Jocko Willink (Former Navy Seal): Use This Weird Trick To Overcome Fear, Anxiety & Self-Doubt!

1. 0:00 – 2:04

   Intro

   1. JWJocko Willink0:00

      This is what I learned from 20 years of being in the Navy SEALs. Discipline, drive, how to make decisions under pressure, leadership, strategy and tactics that you can apply to business and you can apply to your life as well. So, let's go. Jocko Willink is a former Navy SEALs officer... ... who uses his decades of military training to help people become masters of discipline and master their lives. Your excuses will destroy you. Your default mode should be to take ownership, because if these problems are because of me, then I'm capable of fixing these problems.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:31

      So, what's step one?

   3. JWJocko Willink0:33

      First of all, small steps can be painful. Even something as simple as going to the gym, if you're completely out of shape, sometimes that can be enough to make you say, "I'm not doing it anymore." You need to envision a path of where this can lead you to. Number two, most human instinct is to hesitate, but you see that problem over there, you gotta go solve that problem. It's not gonna go away. So if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. And worst case scenario, you figure out that you walked the wrong direction. Okay, now you can go walk in the other direction. But standing there, not doing anything, is just waiting to starve to death. And the next challenge: detach from your emotions. Good leaders have control of our emotions. If I have to yell at you to get my point across, I've made like 47 other mistakes. My goal is I don't have to say a word, and you already know what to do.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:10

      Is there anything else that you'd add to that list?

   5. JWJocko Willink1:12

      Absolutely. In fact, people don't really talk about this, and this could apply to just about anything. So, if you're the type of person that doesn't ******, you're gonna struggle.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:21

      Jocko, was there a hardest day while you were in the Navy SEALs?

   7. JWJocko Willink1:25

      Yeah. That was the lowest point of my life.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:35

      Congratulations, Diary of a SEAL gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you, and enjoy this episode.

2. 2:04 – 3:50

   “I Wanted to Be a Navy SEAL”

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:04

      Jocko, surprisingly, I couldn't find an awful lot in your childhood that would indicate to me how you became the man that you are today, and I say that because there's a bit of a stereotype that someone like you who becomes a Navy S- SEAL must have some kind of traumatic early event that shaped them to become some ultra resilient human being. When you look back on your childhood, what are the sort of dominoes that fell in that earliest chapter of your life that made you the man you are today?

   2. JWJocko Willink2:37

      I wish I could positively identify the thing, the moment. The closest I've come is that I... A little kid, I was a little kid, I wanted to be some kinda soldier, I wanted to be some kinda commando. And at s- so I, so I collected little, little soldiers, little plastic soldiers, and one of the... I had different military units, like historical military units from around the world. And one of the historical military units that I had was the British Commandos. And so I had these tiny figurines, and they had machine guns and they had kayaks and they had, uh, little boats, little inflatable boats, and I thought to myself, that's what I wanna do. I, I wanna do that. I w- I wish I could do that. And then when I was probably around 12 or 13, I realized, you actually could do that. You could actually get the job of being a commando. And then it was just a matter of figuring out which one of the American branches had the closest thing to what I thought was a British Commando. And the closest thing that I found was being in the, being in the Navy and being in the SEAL teams.

3. 3:50 – 6:58

   What Is a Navy SEAL and the Special 'Hell' Training

   1. SBSteven Bartlett3:50

      And at 19 years old, you applied f- to be a Navy SEAL.

   2. JWJocko Willink3:54

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett3:55

      Okay, so, I have to ask a very dumb question here, which is, what is a Navy SEAL?

   4. JWJocko Willink4:00

      So, there's special operations, which, I, I guess, you know, from England, this is the, the SAS and the SBS, so those are the two sort of units that we get compared to the most. And, uh, so a Navy SEAL is a part of the Navy, but you're the special operations component of the Navy. And the, the term SEAL is actually an acronym which stands for sea, air, and land, because even though we're in the Navy, we are trained to operate in the sea, in the air, so in the sea meaning we dive, in the air meaning we parachute and rappel, and then on the land meaning we conduct land warfare operations. And you take all those things, combine them together, and that's what our job consists of.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett4:47

      I was under the assumption that to become a Navy SEAL or to be in the SAS, you had to have 10, 20 years in, of military service. You had to have, like, an established military service, and then you get some, like, pop-up on your computer and it says, (laughs) "Like, come to this, this building over here." And so to hear that you applied at 19 years old, I was like, "Oh, I didn't know teenagers could apply."

   6. JWJocko Willink5:06

      Yeah, no, I, I was 18 years old when I joined the Navy, and I joined on a contract that got me sent to SEAL training, and it took a year to get through, so I was 19 when I finished that up, but... There is, there's always debates about, "Well, don't you want someone that's more experienced?" And I actually loved the fact that I was basically raised (laughs) in the SEAL teams. It w- wy- it was just awesome. It was an awesome way to grow up. It was an awesome way to spend those, those years of your life learning the trade that you wanted to learn. And so, I, I thought it was awesome, and I think it worked out pretty well. There is a... Usually, the, the percentage of people that make it through SEAL training is about 20%. People that are under the age of 20, it goes down to about 5%. So, yeah. I was one of those, like, small percentage of people that are very young but still make it through.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett5:58

      And w- what is the characteristics that they're ultimately testing with the design of that training? What are they testing for?

   8. JWJocko Willink6:05

      Will you keep going?

   9. SBSteven Bartlett6:08

      In the face of...

   10. JWJocko Willink6:10

       Whatever.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett6:12

       Well, they, they call the, uh, one of the weeks "hell week," don't they?

   12. JWJocko Willink6:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett6:16

       So, they try and simulate (laughs) hell, by the sounds of it.

   14. JWJocko Willink6:19

       Yeah. They try and simulate hell. It's, it's... They actually were trying to simulate combat initially. When they created that week, they wanted to take as much combat simulation from World War II at the time, and put it into a very compressed schedule so they could create these frogmen to go overseas and conduct operations, 'cause World War II was going on. And so, they needed to compress the training cycle, so they compressed a bunch of that combat simulation into... It's about five and a half days. No sleep, lots of physical activity, lots of stress, lots of pain, and lots of people quit.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett6:57

       How many people

4. 6:58 – 8:59

   What It Takes to Become a Special Force Agent

   1. SBSteven Bartlett6:58

      quit? In that particular week?

   2. JWJocko Willink7:00

      Mo- I would say most of the people that quit, probably of, of... I- i- it's pro- probably 80% of the quitters quit in that week.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett7:12

      It's been long discussed. I think there's a book, um, called Grit where they discuss what it takes in terms of character traits to get through these kinds of endurance tasks. And people often think it's those that have the biggest muscles or that do the most, I don't know, cardiovascular exercise. But from what you've observed, and this is maybe a broader point about adversity and life, is there any similarities in the people that are able to get themselves through adversity?

   4. JWJocko Willink7:38

      It's, it's... There's, there's some internal drive that you either have or you don't have, and if you have it, you won't quit. And if you don't have it, you're gonna quit. And it breaks people. The other thing is, you might be an exceptional swimmer and you might be exceptional upper body strength but you're not that fast of a runner. They're gonna find that out. Or you might be a fast runner but a bad swimmer. They're gonna find out what your weakness is. You might not like the cold. They're gonna see it. You might not like the boat on your head. They're gonna see it. They might see that you have a bad temper. They're gonna find that and they're gonna pick at that thing to either make you come out the other side, or make you quit. It's a pretty, it's a pretty amazing thing. It's a prett- it's a pretty amazing thing, it's a pretty profound thing to look at from the outside and, and, and see it. 'Cause when I was going through it, it was just sort of... I was young. I didn't care. I was gonna do it. They was nothing that they were gonna tell me that was gonna make me quit. I never thought about quitting. If they told me to get back in the water again, let's go. They told me d'you know what I mean? To put that log on, on my shoulder? Let's go. Put the boat on my head? Let's go. I, I, I didn't care. (laughs)

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:51

      Can you teach that? That, "Let's go." That, "We're gonna go, jump back in the water, let's go."

   6. JWJocko Willink8:57

      I think that, I think

5. 8:59 – 10:25

   What Is the Point of Working This Hard?

   1. JWJocko Willink8:59

      that's one of the few things that you learn in basic SEAL training, is to shrug your shoulders and go forward. Like, uh, one of the things they do is, they'll, they'll line you up on the ocean. And this is in California, and sometimes people think that California is nice, warm water, but it's not. It's 55 degrees and I don't know what the heck that translates to in centigrade, but it's cold. And one of the things they do is, they'll, they'll line you up and they say, "Interlock arms," and you get arm in arm with the guy next to you, and they say, "Forward march," and you wa- march in the water. And they say, "Take seats," and you sit down. And they leave you in there. And it's called surf torture. And you just sit there. And they'll... After a while, they'll pull you up out of the water, they'll line you up, and the doctor will come down and see if anyone has hypothermia. And if no one has hypothermia or signs of hypothermia yet, get back in the water. And th- they just keep doing that. (laughs) And so, yeah, it's, uh... Y- what you learn to do is, "Okay, I'm gonna go forward. There's no... I can't get out of this. I've gotta go forward. I'm not gonna quit so I'm gonna go forward, bring it on." And I think, if there's anything that you learn, it's to, to keep pushing through things that suck.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:09

      Yeah.

   3. JWJocko Willink10:09

      And I would love to say, like, "Oh, s- keep pushing through adversity," but this isn't adversity. This is just things that suck. It's one level below adversity. Adversity is when you're having a challenge. This is just something that's gonna suck and you're gonna have to push through it.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:24

      'Cause

6. 10:25 – 12:23

   Can You Teach This Crazy Drive?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett10:25

      I'm asking myself if this is something I could teach, you know, or I could be taught. Because I, I, I look at someone like you who's, you know, done all the things that you've done through your life, and I go, "Di- di- did you have some kind of innate advantage, or can we all become Jocko?"

   2. JWJocko Willink10:41

      If I had to guess, I would say no. I, I would say you can't teach it. I would say that you can grow it. If you've got the seed of some sort of fire, you could probably grow and you can get better at it. But y- y- e- same thing, you go back to, like, pris- y- if you've ever met anyone that was a prisoner of war or people that went through, like, the Bataan Death March. There's some people that had a will that they were not gonna die. They s- th- "I'm not gonna die, I'm gonna keep going." And s- and the people that died? They, they did not have the will to live. And think about how bad things have to be before you say, "You know what? I'm just gonna lay here and die." That, and that can get to that point. I had a guy on my podcast that was... He was shot down in Vietnam, and he was shot down in South Vietnam, captured, and so he had to do a seven-month trek through the jungle with his captors. And at one point, he's in a two-foot-tall bamboo cage in the jungle, and he's trying to fall asleep but he can't sleep because the rats are gnawing at the wounds on his legs, and he's shackled. And he was with guys that... did not have the, the intrinsic will to carry on. And if you didn't have that will to carry on, you die.

7. 12:23 – 15:36

   Is Our WHY Important?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett12:23

      You talked about the role that having a why plays, and I was thinking about, you know, if I just, if I just lost my girlfriend or someone... I'd gone through some severe rejection or someone in my life had died and their part- my parting promise to them was I was gonna do this, the role that having some kind of reason to carry on plays in how we handle adversity or things that suck. Did you see- have you seen any patterns in that? Is it important? Because-

   2. JWJocko Willink12:47

      (laughs)

   3. SBSteven Bartlett12:47

      ... there's books behind me that literally say, "Start with your why," and those kinds of things.

   4. JWJocko Willink12:51

      Yeah. And, you know, that's a... Anything from, "Oh, my girlfriend dumped me and I'm gonna prove her wrong," to something that... Much more significant, which is, "My girlfriend died and I told her I was gonna do this and I'm gonna do it for her," both those things, depending on the human being, can be a strong enough- I- a strong enough why to get through. And I've, I've, I have friends that were... Well, I have one friend that was into Vietnam, he was in Vietnam, and when he showed up to SEAL training, he didn't know what it was. He thought he was volunteering to be, like, a diver, a, a diver that would do construction under, under boats. He thought s- well, that, that what it was, and so he showed up and they're like, "This is SEAL training." He said, "What's a SEAL?" And they kind of explained it to him, and then he went and made it through. All that torture, all that mayhem, and why? 'Cause th- that was what they were telling him to do and he goes, "Okay, if that's what we're doing, let's go." So again, I would love to be able to, you know, give you this profound anchor that people need to have. But it's like, do, do you wanna do this or not? Which is what I think a lot of it boils down to. Do you actually wanna do this or not? Do you actually wanna do this or not? 'Cause if you actually wanna do it, what's gonna stop you? Nothing. And if you don't really wanna do it, what's gonna stop you? Just about anything that comes up. Just about any obstacle that gets in your way becomes an excuse, it becomes a reason, it becomes a rationale for not proceeding down that path. And, and, and this is interesting too. You... When you talk to people that went to SEAL training that didn't make it, most of the time, it's some reason. There's a medical reason, there's a family problem. There's very few people that look at you and say, "Oh, I quit 'cause it sucked," which is what, by the way, which is what happens to the vast majority of people. The vast majority of people that don't make it through SEAL training, and by this I mean 80, 90% of the people that don't make it through SEAL training, they didn't make it through because they quit. Then there's a small percentage that had a medical problem and then there's a small percentage that got performance dropped, meaning they couldn't perform the runs, the swims, the, the, the technical aspects of the job and they failed and they get dropped. But the vast majority of people, they quit, but they don't usually say that. And even in their mind, they probably don't believe it. They probably believe, "Well, you know, it was my leg and once my leg was hurting, I knew I was gonna have a hard time on the runs and since I wasn't gonna be able to make the runs, I ju- that's why I quit. But it wasn't really quitting, it was 'cause of my leg." So it's, it's, it's... Like I said, it's a very, it's a very strange and, and, and (laughs) and really kind of a, a mystical thing.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett15:35

      Excuses.

8. 15:36 – 20:10

   Your Excuses Will Destroy You

   1. SBSteven Bartlett15:36

      You're talking there about people making excuses.

   2. JWJocko Willink15:38

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett15:39

      What have you come to learn about the nature of excuses and if they are our friends, our enemies, if they're ever useful (laughs) ?

   4. JWJocko Willink15:45

      Your excuses will destroy you and take everything that you ever wanted from you, if you let them.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett15:52

      Doesn't sound like a friend.

   6. JWJocko Willink15:53

      No, it's definitely (laughs) not a friend. It is definitely not a friend. It, it can seem like a friend, just like your friend that, uh, keeps feeding you drinks at the bar can seem like a friend. But are they really helping you in any way, shape, or form? No, they're not. They're not. So when you... When your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on, then they can make you feel better. But they're not helping you. They're not helping you at all.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett16:22

      Is that what you th-... When you think about Extreme Ownership, which is the title of, um, this book here in front of me, is... Are excuses the opposite, excuses and blame, is that the opposite of Extreme Ownership?

   8. JWJocko Willink16:33

      That is the opposite of Extreme Ownership. Extreno- Extreme Ownership is this went wrong, this failed, didn't accomplish this, and it's not the fault of my boss, it's not the fault of my girlfriend, it's not the fault of my parents, it's not the fault of the weather, it's my fault. And I'm gonna take ownership of it and I'm gonna fix it. That's what Extreme Ownership is. And this is a very difficult thing to do because it hurts. Because when you look around at your life and you look around at your job and your financial situation and your relationship and your physical health, and when you look at all those things and all the problems that you may have with those things, and you say, "The reason I have all those problems is because of me," that can hurt. That can sting. And a lot of times, our ego rejects that and makes excuses and lies, and then we don't have to change anything, and then nothing changes.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett17:35

      If someone was on the extreme end of that disease of excuse and blame and all of those things, is there anything that you could do or you would advise them to do to kind of walk back from there, to get over the other side? 'Cause I think we can all think of people in our lives, and maybe even ourselves at times, who have gotten into a chronic pattern of using excuses and blame as a form of self-defense because we don't wanna turn that mirror back at us and l- have to confront reality. Like, I think sometimes... If, if I think about my, some of my closest friends, those that have the lowest self-esteem will use excu- excuses and blame the most because it's...... you know, personal responsibility might not, in the short term at least, do anything for my already low self-esteem, so I'm gonna blame the world as self-defense. What's step one to get out of that?

   10. JWJocko Willink18:28

       Well, unfortunately, what happens a lot, and y- you may or may not have seen this, but I, I would assume you've seen this at some point in your life, people... And this is a term, there's a term, it's rock bottom, right? This is a term that we hear for someone that's addicted, someone that's an alcoholic, someone that's physically let themselves go, someone that's put themselves into a, a situation with their finances or their work or whatever where they reach rock bottom. But when it, when it, when the excuses all go away and people can actually confront the fact that, "This is all because of me," and this is... It hurts, but is also unbelievably empowering. Because if these problems are because of me, then I'm capable of fixing these problems. So even though extreme ownership hurts and is painful, it's also liberating, because now you have control over your fate and over your destiny, and that is a glorious thing.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett19:32

       Is that, to you, how you start to build confidence? Confidence seems to be this really elusive thing. Confidence ultimately is a belief you have, and these beliefs are like instruction manuals for our life. H- You must have seen in your, you know, in your, all your years, some people really build their confidence. And, um, I guess you've seen other people destroy their confidence.

   12. JWJocko Willink19:51

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett19:52

       So what is the nature of how we build our own confidence?

   14. JWJocko Willink19:55

       Yep. Uh, you're right, I have seen it, and I've had to do it to people. I had to take people and build their confidence. And so how do you do that? You know, if you're a young officer in the SEAL teams and y- you, you feel like maybe you kinda got here, you got

9. 20:10 – 25:04

   The Hack to Build Confidence and Belief

   1. JWJocko Willink20:10

      lucky, you barely made it through training, and all of a sudden I'm saying, "Hey, you're in charge of this squad right here," and you don't feel like you have the confidence to do it. And so it comes time to make a decision and you're sort of looking around and the guys are looking at you like, "Hey, are you gonna make a call or what?" And finally someone just steps on you and says, "Hey, I got it. Hey, everyone move over to this building," and now your confidence goes down even lower, which is a problem. So how am I gonna build your confidence? Well, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take you and I'll put you into a situation that I know you can handle. I'm gonna put... I'm gonna give you a task that I know you can do. It's just, uh, look, it's not gonna be a total softball, it's not gonna be a joke of a task. I'm gonna give you something that I know you can handle, and I'm gonna let you do that. And I might let you do that two, three, four, five times. I might say, "Hey, on this next operation, Steven, I want you to, uh, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna hold the left flank with your, with your squad." The whole... Everyone else is assaulting buildings, they're setting up external sc- you're just, "Hey, just, you just hold this, you just set your team up on this berm over here and, and watch to the north." And look, this is a pretty easy job, all right? And so you go out there, you take your team, you get on the berm, you look to the north. You do a good job. Confidence goes up a little bit. Now, look, there was no pressure. You didn't have to make any decisions, but you did what you were supposed to do. And I might have you do that two or three times, and then the next time I say, "Hey, you know what? Hey, good job out there." I'm gonna build up your confidence a little bit. And then I'm gonna say, "Hey, I need you to handle security to the north and to the west." All right? So you're gonna have two squads now. So I'm just gonna give you small tasks that I know you can handle to build up your confidence, and over time, you will become more and more confident, and you're gonna hit some challenges, and you'll overcome those challenges, and if you do, great, your confidence will go u- If you fail in a challenge, I might have to reset you a little bit, but this, uh, th- this sounds like a big, long process, but it's actually usually not that long. It's actually people kinda nod their head, "Oh, yeah. I can do this." Contrarily, sometimes I get a, a guy who's overconfident, and, you know, I got Steven walking in here like, "Uh, you're darn right I should be in charge," and what do I do with you? 'Cause now you got an ego, you're not listening to people. Now I'm like, "Hey, Steven, you know, s- since you're doing so awesome, why don't you run this whole assault team tonight?" And you go, "Yeah, no problem," and then you get out there and you're not ready to lead a whole assault team. You're not ready for that chaos and that confusion and that mayhem. And so about halfway through the assault when there's... you've completely lost control, I might walk in and say, "Hey, Steven, I'm sending chief down there to straighten you out," and you go, "Roger. Thank you."

   2. SBSteven Bartlett22:50

      (laughs)

   3. JWJocko Willink22:50

      And you get humbled. So if someone's trying to build confidence from a work perspective, we do the same thing. Whether it's a, a business, a company, give that person a task, a project that they can handle and help them build their confidence. Now, as far as you as an individual human being, it's a very similar process. Train. Study. Work. Practice. Train, study, work, practice. Train, study, work, practice, and eventually you will increase your confidence. So I... In your book, you were talking about the fact that you didn't like speaking, you didn't like public speaking. So what did you do? Did you sign up to go talk in front of a thousand people, you know, tomorrow afternoon? No. You started small, and you built a little bit of confidence, and then you win a little bit bigger for an audience and the confidence grows a little bit more. Little bit bigger audience, confidence grows, and you get to a point where there's no audience that's gonna s- stumble you in any way. So that's the same process. It's, it's basically exposure therapy, right? It's, it's basically exposure therapy where you expose yourself to a little bit, and this is... You know, you were talking about Jordan Peterson, exposure therapy. I give you a little bit. I don't overwhelm you with it, 'cause if I overwhelm you with it, you're gonna be scared of it. I mean, if you lack confidence and I put you in charge of something that you can't handle, your confidence is gonna (laughs) go back even further. So I need to give you enough exposure-... that you do well, increase your confidence, and you're gonna do fine.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett24:26

      Whenever we're swimming, I don't know, a couple of centimeters just outside of our depth in any regard, we have that thing that some people have dubbed imposter syndrome, where we start... the story we tell ourselves about this depth is that we're a fraud, we shouldn't be out this far, um, we're gonna get found out. And that can sometimes, I think if we tell ourselves that story about whatever, you know, depth we're swimming at, that lowers our performance. Sometimes it can make us, our confidence decrease. What is your take on this term, imposter syndrome? Do you think it's a real thing?

   5. JWJocko Willink24:58

      Yeah, I think it's a real thing, and I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's bad because if, once again, if you're

10. 25:04 – 29:22

    Why Imposter Syndrome Is Necessary

    1. JWJocko Willink25:05

       coming to work for me and you're like, "I'm glad you hired me. I'm ready to take over this department. Look out," I'd be a little bit questioning th- the fact that you are so overconfident that you're gonna go in and do things that you might not really understand. Now, if you had a little imposter syndrome and you said, "Hey, Jocko, I really appreciate you hiring me. Um, you know, I haven't really done this type of work before. Can I ask you a couple questions?" I'd be thinking to myself, "Okay. He's humble. He's wanting to do a good job. He doesn't think he knows everything." I'd feel more com- comfortable with someone like that. So, I don't think imposter syndrome is a bad thing. I think if you feel it, it's actually a good indication that you're humble and you have an open mind and you're gonna listen to what people have to say. So, that's number one, and number two, if you feel like you have imposter syndrome, if you're going to a meeting and you're gonna get assigned a project or you're gonna be discussing a project that you're really, "Wait, should I even be here? Should I be put in charge of this project?" What you do is you go into the meeting and you say, "Hey, everyone. I really appreciate everyone coming to the kickoff of this meeting. Hey, just so everyone knows, this is my first time running a project like this. I'm definitely gonna have some questions for some of you that done this before. So, if you see me going off track on something and you see a mistake that I'm making, please let me know, because what I want is for the team to win." Okay, there it is. It's on the table. I don't know everything. I'm not that experienced in this particular thing, but I'm humble and willing to listen, and I want the team to do well. No more imposter syndrome.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett26:40

       Is that the same in the Navy SEALs? 'Cause one would assume that you, you know, as a leader, you've gotta tell people what to do.

    3. JWJocko Willink26:45

       That is wrong in the Navy SEALs, and that is not a good (laughs) assumption. In the SEAL teams, you, the good leaders in the SEAL teams absolutely have an open mind, wanna hear other people's opinions on how to execute an operation, wanna hear what shortfalls there are when a plan is presented that, "Hey, what about this and what about that?" And n- a good leader's not going to impose plan as... In fact, my standard operating procedure was to have my subordinate leadership come up with plans instead of me trying to come up with the plans. In fact, that's the best way to operate.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett27:23

       That means you ask them for the plan.

    5. JWJocko Willink27:25

       100%.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett27:27

       Why?

    7. JWJocko Willink27:28

       There's a multitude of reasons. Number one, I want you to have ownership of the plan, right? So, if I'm imposing a plan on you, then that's not really your plan. I want you to, I want you to come up with a plan, and I want you to go to your team and I want you to collectively come up with a plan that you all embrace and understand and buy into. So, it's going to be a better plan from your perspective if you come up with it. Also, if I come up with a plan, I'm in the plan. So, when I'm in the plan, I can't see the plan as well. I wanna be outside the plan, looking at it from the outside, from a different perspective, where then I can see the holes in the plan and I can ask you some questions about the plan that you came up with. And finally, if I'm coming up with a plan, if I'm staring down at the map coming up with a plan, well, who's looking up and out? Who's looking at the follow-on operations? Who's looking at where our, our other units are out in the battlefield? Who's checking on the intelligence that we're gathering about the enemy? If I'm looking down and in, I'm not looking up and out. If I'm coming up with a plan myself, I'm looking down and in. If I'm letting you come up with a plan, I can look up and out, you can look down and in, and we can have a lot more awareness of the battlefield.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett28:44

       Often, leaders and managers, we get, I think, caught up in, in the proverbial trenches. We get a little bit too close to the painting, so we can't see the picture. I- how important do you think it is to be the leader that's able to take a step back?

    9. JWJocko Willink29:01

       That is the job of a leader. That is the job of a leader, to take a step back, detach from the situation, and see the entire picture of what is unfolding or what is being planned or what is happening. If you are in the problem, you won't see the solution to the problem.

11. 29:22 – 34:03

    Why the Special Forces Leaders Ask Their Team for Advice

    1. JWJocko Willink29:22

       Y- y- i- i- you, we will very rarely. So, you have to be able to detach, and that's one of the, the main things that I tried to teach young leaders when I was in the SEAL teams. It's the same thing that I try and teach leaders now, is to take a step back, detach from the chaos, detach from the mayhem, detach from your emotions, detach from your ego, and be able to assess the best way to execute. And give, you know, the book, the book is called Extreme Ownership, that you referenced. That doesn't mean that I do everything myself. In fact, what I wanna do is I want you to take ownership, and how do I get you to take ownership? I give it to you. "Hey, Steven, how do you wanna run this project?" And l- and listen, what if you come up with a terrible plan? Or n- no, l- let's say, let's say you come up with a... let's say I come up with, like... I, I, in my mind, I've got something that's gonna be a 95% solution. And I say, "Well, you know, I'm gonna delegate. So, Steven, how do you wanna do this?" And you come up with, like, an 80% solution. Now what should I do?... I'll tell you, I'll still let y- I'll still run with your plan. I'll be like, "Okay. Steven sounds good." If you come to me with a 70% plan, I might say, "Hey, Steven. What about this?" And you go, "Oh." Yeah, I'm gonna make adjustment there, and all of a sudden we got it to a 78% plan and we're still good. If you come to me with a 20% plan, now I can ask you three or four questions before you say, "Hey, Jocko. Let me... I'll, I'll be back in a couple of hours. I'm gonna go reformulate this thing."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett30:51

       (laughs)

    3. JWJocko Willink30:51

       And by the way, all that's training you, right? All those questions are training you. You coming up with a plan is training for you. Because if, if I'm... got people that work for me and they can't come up with a plan by themselves, I'm a complete failure as a leader. So, I'm gonna train you so that you can come up with plans and I can look up and out.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett31:11

       Takes a lot of patience, doesn't it? Because you kn- y- you know in those, many of those situations that you're not gonna get from A to B as fast as you possibly could've.

    5. JWJocko Willink31:20

       It's a investment in a long-term efficiency. Because even though I might have to invest a little bit more time right now and I spent 10 minutes explaining to you why this tactic would be better than that tactic, even though it's gonna cost me 10 minutes right now, or maybe a half an hour, if we look up in six months and you're actually coming up with better plans than me.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett31:41

       Y- you know, I, I read throughout your books you went from being that young teenager who passed training to really, like, leading the Navy SEALs in many respects.

    7. JWJocko Willink31:50

       Well, leading a, an element of-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett31:52

       Yeah.

    9. JWJocko Willink31:52

       ... SEALs, yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett31:54

        That's, um... When you look back on that accomplishment, have you figured out what it is about you in particular that allowed you and enabled you to do that? Is there something, is there, is there a muscle you grew?

    11. JWJocko Willink32:14

        I was... I'm a hard worker. I... You know, I w- I was never great at anything, like as a kid. I wasn't the fastest, I wasn't the strongest, I wasn't the smartest. But I did, I did know that I could work hard. I had to work hard, and I listened to people. I didn't think I knew everything. I, I... Y- even sometimes I'll joke about it, "Yeah, you know, when you're young and arrogant..." Even when I was young and arrogant, like we all are when we're 23 years old or 22 years old and you're young and you think you know everything, even then I always had that little, like, "You don't know everything." And I think that humility paid a, played a big role in me being able to be successful, because I was never afraid to say, "Hey, I'm not 100% sure what to do right now. What do you guys think?" Or, "Hey, I feel like I've reached the limitations of my thought process. I need some help." And so I think that's one of the main reasons that I was able to, to, to do a good job, to do, to do a good job.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett33:25

        When I meet someone like you, I, I wonder. I go, "This guy must have seen so many things, so many things that the average human being will absolutely never see." You know? And I... 'Cause you were, you were sent all around the world on some in- absolutely incredible, unimaginable missions for, for 20, 20 years. For s- for the average person who has no idea what your eyes have seen, can you paint me a picture of some of those extremes?

    13. JWJocko Willink33:58

        Well, it's war. So

12. 34:03 – 36:56

    The Craziest Missions and Things I've Seen...

    1. JWJocko Willink34:03

       it's, it's war. It's people being wounded, people being killed. In Iraq with the insurgents that we were fighting, it's them torturing people, mutilating their bodies, raping, beheading people. Horror. But, you know, it's interesting when, when I talk to other people, when I meet people, I always think to myself what you're saying that you think when you see me, I always think that when I see other people. Because other people, we don't know what they've been through. We don't know what kind of childhood they'd had, you don't know what kinda horrors they've seen, you don't know what kind of abuse they've suffered, you don't know what a kind of... You don't know what kind of trials and tribulations other people have faced. So I, I don't... I, I look at everyone. And, and, and also, the trials and tribulation that someone face, someone faces, that, that's profoundly difficult for them regardless of what it was, regardless of if they were a, a, a person that, you know, got injured really bad their... when they were in high school, they're 15 years old and they broke their leg and they, they, they couldn't play their sport anymore and now they're 17, but that was a traumatic thing for them. And, yeah, so when I, when I look at other people, when I talk to other people, I always think everyone, everyone... every human faces challenges, and you don't know what they've been through. And they, they might have been through things that are worse than what I've been through. And I usually, my assumption is, people have been through a lot of challenges, and they've p- they've persevered through it, and here they are. So I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett36:17

       But humans aren't supposed to be exposed to those kinds of images. And I think if you spoke to a, I don't know, a trauma psychologist, they would s- they would class a lot of those things that you've seen as what they call, like, tall T traumas, like really, really traumatic events. How...How does someone like you go about processing those things to ensure that that trauma doesn't show up in later life? You know, we talk about soldiers coming back from war, suffering with PTSD and things like that. Wh- what have you done to sort of insulate yourself, or at least help you understand the, some of the, some of the things you saw?

    3. JWJocko Willink36:50

       There's evil in the world, and there's evil people in the world, and evil people are gonna

13. 36:56 – 47:44

    The Dark Side of War and Losing Friends

    1. JWJocko Willink36:56

       do heinous and atrocious things, and that's a reality, and that's always been the reality. And the best thing that I can do is, well, when I was in the military, do my best to, to stop that kind of atrocious behavior, and when I'm out of the military, try not to, or t- try and help people move away from those thoughts. I mean, when you're talking about, like, your, my, my family, like my family didn't, they... My wife wasn't tracking what was going on when I was overseas. She didn't know what was happening, most of the time. You know, when my guys got wounded or my guys got killed, she knew. She went to their... She went to the hospital to visit them. She went to f- their funerals. But I wasn't dragging her down the, the, the, to the depths of human nature. I took that. And same with my kids, I didn't share with them that these things happen. So... And, and that's... So, so I think from my perspective, you know, it's like the reality of the world is, yeah, there's evil people in the world. I accept that reality. I understand that reality. There's also good people in the world, and there's people that do amazing things. There's people that sacrifice their lives for their friends, and that's part of humanity. So, I like to focus on that part of humanity rather than the dark side of humanity. But if you really want to appreciate the, the light and the good, then you have to recognize that there is darkness and there is evil.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett39:03

       Was there a hardest day while you were in the Navy SEALs? Is there a day you look back on and say that was the, the most, sort of emotionally testing day?

    3. JWJocko Willink39:13

       Yeah, losing guys in combat.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett39:20

       And that stays with you?

    5. JWJocko Willink39:23

       Oh, yeah. Always.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett39:29

       I just can't imagine. You know, I just can't... I've never lost a friend. I've got two older brothers. I've never lost my brothers. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine how difficult it is to like go forward when you've lost, you know, you referred to these people as your brothers.

    7. JWJocko Willink39:57

       And I'm not unique. And the guys we were over, in the Battle of Ramadi, when we were over there, the, the Army and the Marine Corps, they were losing guys every day. This is not unique. I'm not unique. There's guys that were in charge of units that lost 10, 12, 15 guys. And it's not unique for human beings either, because even though you haven't lost any friends, you haven't lost any of your brothers, you will. This is part of life. And so, this is part of life. People have... You know, everyone's died. And in combat, people have died, and people carried on. And I know that my friends that died, they would not want me to sit around and mourn and, and, and break down and drink and, and pop pills. They wouldn't want me to do that at all. They'd want me to live. That's what they would want. They would want me to live. They would want me to go out and make things happen and, and drive on and enjoy and surf and play guitar and do jujitsu. That's what they'd want me to do, 100%. 100%. In fact, they would be disgusted if what I did with the gift that they gave me was piss it away. They'd be disgusted. And I won't do that. Not, not a chance. Gonna live, like they would want me to.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett41:48

       In those moments, that's certainly what logic tells you, but those moments, it's hard to be logical in those moments, right?

    9. JWJocko Willink41:59

       Yeah. I ended up with some pattern recognition on this whole scenario, unfortunately, because when you lose friends over and over and over again, you start to see what happens from an emotional perspective, from a spiritual perspective, from a physical perspective. And what I, what I began to recognize as, as a pattern...... is, and the way that I explain this to people that go through loss like this, is you're gonna have... You're not gonna be in control of your emotions sometimes. So... And since you're 31 years old, you've had control, pretty good control over your emotions since you were seven years old or eight years old. Occasionally you'd break down, occasionally you'd lose your temper, but you've gotten more and more in control the older you've got, gotten. So you're not used to not being in control of your emot- We as adults are not used to losing control of our emotions. So what's gonna happen, you lose one of your friends, you lose one of your family members, you're gonna get hit with a wave, waves of emotion that you can't control. And this sometimes causes people to, to really overreact and think that they're in this terrible place because they think, "Oh my gosh, I've been able to control my emotions for the last 30 years and now I'm lose, now I'm, I'm, I can't control my emotions. There's something wrong with me," is what they think. And this is what I learned, is that those waves of emotion, they're gonna s- they're gonna roll back and you're gonna, you're gonna get control again, take a breath, and then you're gonna get hit with another storm, but it's gonna go away. And you're gonna get hit with another storm, but it's not gonna be as strong. And then it's gonna go away and you're gonna get hit with another storm that's gonna be a longer period of time and it's not gonna be as strong. And what this is, is this is your... This is you processing what happened. And eventually you do get... You regain control of your emotions. And there's still gonna be times, there's still gonna be times where you're gonna be three years, five years, 10 years down the road, you're gonna be hit with a wave of emotion and you're gonna be caught off guard. It's gonna catch you. I had a guy on my podcast that was in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. And so we were, we, we talked about World War II where he was, you know, a young private soldier, and then he was a little bit more senior when he was in Korea, and then in Vietnam he was a battalion commander, so he's in charge of 700 guys. And we s- we're, we were talking and I, I, I said something along the lines of... I, I asked him something about his... The casualties that he took in his battalion. And so now this is, you know, he was in Vietnam in, I don't know, 1967 or 1968, so it's been 60 years. And I asked him about casualties that he took and he got choked up. Got choked up, lost control of his emotions for a s- for a second. And when I saw that, I felt so relieved. I felt so relieved because I thought, "Oh, it's always gonna be like this." And that's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's normal. Lost your friends. Lost your brothers. Is it, is it, is it wrong that you get choked up when you talk about this? Nothing wrong with that. Here's a guy that lost his, m- lost, of, lo- lost some of his men 60 years ago and he's getting choked up right now. Why? Because he loved them. Because he, he wishes he could've brought them through that conflict and he didn't, and he feels it. And he lived a normal life. Retired from the Army, got follow-on jobs and had another career. But he lost his friends, his brothers, his men, and that hurts. And it's not gonna go away, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with you. Nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with me. Do, do I get choked up sometimes? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I lost some of my best friends. Does that hurt? Yep. Do I wallow in that? No. Do I dwell in those emotions? Nope. I don't. And they wouldn't want me to, and they'd be disappointed if I did.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett47:07

        I think it's really important because as men we, we don't... We get conflicting messages about emotion and how to express it and what that looks like and if there's weakness to certain emotions or if, you know... But the, it's, the psychology seems to be pretty clear that it, the suppression of these emotions, they're trying to hide them. The total compartmentalizing of them doesn't actually make them go z- go away. They just appear somewhere else in a bottle or in some kind of recreational drug or somewhere else, so.

    11. JWJocko Willink47:35

        And nor does... Suppressing them isn't gonna help and nor is letting them run your life. So because

14. 47:44 – 52:39

    Dealing with Sadness & Grief

    1. JWJocko Willink47:44

       you're sad, now you're gonna make a bunch of bad decisions 'cause you're sad. No, no, it doesn't, doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You're sad. Okay. You get emotional sometimes. Okay. Got it. Now, get control of your emotions and carry on with your life. And sometimes you're gonna get hit with those waves and that's okay. I, I think that's a big misconception, uh, and, and sort of relates to what you're saying. "Oh, I'm, I'm having s- an emotional moment right now. There's something wrong with me." No, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. The other extreme is, "Oh, I'm letting my emotions run my life and I'm making a bunch of bad decisions," and my excuse is, "Well, you know, I lost some friends," or, "I had this traumatic experience happen to me. That's why I'm doing..." That's just an excuse, and it's a very easy excuse. And in society, the last thing I wanna say to you is...... "Well, you can't act like that. Oh, you lost one of your friends? D- you know, hey, that doesn't mean you can make excuse, you can't use that as an excuse." No, I, I go, "Hey, man, uh, okay." It's what I say. Right? I'm a polite person. I'm empathetic person. You're sad, you're making bad decisions. You're saying it's 'cause you lost your friend, or you went through this traumatic thing, and I go, "Okay. I... How can I help?" Instead of saying, "Hey, man. Yeah. Guess what? It's time to carry on." Don't, don't dwell on the... Uh, I, I t- I've told 1,000 veterans this. Remember, don't dwell. Remember. Remember your friends. Don't dwell on the past, though. Remember, don't dwell. W- that's what we have to do. And the emotions? Yes, embrace those emotions, but don't let those emotions embrace you. Don't let those emotions run your life. There is, there is a... 'Cause people say, "Oh, y- uh, suppressing your emotions is bad. Okay, so I'm just gonna let all these emotions out, and they're gonna run my life now." No. No. No. At a certain point, you say, "Okay, my emotions are now leading me down the wrong path. I'm in control. I'm not gonna allow my emotions to make my decisions." They're in the calculus. I'm not saying take your emotions outta the calculus, but they have to be one component of your calculus, not the whole equation. The equation has to include emotions, yes. Logic, yes. Future, yes. Goals, yes. Family, yes. Work, yes. Finances, yes. All those things have to be in the calculus. Emotions has to be a part of tho- that calculus. You can't pull 'em out of there, or they'll bite you. But you can't make them the overwhelming denominator of everything that you do, or it's gonna be problematic.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett50:37

       I heard you tell a story which I thought was really inspiring. Actually, I was just listening to it before you came, about a friend of yours who was going through hardship in their life, and you... your advice for them was to start walking.

    3. JWJocko Willink50:48

       Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. It was a guy who was, yeah, going through hardship with his job, with his marriage, and the marriage was coming to an end, the job was not... was gonna come to an end as well. And he's out there and doesn't know what to do. And the analogy that I set up for him is, "If I'm in the woods, which is where you are right now. You're in the woods, and you don't know where to go. 'Cause the wife's not there anymore, the job's not there anymore, you don't know where to go right now. So if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. You gotta start walking, 'cause the perspective's not gonna change. You have to start moving forward. You have to tart- start taking steps in order to improve your vision, improve your perspective, change your perspective, make some kinda progress. And worst case scenario, you figure out that you walked the wrong direction. Okay. Now you can go walk in the other direction, and that's, that's gonna be fine. But standing there, lost, and not doing anything is just waiting to die, waiting to starve to death. Don't let that happen."

    4. SBSteven Bartlett52:01

       It's overthinking. It's that anxiety. It's that ruminating that I think... I've, I mean, I've done it multiple times in my life when the solution is... I can't get to certainty on the problem, so I, I try and think my way outta the problem (laughs) , which only seems to cause more harm than good.

    5. JWJocko Willink52:19

       Yeah, there's definitely a, a level of risk conditioning that you get inside the military, because there's... you're not, you're just not gonna be certain about anything. And y- you have to be able to say, "Yep, I'm gonna make this decision right now, and here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna make the smallest decision possible, gonna take the smallest step possible,

15. 52:39 – 1:00:19

    Decision Making & Taking Action

    1. JWJocko Willink52:39

       but I'm gonna, but I'm gonna take a step, because I'm never gonna know everything, and if I take the time to try and know everything, everything will have changed by the time I know it."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett52:49

       (laughs)

    3. JWJocko Willink52:49

       "So I'm going to absolutely take that step and take that action."

    4. SBSteven Bartlett52:54

       I mean, that's a metaphor for life as well, 'cause there's a lot of people trying to get to 100% certainty, whether to leave their job, or their marriage, or their start their business, and they're struggling maybe at 60, 70, maybe 80, 90% certainty-

    5. JWJocko Willink53:04

       Yep.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett53:05

       ... but for some reason, we seem to need, you know, certainty.

    7. JWJocko Willink53:08

       That's why I use the, what I, what I call the iterative decision-making process. I'm willing to take small steps. So am I trying to leave my... I don't like my job. I'm miserable there. Okay. Does that mean I walk in tomorrow morning and say, "Hey, boss, I hate it here. I quit." No. It doesn't mean that. It means I say, "Okay, I'm gonna start putting my resume together. I'm gonna start checking out LinkedIn. I'm gonna start seeing what qualifications I might need that could improve my ability to get a new job. Once I've done that, I'm gonna start sending out my resume. I'm gonna start building some relationships with some people." And now, I look up and I get another job offer. So I didn't make a crazy, short-termed emotional decision. I made a slow, progressive, iterative decision-making process that led me from a situation that I didn't like to an opportunity that seems more promising. And this could apply to just about anything.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett54:09

       I see this a lot in businesses. I see that the, the real cost in business... I spent about 10 years working in marketing, so I was... my job was to work with the CMO and the CEO, helping them to try and make certain marketing decisions. You know, th- invest in this platform, do this thing, whatever. And I came to learn over time that the biggest cost wasn't making th- a bad decision. It was the time you waste, the nine months wait- waiting for Joanna to get back from annual leave so we can have a meeting with Dave in procurement to get the invoice signed off, versus the CEOs that I worked with that said, "Let's do it now," when the decision was quite clearly-... low-cost, relatively low-cost or reversible-

    9. JWJocko Willink54:48

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett54:49

        ... it was always speed that seemed to, to pretty much... speed that seemed to win out because most decisions are either reversible or actually more inconsequential than you think.

    11. JWJocko Willink54:57

        Very few decisions are final. Very few decisions are final. Even something like buying a house. "Should I buy this house? Oh my gosh, it seems so..." Yeah. If you buy a house and you decide it wasn't the house that you wanted, you sell the house. Y- y- it's like... Now look, could you get caught in a bad market and could... Yeah, that can absolutely happen so you need to be smart about your decisions that you make, but most things are not as final as they seem. Most things, you're gonna be able to... And w- look, you paid the realtor so you lost three percent there, you paid the other realtor, you lost three percent, you had to pay the mortgage fees. So you're gonna lose some money, but it's not like you buy a million-dollar house and then you decide you don't like it. You don't lose a million dollars, you lose 80 grand or whatever.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett55:42

        (laughs)

    13. JWJocko Willink55:42

        You know? And it's okay. Two years, three years, you get it back. Wha- you s- so people think of decisions as being permanent. If, yeah, if you're, you're in marketing and you approach me and you say, "Hey listen, CEO, there is a new marketing opportunity that we'd like to get you into," and I go, "How much it cost?" And you say, "A million dollars," and I say, "Oh, that's a lot of money. K. Is there... Can I try it for a shorter period of time?" "Well yeah, but you won't get as much for your, for... You won't get as much volume." And I say, "Okay. Well, still, I don't wanna invest that much 'cause I'm not sure about it. Let's test it and see where it goes." And you say, "Oh, okay. We'll try that. And here's a hundred grand and let's see what feedback we get, and if it's good, it's good, and if it's not, we go somewhere else."

    14. SBSteven Bartlett56:26

        Do you think you were conditioned in some ways to have this sort of, uh, um, bias towards taking action? Because if... Your background in the SEALs, there was often some kind of time urgency, there was some factor that's causing you to have to take a decision. Is that-

    15. JWJocko Willink56:40

        Yeah. Well-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett56:41

        In business and life, there's not. There's not like, "We're gonna lose this" or "Someone's gonna die. There's gonna be an attack."

    17. JWJocko Willink56:47

        In the business world, the consequences are prolonged and usually not as extreme, so you can get away with less action even though eventually it will catch up with you. And you've got an example of that in your book in the, the father-son deal, and one of them takes nine months to execute and the other executes immediately, and the one that executes immediately is successful, the one that doesn't, takes nine months to execute, fails. So it... Eventually, inaction will cost you. In... And y- you say, interestingly, that, "Oh, in the SEAL teams, you must be conditioned to do this." I had to condition people to take action even in the SEAL teams. Even a young SEAL leader who you would think would be, by nature, aggressive and an action-taker, you put them in a pressure situation where there's not a ton of information and they need to make a decision, they don't wanna act either. So one of the things that I would teach was that their default mode was to be aggressive, their default mode was to take action. I would teach that. The same thing we just discussed. I wouldn't say, "Hey look, that means you have to take action," but your default setting should be, "I'm gonna do something." 'Cause I'd have a young SEAL officer and there'd be some training mission and there'd be a problem in a building and there'd be a bunch of paintball flying around (laughs) in there, and he wouldn't wanna go solve that problem. He'd back away from that problem, and I would have to go, like, push him in the back and say, "You see that problem over there? You gotta go solve that problem. It's not gonna go away. You gotta be aggressive. That's gotta be your default mode, is to take action and make things happen." Because most human instinct is to wait. Most human instinct is to hesitate. Most human instinct is to let things go longer and stick with the status quo and that seems to be, on the, on the front, the lowest risk in the situation, is to not do anything. It usually appears to be the lowest risk. But, just like the example that you gave in your book, it's, it definitely seems lower risk. "Oh well, he wants money, he wants investment, new thing, I don't know." The lowest risk in that situation is to not do anything, and that's what many people do, whether they're in the SEAL teams or whether they're in business. So to train people to, "Oh, I need to take risk, some level of risk, take action," because in the long run, I say seven out of ten. Seven out of ten times, action is better than inaction. 70% of the time, act. There's definitely times where you gotta ho- hesitate, there's definitely times where you gotta hold back, there's def-... And that's the other book you got there is called The Dichotomy of Leadership because there's times, yes, absolutely, action, aggression. There's also times, the other end of the spectrum, where it's like, "Uh, n- now's not the time to make a move." So it's, it's definitely a dichotomy, but the m-... To me, 70% of the time, better take that action. That's gotta be your default mode.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett59:41

        I asked you what your, your hardest day in, um, the SEALs were and you said about losing friends. What was, what was your proudest day? Is there a proudest day where you go, "Do you know what? I, I really showed up in a, in a way that I... to a standard that I held myself to and because I did, we accomplished something great together against the odds"?

    19. JWJocko Willink1:00:01

        There's a, a multitude of times where I was in Iraq, I was in a detached moment in time, you know, moving down a street, s- sitting in a vehicle,

16. 1:00:19 – 1:02:09

    From a Leader POV I'm the Proudest When My Team Does This

    1. JWJocko Willink1:00:19

       maneuvering, and I was, and I was watching my guys. I could see my guys and I could see what they were doing, and I could see... one of the most beautiful things in the world, which was guys that were exceptional at their job, working together as a team, maneuvering, protecting each other, accomplishing the mission.And I got to see that many times, and that's always... It had nothing to do with me. It had to do with them. It had to do with being able to see... Look, were we perfect? No. But were there moments when you see an element cover and move for each other on the battlefield? A simple plan with the right priorities, with decentralized command? W- Were there times when I got to see all those things? Yes. And that... Without a doubt, those were the, those were the, those were the best days.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:31

       There's something about, you know, and I think I've kinda seen this throughout your work, is you have a real focus on service, serving others as a path to, I, I guess fulfilling yourself. And we often think, I think many people think in life that the path to self-fulfillment is to serve yourself. But it seems like you've kinda figured out that the path is by serving others.

    3. JWJocko Willink1:01:54

       Yeah, I think that's... There's, there's an underlying core component and belief and, and innate DNA in the SEAL teams, and that is you take care of your, you take care of your friends.

17. 1:02:09 – 1:05:16

    Why You Should Serve Others

    1. JWJocko Willink1:02:09

       And, and that's not... I- in fact, if you're the type of person that doesn't take care of your friends, you're not gonna be a good SEAL. You're not gonna be a good SEAL. If, if you put yourself before the team... Look, you can be a great shot, you can be strong, you can be fast, all those things, but no one's gonna really want you in a platoon if you put yourself above them. And people don't really talk about that. You... No one ever told me that, but you feel it. And if you're, if you're not self-aware, you c- you might slip into where you're looking out for yourself, and it's a problem. And this happens in life too. You know, if you're, if you... It, it happens in business where I see a guy that he's taking care of himself. And, and, you know, it's a smart guy, and he usually thinks he's pretty smart, and he usually thinks he's a little bit smarter than everybody else, and he usually thinks that no one else is gonna notice that he's taking care of himself.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:10

       (laughs)

    3. JWJocko Willink1:03:10

       And everybody sees it.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:11

       Yeah (laughs) .

    5. JWJocko Willink1:03:13

       And they dig themselves a grave. They, they dig themselves a graves. And they... I'm not saying they don't get away with it a little bit. Usually, they get a couple promotions, you know, they get to a spot. But ultimately, people don't wanna work with that person, and so they burn their relationships, and they don't do as well as they should. And which is the, the kinda nice thing, is if you take care of other people, they'll take care of you. If you screw other, over other people, you're, you're gonna get screwed over. So yeah, I think there's (laughs) there's, there's definitely that underlying theme in the SEAL teams. I've seen it now in business. And it is, it is, it is going to... If you, if you look out for yourself all the time, it's gonna catch up with you.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:02

       I think everyone can relate. In the s- if anyone's ever worked in a business, and they have colleagues, I think everyone will be able to think about the colleague who is always seeking credit, is, um, is always, you know, being selfish in the way that they're showing up. And then they can also think about the colleague who's the complete opposite of that. And it's often... It's funny, it was making me think as you were speaking, that leadership is, in fact, in many respects, it's given, it's not taken, i.e. the person that's showing up for other people, but also delivering on their own work, is often kind of elected the leader of the group. This is... I just... You know, we talk a lot in business, I think it was Steve Jobs that said, "The very, very best leaders in my organization were the, those that were so good at their job, and they were never thinking about, like, being a leader, but that's the reason they ultimately became it."

    7. JWJocko Willink1:04:48

       Yeah. Uh, when people ask me, and I got a, I got a book I wrote called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. It's like, how to get promoted. How do you get promoted? Don't worry about getting promoted. F- focus on the team, focus on the mission, focus on doing a good job, focus on supporting your teammates. If you do those things, you're gonna get promoted. And i- it takes... You'll have this, you know, the dark part of your personality will say, "Yeah, but they're not gonna notice. They need to see me now!" And you'll raise your hand and say, "I want credit for that."

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:15

       (laughs)

    9. JWJocko Willink1:05:15

       And then the minute you

18. 1:05:16 – 1:08:31

    Don't Do This If You Want a Promotion

    1. JWJocko Willink1:05:16

       do that, the minute you raise your hand and say, "Give me credit," your credit goes down.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:20

       (laughs)

    3. JWJocko Willink1:05:21

       It's an unfortunate truth. The minute you ask for the accolades, your accolades are decreased, because every... You're looking out for yourself, and everyone can smell that, and they don't like it.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:34

       Yeah, you're saying that the mis- I'm more important than the mission in some respects.

    5. JWJocko Willink1:05:37

       Yeah. Terrible. Terrible.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:40

       Did you have people like that in the, in the services when you were, you were out there, people that were clearly selfish-

    7. JWJocko Willink1:05:47

       Oh, yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:47

       ... in the SEALs?

    9. JWJocko Willink1:05:48

       Absolutely, yep.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:49

        How did you deal with that?

    11. JWJocko Willink1:05:52

        Well, if they were my boss, then I would make them look good, build a good, great relationship with 'em. If they w- were my peer, I'd make 'em look good, build a great relationship with 'em. If they worked for me, I'd make 'em look good, build a great relationship with 'em. I think that as you... You know, some people that have that kind of, um... You know, they've got some kind of... Is it a defect? I think it's probably a little bit of a defect, but they, they just, they just n- feel like they need that recognition. They feel like they need to take care of themselves. And again, going back to what I was saying earlier, like, what did they go through in their life that makes them think that they gotta look out for themselves? And it'd be kinda nice if I could be a person that they go, "Man, this guy's treating me really good." And maybe I could help them transform from someone that doesn't trust that they're gonna get the recognition that they need to, "Hey, there's good people out there, and I'd like to be a part of this team."

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:01

        Were you ever successful in that transformation?

    13. JWJocko Willink1:07:03

        I was successful. I was also unsuccessful. You know, some people are ... Some people, they have that defect, and it's strong, and they're gonna look out for themselves, and there's very little you can do about it. And he- you know, you try, try. Um, but it's, it's a very ... The ego's a very, very powerful thing. I mean, you know, the ego is so powerful that there's countless cases of military history where a human being got himself and possibly his troops, or his troops killed because of his ego. So, if you can die because of your ego, you can absolutely make some pretty dramatic mistakes in the business world because of your ego. And it happens all the time. It happens all the time.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:53

        Leaving, leaving the military, I have this quote where you said, "So I'd say if there's anything that I struggle with now, it's just that does anything else matter? And the answer is no. The answer is no. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is close. So I have to deal with that." You said that on the Tim Ferriss podcast, talking about your time, um, in the services, but also more specifically, the Battle of Ramadi- Ramadi?

    15. JWJocko Willink1:08:20

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:21

        Um, as being the highlight of your life. How does one go through sort of 20 years of high-intensity combat and all that adrenaline

19. 1:08:31 – 1:13:39

    Leaving the Military

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:31

       and all of the, you know ... Gosh, it's harder to think of many greater senses of, like, purpose and fulfillment and mission, and then (snaps fingers) real life?

    2. JWJocko Willink1:08:44

       Yeah. So number one, as I mentioned earlier, remember but don't dwell, and ... Have you seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite?

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:58

       No.

    4. JWJocko Willink1:08:58

       Oh, that's a bummer. There's a character in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, his name is Uncle Rico, and Uncle Rico played football in high school. And now, Uncle Rico, uh, lives in a van and sells cooking ware. He kind of peaked in high school, and he lives in the past. He's always talking about state championships, and if he would have ha- had that extra point, and if coach would have put him in. He's got... He's living in the past. And so, while that quote right there, no doubt, that you just read from me, is accurate. I mean, there, there will not be, I don't think, anything in my life that will have as much intensity, as much mission focus, as much meaning, as much, as much opportunity, as much loss. Like, that is ... Combat is, is like life, but amplified and intensified. So every emotion that you have, like you have an emotion when you, when you formulate a new plan, and when you sell a business or buy a business, you know, you have emotions. That's like combat, but it's amplified, it's intensified, and it's, it's a lot more. So the, that quote that you read is true. Nothing will compare to that. I- it won't. But I don't want to be like Uncle Rico, living in the past, talking about how this is what it used to be like, and if only ... "Yeah, there's my big game." I don't want to do that. I want to r- As I said earlier, I want to remember, but I don't want to dwell on the past.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:35

       Has it ever crossed your mind to go back, in any capacity?

    6. JWJocko Willink1:10:40

       Oh, yeah. (laughs)

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:41

       (laughs)

    8. JWJocko Willink1:10:41

       Of course. Yeah. Every time, like a ... (clears throat) Every time a war breaks out somewhere, you, you, you wanna get your, get your knife out, sharpen it up, and let's rock and roll. Of course. Because ... Yeah, well, because of that quote right there. Like this is, this is it. Like that's, that's it. I'm lucky that I got to do what I got to do. You know like, that's a blessing. That's a, it's the, it's what I wanted to do since I was a little kid, and I got to do it. And so if you ask me if I got the chance to do it again, would I? Yeah, I would. (laughs) 100%.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:17

       You could, though, right? You could go be involved in some capacity in the-

    10. JWJocko Willink1:11:21

        Yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:21

        ... in the SEALs.

    12. JWJocko Willink1:11:21

        Yeah. There's ways, there's things that I could do to, you know, like be a gunslinger again and all that. But there's also ... It's also not the same. So, you know, if I ... 'Cause I retired from the Navy, and, and so I'm not in the military anymore. I still work with the military. I still tryn the military. But to go and be a gunslinger again, um, now you're, now you're doing something different. Now you are a mercenary. Now it's a different situation. And the, that component that you talked about of like mission, brotherhood, is not going to be the same for me. And, and quite frankly, I think that I, part of me wants to not sour that memory, and, and all those memories. I don't wanna, I don't wanna ... You know? I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sour that memory. Like I have a beautiful, beautiful memory, and then I don't wanna tarnish it with me chasing around the past. You know in fighters-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:35

        Yeah.

    14. JWJocko Willink1:12:35

        ... they retire from fighting?

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:36

        Yeah.

    16. JWJocko Willink1:12:37

        And then they, they just, they, they wanna go back. They do it again, and it's just not the same.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:41

        Anderson Silva was like that for me He was Superman, and then he went back a couple of times, and I didn't want to watch him getting beat up. It was like ... (sighs)

    18. JWJocko Willink1:12:48

        Yeah. I, I... That's how ... That's, that's a ... I feel like that. I feel like that. I don't think I could rematch my, my Anderson Silva, the Spider Championship run.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:58

        Yeah. (laughs)

    20. JWJocko Willink1:12:58

        I don't think I could rematch that.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:02

        Discipline is freedom. The title of your, um, your book here. D- Discipline Equals Freedom. Now that seems like it's untrue because when people think of discipline they think of rigidity and c- and- and taking away their freedom, having to be disciplined. Why is, why does discipline equal freedom?

    22. JWJocko Willink1:13:25

        Because the more discipline you have in your life, the more freedom you will end up with. So if you lack the discipline to exercise

20. 1:13:39 – 1:18:40

    Why Discipline Equals to Freedom

    1. JWJocko Willink1:13:39

       and eat healthy you will end up being a slave to disease. If you lack the discipline to work hard, save your money, you will end up a slave to finances. If you lack the discipline to manage your time correctly, you will end up with no free time. If you have self-discipline, if you have the discipline to save your money and work hard and invest your money properly, if you have the discipline to manage your time correctly and not waste a bunch of time, if you have the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up with freedom. And it's, I know it's a counterintuitive, it's contrarian, but I've seen this over and over and over again: If you want freedom in your life, you have to have discipline.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:47

       There's gonna be some kid listening to this now. I always think about the personas that are listening, and they are, you know, eating Doritos off their belly-

    3. JWJocko Willink1:14:54

       Spit 'em out.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:56

       (laughs)

    5. JWJocko Willink1:15:00

       (laughs) Spit 'em out. Start now. Because if you're a kid right now and you're eating Doritos off your belly, I know they taste good and there's some immediate gratification, and I get that, but I'm gonna tell you it starts right now: throw that bag of Doritos away. Get rid of it. Go do some push-ups. Go spend $12 at the hardware store and hang up a pull-up bar in your room and start doing pull-ups. And if you can't do one pull-up, hang on that bar and you're gonna start to get a little bit stronger, you're gonna start to get a little bit healthier. You'll start to get more focused. You're gonna start to become more resilient and you're gonna start to be able to do a pull-up, and you're gonna start to eat healthy all the time, and you're gonna start to understand the world better, and you're gonna start to progress in every aspect of your life. And you'll see that if you have that kind of discipline right now, you're gonna end up with freedom. And if you don't have that kind of discipline and you keep eating those Doritos and you don't work hard and you don't exercise and you don't apply yourself, you're gonna end up, you're gonna end up shackled. You're gonna end up shackled by a boss that you don't like doing a job that you don't like to do with sicknesses and diseases that you don't want, relying on people that sh- you can't even count on, alone. And you don't have to. But if you have discipline, if you have discipline you will attain freedom.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:01

       And it starts with just spitting the Doritos out.

    7. JWJocko Willink1:17:03

       Starts with spitting the Doritos out. Yes, indeed. (laughs)

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:08

       How do you guys manage your stress? This month is Stress Awareness Month and it's a topic that I'm super passionate about and we talk about a lot on this podcast. I personally manage my stress by prioritizing my health and well-being. Going to the gym is my number one form of therapy and I couldn't be without those two things. As you guys know, Whoop is a sponsor of this podcast and I'm an investor in the company as well. For those of you that don't know, Whoop actually created a stress monitor within this device. Not only does this help me to identify periods of high stress in real time throughout the day but it also provides me with the tools t- I need to deal with stresses as they come up throughout the day, and it's based on scientifically backed breathing exercises and research that's been developed by leading neuroscientists. It's a feature that has been game-changing for me and I highly recommend. If you're someone that's looking to manage your stress levels, then head over to join.whoop.com/ceo where we'll give you 30 days risk-free and zero commitment to try Whoop. Let me know how you get on. One of the things you do which is y- I mean, you're super famous for it, is this idea of waking up early. Now I'm not someone that wakes up early.

    9. JWJocko Willink1:18:15

       I know you, no alarm clock and you're usually up by 11:00. Uh, uh-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:19

        Well, like so no meetings before 11:00.

    11. JWJocko Willink1:18:21

        Okay, got it. Got it.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:21

        So I- I stay up re- quite late.

    13. JWJocko Willink1:18:23

        Yep.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:24

        Um, what's the best case you could give me for changing that? And do I need to change that? 'Cause I, what I, what I do is, you know, I flew into LA. I'm fucking jet-lagged. I'm flying back in a couple of days. I'm gonna be jet-lagged when I land as well. So what I'm trying to do is just protect my sleep at all costs because I've

21. 1:18:40 – 1:22:11

    Create a Routine System in Your Life

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:40

       come to learn that it's really the foundation of my performance. So if I, if I'm unslept and I show up at work, the chance that I'm not gonna show up correctly in a variety of ways, emotionally, creatively, whatever, is high, and that for me is the greatest risk. (laughs)

    2. JWJocko Willink1:18:55

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:56

       So I've just, I've, uh, i- in the last s- year or two of my life, I've just said, "Okay, prioritize sleep because then everything else seems to follow." But when I heard that you wake up sometimes at 4:45 or 4:30, like, pretty much all the time, and you, I was literally seeing you on social media upload your, your alarm clock-... day after day after day, okay, shit, maybe I should rethink.

    4. JWJocko Willink1:19:16

       No, I think if you're, if you've got a system that's working well for you, and, then I wouldn't change anything. Right? If you feel like you're performing well, you're physically healthy, you're getting all the work done that you need to do, you're a naturally more of a, a late night, late morning type person, uh, I'd run with it. It's ... If you were telling me, "Yeah, sometimes I get up, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I work late, sometimes I don't. I'm not, don't work out every day. You know, sometimes I feel groggy." If you were telling me that kind of thing, I'd say, "Okay, pick a time and start waking up at that time every day." Doesn't have to be 4:40. It could be eight o'clock, could be seven o'clock. Doesn't matter. Could be 11 o'clock. But try and go to bed around the same time and try and wake up around the same time, and that's gonna be a great foundation for everything that you're doing. And I would say when you wake up in the morning, do some kinda exercise because I think that is very helpful in getting your day started correctly.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:16

       What are your non-negotiables in your life in terms of habits, routines, disciplines?

    6. JWJocko Willink1:20:21

       I wake up early, and I work out every day. That's, that's kind of my, my, that's, that's, those are the minimum requirements in my life. Train jujitsu. I, I don't get to chain- train jujitsu every single day, but if I can train jujitsu, I'm gonna train jujitsu. I'm gonna work out every day. If I can surf, I'm gonna surf, you know. Um, I, I, obviously I have to work every day. I, I work every day doing something, you know. I've got a bunch of different companies. I gotta write books, podcasts, so I, I, I work every day.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:58

       Are you ever undisciplined?

    8. JWJocko Willink1:21:00

       Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, um, uh, chocolate chip cookies.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:05

       (laughs)

    10. JWJocko Willink1:21:05

        But they're a, they're a, a discipline lapse for me. Uh, yeah, so yeah, I'm, I'm not a cyborg.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:15

        When people look at someone like you that's, you know, done all the things you've done, you've been an, a SEAL, and you've, you've read all these books and started these companies, and actually the drink I'm drinking now is one of your, your products, which is the, what's that in front of you, the-

    12. JWJocko Willink1:21:25

        Yeah, it's a, it's an energy drink called The Go.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:27

        Called Go.

    14. JWJocko Willink1:21:28

        Yep.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:28

        Um, delicious, by the way.

    16. JWJocko Willink1:21:29

        Oh, thank you.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:30

        I think. My mouth has been connected to my brain during this interview, so I think-

    18. JWJocko Willink1:21:33

        (laughs)

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:34

        ... it's working. Um, I understand there's misconceptions that people have of me because they assume, it's kinda like the halo effect. We sh- assume because someone's done something well, they do all things well. Um, but there are so many things that I think would really liberate people and make them inspired if they could see how deficient I was in so many things in my life. You know, because they just assume that if you've done one thing well, you have a good podcast, or you have a g- you must be, like, you know, the perfect picture of ... (laughs) What are the big misconceptions generally, moving away from this idea of imperfection, but just generally about Jocko? Because you've, you realize you've become a bit of a character,

22. 1:22:11 – 1:26:02

    The Biggest Misconceptions About the Military and Myself

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:11

       right, you know, like Navy SEAL.

    2. JWJocko Willink1:22:13

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:14

       That comes with an identity package.

    4. JWJocko Willink1:22:16

       Yeah, I think the biggest misconception, I think, and it's, it's, it's not just me, but it's really the military in general, is the misconception of this kind of authoritarian, and even authoritarian dictatorship from a leadership perspective. And even when, when we were having this conversation, I said, "I'm gonna let, I'm gonna let my subordinates plan." And you kind of had a stunned look on your face. Like whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? Why would you let your subordinates plan? And so there's an idea and a misconception that the leader is gonna stand up and bark all the orders. So that's one misconception. The uh, uh another one is I look like a Neanderthal, and so people are, think I'm gonna scream and yell at everybody. And uh, I never, I never yell at anybody. You know, I've, uh, I, my business partner, Leif Babin, who's worked with me, who was in my task unit at, at SEAL Team 3 and deployed to Ramadi with me, and we now, we've written a couple books together, we have a business together, and he was like my direct subordinate in Ramadi and dur- during a workup and y- you know, like, I've never yelled at him. And he likes to point out that he gave me plenty of reasons to yell at him. But never yelled at him 'cause what, what good is that? And by the way, if I have to yell at somebody, what does that say, uh, that means, if I have to yell at you to get my point across as a leader, I've made like 47 other mistakes. My goal is that I don't even have to say anything. That's my goal as a leader. My goal is I don't have to say a word, and you already know what to do, and you make it happen. And I look at you and give you a thumbs up and say, "Good job." That's my goal. So I think the biggest misconception is the idea of someone in the military or myself being a authoritarian leader, being very close-minded. Like, you know, I, I got asked a question the other day about, you know, "If you were, if you were, if, if China attacked Taiwan and you were taking troops in there, what would you be focused on?" And I said, "I'd be focused on keeping an open mind." Because if you have a closed mind about what the mission is, about how it's gonna happen, about what your troops are gonna do, about what the enemy's gonna do, if you have a closed mind about those things, you're gonna get caught off guard. You have to have an open mind. You have to be accepting of the information that you're receiving. You have to be accepting of the other ideas that other people have, and if you have a closed mind, you're gonna fall apart.

Episode duration: 1:50:06