wasn't working and they snuck away. They retreated. Did they quit? I guess you could say they quit that tactical situation. And it's the same thing. I mean, probably the most famous example of this is Dunkirk at the beginning of World War II, when this ad hoc British Navy of merchant vessels and whatever else pulled out hundreds of thousands of soldiers out of Europe so that they could regroup, rebuild, and re-engage. And by the way, come back for the win, for the strategic win of getting rid of the tyrannical leader of Nazi Germany. So was anyone calling the Brits quitters because they decided to save
Starting point is 00:18:33 a massive number of their troops? No. It's like, hey, we have to do a tactical retreat. So yes, sometimes you have to retreat, but that doesn't mean you quit the strategic mission. You know, it's like Churchill said, never surrender, but he didn't say never retreat. So I think you have to do a little differentiation between quitting and retreating. And that's, that's what you need to do. And you need to do the same thing in life, right? Because sometimes we come up with ideas. We come up with plans that aren't as good as we think maybe they were. And at some point, you got to look at it from an honest perspective and see if maybe this isn't going to work. Maybe we can't take that hill. And that doesn't mean,
Starting point is 00:19:15 you know, if you come up with one idea for a product and it doesn't work and you decide you're going to retreat from it, does that mean you just never come up with another product again? When strategically what your goal was, was to build a large business or, or become financially independent or be your own boss or whatever. If you, if you back off of one tactical mission or you quit with one product that you came up with, does that mean you're never going to do anything in business again? No, it just means that you're going to regroup. You're going to reload. You're going to come up with a better idea. And then you're going to attack again. You're going to keep that strategic vision alive. So I think that's it. I think to sum this up, that's kind of a long answer. I apologize. To sum this up,
Starting point is 00:20:01 you might have to make some tactical retreats in order to win the long war, but never quit on your strategic vision. Never quit on getting to the ultimate place where you want to go. The next question is from Brendan. And the question is, how does discipline pay a role in financial decisions on two levels, macro slash investing and micro, meaning daily and monthly budgets? How has this changed recently? Well, discipline equals freedom. As you might have heard me say the first time I was on Tim's podcast, and the example of that in this situation is if you want financial freedom, you need financial discipline. So what does that mean?
Starting point is 00:20:49 That means you have to work hard. You have to save your money. You have to invest your money. You have to not buy stupid things that you don't need. I often give the example of my 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. Kind of rusted. Broken window on the driver's side that was taped shut. But I drove that vehicle for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years. And the reason I did is because I was saving money. I also lived in a house that was 934 square feet. It had two bedrooms
Starting point is 00:21:22 and I had three kids, two girls and a boy and my wife and my wife and I slept in the living room. And when you opened the front door to our house, to the right was a couch and to the left was our bed. And that's where we slept. And right next to our bed was the dining room table. So like our front room of our house was the bedroom, dining room and living room all, all in one big room, zero privacy. But that's where we lived. Why do we live there? Because it was in a location that we liked. And we were saving money. I pretty much always wore the same clothes. My guys used to give me a hard time because I would wear jungle boots out on Liberty with my normal clothes. Why? Because
Starting point is 00:22:04 I'm not going to go out and buy some pair of fashionable shoes. I cut my own hair. So I have a pair of clippers that I've had forever and I cut my own hair. So that's the discipline that I think puts you in a good place later on in life when you save money upfront. And so now when we talk about macro investing, what do I do now? I like to put my money into, well, actually into my businesses and it's things that I own, things that I control, things that I know about. And so I do that and I like to buy properties. So I invest in properties and I take other opportunities. If there's something that I have an understanding of some business opportunity, then I'll put my money in that. I will said,
Starting point is 00:22:50 I do have a nicer car. Now I no longer drive the 1997 Dodge grand caravan. May she rest in peace. I also, and still a little bit, I still, even though I have more money now I still am a person that struggles to spend money on things and I will research some stupid purchase for Three months to figure out if it's something that I really need to figure out if it's the actual one that I want and all that so So there you go. I I guess on a macro thing I look to buy big things or I look to invest in big things like properties and businesses. And on the micro, I look to buy nothing. I don't want it. I don't need it. And I'm trying not to buy it. So there's that. Next question is from Joey.
Starting point is 00:23:40 And he says, how do you balance your time as a father with your business, podcast, workouts? And then there's a follow-on question. What values do you hope to pass on to your children? So this is a question that everyone wants the secret answer to. And you know, how do you balance your time with your family versus your time with work? And the answer is that that is the answer. You have to balance it. So what do I do? Yes. Do I wake up early? I do. I wake up early. Do I stay up late? Yes, I do. I try and do things before and after my family is awake or before or after they fall asleep so that I'm working when they're sleeping, which seems to work out well in terms of trying to spend more time with them.
Starting point is 00:24:23 Like in the morning morning in the morning, I'll wake up early and work out. So that way when they're, when they get up and they're eating their breakfast or whatever, I can say hi to them and talk to them a little bit. I also try and do things that are, that are mutually beneficial to everyone, to all of us. So for instance, I like to do things with my wife and kids like work out together or do jujitsu together or wrestle or surf. I like to do things that I like to do and that they like to do too. So that seems to do a good job of spending more time with the family. I don't always do a great job with this. I have missed some pretty critical events with my kids because of work. And that's a sad reality. I've missed some pretty big events
Starting point is 00:25:14 because I've had things that I had to do. I had commitments. I had contractual obligations that I couldn't get out of. And so would miss, you know, I've missed some pretty important things for my kids. And I definitely feel bad about that. And I'll say this though, they also learn from that because when they see that I am doing that, I'm doing, I'm, I'm putting a big, placing a big importance on work. They realize that work is important. They realize that you have to be dedicated to your work. They see me up early working. They see me staying up late working and they know from seeing that, that if they want to get anywhere, there's going to be sacrifices that have to get made. So that's it. I also often explain this to people, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:02 you get a job and you work hard so that you can earn money so that you can take care of your family. And that being said, if you focus too much on working hard and too much on your job, well, then eventually if you look up, you'll look at your family and they won't be there anymore because you weren't paying enough attention to them. So you, you can't let that happen. The other end of the spectrum is you're trying to take care of your family. So you're trying to spend all your time with your family, which means you stop paying attention to work like you should. And instead of going to the meeting, you're at, you know, the parent teacher conference. And instead of going to the, the networking event at your company, you're, you're going to the recital for your six-year-old's piano. And eventually you look up and you realize
Starting point is 00:26:49 that you're not where you want to be work-wise and maybe you're getting let go. Maybe you're not promoting the way you want to. So that's not good either. So that's why, as I said to kick this off, the key is balance. You have to find the balance on these things. If you focus too much on work, you won't have a family. If you focus too much on family, you won't have work. So get balanced. The second part of this question was what values do I hope to pass on to my kids? I think the values that I try and pass on to my kids are pretty much the standard kind of human values. And to be really simple about how to discuss this, well, I wrote multiple kids books trying to pass on the values that I think are important for kids. The first book that I wrote for kids was called Way of the Warrior
Starting point is 00:27:38 Kid. And the first book is about a kid who's kind of having the same normal problems that every kid has. He's can't do any pull-ups. He doesn't know how to swim. He doesn't know his times tables and he's getting picked on at school. And what happens is kind of the last day of school, he's all sad and bummed out and he gets called out for not being able to do any pull-ups and not knowing how to swim. And he runs behind the library and he's crying and eventually heads home from his last day of school. And then he remembers that his Uncle Jake is coming to stay with him for the summertime. And his Uncle Jake was in the SEAL teams.
Starting point is 00:28:19 And his Uncle Jake, when he shows up, they start talking. And he says, hey, what do you want to do tomorrow? You want to go play some ball. You want to go for a swim. And he says, and the kid whose name is Mark says, well, you know, I can't, I can't swim. And I don't know my times table. I'm getting picked on. And I can't do any pullups. And he starts crying. And uncle Jake looks at him and says, Hey, listen, all these problems that you've got, they can be solved. And then they go on the mission over the summer of working out, eating right, learning how to study, learning jujitsu, learning how to swim, overcoming his fear of
Starting point is 00:28:52 water. All those things happen. And one of the parts that's embedded in the story is that Uncle Jake talks about how warriors live by a code. And he encourages young Mark to write his own warrior kid code. And in that warrior kid code, I pretty much pass forth the values that I try and give to my kids. And so here's the warrior kid code from the book way, the warrior kid, the number one, the warrior kid wakes up early in the morning. The warrior kid studies to learn and gain knowledge and asks questions if he doesn't understand. The warrior kid trains hard, exercises, and eats right to be strong and fast and healthy. The warrior kid trains to know how to fight so he can stand up to bullies and protect the weak.
Starting point is 00:29:45 The warrior kid treats people with respect, doesn't judge them, and helps out other people whenever possible. The warrior kid keeps things neat and is always prepared and ready for action. The warrior kid stays humble, controls his ego, and stays calm. Warrior kids do not lose their tempers. The warrior kid works hard, saves money, is frugal, and doesn't waste things, and always does his best. I am the warrior kid, and I am a leader. So that's the warrior kid code. And that warrior kid code, that's actually the one that I just read is from the third book in the series, because each book, young Mark adds a little something to the warrior kid code. He adds, he learns a life lesson and then he adds it to his warrior kid code.
Starting point is 00:30:43 And so that's, those are the values that I try and pass on it. And that's, I also, I also do a kid's podcast called the warrior kid podcast. And what the funnest part I've had with that warrior kid podcast, cause it started off me just doing questions for uncle Jake. And then I would answer the questions and kid would, kids would say, um, is, is pepperoni healthy? And so I'd answer these great questions from these kids. But eventually what I started doing is I started telling stories from Uncle Jake, where Uncle Jake would talk about where he was a kid or when he was a kid, and they would kind of capture some important lesson that he learned. And they're all just kind of parable stories that, again, back to this question, teach the values that I think kids should have. And that's what
Starting point is 00:31:33 the stories do. The stories are meant to explain where Uncle Jake got his values from. So yeah, those are the Warrior Kid podcasts if you want to check that out in the warrior kid books. All right. Next question. And it says, I'd like to hear his thoughts on sexual harassment, toxic masculinity. And then it says, I am working to teach my sons about matters like consent. Okay. So I know this has been a big, a big topic, toxic masculinity. And I'm not a psychologist. Certainly I don't claim to be, you know, some, somebody that understands everything, but you know what? I have spent a lot of time around alpha males. So I spent 20 years in the SEAL teams and there's a lot of alpha male type human beings in there. I have my
Starting point is 00:32:25 own son, so I have a decent understanding of the male human. I also, like I said, have been married for 21 years and I have three daughters, by the way. One of them's 19, one of them's 18, and one of them is nine that counteract the testosterone of my 16- 16 year old son to the best of their ability. But my point is I, I have some experience with both sides of this situation. And so, so for me, toxic masculinity is sort of saying that at least for the best, the best that I can interpret what it, what they're trying to say, is that if you take sort of traditional masculine traits and then you take them to the extreme, well, then it becomes negative. And well, that's a true statement. That's actually a true statement. And it goes
Starting point is 00:33:20 back to the book Dichotomy of Leadership, is that if you take any positive trait that a good leader can have and you take it to an extreme, then it can become a negative. So this is going to happen with any traits that any human being has. If you take a human trait to an extreme, it often becomes a negative. So, I mean, a clear one is if you're a good leader, then you need to be aggressive, right? That's what you need to be. And that being said, if you're too aggressive, then you're taking risks that are not necessary and that's not going to work out good for you. So that's why you can't take the aggressive trait to the extreme. Same thing with being ambitious, right?
Starting point is 00:34:06 Because everyone, you know, a good leader, a good person, a good kid is ambitious. But guess what? If someone becomes too ambitious, then they're stepping on other people so that they can rise to the top. And by the way, that rise to the top will be short-lived. That's why it's not beneficial. Because you might think, well, if you're ambitious, you step on people, but you make it to the top, be short-lived. That's why it's not beneficial. Because you might think, well, if you're ambitious, you can step on people, but you make it to the top,
Starting point is 00:34:26 you're good to go. It doesn't work that way. Because other people are going to see that you're stepping on them and they're going to rip you down. So the group that you're leading when you're stepping on them will turn against you. So yes, you should be ambitious,
Starting point is 00:34:39 but you can't be extremely. You can't take that to the extreme. Being strong. That's being just physically strong, that's a great attribute to have because then you are harder to bully, right? No one's going to push you around when you're a strong individual. That being said, if you go too far with that and you begin to abuse the strength that you have to bully other people, well, then that's not good. And once again, I'll tell you, if you do that, the pack will turn against you and take you down. And so there's all these traits that these are considered sort of masculine traits, like being assertive, right? And that
Starting point is 00:35:26 is definitely true. If you're a good leader, and I go from a man to just be talking about leadership, if you're a good leader, then you should be assertive. That being said, if you're too assertive, then you don't listen to anyone else's ideas. And so that puts you at a disadvantage because you're trying to figure out everything for yourself and you won't be able to do that. So what else, what else for traditional masculine traits? Oh, be less emotional, right? The man is supposed to rely more on logic than emotion. And that certainly makes sense as a leader because there's no one that makes good decisions when they're emotional. Now, the dichotomy is that if you are completely devoid of emotions,
Starting point is 00:36:12 then you don't connect with anyone. You don't have any emotional connection with anyone. And as a leader, if you don't have emotional connections with people, then you won't truly be able to lead them. You'll be able to lead them on like a surface level, but you won't have the deep connection that forms a solid bond inside of a team. You won't have that. And so the list of these traits, it's, it goes on and on. And, and like I said, these are sort of these traditional masculine traits. And if you take them to the extreme, then they become negative. And also you've got to remember that it's not just one extreme. There's the other, there's the opposite extreme as well. And if you go in the opposite direction to the extreme, then that's equally bad. So if you've got a leader that's hyper aggressive, right? We don't want that. But at the same time, we don't want a leader that's a pushover. Just like we don't want someone that's overly assertive,
Starting point is 00:37:09 right? If you're overly assertive, then you're not listening to anyone else. But at the same time, if you go in the other direction to the other extreme, then you've got someone that's scared to speak up. So that's not good either. And then talking about the emotional thing again, like we don't want a leader that's completely devoid of emotions, but at the same time, you don't want a leader that's overly emotional and is unstable and not able to think logically and clearly. So these things, these things need to be balanced. That's what they need to be. They need to be balanced in leaders. They need to be balanced in men. And the fact of the matter is, is that all these traits are equally positive for women and they also need to be balanced with women as well.
Starting point is 00:37:52 So to me, this idea of toxic masculinity is just reflective of taking any human traits to an extreme, male or female, doesn't matter. If you don't properly balance the dichotomy of these traits that human beings have, you'll be out of balance and it'll be a bad thing. So try and stay balanced. That is to me the best solution to these types of issues. All right. Next question is from White Belt M M a S. I have no idea what that means, but I'm glad you have the white belt attitude. That's a good attitude to have. What are Jocko's experiences with cold or heat therapy, cold showers, ice baths, saunas, et cetera. Okay. I'm definitely a believer in contrast baths. If you know what that is,
Starting point is 00:38:43 contrast baths are going from hot to cold. I mean, I like them both individually, but hot to cold, I definitely had a situation that unfolded for me that really sent it home. I was at San Clemente Island, which is a little training site off the coast of Southern California. And on that island, there's a hill called frog Hill. And when you're going through basic seal training, you run up that Hill before every meal. And sometimes you carry things on your back or whatever, but it's a really steep Hill and it takes a few minutes to climb up and it burns you out pretty good. So anyways, I was out there for, I wasn't going through SEAL training, but I was out there doing some training with some other troops. And so while I was out there, I decided, you know, I'm just going to run Frog
Starting point is 00:39:31 Hill every day for every meal, just like we did in Bud's, you know, just trying to stay hard. And then I, while I was out there and this was probably 10 years ago or something like that, maybe 12 years ago. I don't know, but late, late 2009, something like that. And while I was out there, I also was working out hard, you know, and I did this, this CrossFit workout, this CrossFit workout, which is called Kalsu. And this workout is named after a guy. Well, it's named after a guy whose name was Kalsu, Bob Kalsu, who was an All-American football player for the University of Oklahoma. And then he played for the Buffalo Bills in the 1968 season. He was the R rookie of the year. And after that season, he went and did his time in the army because he had gone through, I guess, an ROTC scholarship and had an
Starting point is 00:40:35 ROTC obligation to the army. And so he went in the army to serve his time. He went to the 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Vietnam, and he was killed in action. And so this workout, like the man himself, is a tough workout. Tough man, tough workout. In fact, I'd say it's a little bit harder than tough. It's actually a pretty brutal workout. And here's the workout. If you want to try this, it's psycho. Every minute on the minute. So every minute you do five burpees and then you do as many thrusters as you can with 135 pounds. And thruster is basically a front squat and then a push press. So you do that. So you do every minute you do five burpees and then you do max thrusters with 135 pounds. And you keep doing this over and over again until you get to a hundred total thrusters. And it is like a complete soul crushing leg destroyer of a workout. And anyways, I did that
Starting point is 00:41:39 workout and plus I was running frog hill. So my legs were pretty much just completely annihilated. And then I was supposed to be flying back to Coronado to where I was working at the time, the training command out on the West Coast. I was flying back there. I was supposed to fly back in the middle for lunch, but our training ended. I ended up getting the first flight back from San Clemente Island.
Starting point is 00:42:02 It was like six o'clock in the morning. And when I got back the master chief, so I was the, I was the officer in charge of trade at the time. And the master chief who was a, who was kind of a runner type guy. And he picked me up from the airport. He's like, Hey man, we're doing a, we're doing a command PT today, which means we're all going to work out and do physical training together. And I'm like, Oh, cool. You know, cause it's sort of, you know, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the officer in charge. So if we're having command PT, then I should do it. And he goes, okay, great. It's a, you know, we're doing a run and we're doing a run down this, there's a lake in, in San Diego and it's, it's got a trail around it. It's
Starting point is 00:42:41 like a seven or eight mile or something like that, but there's it's got a lot Lots of little these little hills Ha so Cool, you know, I already signed up for it. So we get we get we go and we go to do this run and um, my legs are already crushed when I start this run and Then I end up racing with one of my buddies who, who's actually a better runner than I am. And, but I'm giving it everything I got to, to hang with him. And I hang with him until probably the last, I don't know, mile got back from the lake, went to the team. And when I got back to the training command, I went into our physical therapy guys and I said,
Starting point is 00:43:28 Hey man, I just annihilated my legs and I've been annihilating for like five straight days. What do you got? And the guy that worked there who is a awesome guy named Jason, he said, Hey, do contrast baths. I'm like, what's that? He Hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold. So anyways, he put me in this protocol for ice bath to the whirlpool, the hot whirlpool, which is scalding hot. Anyways, I did the protocol. I think it was like five minutes, five minutes, four minutes, four minutes, three minutes, three minutes, two minutes, two minutes, one minute, one minute. And I am not kidding. When I got done with that. I was probably 60% recovered just from that so Do I believe in?
Starting point is 00:44:11 Cold heat therapy. Yes. I have a jacuzzi at my house and I have an ice bath at my house So I believe in them they work Be careful if you ever do that workout, it hurts. Next question. What is one piece of advice you'd give a man who's on the brink of finishing it all tonight? So, you know, this is one of those questions that comes across from time to time when people are feeling like they have reached the point where they cannot go on anymore. And so this is from anonymous and I'll tell you right now, what I'm going to tell you is number one, first, we're going to wait until tomorrow. And then, and so this is going to sound like a, I guess like a cop-out of an answer, um,
Starting point is 00:45:01 or like a weak answer. But then what you do is you actually go and get some professional help from someone. And the reason that I'm saying that is because I only just recently kind of put this together. It is the fact that I didn't know anything about psychologists and psychology. I thought that they were just kind of weird people that would tell you some mumbo jumbo, um, stuff. I didn't really understand it. I didn't know anything about it. And I had, I had a Jordan Peterson on my podcast and we were talking about a bunch of different subjects and he was talking about how he was, I think he was talking about how he would get people to overcome fear of needles. And he went through this thing and he, what he explained was called
Starting point is 00:45:50 exposure therapy. And I didn't know what it was, but it made perfect sense to me. And then as he was explaining it, I realized what he was explaining was this methodology of exposure therapy. And that methodology is the exact methodology that I had used in the first way, the warrior kid book to teach this young kid, Mark, to overcome his fear of water. So I just kind of used instinctively something that I'd used with my kids when they were afraid of something, I would expose them to it a little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit. And then over time they would not be afraid of it anymore. And so it's something that I had used, but, but when Jordan Peterson, who's a clinical psychologist talked about it, this is an actual psychological
Starting point is 00:46:34 procedure. And, and that's when I started to kind of make this connection is, is the fact that psychologists, what they are is they're basically like mechanics. They're like car mechanics, but they're mechanics for your brain or your mind or whatever your thoughts. Because your brain or your mind or your thoughts can have problems, just like your car can have a problem. And what psychologists know how to do, just like a mechanic knows how to do, is they know how to assess the problem and then give you a solution to the problem. And I think the fact that they're called psychologists kind of threw me off for, for my, for my life. And if they would have been called something that the term I've been calling
Starting point is 00:47:16 them as mind mechanics. So if you, if you said, Oh, I've got a problem with my mind. Oh, I'm going to go to the mechanic and have it get fixed. That makes sense, right? There's no mumbo jumbo there. The psychologists learn about what type of symptoms there are, and then they figure out how to solve those. And they learn techniques and procedures and protocols. So it's real, is what I'm saying. So to you, anonymous, that asked this question, you, you need a, you need a mind mechanic. You know, you got an issue going on in there and you got to get someone that knows how to identify, diagnose what the problem is, and then give you a solution to it.
Starting point is 00:47:54 So hang in there, go get some help. That that's what you need. A professional help. I'm not a mind mechanic. I'm not a psychologist, but there are people that actually know how to help you. And so go get some, go get some professional help. That's, that's what you need. Another thing, I mean, you know, Tim came on my podcast. It's, it's podcast number 50 and you know, it's a, it's a crazy thing. And a lot of people, they either don't know this or they haven't heard about it, or it's easy to forget that Tim was, you know, when he was in
Starting point is 00:48:31 college, he not only contemplated committing suicide, but he actually planned to commit suicide. And so when he came on my podcast, we went deep on that and we talked through it. And so if you're in that situation, you know, Tim's a great example. You know, he's a, he's a, was doing great, you know, from the outside, you know, he was going to an Ivy league school and, you know, things were, you would look from the outside and say, oh, this guy's got nothing to worry about. His life is set. But on the inside, you know, he was in a really rough place in a, in a place that was so rough that he was thinking that maybe he didn't want to continue on. So take a listen to that one. You can hear some of the things that Tim did and continues to do to, to maintain a positive
Starting point is 00:49:16 attitude about where he's at. And then man, go and get some professional help because there's, there's darkness out there and sometimes that that darkness in the world it surrounds your head but you can get out of it man good luck brother the uh next question is also from anonymous what is a step-by-step guide for building discipline for someone who has little to none of it i'll keep this one short i answer this a lot. Before you go to bed, make a list of the things that you need to do tomorrow. So whatever those things are you make, you write them down, work out, you're going to do this project or that project, you're going to do this task or that task, whatever they are, you write them down. And then you set your alarm clock and you set it earlier than you normally
Starting point is 00:50:01 would. I don't care. Look, people get hung up because I wake up at 4.30. That's just when I get up. You figure out when it's good for you to get up, make it a little bit earlier, like an hour earlier or a half hour earlier than you normally would. Set your alarm clock, then go to sleep. Then when your alarm clock goes off, just get up, get up. No, don't think about it. Don't rationalize anything. No snooze button. No, just five more minutes. Just get up when your alarm clock goes off, put on yourze button, no just five more minutes, just get up when your alarm clock goes off. Put on your workout clothes, which you should have laid out the night before. I should have said that too. Brush your teeth and go work out. Get that done and then shower,
Starting point is 00:50:34 pull out the list that you made and attack that list and get everything on that list done. That's what you do. And then the next day, do the same thing. And the day after that, do the same thing. And then imagine what your life is going to be like in a week of, after a week of doing that, or after a month of doing that, or after three months of doing that, or after a year of doing that, you're going to be in a totally different place. If you just do the things that you know you're supposed to do every day, you'll be in a totally different place. Now, will the discipline get easier over time? Will it get easier? Doesn't matter. It Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's easy, hard. You don't think about it. You don't consider
Starting point is 00:51:09 that. Just do what you're supposed to do and then just stay on the path. Because even though it might not get easier, the rewards are going to grow and you'll realize that the discipline you are imposing into your life is making your life better and giving you more freedom. Question 12, how do you build mental toughness and resilience? The answer is you actually already have it. You are a human being and human beings can survive the most insane adversity that you can imagine. I talk about it on my podcast all the time. These people that go through these atrocities or go through these insane combat situations or get put into prison camps, they're not superheroes. They're people. They're normal people that got drafted or that signed up after Pearl Harbor or that
Starting point is 00:52:06 got recalled when the Korean War kicked off or got sent to Vietnam because it was either that or go to jail. They're normal people. And they have the mental toughness and resilience and so do you. Now, you want to help reveal it? Cool. Do some hard things, do some mental and some physical challenges that re that require you to push yourself harder.
Starting point is 00:52:31 Get some, that's fine. That'll reveal some of that mental toughness, but you have it. And as I said, in Tim's book, tools of Titans, if you want to be tough, be tougher. Don't need to meditate on it. Just be tougher. You already have it. Next question. If he had not been in the military, what would he have done instead? If I wasn't in the military, if I couldn't join the military,
Starting point is 00:52:56 I likely would have been probably a policeman or a firefighter. I think I have a pretty inherent sense of duty, some patriotic feeling to serve and, and, you know, straight up. I also like some kind of like level of danger and I like to take some level of risks and I, I feel good about those. They make me feel, make me feel alive. And I like physical work. I like doing things. I like, I like physically moving around and getting things done and making things happen. And I like, I actually like high stress situations. So I, I enjoy mayhem and chaos and it's where, and when I say I enjoy them, that doesn't mean I'm out seeking them every day, but when they hit me, that's where I feel like I'm in my, I'm in, I'm, I'm utilizing
Starting point is 00:53:46 the best of my natural capabilities because I'm, I'm calm under pressure. I stay relaxed. I stay detached. I can look at like complex problems and kind of simplify them well. So I like being in those situations. So that's why I think either one of those jobs probably would have been what I would end up doing. Next question is from Zach V. My five-year-old son has been doing jujitsu for two weeks now, and he's not aggressive. How do you teach someone to turn on aggression? So, Zach, bro, your kid is five. Do not worry about your kid's aggression level at this age. In fact, what you need to do is be happy that he isn't hyper aggressive kid that is slapping other kids around and can't get along with other kids. That's a problem. So don't worry about this.
Starting point is 00:54:38 It's no factor. And I've not only have I brought my kids up, but I've seen, I would say hundreds of kids go through jujitsu in their life. And you don't need to worry about this. You don't need to worry about trying them to teach them to turn on their aggression. Uh, I, in fact, instead of teaching him to turn on his aggression, I would teach him how to be nice and how to play guitar and how to be respectful and polite to other people. That's what I would would teach him because when he turns 14, you're going to have to do everything in your power to reign that aggression in that's going to come. So you don't need to egg it on. It'll be there. Now, if it's not there, whether or not he ends up being aggressive, it is still one of the best
Starting point is 00:55:23 gifts that you can give him is to give him jujitsu. But let me tell you what, please don't ruin it for him. Don't ruin jujitsu for him. The best way to make him good at jujitsu is actually by making it fun for him. He's five years old. You want to make it fun. I failed to do that with my older daughters. With my older daughters, I pushed them too hard. I was forcing it down their throat. I was making them train six days a week. Gee, no gee striking, making them compete. And when I did make them compete, I put them in there against older kids and heavier kids, the kids that were better than them. And they'd get beat. And I thought, of course, in my mind, I thought I was like being an awesome dad because I was making them super tough. Oh, you know what? You're, oh, you're, you're six years old. Cool.
Starting point is 00:56:07 I'm going to put you against a nine-year-old girl who weighs, outweighs you by 22 pounds and you're going to get destroyed, but you know what? It's going to be good for your character. It's going to make you tough. That's what, that's what my idiot mind was thinking. And what I actually ended up doing was making them not like jujitsu. So don't do that to your son. What you want to do is you want to make it fun and you want to find a school where it's fun. And you know what? Even that's no guarantee because your kid may not love jujitsu, but at least if it's
Starting point is 00:56:35 fun, he's going to learn it. But, but yeah, I'm sorry to break the news to you that you can't make your kid love jujitsu. You, you can make it part of his life, but he, this is a, I'm sorry again to break the news to you, but your son is an individual human being. And you know, I got four kids and all my kids are great kids. And I can tell you this, and this is a hard fact for parents to realize. It was a hard fact for me to realize your kids are not going to be what you want them to be. And case in point, I asked this, I asked this question to people all the time. I say, are you what your parents want you to wanted you to be? Everyone says no. Who grows up and becomes
Starting point is 00:57:18 exactly what their parents wanted them to be? No one. So the chances of you getting your kid to be exactly the person you want him to be, the chances of that are zero. He's not going to be. No one. So the chances of you getting your kid to be exactly the person you want him to be, the chances of that are zero. He's not going to be who you want them to be. So what you do, and matter of fact, if you, the more you try and conform him into being what you want him to be, the more you try and box him in, the more he is going to resent it, the more he's going to push back against you. So don't do that. Don't try and, don't try and box them in, be supportive, make it fun. Now I'm not saying you'd let kids do whatever you want because you don't do that. You get, you put them, you give them discipline, you give them a box that they need to stay in and then you show them the path,
Starting point is 00:58:00 but you don't put a dagger in their back and force them to walk down it. You let them find their own way down the path because they'll understand it better and there'll be better people. Uh, next question. You have started multiple companies and businesses since you were on, since you were first on Tim's podcasts over three years ago. They all seem to be doing great. How do you do that? Yeah. So I have started a bunch of businesses and they all seem to be doing really well. And I'm certainly stoked on that. As far as how do I do that? I would say two major things. And the first thing that I would say is that I get involved in businesses that are related to things that I know about that I understand. So like the first business that I
Starting point is 00:58:53 ever had was an MMA gym, still have it. It's called victory MMA. And we trained jujitsu and, and boxing, wrestling, all that stuff. But the reason I started this gym is because it's something that I knew and understood. We've been, I've been training jujitsu for a long time and been training MMA fighters for a long time. And so this is something that I knew and understood. So we started a gym. The second real business that I started was Echelon Front, which is the consulting company that I have with my brother, Leif Babin, and a bunch of other guys we have on the team now. But again, I started that company. It was like, this is something that I knew and understood. We're teaching people leadership and teaching
Starting point is 00:59:29 leadership is exactly what I was doing my last few years in the SEAL teams. So I started a company that was based directly around something that I knew, something that Leif knew. And now when we bring other guys onto the team, it's something that everyone knows and understands. So that was kind of evident. It was, it was a very clear that that's something that I had the capability and understanding of. Um, I guess the next one down the list would be, would be my tea, the Jocko white tea, which this is something that it was actually with Tim. I was with Tim and Tim talked about it all the first time I was on his podcast. And it was just like a little funny statement he said. And, and then people kept asking me, you know, what's the tea, what's the tea, what's the tea. So I just started, you know, making the tea and getting out there and people were stoked on it. And so there you go. That's
Starting point is 01:00:19 something that I knew and I knew that I liked it and started making it. And then, you know, that kind of led to the rest of the supplements that I made. Cause I like certain, I like to take certain things and I want to take things that I know, things that I trust and things that I actually use. And so that's what I did, made stuff that tasted good, that worked well. And there you go. Um, and, and then along the way, you know, I got involved with, um, with origin Maine, which is a, which is a company up in Maine, which is manufacturing apparel right here in America, in Maine. And, you know, that was really more than anything else. Cause I didn't really have a background in that. But what happened was I got, I saw a really kind of a perfect storm brewing.
Starting point is 01:01:13 This guy that I had seen videos of on the internet from Origin. He was the founder of Origin. He's a guy named Pete Roberts. And he had these videos on YouTube. And he's a jujitsu guy. And he wanted to to make geese and he wanted to make geese in America. And there was no one making geese in America. And as a matter of fact, he found out that there was no one making the material to make geese in America. So we're making the fabric to make geese in America. So he went on this kind of like psycho quest to try and make that happen and he had these videos
Starting point is 01:01:45 of himself up in Maine and him and his buddies pulling these these the actually a loom is it's not these it's one loom he went and found a rusty old loom abandoned loom in an abandoned factory in Lewiston Maine, you know, he pulled it out of this factory and brought it back to his place where he had built a factory, built a timber factory in the middle of the woods in Maine and put this loom in there and hired a guy that used to work on these looms. And they got that thing running and he was up there making these American made geese. And the, the problem was he was, the problem was he was in Maine and he was, you know, didn't really, he didn't have much reach. And so I reached out to him a couple of times and eventually got in touch with him. And, and we were able to,
Starting point is 01:02:37 you know, I kind of had reach and had people to talk to and way, a way to spread the word. And then he had the knowledge, you know, that he gained to, to start making apparel and all that stuff. And so that's what we're doing. So I just wanted to, um, wanted to help him make America make again, make America make again, you know, that it, you know, I'm from new England. And when you see the abandoned factories, it's, it's a, it's it's a it's a horrible It's a horrible sight and so for us to be up there to have that company to be breathing life back into an industry that had been left for dead and to now be
Starting point is 01:03:17 Making geese and making rash guards and and other athletic apparel and we we just came out with jeans Because what's more american than than damn blue jeans so you know i said hey pete well actually what i said to pete was i said hey how many people do you know that do jujitsu and pete said oh you know probably 100. i said how many people do you know that have jeans and i was standing in the airport at the time and i said 80 of the people I'm looking at right now are wearing jeans. Let's make jeans. Even I'm not wearing a gi pants right now. I'm wearing jeans. So we started making jeans. Now we're making boots. So we're making everything.
Starting point is 01:03:55 So that's what happened there. And then the last one, I guess the most recent company is the publishing company, is Jocko Pub publishing. And that one, so that one's a little bit more of a interesting situation. I had written another kid's book called Mikey and the dragons. And, and this book, I was super stoked on it. I finished it in August and I talked to my publisher and I said, Hey, you know, I've got this new kid's book and I just want to get it out by Christmas. Cause I want, I think the book is about a little kid that learns how to overcome fear and it's a rhyming story and has amazing pictures in it that one of my buddies drew. And so it was just this really great book. When I read it to my youngest daughter, you know,
Starting point is 01:04:38 she was just blown away by it. My wife actually reaction was, did you actually write that? So I thought that was a really good compliment. She didn't actually believe I was capable of doing it. So anyways, I was super stoked and got this. And, and I said to my publisher, I said, Hey, you know, I want this book to come out by Christmas. And this was in August. And they said, well, no, that's not, not possible. And I said, well, no, please. And they said, well, we can't do it. And I said, no, seriously, I really want it out by then. And then they said, there's no scenario where this book comes out by Christmas. And I said, watch this. So I had a friend that, you know, a friend
Starting point is 01:05:19 that she had was in the publishing business. And I said, Hey, can you help me make this happen? And she said, let's do it. And so started the publishing company and I said, hey, can you help me make this happen? And she said, let's do it. And so started the publishing company and book came out in November, Mikey and the Dragons. And now I have a publishing company. I got another couple of books in the works for the publishing company from not just me, but I got another couple authors that I'm working with that are putting books together that are awesome. So there you go.
Starting point is 01:05:44 So all those things are thing, all those different businesses, as I said, like, these are all things that I kind of know and understand. And that's, that's, I'd say part one of me figuring out what businesses I want to do. And then the second part, the second part is that I actually follow my own leadership principles. That's the principles that I teach. I utilize them myself and I cover move. I keep things simple. I prioritize and execute. I implement decentralized command. And that's a really big one because, you know, I've got people, I've got people on my teams that they, they have decentralized command. They know what my vision is and they are free to go out there and make it happen to the best of their ability. And if they need support, they come back to me. If they need guidance, they come back to me.
Starting point is 01:06:33 And if they don't, then they're out there crushing it. So that's, that's what happens. They're making these things happen. And I'm kind of looking up and out and to see what's next down the line and see what else we can get into. So yeah, try and get involved in what you know and understand and then follow the fundamental leadership principles, fundamental combat leadership principles. One more question here. This is from Oliver and he says, what is your biggest failure? Well, for me, this is a pretty straightforward answer. When I was in the Navy, when I was in the SEAL teams, my last tour was in Iraq. I was the commander of SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser. We fought in the Battle of Ramadi in the summer of 2006. We did our job well. We had the honor of supporting the soldiers and Marines from the 1st
Starting point is 01:07:39 Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and we all fought together to defeat the brutal insurgents that were there. And it was a very tough battlefield. It was a tough fight. It was an honor to serve alongside those soldiers and Marines. And the task unit that I was in charge of really performed exceptionally day after day after day. And in the end, victory was achieved in the city of Ramadi. And Ramadi was liberated from the sadistic insurgents that had reigned there. The people were allowed to return to their normal lives. But I did not bring home all my men. And that's that. So, thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Tim for having me on and for everything you've done
Starting point is 01:08:52 to help me out. I started my podcast because of Tim and, and, and Joe Rogan as well. And Joe Rogan heard me because of Tim in the first place. So thanks to Tim. If you want to hear anything else from me, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, and I'm on Facebook at Jocko Willink. My podcast is called Jocko Podcast. It's wherever you get your podcasts. The books that I've written are on Amazon and other places books are sold. My clothes are on jockostore.com. My supplements are at originmain.com. My consulting company is echelonfront.com. It's a lot of dot coms for you. Anyways, that's all I've got. Again, thanks to Tim for having me on and thanks to everyone that is listening to this. Thanks for spreading the word. Thanks for, of course, going out there and getting after it. This is Jocko Willink. No further traffic out.
Starting point is 01:09:49 Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? And would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And five bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, uh, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a
Starting point is 01:10:33 little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step towards finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings from software engineer to robotics engineer, project manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. There's something for everybody. They have
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