Navy Seal EXPLAINS How To BUILD Self-Discipline & EXTREME OWNERSHIP | Jocko Willink & Lewis Howes

Jocko Willink 0:00 But what I worry about is I worry about missing out on opportunities that I have-

Lewis Howes 0:06 Mm

Jocko Willink 0:07 ... because I got friends that will never get the chance to execute on opportunities, because they didn't come home. And so-

Lewis Howes 0:15 Mm

Jocko Willink 0:15 ... for me to squander any moment, any second of my life, is something that, that definitely, definitely haunts me.

Lewis Howes 0:25 Mm.

Jocko Willink 0:25 It haunts me every day, and I won't let it happen. [upbeat music]

Lewis Howes 0:43 All right, welcome to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Jocko in the house. My man, thank you for coming here-

Jocko Willink 0:47 Yeah

Lewis Howes 0:48 ... being a part of this.

Jocko Willink 0:49 Thanks for having me.

Lewis Howes 0:49 We're, we're talking a little bit about your Navy SEAL training and how you say it actually isn't that hard, isn't that big a deal. But, uh, a lot of people seem to quit through the process, and you're saying, you were giving me context that it's not as hard as going to war and actually being in that real live experience.

Jocko Willink 1:07 Yeah, I don't want to say, I don't want to make it sound like it's not hard-

Lewis Howes 1:09 Right

Jocko Willink 1:09 ... 'cause it certainly is hard.

Lewis Howes 1:11 Right.

Jocko Willink 1:11 And especially for someone like myself, I wasn't the best athlete.

Lewis Howes 1:14 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:14 You know, I was like an average high school athlete. And so physically, I had to, I had to go hard in order to, to pass all the evolutions. But yeah, I mean, compared to wh- when you look at someone that was in the SEAL teams for a long time-

Lewis Howes 1:30 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:30 ... they're not sitting there harking back to the days of remember how hard this training was-

Lewis Howes 1:34 Right

Jocko Willink 1:34 ... now they're thinking about their deployments overseas and the things that they had to do-

Lewis Howes 1:38 That's the real hard-

Jocko Willink 1:38 ... water exercises

Lewis Howes 1:39 ... that's the real hard stuff. I was with a SEAL, uh, this weekend, his name's Chad, and he was saying that... I said, "What was the day where most people quit?" Because it's a, it's a self-eliminating process, right? Don't you quit yourself?

Jocko Willink 1:51 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:51 They don't fire you from SEAL training, you-

Jocko Willink 1:54 I would say-

Lewis Howes 1:54 ... give up

Jocko Willink 1:55 ... 98% of the time, it's ... Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's a really high percentage of people that quit, but there's also people that fail.

Lewis Howes 2:03 Really?

Jocko Willink 2:04 So if you fail ... When I went through, and things change a little bit-

Lewis Howes 2:08 Uh-huh

Jocko Willink 2:08 ... but when I went through, if you failed one run, they were watching you. If you failed another run, you would get moved back to the n- last, to the next class. Then if you failed another one, you were out. So-

Lewis Howes 2:21 What do you mean a run?

Jocko Willink 2:22 So a timed, four-mile timed run.

Lewis Howes 2:23 Gotcha.

Jocko Willink 2:24 Four-mile timed run, or, and that's one example.

Lewis Howes 2:26 Wow, okay.

Jocko Willink 2:26 'Cause you have a four-mile timed run, you have swims that are timed.

Lewis Howes 2:29 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 2:29 You have obstacle courses that are timed, and then you have other, we call them evolutions, but you have underwater knot tying, lifesaving. So lifesaving's a good one, because what it is, is you have to go and rescue these SEAL instructors in the water.

Lewis Howes 2:48 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 2:48 So it's sort of like what a lifeguard would do.

Lewis Howes 2:49 Sure. Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 2:50 But it's pretty funny, because they're trying to drown you. Like, they're attacking you.

Lewis Howes 2:54 Right.

Jocko Willink 2:54 When you jump into-

Lewis Howes 2:55 They're punching you, they're gra-

Jocko Willink 2:56 Save ... Yeah

Lewis Howes 2:56 ... they're trying to drag you down to the bottom of the, of the pool. So if you fail that once, then you'll get another try. If you fail it again, you'll get rolled to the last cla- to the next class, and if you fail there, then you're out. But you could fail, if you failed one run, one swim, one obstacle course, then, then you could, you could do that.

Jocko Willink 3:16 And I did that, you know? I, I failed a run, I failed a swim, I failed an obstacle course. I don't, I don't know if I failed any ... Oh, I failed one water evolution called pool competency. I failed that one time. So-

Lewis Howes 3:28 Hmm

Jocko Willink 3:28 ... I was like, um, a gray man-

Lewis Howes 3:31 [clears throat]

Jocko Willink 3:31 ... in terms of, it, it was actually good. I wasn't great at anything, but I wasn't horrible at anything either.

Lewis Howes 3:36 Yeah, you were consistent.

Jocko Willink 3:37 So, so that was a good place to be.

Lewis Howes 3:38 You could shove. That's great.

Jocko Willink 3:39 Right.

Lewis Howes 3:40 Uh, he told me, I don't know if this is too graphic, but I said, "What was the hardest day where most people w- quit, when most people gave up in the six months of training?" He said towards the end of training, it's not as difficult. Uh, they're not trying to break you every day as in the first, I guess, two to four weeks.

Jocko Willink 3:56 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 3:57 But I said, "What was the hardest day for most people?" And he said, "I was," he said, "I was in shock because it was when they played a video over and over, and they made us watch a video." I'm not sure if it was the same video that you had to watch your time. He was-

Jocko Willink 4:10 They didn't even have videos-

Lewis Howes 4:12 Right, right

Jocko Willink 4:12 ... when I went through, so I don't know if that's cool.

Lewis Howes 4:13 He said there was a video, and this might be too graphic to talk about, but he said there was a video where, um, an enemy was using a knife to cut off the head of an American.

Jocko Willink 4:24 Mm.

Lewis Howes 4:24 And he s- and they made you watch it over and over again, and they said, "This is very real. If you get captured, they'll probably do something like this." You know, they were trying to-

Jocko Willink 4:32 Yeah

Lewis Howes 4:32 ... psychologically break you down or train you to be afraid if this is it. And he said for him, he got angry watching the video, whereas a lot of other people got afraid and they quit that day. Right afterwards, they all went and, not all of them, but a lot of them quit. How much of it was [clears throat] for you psychologically challenging versus physically challenging? Um, and were there those moments that made you angry or more excited to dive in, or were there any moments that made you question being a SEAL?

Jocko Willink 5:03 There was no, there was not any question for me. I knew what I wanted to do. I never thought about quitting at any moment in time.

Lewis Howes 5:11 Really?

Jocko Willink 5:12 I, you know, that's interesting, the, the video concept. We didn't, like I said, we didn't have, there wasn't videos like that that we could watch. But I think one, I think that's actually good that they show that video, because these days you can get kids that they see, they, they see the SEAL teams and they think these guys are out, whatever, running around on the beach, and the fact of the matter is when you're in the SEAL teams, your, your mission and your job is to go and kill the enemy, and part of that job is putting yourself at risk with your friends of getting killed or wounded yourself.

Lewis Howes 5:45 Right.

Jocko Willink 5:45 So that's, that's good that they show them that-

Lewis Howes 5:47 Yeah

Jocko Willink 5:47 ... because that's a good wake-up call. If you're going in the SEAL teams 'cause you think you're gonna, you know, go to the bar and strut around with your chest out, like-

Lewis Howes 5:54 Right

Jocko Willink 5:54 ... that's not what the SEAL teams is. The SEAL teams is, is going to war. That's what we do.

Lewis Howes 5:58 Was there ever a time you were truly afraid? Whether it be in training or in war.

Jocko Willink 6:03 Yeah, the biggest, the biggest amount of fear that I felt was absolutely without question when I was on my last deployment to Ramadi and the f- the feeling that you have, especially when you're in a leadership position, is you're afraid that something's gonna happen to one of your guys.

Lewis Howes 6:17 Mm.

Jocko Willink 6:17 One of your guys is gonna get wounded or killed. And so when you're ... That's, that's the fear that I felt. And part of that is, part of that is because some people, myself included, and this is not uncommon for guys to think, "Well, it probably won't, nothing's gonna happen to me." And so I had some of that, for sure. But I, I also had the, just that fear. There's nothing worse than thinking about one of your guys, one of your friends, one of your brothers, getting wounded or killed.

Lewis Howes 6:45 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 6:45 And that's, that's what I was afraid of.

Lewis Howes 6:47 Did you ever think anything would happen to you? Were you like, "Maybe this is the mission where some random bullet hits me," or ...

Jocko Willink 6:53 Yeah, if I did think that, I didn't really care. You know, I think at some point you realize that there's a chance you can die, and that's what you signed up for, and that's what-

Lewis Howes 7:02 Right

Jocko Willink 7:02 ... you dedicated your life to, and that's what you believe in, is that-

Lewis Howes 7:06 Yeah

Jocko Willink 7:06 ... you're doing the right thing. So sure, you get the feeling, "Hey, today could be the day."

Lewis Howes 7:11 Wow.

Jocko Willink 7:12 But there's also the fact that there's nothing you can do to, there's nothing you can do to really control that. So you've, beyond what you've already done, which is you've trained hard, you've prepared hard, you've, you've planned to the best of your ability, you've mitigated as much risk as you can through your operational planning process, through your standard operating procedures, and on top of all those things, you're at war. And so there's a chance that a bullet is gonna be, is gonna have your name on it. And, and the fact of the matter is, bullets don't have your name on it. Bullets say, "To whom it may concern," and the bullet doesn't care who you are. They don't care how much training you've had. They don't care how well-prepared you are. And if it's your day, it's your day. And so I think once you get to a point where you recognize and accept the fact that you could, you could die, then you can move past that. And f- I mean, I felt like that for a long time. You know?

Lewis Howes 8:01 Really?

Jocko Willink 8:01 I felt like that for a long time, that that was, that was my job, and I didn't really care. So, so whether I thought about it on a daily basis or anything, I would say I didn't. It was just some, part of the, part of my world that I accepted.

Lewis Howes 8:15 Right.

Jocko Willink 8:15 You know, you might, you might die. I mean, you, you played football. You must have realized that you could get injured, right?

Lewis Howes 8:19 Sure.

Jocko Willink 8:20 And you-

Lewis Howes 8:20 Break your neck or-

Jocko Willink 8:21 Yeah, you, you can't be out there-

Lewis Howes 8:22 ... paralyze

Jocko Willink 8:22 ... being worried about that.

Lewis Howes 8:23 Right.

Jocko Willink 8:24 And it might be in the back of your mind somewhere, but I don't know if you agree with this, but if that's what your primary concern is, your chances of that happening to you are probably greater-

Lewis Howes 8:34 I know

Jocko Willink 8:34 ... than if you just say, put that in the back of your mind and go out and play aggressive ball. Same thing on the battlefield. You go out and you, you play aggressive. That, to me, increases your probability of survival. Not so much for yourself, but more importantly for your, your troops.

Lewis Howes 8:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:49 What did you learn when you took on that leadership role? Because I'm assuming you weren't leading teams your first two years as a Navy SEAL, but then the more you were in the program, you were then leading groups of guys for many years, right?

Jocko Willink 9:03 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 9:03 What was the biggest challenge for you from going as a, I wouldn't say a follower, but as a team member, into then transitioning into a leadership role of leading the team? What was the biggest challenge for you from that transition? From team member to player to player coach, let's say.

Jocko Willink 9:21 Yeah. Well, you actually, you're, like, not wanting to be, to call me a follower. Well, when you get into the SEAL teams and you're a new guy, you're absolutely following.

Lewis Howes 9:30 Right.

Jocko Willink 9:30 You got, you don't know what you're doing. You don't understand the tactics. And so there's other people that have experience. You're listening to them. They're teaching you.

Lewis Howes 9:37 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 9:37 And then as I got older and more experienced, and eventually I did move into leadership positions and became an officer in the SEAL teams, and then it was my time to step up and lead. And the amount of lessons that I learned are, are countless, and that's what I ended up writing a bunch of books about.

Lewis Howes 9:54 Right, right, right.

Jocko Willink 9:54 I wr- ended up writing a bunch of books about those leadership experiences that I had. The, the, right out of the gate, you know, when you asked me w- what I learned, you know, one of the most important things that I talk about all the time is you're, you're gonna get humbled, and you need to be humble.

Lewis Howes 10:08 [laughs] Right.

Jocko Willink 10:09 Because you don't know-

Lewis Howes 10:10 As a leader?

Jocko Willink 10:10 Well, absolutely.

Lewis Howes 10:11 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 10:11 As a leader. Especially you step up into a leadership position, do you know everything?

Lewis Howes 10:15 No.

Jocko Willink 10:15 No, you don't know everything.

Lewis Howes 10:16 Absolutely not.

Jocko Willink 10:17 If you act like you know everything, you're gonna get eaten alive.

Lewis Howes 10:19 Humbled quickly.

Jocko Willink 10:20 You're gonna get humbled. And, and not only that, but your, your troops are gonna look at you and say, "Why are you tr- who do you think we are? Do you think we're stupid?" So you're acting like you know everything. We actually know you don't know everything.

Lewis Howes 10:30 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 10:30 And you're acting that way, so your, their respect for you goes down.

Lewis Howes 10:34 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 10:34 Whereas if you just say, "Hey, look, I, I just got into this job. I'm gonna do the best I can. I don't know everything. My mind is open. I'm here to listen. I'm here to learn. And if you guys can help me out, I'd appreciate it," well, everyone sees you as a humble person that's ready to listen and ready to learn, and their respect for you actually goes up. So I- I'm not saying you can walk in and say, "Hey, I don't know anything. I'm ignorant."

Lewis Howes 10:58 Right.

Jocko Willink 10:58 "I haven't done any preparation."

Lewis Howes 10:59 Right.

Jocko Willink 10:59 "I haven't studied anything. I don't know anything about my job." But you can only learn so much from books and from-

Lewis Howes 11:06 Yeah

Jocko Willink 11:06 ... from various documents, right?

Lewis Howes 11:09 Mm.

Jocko Willink 11:09 Eventually you gotta start doing it. So you gotta ... That, that's what I learned. Number one, you gotta be humble.

Lewis Howes 11:14 Yeah. How long, how long were you a, a leader of a team, of teams in the Navy? Many years?

Jocko Willink 11:19 So I was enlisted in the SEAL teams for my first eight years.

Lewis Howes 11:23 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 11:23 And then I got a commission and became a SEAL officer.

Lewis Howes 11:26 Okay. And how many years were you an officer for?

Jocko Willink 11:28 12 years.

Lewis Howes 11:29 12 years. What, um, what was the most humbling experience you had as a leader in all 12 years? And was the 11th and 12th year easier than the first and second year as a team leader?

Jocko Willink 11:44 So m- most humbling experience, there's ... Well, the, the most humbling experience you're gonna experience on the battlefield is if you have your guys wounded or killed.

Lewis Howes 11:51 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 11:52 And when that happens, there's nothing that's gonna be worse than that for you-

Lewis Howes 11:57 Right

Jocko Willink 11:57 ... as a, for you as a person.

Lewis Howes 11:58 Right. 'Cause you feel responsible. You feel like it was your job.

Jocko Willink 12:01 It's not just you feel responsible, you are responsible.

Lewis Howes 12:04 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 12:04 You are in charge.

Lewis Howes 12:05 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 12:05 And so when someone gets wounded or killed, you, there's n- th- if you're not shouldering that burden- Then you're lying to yourself

Lewis Howes 12:13 Mm.

Jocko Willink 12:14 So that's number one. The, the story that I wrote about in, in Extreme Ownership-

Lewis Howes 12:19 Mm

Jocko Willink 12:19 ... the opening chapter of Extreme Ownership is-

Lewis Howes 12:22 Yep

Jocko Willink 12:22 ... there was a, a blue on blue, a fratricide, meaning friendly forces killing friendly forces, and that happened-

Lewis Howes 12:30 Really?

Jocko Willink 12:30 ... when I was on a mission. It was actually a group of my SEALs with some Army soldiers and some Iraqi soldiers in a, in a position, and in a, in a s- in a sniper position, and they got basically attacked by a friendly Iraqi element. And got-

Lewis Howes 12:47 Your guys did?

Jocko Willink 12:47 Yes.

Lewis Howes 12:48 Wow.

Jocko Willink 12:48 Got into a gun fight with them. One of, one of my guys killed an Iraqi soldier, wounded a couple more Iraqi soldiers. One of my guys got wounded. It was a nightmare 'cause it's horrible.

Lewis Howes 13:01 You're, you're on the same side. You're on the same team.

Jocko Willink 13:02 Yes, yes. So-

Lewis Howes 13:05 Ooh.

Jocko Willink 13:05 Yeah, and I was the guy in charge.

Lewis Howes 13:07 Wow.

Jocko Willink 13:07 So do you wanna talk about humbling? That's humbling. All these, you think you're so good. You think you've got tactics mastered and all that stuff. You think you're great at planning and all those things. And I, I wouldn't say that I thought that.

Lewis Howes 13:20 Mm.

Jocko Willink 13:20 But I definitely thought I was competent. And so when that unfolded, it's like, "Oh, guess whose fault this is? It's my fault."

Lewis Howes 13:27 Wow. Where do you go after that? How do you go back to a confident place of being able to lead people? 'Cause you've gotta have some confidence, too. You can't just be, you know, concerned that something wrong is gonna happen all the time, right?

Jocko Willink 13:39 Yeah. So-

Lewis Howes 13:39 How do, how do you transition back into a confident place?

Jocko Willink 13:41 Number one, take ownership-

Lewis Howes 13:42 Yeah

Jocko Willink 13:43 ... of what went wrong.

Lewis Howes 13:44 Extreme ownership.

Jocko Willink 13:44 Take extreme ownership of it.

Lewis Howes 13:45 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 13:46 Right? 'Cause it's the same thing I just said. If that would've happened and I would've said, "Hey, guys, that wasn't my fault, it was his fault, and h- and his fault, and his fault," people would've looked at me. They, they know the truth. The truth is I'm the guy in charge. So everyone's respect level for me would've gone down, and their confidence in me would've gone down.

Lewis Howes 14:02 Mm.

Jocko Willink 14:02 But when I go in and say, "Hey, guys, look, this is what went wrong. This is my fault 'cause I'm the guy in charge, and this is what we're gonna do to fix it," well, now everyone says, "Okay, well, he, he's taking ownership of the problem, and he's actually got some good solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again." Their confidence and their respect for me goes up, and we can move forward.

Lewis Howes 14:21 Right. How often did you have to take extreme ownership?

Jocko Willink 14:24 Every single day.

Lewis Howes 14:24 Every day?

Jocko Willink 14:25 Oh, yeah. Of course.

Lewis Howes 14:27 Wow.

Jocko Willink 14:27 Of course. The minute that you're blaming anyone else for things that are going wrong, the moment that you do that, think about what it does to- think about what it does to you.

Lewis Howes 14:36 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 14:37 If I'm walk- If I, if we go on a mission and something goes wrong and I go, "That wasn't my fault," well, what am I doing to fix it now? What am I doing?

Lewis Howes 14:44 Right.

Jocko Willink 14:44 I'm not doing anything.

Lewis Howes 14:45 Nothing. Just blaming people, yeah.

Jocko Willink 14:46 Be- because, because I don't think it's my fault, so I'm not gonna change anything. Well, then we'll make that same mistake again, and then I'll, then I'll say, "That wasn't my fault."

Lewis Howes 14:53 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 14:53 And we'll never pro- we'll never make any progress. Whereas if I say, "Hey, this was my fault. Here's what I'm gonna do to fix it," then we fix the problem. And by the way, when I point my finger at you and I say, "Hey, you know, this was your fault," what's your reaction to that?

Lewis Howes 15:10 Uh, defensiveness?

Jocko Willink 15:11 Yeah, you're gonna get defensive.

Lewis Howes 15:12 Yeah, of course.

Jocko Willink 15:12 And then what are you gonna do?

Lewis Howes 15:13 "No, it wasn't. I'm blaming this person. That's perfect."

Jocko Willink 15:15 You're gonna point your finger at somebody else.

Lewis Howes 15:15 "They dropped the ball here. Jimmy did that. Johnny did this." Yeah.

Jocko Willink 15:19 And, and what are they all gonna do?

Lewis Howes 15:20 Point it back to you.

Jocko Willink 15:21 So now what do we end up with? We end up with-

Lewis Howes 15:23 No solutions

Jocko Willink 15:23 ... no, no one taking ownership of any of the problems. The problems never get solved. We never progress.

Lewis Howes 15:27 So how many times did you take extreme ownership of something that technically wasn't your fault?

Jocko Willink 15:33 There is no thing.

Lewis Howes 15:35 There is no thing?

Jocko Willink 15:35 There is no thing.

Lewis Howes 15:36 So you'll take ownership of everything, even if it wasn't directly-

Jocko Willink 15:39 This is, this is, this is a, this is a question, a comment that I get from, from my consulting business, right?

Lewis Howes 15:44 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 15:44 You know, we, we work with business leaders.

Lewis Howes 15:47 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 15:48 And someone will say, "Yeah, I get it, you know."

Lewis Howes 15:50 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 15:50 "But what should I do when it's really not my fault?"

Lewis Howes 15:52 But it is your fault.

Jocko Willink 15:53 It's like, oh, yeah. You, you ... I can ... I have yet to have somebody stump me with a question when I say, "No, if you're in charge of something and something goes wrong, it's your fault."

Lewis Howes 16:02 It's all your responsibility.

Jocko Willink 16:03 It's, it's all your f- responsibility. Because if I'm in charge of a platoon and one of the machine gunners that's four or five levels below me in the chain of command and is on a position that I'm not even at-

Lewis Howes 16:17 Right

Jocko Willink 16:17 ... and he shoots his machine gun in the wrong direction, towards friendly forces, whose fault is that?

Lewis Howes 16:22 It's your fault.

Jocko Willink 16:23 Yes, it's my fault. I didn't train him well enough.

Lewis Howes 16:27 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 16:27 I didn't make sure he understood his fields of fire, where he was allowed to shoot. I didn't make sure that he was being monitored correctly by his fire team leader to make sure that they all knew what was happening. And at the end of the line, if he's not competent and capable of doing his job, I, it's my fault that I let him be in that position.

Lewis Howes 16:45 Right.

Jocko Willink 16:45 So no matter what happens, it's my fault.

Lewis Howes 16:48 So what do you tell, uh, CEOs or leaders of big companies that have multiple lines, you know, underneath them that don't have the time to train them personally-

Jocko Willink 16:58 Mm

Lewis Howes 16:58 ... but they have someone underneath them to train who's training them-

Jocko Willink 17:00 Yeah

Lewis Howes 17:00 ... who's training them? How do you coach those individuals?

Jocko Willink 17:03 Oh, oh, it's, it's real easy.

Lewis Howes 17:04 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 17:04 You know, where the guy says to me, "Hey, you know, w- we failed this project." And I say, "Oh, well, why'd we fail that project?" "Oh, because of Bill, the, the frontline manager."

Lewis Howes 17:14 Mm.

Jocko Willink 17:14 "Oh, okay. Who's in charge of Bill?" "It's Mike." "Oh, okay. Who's in charge of Mike?" "Fred." "Who's in charge of Fred?"

Lewis Howes 17:22 The leader, the CEO. Yeah.

Jocko Willink 17:23 "I am."

Lewis Howes 17:23 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 17:23 Yeah, that's right. You're in charge of Fred.

Lewis Howes 17:25 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 17:25 So th- that means you need to make sure that your intent is felt all the way down through the chain of command.

Lewis Howes 17:35 How do we do that?

Jocko Willink 17:35 That's leadership.

Lewis Howes 17:37 Mm.

Jocko Willink 17:37 This is why I have a consulting business [laughs]

Lewis Howes 17:39 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 17:39 'Cause, 'cause this is what you have to do.

Lewis Howes 17:40 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 17:41 Because the larger a company gets ... Look, when I'm in charge of eight people-

Lewis Howes 17:44 It's easier

Jocko Willink 17:45 ... everybody ki- everybody knows what I'm thinking.

Lewis Howes 17:47 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 17:47 I can ... I mean, I see them every day. I can sit in one room and talk to them all face to face. W- on the battlefield, you're in charge of a fire team. A fire team has four or five people in it. Even in combat, you can control four or five people. Eight people, you actually can't control anymore.

Lewis Howes 18:00 Mm.

Jocko Willink 18:00 In a firefight, you can't control eight people. That's why the Army, the Marine Corps, around the whole world, it's like four or five people in a fire team. That's what the base unit is.

Lewis Howes 18:09 Wow.

Jocko Willink 18:09 In the corporate world, you can handle a little bit more than that because there's no explosions happening. There's no gunfire.

Lewis Howes 18:14 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 18:14 So you can control eight people, 10 people, something like that. That's kind of what the normal corporate structure breaks out as. But the bigger you get, the more you have to rely on those subordinate leaders. To spread the word, to understand what the mission is, to understand what the end state is, to understand why they're doing what they're doing. That's what you have to do as a leader. And when you do that, w- there was plenty of missions that I went on where I was the ground force commander in charge of 30 or 40 SEALs or 100-

Lewis Howes 18:45 Wow

Jocko Willink 18:45 ... SEALs and Iraqi soldiers combined together. Plenty of operations like that. You know how many people I talked to? I would talk to three.

Lewis Howes 18:53 Right. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 18:53 I would talk to the two platoon commanders and the mobility commander.

Lewis Howes 18:57 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 18:57 And everybody, and then they would talk to their two or three people, and then their people would talk to their two or three people.

Lewis Howes 19:02 So how do you get that message across to 100 or 1,000s if that's in your organization?

Jocko Willink 19:06 There's a, there's a bunch of different ways. So in a big organization, this is something that we come across. I mean, we work with companies, I think the biggest company we worked with is 100 and, 167,000 employees. 167,000 employees global, right? So they're all over the place. So how do you get the message? Well, there's a bunch of things that you have to do. Number one, you have to make sure that your message is simple, clear, and concise, right?

Lewis Howes 19:30 Mm.

Jocko Willink 19:30 Every, you gotta, you gotta communicate in a way that even that frontline trooper can understand what you're talking about. Now, you have to translate that up and down the chain of command because if you're my chief operating officer, obviously the level of detail that I go into with you and, and the chief financial officer, there, that's gonna be higher. You guys need to, we, we need to be in a deeper level of conversation and understanding. But I need to make sure that you know how to translate that down to your next level.

Lewis Howes 19:56 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 19:56 And then that person knows how to translate it down to their next level, and all the way through the chain of command. There's companies where I'll go into the CEO and we'll be talking and I'll say, "So how well does everyone understand what your mission is here?" And he'll say, "Oh, absolutely." I'll go to a frontline person and say, "What's the mission of this company?"

Lewis Howes 20:11 No clue.

Jocko Willink 20:11 They have no idea. They have no idea.

Lewis Howes 20:13 So [laughs]

Jocko Willink 20:13 And, and this can be a real problem.

Lewis Howes 20:15 Yeah. Huge.

Jocko Willink 20:15 This can be a real, I mean, obviously this can be a real problem, but it becomes a real problem when if you're a frontline troop and you don't understand what the mission is, you can make bad decisions on the front line. So there's certain companies at certain stages where the most important thing they can do is, is be cost effective, save money, right? A- and that's, if a frontline troop needs to make a decision about, "Hey, should I redo this thing right now, which is gonna cost us a little bo, bit more money?"

Lewis Howes 20:43 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 20:43 "Or should I just let it go with a little bit lower standard?" Well, if what you're focused on is saving money, that guy says, "Okay, you know what? I'm gonna let this go even though the standard's a little bit lower." That, that's, that's a decision that can get made. But what if your focus right now, maybe you got some bad reviews from consumers?

Lewis Howes 20:57 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 20:57 And so your focus is to make quality perfect even if you have to expend a little bit more money. If the frontline troop knows that, he goes, "Wait a second, this isn't quite where we want it," so he redoes it. It costs a little bit more money, but we're, we're now achieving the mission-

Lewis Howes 21:11 Mm

Jocko Willink 21:12 ... at that time. And guess what? As you can probably figure out, the mission changes because we work with a, we, we'll work with a company where, what are they trying to do right now? They're trying to maximize profits for this quarter because they're going public, and they need four quarters in a row or six quarters in a row-

Lewis Howes 21:25 Right

Jocko Willink 21:25 ... where they see that increase in pro- So okay, guess what kind of decisions they're making? Now, can you go too far with that?

Lewis Howes 21:31 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 21:31 Absolutely. And now you get the frontline troop that goes, "Hey, I don't care. I'll, I'll put out as many as I possibly can. It's gonna be dirt cheap, and I save the company a bunch of money." But now we end up with bad quality out there, and we will-

Lewis Howes 21:42 Yeah

Jocko Willink 21:42 ... get a bad reputation, and that'll hurt us strategically.

Lewis Howes 21:44 Right.

Jocko Willink 21:45 So how do you get that message out there? You, you have to, number one, make sure it's simple, and then you communicate it.

Lewis Howes 21:50 What's a simple message for, like a, I guess it depends on the company, but.

Jocko Willink 21:54 Depends on the company.

Lewis Howes 21:55 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 21:55 It depends on the company.

Lewis Howes 21:55 But should a simple message be, like, one sentence, you mean? Or should it be a, um, simple to understand?

Jocko Willink 22:00 Simple to understand.

Lewis Howes 22:01 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 22:01 The more [clears throat] and, and what we'll do with companies is we'll do a drill. We'll, we'll work on their mission, s- kind of their mission statement, but then also their mantra or maybe a couple mantras where, you know, in this case, hey, it's quality over quantity.

Lewis Howes 22:17 Right.

Jocko Willink 22:18 And now a frontline person's making decisions based on that.

Lewis Howes 22:20 Understand the mantra, yeah.

Jocko Willink 22:20 Right? And so there's a couple mantras, two, three mantras that the people can refer back to-

Lewis Howes 22:24 Sure

Jocko Willink 22:24 ... that helps them guide their decision-making process. And then on top of that, they have, like, a, a more, a little bit more detailed mission statement where they can say, "Wait a second, I know the mantra says this, but it also says we're supposed to take care of our customers."

Lewis Howes 22:37 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 22:37 "And if I let this go, then my customers won't be taken care of. I, I need to, I need to adjust a little bit."

Lewis Howes 22:42 Right. What would you say is your mission and the mantras you use for your, your business brand, your-

Jocko Willink 22:48 So I have a bunch of different businesses.

Lewis Howes 22:49 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 22:50 You know, for Echelon Front, our, our consulting business, our mission is to be the premier organization for leadership consult- consultancy in the world. That's what we're trying to do.

Lewis Howes 23:00 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 23:01 And we're doing great at it.

Lewis Howes 23:03 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 23:03 You know? We're doing great at it. How do we do that? What are the mantras? Well, v- number one, like you just, like, like we just said, what do we wanna do? We wanna make our clients and customers happy. How do we do that? We provide them great service, and we actually improve their game.

Lewis Howes 23:18 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 23:18 We actually c- can look at their metrics and say, "Hey, look, we're glad you brought us on board. Here's what we said we were gonna do, and here's how it works."

Lewis Howes 23:26 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 23:27 So that's ... And the, the, one of the other things that we say is, "Look, we don't wanna be a permanent crutch that people have to rely on." So a lot of consultant company, consultancies, they, they wanna go in and, and hook into a company for an extended period of time, and we don't wanna do that. We wanna work with you for six months, 12 months, 18 months, depending on the size of the company.

Lewis Howes 23:46 And let you go, yeah.

Jocko Willink 23:47 We do have some companies that are growing rapidly, and so what we do is we, w- as they acquire new companies or as they bring in lots of new people, we're there to help train them-

Lewis Howes 24:00 Yeah

Jocko Willink 24:00 ... and kind of onboard them. So, so that has turned into some longer term contracts, but that's one of the mantras, is, is we don't wanna be embedded with you forever. If we, if we're with you for too long, we failed.

Lewis Howes 24:14 Yeah. Okay.

Jocko Willink 24:15 So that's the kind of things we do.

Lewis Howes 24:16 And what about your personal mission with the, the content you do and all, and all, and all the books? Is there are missions st- there that you have as well?

Jocko Willink 24:24 I'm trying to take the lessons that I was lucky enough to learn and get them to as many people as I can so they don't-

Lewis Howes 24:30 Yeah

Jocko Willink 24:30 ... have to suffer through the same mistakes that I made.

Lewis Howes 24:32 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:34 What would you say is your biggest, uh, insecurity?

Jocko Willink 24:36 Like-

Lewis Howes 24:36 Do you have any insecurities?

Jocko Willink 24:38 My biggest insecurity?

Lewis Howes 24:39 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 24:39 [sighs]

Lewis Howes 24:42 'Cause f- from the outside looking in, you feel like it, it seems like you have no fear, you're s- extremely successful in business. Everything you put out is really successful. You've been through 20 years of training and combat. You've seen the worst in the world, you've seen the best, and it doesn't seem like you have many insecurities. So I'm just ... I'm curious-

Jocko Willink 25:01 Uh, I-

Lewis Howes 25:01 ... if you face any today after all the lessons you've gone through?

Jocko Willink 25:04 Yeah, I mean, I would say, like anybody else, I, I don't wanna fail at things.

Lewis Howes 25:08 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 25:10 And for me, like I said, if there's people out there that could use the lessons that I've learned, and I haven't gotten it to them, to me, that's a failure.

Lewis Howes 25:21 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 25:22 So th- that, that's the kinda thing that keeps me awake at night. The other thing from that perspective is, you know, you, you look at ... You say, you know, "You've seen a lot. You've been through a lot," and, and I have. I've been through a decent amount. There's, there's many, many people that have been through infinitely worse than me. But, you know, for what I'm insecure about, for what I worry about, is I worry about missing out on opportunities that I have-

Lewis Howes 25:55 Mm

Jocko Willink 25:55 ... because I got friends that will never get the chance to execute on opportunities, because they didn't come home. And so-

Lewis Howes 26:04 Mm

Jocko Willink 26:04 ... for me to squander any moment, any second of my life ... My, my life is a gift. Your life is a gift. I know that for a fact. And for me to squander that is something that, that definitely, definitely haunts me.

Lewis Howes 26:20 Mm.

Jocko Willink 26:20 It haunts me every day, and I won't let it happen.

Lewis Howes 26:22 Yeah. 'Cause you had ... I'm assuming you had a lot of friends that didn't make it back, or people you were with or trained or ...

Jocko Willink 26:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 26:28 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 26:29 All of the above.

Lewis Howes 26:31 So how ... Do you feel like you have this responsibility to make sure you take on every opportunity, or the opportunities that come to you, you've gotta at least give them your best shot?

Jocko Willink 26:38 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 26:38 Even if you kinda, quote-unquote, "fail at it"?

Jocko Willink 26:40 Well, yeah. I mean, there's a, there's a ... What you just said, I mean, even you know as you said it-

Lewis Howes 26:47 Yeah

Jocko Willink 26:47 ... it's an unrealistic statement.

Lewis Howes 26:48 Of course.

Jocko Willink 26:48 "Hey, every opportunity that comes your way-"

Lewis Howes 26:49 Yeah

Jocko Willink 26:49 ... "I'm gonna take on." No, that's not true. Every opportunity that I have, prioritize and execute, you know, which is one of the laws of combat.

Lewis Howes 26:57 Right. Yeah. Right.

Jocko Willink 26:57 It's like, hey, you're gonna get opportunities, but I'm gonna look at them-

Lewis Howes 27:01 Mm

Jocko Willink 27:01 ... assess them, and move forward. But really, I'm talking about the, the real things that are, that I'm trying to do, that I have the opportunity to do, uh, I'm gonna do them to the best of my ability.

Lewis Howes 27:11 Yeah. Is there anything you regret in your 20 years of being a SEAL?

Jocko Willink 27:17 Uh, I mean, you're always gonna have regret.

Lewis Howes 27:19 Is there any-

Jocko Willink 27:20 But-

Lewis Howes 27:20 Is, is there anything that you are, you still hold onto, that you haven't, like, processed and let go of or taken ... Been okay with, I guess, like the regrets that you, you dealt with?

Jocko Willink 27:31 Um, y- you know, I don't spend a lot of time with regret.

Lewis Howes 27:37 That's good.

Jocko Willink 27:38 You know, because there's, there's not much that you can do about it.

Lewis Howes 27:42 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 27:42 It's happened.

Lewis Howes 27:43 It's nothing, yeah.

Jocko Willink 27:44 So what, what ... The way I look at regret is what did I learn from it?

Lewis Howes 27:47 Mm.

Jocko Willink 27:47 What, what did I learn from whatever thing I'm looking at that I know I coulda done a better job, coulda done different? Sure. There's a million things like that, but I don't sit there and think about them all day long. What I think is like, "Hey, here's the lessons that I learned from them. I won't make those mistakes again," and move forward.

Lewis Howes 28:04 Yeah. Was it challenging? 'Cause you have f- four kids, did you say you have?

Jocko Willink 28:08 Four kids, yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:08 Four kids. Was it challenging at times being a father and going off to war, and thinking about kids and missing out on kids? Was that challenging for you? Or did you know, "This is what I signed up for, and it's all gonna be okay. I'm gonna come home eventually and spend more q- quality time with them"? Or did you struggle with being a father and being away a lot at the same time?

Jocko Willink 28:29 Uh, yeah. When you have kids and you go away to war and you don't know if you're gonna come back-

Lewis Howes 28:32 Yeah

Jocko Willink 28:32 ... that's horrible.

Lewis Howes 28:34 How do you han- how do you handle that emotionally or mentally?

Jocko Willink 28:37 I, I think I did a lot of compartmentalization.

Lewis Howes 28:40 Really?

Jocko Willink 28:41 And so, like, here's a for instance. I was in Ramadi my last deployment to Iraq, and my wife asked me to send a picture of where I slept at night. 'Cause my kids ... She said, "Oh, the kids wanna see where you're sleeping." We were in an old regime kinda palace on the wa- Not quite a palace, but a mansion.

Lewis Howes 29:01 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 29:01 And of course, it's all now boarded up, and there's sandbags in the windows-

Lewis Howes 29:04 Sure

Jocko Willink 29:04 ... and there are machine gun nests on it, and the whole nine yards. But that's where we were living, you know? And I had a little bedroom in there with a plywood bed-

Lewis Howes 29:12 Mm

Jocko Willink 29:12 ... that w- you know, we'd built. And there was some kind of a crappy mattress on it.

Lewis Howes 29:17 [laughs] A little cushion, yeah.

Jocko Willink 29:18 Yeah. But that's, that's where I slept.

Lewis Howes 29:19 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 29:20 And so I was going to take a picture of it so I could send it to my wife on an email, and when I took the picture, I looked at it and I realized that there was something wrong with the picture. So I opened up a, a, a f- a drawer, pulled out a, a little file, a little folder, took some pictures of my wife and kids and put them up around the bed.

Lewis Howes 29:39 Wow.

Jocko Willink 29:40 And then I took a picture of it, and then I took all those things back down, I put them back in the folder, I put them back in the drawer. Because the last thing I needed to be thinking about while I was away on deployment was thinking about my wife and kids.

Lewis Howes 29:53 Wow.

Jocko Willink 29:54 What I needed to be thinking about was the guys that were with me that were counting on me to make the right decisions. And so I didn't wanna be thinking about my wife and kids. So I compartmentalized them. I would talk to my wife maybe once a week, call or check in. I would tell her everything's great, everything's fine, and she would tell me the same thing. You know, doesn't matter what was going on at home, as far as she would tell me.

Lewis Howes 30:15 So you can't be worrying about her.

Jocko Willink 30:17 She, she didn't want me worrying about her-

Lewis Howes 30:18 Wow

Jocko Willink 30:18 ... or the kids. So as far as I knew, everything was good. And as far as she knew, everything was good. And that was what seemed to work well.

Lewis Howes 30:25 Wow. Did they teach you that? Or is that, is that what a lot of SEALs did? Or is that just kinda something s-

Jocko Willink 30:32 I, I, I-

Lewis Howes 30:32 You had to. You just like-

Jocko Willink 30:33 I think some And not just SEALs, but I think most human beings-

Lewis Howes 30:38 Yeah

Jocko Willink 30:38 ... will, will figure that that's probably the best thing to do, is focus on your job at hand and, and, and put those thoughts and feelings a- aside. But la- I'll tell you what, you know, you talked about being scared, and h- I said, you know, m- for me, being scared of, of one of my guys getting hurt, the last thing in the world I wanted to be thinking about while I was on deployment was my wife and kids at home, and-

Lewis Howes 31:02 Mm

Jocko Willink 31:02 ... would I ever see them again, and any of that. I'm not thinking about that. That's not, that's not happening.

Lewis Howes 31:05 'Cause then you're making the wrong moves.

Jocko Willink 31:07 Yeah, 'cause then you're, then you're ... Then what you're doing is you're hesitating, and if you're hesitating-

Lewis Howes 31:12 That's when you get hurt

Jocko Willink 31:12 ... you're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get killed. So.

Lewis Howes 31:15 Man, that's crazy. That's a story right there. So wh- when she saw the photo, was she happy to see the family photos around?

Jocko Willink 31:22 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 31:22 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 31:23 Oh, that's nice.

Lewis Howes 31:24 But in here. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 31:25 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 31:26 That's crazy, but you couldn't sleep at night looking at those photos.

Jocko Willink 31:28 I didn't want to.

Lewis Howes 31:30 Wow.

Jocko Willink 31:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 31:30 Did other guys do the same thing, or did some of them have-

Jocko Willink 31:33 I, I don't know.

Lewis Howes 31:34 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 31:34 You know, if some guys, it fueled them, that's fine. You know?

Lewis Howes 31:36 Mm.

Jocko Willink 31:36 Not everyone's the same.

Lewis Howes 31:38 Right.

Jocko Willink 31:38 You know? Some guys I'm sure would look at their, look at the picture of their, of their wife or their kids and, and, and feel-

Lewis Howes 31:44 Give them energy

Jocko Willink 31:44 ... feel, feel motivated by it, and give them-

Lewis Howes 31:46 Interesting

Jocko Willink 31:46 ... something to look forward to. For me, I did not want to think about that.

Lewis Howes 31:49 [laughs] Oh, man.

Jocko Willink 31:50 I did not want to think about that.

Lewis Howes 31:52 That's crazy. Was once a week enough for you to ha- keep that connection going and to keep the-

Jocko Willink 31:57 Yeah. I mean, I've been married for a long time. I've been married-

Lewis Howes 32:00 Wow

Jocko Willink 32:00 ... f- for a long time, for 20-something years.

Lewis Howes 32:03 Do you believe in God, too?

Jocko Willink 32:05 I think when you're overseas in a combat situation, you know, whether you, depending on what your version of, of, of God is gonna be-

Lewis Howes 32:15 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 32:16 ... but what I will say is this: You will see absolute pure evil overseas. You'll see it. You know, what we saw in the, in the battle of Ramadi was abhorrent behavior by forces of evil that seemed to be non-human-

Lewis Howes 32:35 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 32:35 ... in many ways. And then the other side of the spectrum, when you're in combat, you're gonna see some level of good and pure goodness-

Lewis Howes 32:46 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 32:46 ... that when, you know, when s- when, when one person will sacrifice their life to save other people, that's not normal, right? That's not an, a human instinct. It's a hins- an, an instinct beyond being human. And so whatever your, whatever that word means-

Lewis Howes 33:06 Mm

Jocko Willink 33:06 ... good, evil, God, Satan-

Lewis Howes 33:08 Yeah

Jocko Willink 33:09 ... I- I've seen it.

Lewis Howes 33:10 Did you ... What were your beliefs, uh, as a SEAL, and have they changed since you're, since you've been home? Did you b- did you believe in a higher power or God or, or, you know, spiritual belief during that time, and has it shifted or changed?

Jocko Willink 33:29 I mean, I say the, the feelings that I had going in, I would say, you know, what I just explained about-

Lewis Howes 33:38 Yeah

Jocko Willink 33:38 ... seeing good and evil. Like, when you see good and evil like that, that extreme, it, it, it just reinforced the fact that there's ... W- like, like I said, wherever you put these ideas-

Lewis Howes 33:50 Yeah

Jocko Willink 33:51 ... wherever you think those ideas are rooted, I've seen them spring up into the world with my own eyes.

Lewis Howes 33:59 Yeah. So what's your belief, then? Is it, do you believe in a higher power guiding you, or do you believe there is a God, there isn't a God?

Jocko Willink 34:09 Yeah. Well, there, there has to be-

Lewis Howes 34:10 In your mind

Jocko Willink 34:11 ... some ... There, there's something inside.

Lewis Howes 34:14 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 34:14 There's something in the world-

Lewis Howes 34:15 Yeah

Jocko Willink 34:16 ... whether it's inside people's heads, whether it's external, I don't know, and I'm, I'm a person that looks at the world and thinks.

Lewis Howes 34:22 Mm.

Jocko Willink 34:23 When I hear people saying, "God doesn't exist," then ... Or, "God 100% exists," guess what? I don't know.

Lewis Howes 34:32 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 34:33 When I say I don't know, I don't, I don't claim to understand the mysteries of the universe at all. But I will say this: When you look and you see the actions of human beings, whether that force is external or internal, they are there. And so-

Lewis Howes 34:50 Right

Jocko Willink 34:51 ... I've seen them.

Lewis Howes 34:52 How do you, uh ... Do you, do you currently explore those questions about the mysteries of the world, if there is a God, if there isn't a God? Do you think about that often, or is that not something you're thinking about? 'Cause for me, I'm constantly questioning everything. There's some days where I believe firmly there's a God. Other days, I feel like I don't know.

Jocko Willink 35:13 Mm.

Lewis Howes 35:14 And so I'm just curious, is that something that you're asking-

Jocko Willink 35:17 N- no.

Lewis Howes 35:17 You're not asking those questions or curious about that?

Jocko Willink 35:20 N- not really.

Lewis Howes 35:20 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 35:21 But like I said, there's good i- in the world, there's evil-

Lewis Howes 35:23 And there's evil

Jocko Willink 35:23 ... in the world.

Lewis Howes 35:24 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 35:25 And whether that, whether that's a some unifying thing inside of people's brains or-

Lewis Howes 35:30 I don't know

Jocko Willink 35:30 ... whether it's external, you can think whatever you want.

Lewis Howes 35:32 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 35:32 I'm telling you it's there.

Lewis Howes 35:33 [laughs] Yeah.

Jocko Willink 35:35 I'm telling you it's there.

Lewis Howes 35:35 Crazy.

Jocko Willink 35:35 And, and I don't try and convince people one way or the other.

Lewis Howes 35:38 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 35:38 Like-

Lewis Howes 35:38 You've just seen it.

Jocko Willink 35:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:39 You've experienced it all.

Jocko Willink 35:40 I've seen it. I've experienced it, and that's good enough for me.

Lewis Howes 35:44 What's the question you feel like you haven't been able to answer for yourself? Is there a question you're seeking to, to learn more about answers to? If it's not God or the world, is there something else around leadership, around people, or around something else that you're seeking?

Jocko Willink 35:59 So you're asking me if there's a question that I think about all the time that I'm looking for the answer?

Lewis Howes 36:03 Well, that you're looking for an answer for, yeah. Is there something that you're like, "I'm really curious about this thing," whether it's about yourself, about other people, about the world, about leadership? Is there something that you're cur- currently looking for an answer for?

Jocko Willink 36:16 You know what's weird is that I literally sit around all day and talk about leadership. I think about leadership.

Lewis Howes 36:22 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 36:22 And what leadership, to me, it boils down to understanding human nature.

Lewis Howes 36:26 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 36:27 So for me, trying to better understand human nature is what I'm constantly trying to do, is just gather a better understanding of human nature. And how that applies to everything in the world

Lewis Howes 36:42 Human nature meaning the way we think, the way, why we do certain things, why we respond-

Jocko Willink 36:46 Yes

Lewis Howes 36:47 ... emotionally, mentally, physically to ideas or people or reactions.

Jocko Willink 36:51 Yes

Lewis Howes 36:51 Is that what you mean?

Jocko Willink 36:52 How can I understand human nature, people? Everything you just said.

Lewis Howes 36:56 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 36:56 How can I understand that better? And that's what I'm always looking to do.

Lewis Howes 36:58 Yeah. What is giving you the best, um, information around understanding people better?

Jocko Willink 37:05 Well, you know, I, on, on my podcast, I, it's really a podcast about human nature.

Lewis Howes 37:10 Yeah

Jocko Willink 37:10 And it's human nature through the lens of war and atrocities, really. Because when you start looking to reveal human nature, the, the place where human nature gets revealed most clearly is in chaotic situations.

Lewis Howes 37:27 [laughs] Yeah, life and death situations

Jocko Willink 37:28 In mayhem, life and death situations. Whether it's war, whether it's a concentration camp-

Lewis Howes 37:33 Yeah, wow

Jocko Willink 37:33 ... whether it's a prison camp. Wh- whatever that is, that's when you start to see what people, how people react.

Lewis Howes 37:39 Survival situations.

Jocko Willink 37:41 Yes.

Lewis Howes 37:41 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 37:41 And so for me, that, that constant trek down that road of uncovering what, how this person reacted, how this group of people reacted, how that other group of people reacted, understanding that and seeing that and let, allowing that to unfold in my world has been, tha- that's, that's my, that's, that's my road I'm on.

Lewis Howes 38:03 What, why do people react the most just in life? Whether it's, uh, you know, prison camp or war, or you're just walking down the street and someone cuts you off. W- is there similarities between those situations where it might be just a normal day, but there's something that offends you or triggers you? And also in a, uh, in a time of life or death situation, are there, are there any similarities or-

Jocko Willink 38:26 Oh, there's absolutely similarities

Lewis Howes 38:27 What are the, what are those things that's-

Jocko Willink 38:28 There's similarities across the board.

Lewis Howes 38:30 Yeah

Jocko Willink 38:30 That's what makes it so interesting to me-

Lewis Howes 38:31 Right

Jocko Willink 38:32 ... is because I get to see the way that things happen in wartime, and then you get to see-

Lewis Howes 38:36 'Cause you've lived it, yeah

Jocko Willink 38:37 ... how that compares to how it works in a, in a corporate setting.

Lewis Howes 38:42 Yeah. What are the ... W- why are we triggered to react or be defensive or guarded or in this kinda survival mode when life isn't actually threatening us in a corporate setting or ...

Jocko Willink 38:54 Well, the, the thing that's driving in a corporate setting often is your ego.

Lewis Howes 38:58 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 38:58 Which, which by the way, is the same thing that drives a lot of things that then unfold, the same things that unfold in a combat scenario.

Lewis Howes 39:04 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 39:04 It's like, oh, your ego's involved. Hey, I think we should do this plan this way, and then you think you should do it a d- you think we should do it a different way. My plan's better. You think your plan's better. We bang heads. Like, that's bad.

Lewis Howes 39:15 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 39:15 That happens in war and it happens in the corporate-

Lewis Howes 39:18 Yeah

Jocko Willink 39:18 ... society as well.

Lewis Howes 39:20 Ego.

Jocko Willink 39:20 So, yeah, ego.

Lewis Howes 39:21 E-

Jocko Willink 39:21 Ego's, it drives all kinds of decisions that you make.

Lewis Howes 39:26 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 39:26 Bad decisions.

Lewis Howes 39:27 Right. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 39:28 It drives some good decisions too.

Lewis Howes 39:30 Yeah

Jocko Willink 39:30 Right? I mean, it does. Uh, y- you're, you're ignorant not to admit that, you know?

Lewis Howes 39:34 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 39:35 Like, I like to win at things, right?

Lewis Howes 39:38 Yeah

Jocko Willink 39:38 Cool, what's driving that? It's 100% ego.

Lewis Howes 39:40 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 39:40 You know what I mean? You like to win at things.

Lewis Howes 39:41 Of course.

Jocko Willink 39:42 You like to do well.

Lewis Howes 39:43 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 39:43 Cool. What's driving that? It's, it's ego.

Lewis Howes 39:45 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 39:45 There's some level of ego. Now, if it goes overboard and you start making decisions so that you can win, but you're stepping on the backs of other people, that means you've let your ego get out of control, and now you're making mistakes.

Lewis Howes 39:57 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 39:57 And that's gonna end up in your downfall eventually.

Lewis Howes 39:59 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 39:59 It might not. You might, you might get pretty far. You, you might let, get pretty far allowing your ego to smash other people and abuse other people. You might get pretty far, but eventually it's gonna come back on you. It gu- I guarantee it's gonna come back on you.

Lewis Howes 40:11 How do you manage your own ego with the success you get? You know, you've had success in multiple areas of your, uh, career, from a SEAL to an author to a business leader to an executive coach and leadership coach. How do you manage it when you are training CEOs from companies that have 100,000 plus employees and you're number one on the list and top podcast? How do you manage it daily?

Jocko Willink 40:34 Because I've seen over and over again through my own experiences, through the books that I cover on my podcast, the books I've read in my life, if you want to open yourself up for a massive downfall, just let your ego get out of control.

Lewis Howes 40:46 Really? [laughs]

Jocko Willink 40:47 If you wanna d- let that happen, yeah, let your ego get out of control. So every single day for me, it starts gr- you know, ground zero. I, I've gotta, I've gotta s- go forward with an open mind, with a humble mind, looking at the world. You know, it's classic, like when I get asked a question, I don't think to myself, "Oh, I, I know the answer to this."

Lewis Howes 41:07 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 41:07 And I get asked questions all the time.

Lewis Howes 41:10 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 41:10 And generally, when I hear a question, 99% of those questions that I hear, I've heard in some form before.

Lewis Howes 41:16 Sure.

Jocko Willink 41:17 But I don't go, "Oh, I've heard this before. I already know the answer." I say, "Okay, well, let me, let me hear this. What, what detail is this person talking about? What angle is this person coming at it from? What can I learn from this question? How can I assess this question?" So e- everything that I look at, I try and look at from a humble perspective. If, if, and if you don't do that, it's gonna be a problem.

Lewis Howes 41:35 Hmm.

Jocko Willink 41:35 I mean, even when you're asking me questions about God, right? You're asking me questions about my beliefs. It's like, "Hey, I, here's my beliefs. I'm humble, and I'm listening, and my mind is open. And this is what I've seen, and this is what I can tell you about it."

Lewis Howes 41:48 Sure, sure.

Jocko Willink 41:48 I'm not sitting here jumping up and down saying you should believe this-

Lewis Howes 41:51 Stay facts, yeah

Jocko Willink 41:52 ... or you should believe that. I'm saying you should stay humble. You should keep an open mind about what's going on in the world. I am. I think you should do the same thing.

Lewis Howes 42:03 Wow. How do, how do you ... So it's a m- it's a mindset every morning. You wake up with a, an open mind.

Jocko Willink 42:08 Yeah. And I don't want to get in this whole, like, morning routine-

Lewis Howes 42:11 Sure

Jocko Willink 42:11 ... where I go and look in the mirror and say, "Be humble." No, I don't do that.

Lewis Howes 42:14 [laughs] Right.

Jocko Willink 42:14 Like, I'm not, that's not, that's not me.

Lewis Howes 42:15 Right

Jocko Willink 42:15 But when, you know, you wake up and ... I'm just saying, the, the way I go about my business and my life is to say, say to myself, "Okay, well, I could be wrong about that."

Lewis Howes 42:25 Hmm.

Jocko Willink 42:25 "I could be wrong about this." You know?

Lewis Howes 42:27 Wow.

Jocko Willink 42:27 It's ... I mean,

Jocko Willink 42:29 even, even the, the book that I wrote follow-on to Extreme Ownership-

Lewis Howes 42:33 Uh-huh

Jocko Willink 42:33 ... the book is called The Dichotomy of Leadership.

Lewis Howes 42:35 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 42:35 And what's interesting about this book, so the dichotomy of leadership is, like, you can't be extreme in one direction or the other, right? You can't be- If you're, if you're in a leadership position, you can't talk all the time, right? Obviously as a boss you need to communicate, you need to talk to your people.

Lewis Howes 42:52 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 42:52 But if you talk too much, guess what happens? People start, stop listening to you.

Lewis Howes 42:56 Yes.

Jocko Willink 42:56 You're putting out too much information. They don't know what's important and what's not. So that's bad. You can't go too far in that direction. The other direction is you can't not talk enough, and now no one knows what's going on, no one knows what's happening. So you have to be balanced, and that's the whole idea of the dichotomy of leadership. But probably the first dichotomy in leadership that I had to say to myself, "You know what I'm, I... There's another side to this," is I used to tell the young Seal officers that you have to be aggressive. You gotta be default aggressive. That's how you gotta be.

Lewis Howes 43:24 Mm.

Jocko Willink 43:24 Because when something's going on, you gotta be aggressive to make that, get that problem solved.

Lewis Howes 43:28 Right.

Jocko Willink 43:28 And if you're not being aggressive, then you're hesitating, well then you can get killed. Okay, so there you go. And that's what I used to tell guys. And as I was telling-

Lewis Howes 43:36 But that's extreme. That's an extreme-

Jocko Willink 43:37 Yes

Lewis Howes 43:37 ... style.

Jocko Willink 43:37 That's the problem with it.

Lewis Howes 43:38 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 43:38 And so the question is, can you be too aggressive?

Lewis Howes 43:41 Yes.

Jocko Willink 43:41 Absolutely. You can, "Hey, there's a machine gun nest over there. Let's attack it." So you charge up the hill and everyone dies.

Lewis Howes 43:47 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 43:47 You've, you've been too aggressive. So what you have to do is you have to be balanced, and that's probably... So, so even as I had these kind of mantras-

Lewis Howes 43:55 Mm. Yeah

Jocko Willink 43:55 ... like default aggressive, can you do too much of that? Yes, you can. So you end up with this, what do you end up? Can you be too passive?

Lewis Howes 44:04 Absolutely.

Jocko Willink 44:04 Oh yeah, absolutely.

Lewis Howes 44:05 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 44:05 Well, now we're not making any progress. Now we're getting crushed by the enemy 'cause we didn't maneuver. Okay, so that's bad. So where do you wanna be? You wanna be balanced. Even the idea of extreme ownership, can you take too much ownership?

Lewis Howes 44:16 Yes.

Jocko Willink 44:17 Yes, you can.

Lewis Howes 44:18 [laughs] Really?

Jocko Willink 44:18 You, yes, you can.

Lewis Howes 44:19 I thought you said you need to take ownership of everything.

Jocko Willink 44:21 Two different things.

Lewis Howes 44:22 Oh, okay.

Jocko Willink 44:22 Listen to this. If you're working for me and I say, "Okay, here's the mission that I want you to accomplish tonight."

Lewis Howes 44:31 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 44:31 "Here's the people I want you to take. Here's the weapons I want you to bring. Here's the vehicles I want you to bring. Here's the, here's the route I want you to use to get to the target. Here's the method I want you to use-

Lewis Howes 44:40 Mm

Jocko Willink 44:40 ... to secure the target. Here's the route I want you to do to get back."

Lewis Howes 44:43 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 44:43 So that's the plan. Now you take ownership and, and go execute. Now, can you really take ownership of that plan?

Lewis Howes 44:50 If someone else gave me the whole thing?

Jocko Willink 44:51 I mean, I gave you the whole thing.

Lewis Howes 44:52 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 44:52 Right? Is that your plan?

Lewis Howes 44:53 No.

Jocko Willink 44:54 No.

Lewis Howes 44:54 It's your plan.

Jocko Willink 44:55 It's my plan. So when you go in the field, and now you come up against an obstacle and you're executing my plan, what's your attitude?

Lewis Howes 45:02 Well, it's not my plan. It's-

Jocko Willink 45:04 Yeah

Lewis Howes 45:04 ... his plan. Yeah.

Jocko Willink 45:04 And, and you're at an obstacle now and you're like, "Hey, Jocko didn't think of this."

Lewis Howes 45:07 Right, right, right.

Jocko Willink 45:07 "So here's my obstacle."

Lewis Howes 45:08 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 45:09 So now you just back away and you come back and you say, "Hey, we failed the mission 'cause you didn't think of this."

Lewis Howes 45:13 You didn't think of this option. Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 45:14 Right. So that's me taking too much ownership. So what I need to do is I say, "Hey, here's the plan," or, "Here's the mission. How do you wanna do it?"

Lewis Howes 45:23 Mm.

Jocko Willink 45:24 And now if you're a good leader, you'll go get with your people and you'll say, "Oh, hey guys, here's the plan," or, "Here's the mission that we have to accomplish. How do you guys wanna do it?" Now you all come up with a good plan, and you come back to me and you say, "Here's the plan." And I say, "That looks pretty good. Go execute." And now when you hit an obstacle in the field, what's your attitude?

Lewis Howes 45:41 I need to adapt, I need to adjust. What's-

Jocko Willink 45:42 Yeah, it's your plan

Lewis Howes 45:43 ... yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 45:43 You'll make it win.

Lewis Howes 45:43 You came up with this. Yeah.

Jocko Willink 45:45 Yes. So can you take too much ownership? The answer is yes, you can. So with just about every, you, you can name a trait, right? You can name a trait from a leadership perspective that you think is a positive trait, and you'll immediately see that if you go too far with it, it'll become bad. It'll become bad. So you have to be balanced. So even as I came up with the dichotomy of leadership, I had to be humble enough to say to myself, "You know what? Being aggressive is really, really good most of the time."

Lewis Howes 46:11 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 46:12 "But if you're too aggressive, that's not good."

Lewis Howes 46:14 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 46:14 So like you said earlier, you're constantly questioning everything. And to me, what that is, that's, that's humility.

Lewis Howes 46:22 Mm.

Jocko Willink 46:22 That's you being humble enough to say, "You know what? I, I really don't understand this that well."

Lewis Howes 46:26 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 46:26 And, and there's some things in my life that I don't get. Whereas oppo- as opposed to you walking around saying, "I already got this figured out."

Lewis Howes 46:33 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 46:33 "I already know what I'm doing. I already know where I'm going. I already know what God is specifically."

Lewis Howes 46:38 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 46:38 "I already know what's gonna happen to me when I die." All those things. But instead, you're questioning everything-

Lewis Howes 46:43 Mm

Jocko Willink 46:43 ... which in my mind is a positive thing.

Lewis Howes 46:44 Yeah. That's good to know. [laughs] Is there anything that is missing in your life? Do you feel like something's missing?

Jocko Willink 46:53 I, I, no, I feel like I'm living a pretty good life right now. I mean, I-

Lewis Howes 46:57 Yeah

Jocko Willink 46:57 ... I'm totally blessed. I mean, I got a great family, I got great kids, I got a great company, I got, I got f- uh, working with great people.

Lewis Howes 47:05 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:05 No, life is good.

Lewis Howes 47:07 You're healthy.

Jocko Willink 47:07 Healthy. You know, I get to work out, train. I'm feeling good.

Lewis Howes 47:12 Living the dream, man.

Jocko Willink 47:13 Yeah. Living the dream.

Lewis Howes 47:14 That's great. So you never feel like there's something myth- missing for you right now. You're, if there is, you're working towards it, you're working on the next book, you're building the business. You're-

Jocko Willink 47:21 Yeah, well, there's a difference between something missing and am I satisfied?

Lewis Howes 47:24 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:25 Right? 'Cause I, I'm not satisfied.

Lewis Howes 47:26 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:26 I mean, I always wanna go. Like I never, I never get done with the end of the day and go, "Cool."

Lewis Howes 47:32 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 47:32 "Mission accomplished."

Lewis Howes 47:33 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:33 Like, it's like, I gotta do close.

Lewis Howes 47:34 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:35 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 47:35 Yeah. So you're not satisfied, but you feel like nothing's missing.

Jocko Willink 47:39 Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's a fair statement.

Lewis Howes 47:42 What brings you the, the most joy in your life and makes you smile the most?

Jocko Willink 47:46 Oh, I mean, my kids. My kids are cool.

Lewis Howes 47:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 47:48 They're funny. My, you know, my, my wife and kids.

Lewis Howes 47:51 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:51 Yeah, my, my wife and kids are cool and funny, and, and we have a good time, and lots of inside jokes and all that.

Lewis Howes 47:56 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 47:57 You know? And I, and I train jujitsu, and that, that's very fun. And surf, that's fun.

Lewis Howes 48:04 Yeah. How-

Jocko Willink 48:05 Play guitar, that's fun

Lewis Howes 48:06 ... how old are your kids again? Age?

Jocko Willink 48:08 20, 18, 16,

Jocko Willink 48:10 and 10.

Lewis Howes 48:12 And what's the biggest lesson you learned about being a, uh, about yourself being a, a father to them?

Jocko Willink 48:18 Your kids are not going to be who you want them to be.

Lewis Howes 48:21 [laughs] You can't train them to be-

Jocko Willink 48:22 They're, they're gonna be who they are.

Lewis Howes 48:24 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 48:24 And you can give them some course corrections a little bit-

Lewis Howes 48:27 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 48:27 ... but th- they're going to be who they, who they are. And the more you try and force them into what you want them to be, the harder they're gonna push back and rebel.

Lewis Howes 48:40 Wow.

Jocko Willink 48:40 Yep.

Lewis Howes 48:41 Did you learn that the hard way? Or did you get-

Jocko Willink 48:44 Yep. Yep.

Lewis Howes 48:44 So you tried to train them into a certain way or?

Jocko Willink 48:46 Yeah, somewhat. And it's pretty obvious, like from my perspective, I was s- I was having a similar conversation with a bunch of, uh, executives- And, and they were, we were talk, we, you know, we went down the road of, 'cause we're having dinner now, so we're done talking about work.

Lewis Howes 48:59 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 48:59 But now everyone wants to ask me about, you know, parenting and everything else. And, and I, I said at the table, I'm like, "Hey, who here ended up doing exactly what their parents wanted them to do?" And there's like one guy out of 10.

Lewis Howes 49:10 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 49:10 Right? 'Cause most people, you know, your parents want you-

Lewis Howes 49:13 They're bound

Jocko Willink 49:13 ... to do this thing.

Lewis Howes 49:14 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 49:14 Then you do something else. I mean, I joined the Navy when I was 18 years old. Like, that's, that wa- probably wasn't even on the checklist of top 20 things that my parents wanted me to do.

Lewis Howes 49:23 Right. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 49:24 Not even in the same ballpark, right?

Lewis Howes 49:25 Yeah. They didn't want you to go to war.

Jocko Willink 49:26 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 49:27 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 49:27 They didn't want that, so here you go. Yeah, see ya. That's ... So the more you try and kinda pigeonhole your kids into being something that you want them to be, the worse off it's gonna be. It's ve- it's the same thing with leadership.

Lewis Howes 49:40 Mm.

Jocko Willink 49:40 It's the same thing with leadership. If I'm, if I'm trying to force my plan down my team's throat, the more resistance I'm gonna get from it. Whereas, if I plant the seed and I allow that plan to grow with them-

Lewis Howes 49:53 Mm

Jocko Willink 49:54 ... the better it's gonna be received. Like, when people ask me, "How do you get people to buy in?" Well, you, you allow them to come up with, come up with a plan yourself.

Lewis Howes 50:01 What if, what if in your mind you're like, you really know that plan's not that good?

Jocko Willink 50:05 It depends on how bad it is. How bad is it? Or what's at stake?

Lewis Howes 50:09 Mm.

Jocko Willink 50:09 If you're, if you're working for me and you're going to meet with a client, and you have a bad pitch that you're gonna give 'em, and the client is some tiny client that I think is a low probability of us working with-

Lewis Howes 50:22 Right

Jocko Willink 50:23 ... and the contract doesn't really matter, I'd be like, "Hey, hey, give it a shot. Here's a couple..." I might give you a couple adjustments.

Lewis Howes 50:30 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 50:30 And, and give you some coaching on it, and then you go and you do your thing, and you come back and you're like, "Oh, no. We didn't land it."

Lewis Howes 50:35 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 50:35 And I say, "Well, what do you think? Let's debrief."

Lewis Howes 50:37 Mm.

Jocko Willink 50:37 And now we talk about it. I say, "You know, you said this, and you said that. Here's some other ways to go about it." I might even actually have you do it to me, so then I can sit there and take some notes and say, "Hey, here's some other things that might've worked." Now, if you were going to meet with a big client that really was gonna add value to our company, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna either-

Lewis Howes 50:54 Step in. Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 50:55 Yeah, I'm gonna step in and be like, "Okay, let's think about that. What's their reaction gonna be?" And, and by the way, that's when I'm not gonna say, "No, don't do it that way." I'm gonna say, "Give me that, tell me that again and let me hear your, let me give you some objections that you might hear from them."

Lewis Howes 51:06 Mm, that's good.

Jocko Willink 51:06 And all of a sudden, I'll let you come up with the solutions.

Lewis Howes 51:09 Mm.

Jocko Willink 51:09 Even though I'm sitting there going, "Yeah, what he needs to say is this," no, I'll let you come up with the solution, so then you're kinda going in there like you got this dialed.

Lewis Howes 51:16 Mm.

Jocko Willink 51:16 And then you're gonna feel like you won.

Lewis Howes 51:17 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 51:17 Which you did.

Lewis Howes 51:18 That's great.

Jocko Willink 51:19 Which is great.

Lewis Howes 51:19 It gives you more ownership, more respect in yourself, confidence, belief. How important is, is feedback for leaders?

Jocko Willink 51:27 Feed-

Lewis Howes 51:27 Get- getting feedback from peers, coaches, or employees, team members.

Jocko Willink 51:32 Feedback is how you get better.

Lewis Howes 51:34 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 51:34 No feedback, no improvement. So if, a- and if you're not humble, you're not looking for feedback, and you're not listening to it. So if you think you know everything, you're not listening, you're not, you're not asking for it, and even when it gets told to you, you don't, you don't listen to it.

Lewis Howes 51:45 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 51:46 So feedback is, is built upon being humble.

Lewis Howes 51:50 What would you say is in your way to getting to the next level? What feedback do you think you need to hear or receive from your team or people in order to reach the next goals that you have?

Jocko Willink 52:01 I mean, m- the weird thing about me is even though you might think, look at me and think, "Oh, who's gonna tell this guy anything," right?

Lewis Howes 52:08 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 52:08 The reality is if anyone of my friends, my team, anyone that works for me up and down the chain of command, if they think I'm wrong, everyone will say, "Hey, I don't know if that's a good plan." So even, you know, when I was a task unit commander in, so I'm in charge, and I'm the head SEAL for these 40 SEALs. I'm the main guy.

Lewis Howes 52:27 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 52:28 Anyone in that chain of command, those guys would all come to me and say, "Hey, I don't know if this is a good way to do it." And you know what I'd say? "Why not? What do you think? What, what are you thinking? How do you think we should do it?"

Lewis Howes 52:36 Mm.

Jocko Willink 52:37 My mind is open. If my plan is bad, please tell me. They would know that.

Lewis Howes 52:41 Mm.

Jocko Willink 52:41 So, uh, m- my, my, my friends, my family, they'll tell me when I, I'm doing something wrong all day long.

Lewis Howes 52:49 They're not intimidated or scared of you?

Jocko Willink 52:50 No.

Lewis Howes 52:51 That's good.

Jocko Willink 52:52 No.

Lewis Howes 52:52 So how does a leader cultivate that with his family, friends, team, in order to welcome the feedback or the information?

Jocko Willink 53:00 Yeah. What you do is when somebody gives you feedback, you listen to it.

Lewis Howes 53:03 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 53:03 This is like, you know, just the other day we have a l- we have a, uh, a leadership event that we do two or three times a year, but the, the thing that I was telling this group of people was, "As a leader, you should be listening 98% of the time and talking 2% of the time."

Lewis Howes 53:19 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 53:20 So every time you come to me and you say, "Hey, Jocko, I don't like this plan," I don't say, "Shut up and do it my way."

Lewis Howes 53:28 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 53:28 No. I, I say, I say, w- "Take, what, how would you wanna do it?"

Lewis Howes 53:31 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 53:31 "Tell me what you don't like about it and then tell me how you wanna do it." So therefore, the next time you have an objection, you're like, you know the door is open, you know that I'm gonna be open-minded and listen to you, and that's how you build it. Every time you shut someone down from lis- from, from speaking their mind, you actually are creating a negative environment where you're not gonna get the feedback. And if there's no feedback, as we just said-

Lewis Howes 53:51 Yeah

Jocko Willink 53:51 ... you're not gonna improve.

Lewis Howes 53:53 What are two things that any leader could do to improve their leadership skills right off the bat, two things you can think of? And what are two things that wanna-be leaders do that hold them back from being great leaders? So what are the two things they could add-

Jocko Willink 54:10 Yeah

Lewis Howes 54:10 ... to our skillsets?

Jocko Willink 54:11 Two things they could add, number one is listen.

Lewis Howes 54:13 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 54:13 Which, which we just talked about, so that's fresh on my mind.

Lewis Howes 54:15 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 54:15 And you'd be surprised about how many leaders are thinking that because they're in the leadership position they should be talking all the time.

Lewis Howes 54:20 Mm.

Jocko Willink 54:20 Wrong answer. Wrong answer. I'll sit through a meeting with a client or with one of my companies and I'll listen for 38 minutes, and at the end of those 38 minutes I'll have already thought through every discussion that's been had. You know, you wanna argue with him, and he's arguing with her, and guess what? I get to sit there and assess those arguments and see which one is the most important. Meanwhile, you're expending all your ammunition, she's expending all her ammunition, he's giving up everything he's got. I'm learning all their thought patterns. I'm learning the, the pros and cons of each one of their arguments, and I do that for 38 minutes, and in the 39th minute I say, "Hey." Here's what I think we should do.

Lewis Howes 54:59 Mm.

Jocko Willink 55:00 And guess what? Because I've done a accurate assessment and listened, I'm actually gonna be able to make the best decision.

Lewis Howes 55:07 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 55:08 It wasn't because I was smarter. It wasn't because I had better tactical understanding. It's because I actually shut my mouth, listened to everyone spill their guts, learned everything that they knew, and did a good detached-

Lewis Howes 55:20 Mm

Jocko Willink 55:21 ... um, assessment of, of what the right thing to do was. So listen, and the other one is the word that I just used, which is detach. Which is not getting emotional. Not getting into the weeds about stuff that doesn't matter. If you can take a step back and look around-

Lewis Howes 55:37 Mm

Jocko Willink 55:38 ... you're gonna see infinitely more than you can when you're in the weeds staring the firefight in the face, looking down the sights of your weapon shooting. If you're doing that, you can't see anything else. Just think about that metaphor right there.

Lewis Howes 55:54 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 55:54 If I'm looking down the sights of my weapon and I'm shooting, my world is this big. The minute that I stop shooting, point my weapon at high port, take a step back and actually look around, I can see infinitely more.

Lewis Howes 56:07 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 56:07 So apply that to a meet- this is the meeting that we just talked about.

Lewis Howes 56:10 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 56:10 A 38-minute meeting. All this chaos is happening. Sure, I'm the boss. I could jump in there and start arguing and giving my opinion, but what am I really doing then? What I'm really doing then is I'm in the weeds and I'm not able to assess what is actually happening. So th- so there you apply it there. To your personal life, if you and I are arguing, you're my friend and you did something and now we're starting to escalate an argument and I'm starting to get emotional-

Lewis Howes 56:36 Yeah

Jocko Willink 56:36 ... am I able to listen to you anymore?

Lewis Howes 56:37 No.

Jocko Willink 56:37 Am I able to logically figure out what's going on? If I'm talking to my wife and she did something that made me mad and now I'm starting to raise my voice, i- is that, is that whole situation going in the right direction?

Lewis Howes 56:48 No.

Jocko Willink 56:48 No, it's not.

Lewis Howes 56:49 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 56:49 It's not. So what I need to do is take a step back, detach, calm down, listen to what she's saying, and then try and assemble a logical thing to say back without, without saying, "You need to calm down."

Lewis Howes 57:05 Mm.

Jocko Willink 57:06 Or, "You're too emotional." No, no, no, no, no, because if, if you come to me and you're mad about something, you come to me, whether it's, whether it's my wife or whether you're a business partner, you come to me and you say, "The dang [laughs] the supply department didn't give me the stuff I needed." If I say, "Hey, calm down," right? If that's my reaction, then you realize that I'm against you.

Lewis Howes 57:32 Mm.

Jocko Willink 57:32 Right? I don't get it. And so now it's me and the supply department against you.

Lewis Howes 57:37 Yeah. No one understands me.

Jocko Willink 57:38 No one understands. So I do a little technique.

Lewis Howes 57:42 What is that? Yeah.

Jocko Willink 57:42 I call, I call it reflect and diminish. So I'm gonna reflect your emotions back to you, but I'm gonna diminish them a little bit so that we're not escalating the situation.

Lewis Howes 57:52 How would you do this with your wife for example?

Jocko Willink 57:53 So if you ... Well, if you come to me and you go, "The supply department's been-

Lewis Howes 57:56 Yeah

Jocko Willink 57:56 ... late for ... They're two weeks late on this stuff," I don't say, "Calm down." I say, I say, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Two weeks?"

Lewis Howes 58:03 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 58:03 And you go, "Yeah. Can you believe it?" Ah, that's horrible. We gotta put a solution. We gotta get that figured out. In the meantime, what do we need to do right now to get the problem solved?

Lewis Howes 58:12 Mm.

Jocko Willink 58:12 Right? So we already ... Now we're on the same team so we can work together to find a solution.

Lewis Howes 58:15 We've bonded on the pain.

Jocko Willink 58:16 Yes, yes.

Lewis Howes 58:17 We felt the pain.

Jocko Willink 58:18 Yes.

Lewis Howes 58:18 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 58:18 We're on the same team.

Lewis Howes 58:20 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 58:20 Okay, my wife. What's gonna make my wife mad? Um, the ice machine's not working, right? The ice machine's not working in the refrigerator.

Lewis Howes 58:27 It's your fault.

Jocko Willink 58:28 Yeah, it ... Whether it's my fault, whether-

Lewis Howes 58:29 Yeah, yeah

Jocko Willink 58:30 ... we don't know. The ice machine's not working. By the way, this is a real story.

Lewis Howes 58:33 Yeah. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 58:33 This happened today.

Lewis Howes 58:34 Really? [laughs]

Jocko Willink 58:35 The ice machine's not working. And she didn't get mad about it, but the ice machine's not working. If I go, "Hey-

Lewis Howes 58:41 Chill out

Jocko Willink 58:41 ... you have a refrigerator-

Lewis Howes 58:42 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 58:43 ... and a house and we- you know-

Lewis Howes 58:45 We have a beach

Jocko Willink 58:45 ... you have plenty. Can you just calm down," right?

Lewis Howes 58:46 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 58:48 Is that, how's that gonna go? It's not gonna go good.

Lewis Howes 58:50 No.

Jocko Willink 58:50 Now she's gonna get mad. Now it's me against her, you know? So instead, the ice machine's not working. Ah, man, that thing is junk. Have you called the, the repair guy? You know what I mean?

Lewis Howes 59:00 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 59:00 And then all of a sudden we're on the same team, and she's like-

Lewis Howes 59:01 Yeah

Jocko Willink 59:01 ... "Well, no, I haven't, but I'm about to." Okay, cool. W- as opposed to the ice machine's not working. Well, okay. Do you want me to have ice shipped in from Alaska there, princess?

Lewis Howes 59:10 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 59:10 Right? That's not gonna go over well. So we-

Lewis Howes 59:15 So what did you call it? Reflect-

Jocko Willink 59:16 Reflect and diminish

Lewis Howes 59:17 ... and diminish.

Jocko Willink 59:17 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:17 Reflect and diminish.

Jocko Willink 59:17 Reflect and diminish.

Lewis Howes 59:18 What if someone's coming after you and attacking you?

Jocko Willink 59:20 Awesome.

Lewis Howes 59:20 Not like the supply chain or the r- ice machine, but it's like you didn't do this.

Jocko Willink 59:25 Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:25 This is your fault.

Jocko Willink 59:26 I want you to guess what I'm gonna do.

Lewis Howes 59:27 [laughs] What's that?

Jocko Willink 59:30 Re- what do you guess I'm gonna do?

Lewis Howes 59:31 You're gonna-

Jocko Willink 59:32 Like if you come and attack me and tell me something's my fault, what do you think I'm gonna do?

Lewis Howes 59:35 Uh, you personally?

Jocko Willink 59:36 Yes.

Lewis Howes 59:37 You would, you would ref- listen.

Jocko Willink 59:39 Yes.

Lewis Howes 59:39 Reflect and diminish.

Jocko Willink 59:40 I would actually-

Lewis Howes 59:41 Detach.

Jocko Willink 59:42 Detach, yes.

Lewis Howes 59:43 How do you detach emotions from someone coming after you emotionally if it, even if it was or it wasn't your fault?

Jocko Willink 59:49 Well, there's a couple things that you've asked me now in the last couple minutes.

Lewis Howes 59:52 Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 59:52 No, it's all good, 'cause it's all-

Lewis Howes 59:53 It's exciting

Jocko Willink 59:53 ... I can, 'cause I can see, like, your, your s-

Lewis Howes 59:55 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 59:55 ... your mind is spinning here. You're, you're absorbing and you're like, oh, this makes sense. If you're attacking my ego, immediately, as soon as I feel frustrated, angry, um, defensive-

Lewis Howes 1:00:08 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:00:08 ... all three of those things are red flags to me that that's my ego.

Lewis Howes 1:00:12 Okay.

Jocko Willink 1:00:12 I, I immediately know. I go ... When you, when, when I feel the, my bristling-

Lewis Howes 1:00:17 Like you wanna-

Jocko Willink 1:00:17 Yeah. When I feel that, I know it's a h- I, I guarantee it's 99% it's just my ego that I'm mad.

Lewis Howes 1:00:22 So what do you do in that moment?

Jocko Willink 1:00:23 So I, I immediately go, "Oh, that's your ego, you idiot. Listen to what he's got to say. Let's, let's win. Let's win." So how do I win? Do I win by attacking you?

Lewis Howes 1:00:30 No.

Jocko Willink 1:00:31 No, I don't win by attacking you.

Lewis Howes 1:00:32 If you're the only winner, you both lose.

Jocko Willink 1:00:34 Yes. So when you attack me-

Lewis Howes 1:00:35 So you both need to win. Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:00:36 ... and you say w- whatever your attack is, you say, "This is your fault," I go, "You know what? Absolutely. This is my fault."

Lewis Howes 1:00:42 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:00:42 "Here's, here's the mistake that I made, and I know it affected you in a negative way. Here's the things that I'm working on right now to remedy it."

Lewis Howes 1:00:50 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:00:50 What are you gonna do? Are you gonna yell at me more? Are you gonna say, are you gonna tell me it's my fault again? Like I just-

Lewis Howes 1:00:55 A crazy person might say it a couple more times

Jocko Willink 1:00:57 ... Yeah, yeah. And, and a crazy person, I'll be like, "Yeah, I know." This, you know, I get this, I get this is another question I get when it, when it's sorta like similar to what you said earlier when you said, "Yeah, but what if it's not really your fault," right? The other one I get a lot is if you say, "Hey, I-" Listen, Lewis, this is, this is my fault that this happened. And you go, "You're right, it is your fault." And then people say, "What do I do then? What do I do then? If the person's blaming me-

Lewis Howes 1:01:20 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:01:20 ... how do I take ownership then?" And I'm like, "That's the whole point."

Lewis Howes 1:01:24 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:01:25 That's the whole point.

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 Right.

Jocko Willink 1:01:26 The whole point of taking ownership is when you look at me and you point your finger and you say, "This is all your fault," I say, "Yes, I know. That's what I just said. This is absolutely my fault."

Lewis Howes 1:01:34 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:01:35 "I'm the one that's in charge, and these are the things that I'm gonna do to fix it." That's where we're gonna start.

Lewis Howes 1:01:39 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:01:40 So when someone blames you, yes, take ownership. Now, if you have in the back of your mind, like you did earlier, like, "Hey, maybe this isn't really my fault"-

Lewis Howes 1:01:48 Yeah, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:01:48 ... like if you have that in the back of your mind, you're actually wrong.

Lewis Howes 1:01:51 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:01:51 You're actually wrong. You're in charge. And that applies to your life as well. That applies to your life as well. How you, you know, you gotta take ownership of what's going on in your life. When you're not where you wanna be and you say it's because the boss doesn't like you or it's because the girl treated you this way or the guy did this, like all those things, you gotta take ownership of them.

Lewis Howes 1:02:10 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:02:10 And if you're blaming all, all of these other external things, you're not gonna make any changes, and that's gonna be a problem.

Lewis Howes 1:02:19 Okay, let's talk about relationships with this. I wanna stay with this for, for a second.

Jocko Willink 1:02:22 Get some.

Lewis Howes 1:02:23 Say you [laughs] say that they're, you're ... I'm trying to think of a situation.

Jocko Willink 1:02:28 Yes, you're really thinking long and hard.

Lewis Howes 1:02:30 But you [laughs] ... But I'm sure you've had many experiences with your wife, right?

Jocko Willink 1:02:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:02:33 Over the, how many years you've been married or?

Jocko Willink 1:02:36 22.

Lewis Howes 1:02:38 So I'm sure there's many times where you've expressed your dislike about something with her and she's expressed dislike of something about you. Is that fair to say?

Jocko Willink 1:02:46 Not really.

Lewis Howes 1:02:46 No?

Jocko Willink 1:02:47 No. What, what am I gaining from telling my wife something I dislike about her?

Lewis Howes 1:02:51 Or about a situation or something she's unhappy with that you forgot to do or ... Are you guys not like that?

Jocko Willink 1:02:57 S- I, I don't really play into that whole bickering thing.

Lewis Howes 1:02:59 That's great.

Jocko Willink 1:02:59 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:02:59 That's amazing.

Jocko Willink 1:03:00 Because I- I'm immediately just deescalating, right?

Lewis Howes 1:03:04 You deescalate all the time.

Jocko Willink 1:03:04 Just, just deescalate. Like what, like what am I gonna gain? Am I gonna win an argument? Here's a question: Am I gonna win an argument with my wife?

Lewis Howes 1:03:11 No.

Jocko Willink 1:03:11 No. I might win a short-term battle with my wife.

Lewis Howes 1:03:14 Right.

Jocko Willink 1:03:15 What's that gonna do for me for the next week? It's gonna be, it's gonna be bad.

Lewis Howes 1:03:19 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:03:19 I'm gonna suffer more. So I'm not looking to win an argument, I'm looking to resolve a problem.

Lewis Howes 1:03:24 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:03:25 And that's what allow ... I mean, the SEAL teams has like a 90% divorce rate.

Lewis Howes 1:03:30 Really?

Jocko Willink 1:03:31 Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:03:32 Why is that?

Jocko Willink 1:03:32 'Cause you're gone all the time, you're under a lot of stress, you detach emotionally, you come home, you, you, you just ... That's what happens. It's, it's a hard environment to ... I mean, let's face it, normal people have like a 50% divorce rate.

Lewis Howes 1:03:46 Right. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:03:47 So-

Lewis Howes 1:03:48 No, no, well, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:03:48 ... you put that, you put normal people-

Lewis Howes 1:03:49 With more stress, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:03:49 ... you put them in massive stress and you go on six-month deployments, eight-month deployments-

Lewis Howes 1:03:52 It's hard to stay

Jocko Willink 1:03:53 ... back to back to back to back.

Lewis Howes 1:03:54 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:03:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:03:55 So how do you detach your ego? I, I guess your wife doesn't come at you-

Jocko Willink 1:04:00 Oh

Lewis Howes 1:04:00 ... in a negative-

Jocko Willink 1:04:00 No, my wife will do that all day long.

Lewis Howes 1:04:02 Really?

Jocko Willink 1:04:02 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:04:03 So if she's coming at you or attacking little things here and there, how do you not let it affect you emotionally or where you're like, "Don't you see how hard I'm working?" Or, "Don't you see what I'm providing?" Or, "Don't you see that I'm showing up every day consistently?"

Jocko Willink 1:04:13 Don't you see that my ego is out of control and I'm looking to fight you right now?

Lewis Howes 1:04:17 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:04:17 No, I'm not, I'm not gonna play that game.

Lewis Howes 1:04:19 So you just detach instantly?

Jocko Willink 1:04:21 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:04:21 If someone's coming at you-

Jocko Willink 1:04:22 And again, there's-

Lewis Howes 1:04:23 ... with wife or-

Jocko Willink 1:04:23 ... you gotta be careful because if you're unemotional-

Lewis Howes 1:04:25 Uh-huh

Jocko Willink 1:04:25 ... that's not good either, right?

Lewis Howes 1:04:27 No.

Jocko Willink 1:04:27 There's a balance.

Lewis Howes 1:04:27 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:04:28 'Cause if you just go, if you just sit back and you show no emotions, well, try that sometime-

Lewis Howes 1:04:34 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:04:34 ... with your girlfriend.

Lewis Howes 1:04:35 Sure.

Jocko Willink 1:04:35 Right? When they get mad at you, just go, "Uh, what's for dinner?"

Lewis Howes 1:04:39 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:04:39 Like see how that works. No, no, no, you can't do that.

Lewis Howes 1:04:42 You've gotta re-

Jocko Willink 1:04:42 You, you have to be balanced

Lewis Howes 1:04:44 ... gotta reflect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:04:44 You have to be balanced. But yes, your ego is what plays into ... Your ego drives all kinds of stupid things that you do.

Lewis Howes 1:04:50 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:04:50 And, and well, here's what's interesting. When you, when you're truly confident, when you truly are confident, it allows you to be able to say, "You know what?" Like if, if you and I are working together and I've been doing this for 20 years and you've been doing it for four-

Lewis Howes 1:05:05 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:05:05 ... or three or two, and you come to me and say, "Hey, I wanna try this a different way," if I'm really confident, I'll be able to say, "You know what? That plan sounds better than mine, actually. Why don't you go and execute that?"

Lewis Howes 1:05:16 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:05:17 Now, what do you think of me when I say that?

Lewis Howes 1:05:19 Awesome.

Jocko Willink 1:05:20 Yeah, you think, "Oh, that's great."

Lewis Howes 1:05:21 You're the man.

Jocko Willink 1:05:21 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:05:21 He's a cool leader.

Jocko Willink 1:05:22 He, he's a cool leader.

Lewis Howes 1:05:22 He gets me.

Jocko Willink 1:05:23 He, he gets-

Lewis Howes 1:05:23 Trusts me

Jocko Willink 1:05:24 ... he trusts me. He-

Lewis Howes 1:05:25 Respects me

Jocko Willink 1:05:26 ... he, he respects me, and he's got confidence. Now, if you come to me with a plan, which by the way, you can tell that your plan's better than mine, I mean, it's evident for whatever reason.

Lewis Howes 1:05:34 Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:05:34 You come to me with that plan and I go, "No, we're not doing it that way. Do it my way."

Lewis Howes 1:05:37 Mm. I'd be like, "This guy sucks."

Jocko Willink 1:05:39 This guy sucks.

Lewis Howes 1:05:40 I-

Jocko Willink 1:05:40 Not only that, but you realize that I, I don't have, even have the confidence to trust you and let you move forward.

Lewis Howes 1:05:46 Yeah, he's an egomaniac.

Jocko Willink 1:05:47 He's an egomaniac.

Lewis Howes 1:05:48 Gotta be his way.

Jocko Willink 1:05:48 Gotta be his way. There you go, all those things.

Lewis Howes 1:05:50 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:05:50 So, so I don't play that game.

Lewis Howes 1:05:52 With friends, with business partners, with your wife, you don't play that game anywhere.

Jocko Willink 1:05:57 No, I don't play that game.

Lewis Howes 1:05:58 How did you learn that, to like detach-

Jocko Willink 1:06:00 Because I saw-

Lewis Howes 1:06:01 ... your triggers, like emotional triggers

Jocko Willink 1:06:02 ... over and over and over again. Saw it over and over again. So-

Lewis Howes 1:06:07 Did you used to be that way and you saw it?

Jocko Willink 1:06:09 You know-

Lewis Howes 1:06:09 Or you just saw it from other people?

Jocko Willink 1:06:09 ... luckily for me, I was able to observe a lot.

Lewis Howes 1:06:12 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:06:13 And the, the, I had this situation unfold. So I got a new book coming out which is, and I, and I, and I explain this situation.

Lewis Howes 1:06:21 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:06:21 I was in a SEAL platoon. I was a follower, so I was like-

Lewis Howes 1:06:25 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:06:26 ... I was, I was a one-cruise wonder, so I'd been on one deployment, but still not super experienced.

Lewis Howes 1:06:31 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:06:31 But ... And we had a platoon commander that was very inexperienced and had a massive ego. And so this is a bad combination.

Lewis Howes 1:06:44 That's scary.

Jocko Willink 1:06:44 So what did he do? He, he would say, "We're doing it this way. This is who we're gonna take. This is the mission pl- this is the plan we're gonna use." He would force all of that down our throats, not just mine, but everyone. Even guys that were experienced, even guys that had way more experience than him, they would just ... He would force these plans down his, down our throats. And what do you think our attitude is? The attitude that you just explained earlier.

Lewis Howes 1:07:05 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:07:05 We were totally, "Hey, this guy sucks. This guy's got a big ego. He doesn't listen to anyone else. He's horrible."

Lewis Howes 1:07:10 He didn't respect them, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:07:11 And eventually we had a mutiny against that guy.

Lewis Howes 1:07:12 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:07:13 We had a mutiny. We rebelled against him and said, "We're not gonna work for this guy."

Lewis Howes 1:07:16 Really? How often does that happen in the Navy?

Jocko Willink 1:07:18 Never. Hardly ever

Lewis Howes 1:07:20 Holy cow

Jocko Willink 1:07:20 I mean, that's the only mutiny that I, that I saw in my 20 years in the SEAL Teams

Lewis Howes 1:07:25 It was that bad, though, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:07:25 ... was that, it was that situation. So we have this mutiny, and that was bad. And you know, at the time I was sitting there looking, and I actually had an okay relationship with the boss, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:07:33 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:07:34 Because I, I'm a person that even as a new SEAL I realized, oh, you gotta build a relationship with the guy that you're working with. You gotta make sure that, that you're, that you can talk to them, that they'll talk to you, that you understand what they wa-

Lewis Howes 1:07:45 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:07:45 It's like, you gotta do that

Lewis Howes 1:07:46 Baseline of like and respect and, you know

Jocko Willink 1:07:47 Smart thing to do

Lewis Howes 1:07:48 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:07:49 So this unfolds, m- and of course even though I had a relationship with the guy, I didn't wanna work with him for him-

Lewis Howes 1:07:54 Right. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:07:54 ... 'cause he was horrible.

Lewis Howes 1:07:55 Right

Jocko Willink 1:07:56 So he gets fired, and I'm watching it going, "Wow, that was weird." Because why did we hate that guy so much? Well, the reason was because he didn't listen to anyone, he, everything was his way.

Lewis Howes 1:08:07 Mm

Jocko Willink 1:08:07 He didn't t- treat us with respect. He was one of those guys that like, you know, you take out the garbage. You, you know, "Hey, when we, when we're traveling in a van, the front seat is left open for me."

Lewis Howes 1:08:21 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:08:21 That was, like, one of his things, right?

Lewis Howes 1:08:22 Mm

Jocko Willink 1:08:23 So all of us are like, "What are you talking about?" So none of us wanted to follow him. And that was, that stood out very starkly to me. Then when he got fired, a new platoon commander came in to take his place, and this platoon commander that came in to take his place was, was an awesome guy, had this great reputation as being a badass SEAL. And I didn't know him, but everyone knew his name.

Lewis Howes 1:08:46 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:08:46 And he came in to take over and I was kinda like, oh dang, we're about to get tightened up, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:08:51 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:08:51 The, the, the guy's getting sent in here to fix us. So he shows up and I'm expecting this total beast to come in. And he's this super ... He's not a huge guy. He's got, like, a nice smile on his face. Very n- not quiet, but not loud, just kind of a humble guy. And he says something along the lines, "Hey, I'm l- looking forward to working with you guys."

Lewis Howes 1:09:13 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:09:13 And I'm like, well, that's weird. And well, then it turns out when we got a mission to, a training mission that we were gonna go on, like the very first one, he's like, "Hey, you guys, here's the mission. You guys come up with a plan." And we're like, "Wow." And-

Lewis Howes 1:09:27 But you're supposed to tell us the plan-

Jocko Willink 1:09:29 Yes

Lewis Howes 1:09:29 ... right?

Jocko Willink 1:09:29 Yep. 'Cause that's what we've been used to. And by the way, this guy had incredible experience, combat experience.

Lewis Howes 1:09:34 Yeah. He was a pro

Jocko Willink 1:09:34 He'd had just about every job in a SEAL platoon that you can have, and there he was telling us to come up with a plan.

Lewis Howes 1:09:40 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:09:41 And we loved this guy, and we would do anything for him.

Lewis Howes 1:09:43 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:09:43 So when I saw that stark contrast between these two leaders, one of them who was arrogant and one of them who was humble, that left a mark on me that never went away.

Lewis Howes 1:09:52 That's pretty cool.

Jocko Willink 1:09:53 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:09:54 What is the most important relationship every person has in the world? Is it with their intimate partner, their best friend, their boss, their parents, their kids? What do you think is the most important relationship that we are all are going to face?

Jocko Willink 1:10:12 Y- you know, I, I think that's a weird question, because-

Lewis Howes 1:10:14 Sorry for the weirdness. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:10:15 Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's just a weird question because as I was thinking about the context of it, all these relationships that you have ... I mean, obviously you've got your spouse, right?

Lewis Howes 1:10:24 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:10:24 That's who you're gonna live with forever. That's-

Lewis Howes 1:10:25 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:10:25 ... that's ... Okay, so that's, that's-

Lewis Howes 1:10:27 A big one

Jocko Willink 1:10:27 ... that's a big one.

Lewis Howes 1:10:28 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:10:28 Guess what? You're working ... How long are you working every day? You know?

Lewis Howes 1:10:31 A lot

Jocko Willink 1:10:31 People are working 10 hours a day. If they don't have good relationships with the people they're working with, that's a problem. So I, I think, I think, I don't think it's mutually exclusi- exclusive, that you need to have a great relationship and none of the other relationships matter. It's like, no, you, you have a bunch of relationships, and you should nurture and build those relationships with everyone-

Lewis Howes 1:10:51 Yeah, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:10:51 ... because that's what's important, right? That is what's important. You know, when, when you talk about whatever you were saying earlier about the whole and all this stuff-

Lewis Howes 1:11:00 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:11:00 ... it's like, hey, if you have good rela- that's the big whole.

Lewis Howes 1:11:02 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:11:02 If you don't, if you don't, if you don't have any relationships with people, then you don't ha- really have anything.

Lewis Howes 1:11:08 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:11:08 I mean, what are you gonna be alone in a, with a nice car? Right?

Lewis Howes 1:11:11 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:11:11 That's great. It's cool. You're gonna be alone in a nice house? That's great, but you, you won't be, you won't be happy.

Lewis Howes 1:11:20 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:11:20 Right? That you got a ... Cool, you got a nice car. That's fun for, like, a week.

Lewis Howes 1:11:24 Right

Jocko Willink 1:11:25 So I think-

Lewis Howes 1:11:26 They're all important. Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:11:26 ... all, all those, all those relationships are important

Lewis Howes 1:11:28 What about the relationship with ourselves? How, how do we develop a stronger bond or relationship with ourself? Again, it m- might be a weird question, but ...

Jocko Willink 1:11:36 Yeah, you're coming at me with weird questions today.

Lewis Howes 1:11:38 I, I know. [laughs] I just like to go out there, right? What, what-

Jocko Willink 1:11:40 R- r- relationship

Lewis Howes 1:11:40 ... how do you, how do you build the relationship with your own self personally? How do you build it with yourself? Do you have conversations with yourself to, uh, build a relationship with you? Do you reflect and-

Jocko Willink 1:11:52 What do you mean by relationship with you?

Lewis Howes 1:11:54 Well, we have relationships with other people.

Jocko Willink 1:11:56 Right

Lewis Howes 1:11:56 And I feel like we also have conversations and a relationship with ourself. The way we feel about ourself, the way we talk to ourself, the way we show up for our needs, our emotions. Is that something you think about? Or am I off? [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:12:08 I'm, I'm, I'm t- I'm trying to understand.

Lewis Howes 1:12:10 Yeah. Relationship with self

Jocko Willink 1:12:11 'Cause this, is this a concept ... I don't, I don't, I don't think about this concept a lot.

Lewis Howes 1:12:15 Yeah. Okay

Jocko Willink 1:12:15 Now, there might be something that I should be thinking about, right?

Lewis Howes 1:12:18 Yeah, I'm curious.

Jocko Willink 1:12:18 How do I-

Lewis Howes 1:12:19 Do you have, do you have a conversation with yourself daily or weekly or monthly where you check in and you ask yourself, "Am I okay? Am I doing the things I wanna do? Am I enjoying this process? Am I loving who I am? Do I respect myself?" You know, the relationship and the conversation with self. Do you ever think about that?

Jocko Willink 1:12:39 Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sure that I think about those things in a formal way, and part of this, too ... 'Cause I, I understand where ... I, I think I understand where you're going with this.

Lewis Howes 1:12:46 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:12:46 So, so let me explain this to you. When you're in charge of a military unit, you, you have something called commander's intent, which is, "Hey, on this mission, the overall thing that I'm trying to get accomplished is this, is this thing," whatever that thing is. It's called, it's called commander's intent, and it's really the most important thing that-

Lewis Howes 1:13:09 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:13:09 ... you know, everyone needs to understand. And when I was a, a leader of a SEAL platoon or a leader of a task unit, I didn't always have to say what the commander's intent was because I knew And they knew. They knew me well enough that if we were doing this type of mission, they knew what the most important thing was. So I should still say it, but everybody knew. W- my guys could not hear a word from me, go out on a mission, and know what overall was important to me.

Lewis Howes 1:13:40 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:13:41 So the reason I say that is because I feel like I have the same thing with myself, where I don't need to reinforce the fact that, "Hey, I'm here. Am I doing a good job?" I know what I'm trying to do.

Lewis Howes 1:13:51 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:13:52 I know that, I know what I, I expect of myself, so I'm not having that conversation every day. I will say, you know, to your point, if I felt like I was looking around saying, "Wait a second. Something's wrong here," right? "Something's wrong." If I had a SEAL platoon that did something on a mission that I didn't want them to do, the next mission I'd be like, "Okay, guys. Here's the most important thing."

Lewis Howes 1:14:15 Oh, right. They weren't, they weren't clear. Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:14:17 They weren't clear.

Lewis Howes 1:14:18 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:14:18 So I think if I found myself in a position where I was waking up every day going, "Man, this is, this is not where I wanna be," or-

Lewis Howes 1:14:25 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:14:25 ... "Man, this is"-

Lewis Howes 1:14:26 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:14:26 ... "I don't feel good about this," then I would say, "Okay, what's my intent right now? What is the intent? What's the goal? What am I trying to get? Who am I trying to be?"

Lewis Howes 1:14:35 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:14:36 Then I might have to go back and kinda reestablish those things. So-

Lewis Howes 1:14:41 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:14:41 ... d- does that make sense to you?

Lewis Howes 1:14:42 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:14:42 Because again, this isn't something that, that I think about it ... A- and I guess what I'm trying to say, it's so deeply embedded in me-

Lewis Howes 1:14:49 You don't have to say it to yourself

Jocko Willink 1:14:50 ... that I'm not saying it to myself.

Lewis Howes 1:14:52 When you transitioned from NA- uh, uh, SEAL to ... I mean, let, let me make sure I'm saying the terms right. Is it, are you transitioning from SEAL to ... Is it former SEAL? What's the actual language so I'm not, I'm not just like-

Jocko Willink 1:15:02 I, I mean, I just retired. I'm not like-

Lewis Howes 1:15:03 Retired SEAL. Gotcha

Jocko Willink 1:15:04 ... one of these people that's just like, "I'm a f-"

Lewis Howes 1:15:05 I'm making sure. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:15:06 [laughs] How dare you? No, it's all good.

Lewis Howes 1:15:07 So retired SEAL, did you have any challenge with identity or a clear mission after you retired of what you were going to be doing? Was that a struggle for you in that six months, year, two-year period?

Jocko Willink 1:15:18 No.

Lewis Howes 1:15:19 It was simple, it was clear?

Jocko Willink 1:15:20 No. I, I started working with companies b- about six months before I retired.

Lewis Howes 1:15:27 Gotcha.

Jocko Willink 1:15:27 And if that wouldn't have happened, I was gonna be surfing and doing jujitsu. I own a gym in San Diego.

Lewis Howes 1:15:32 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:15:32 And I was gonna be doing that, which was totally good with me.

Lewis Howes 1:15:35 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:15:35 Um, I was stoked to be doing that, hanging out with my family a bunch. Then this whole thing started to unfold, and as that unfolded, I, I did get on board. Now, what's good about your question, I'm, I'm sorry for criticizing you a couple times-

Lewis Howes 1:15:46 No, that's okay

Jocko Willink 1:15:46 ... on weird questions.

Lewis Howes 1:15:47 That's okay.

Jocko Willink 1:15:47 But what's good about your question is, is I, I talk about this with veterans all the time, is when you get out of the military you need a new mission.

Lewis Howes 1:15:54 You need a new identity, new mission, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:15:55 Right? You need a new ... I don't, I don't know if it's a new identity, but yes, yes, I, I believe you're right. Like, people can wrap too much of themselves around their identity as an athlete, right?

Lewis Howes 1:16:08 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:16:09 I played arena football. That's me.

Lewis Howes 1:16:11 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:16:11 Like, that's not you.

Lewis Howes 1:16:12 Right.

Jocko Willink 1:16:12 Right? Is it?

Lewis Howes 1:16:13 But a lot of gu- I struggled with this for about a year and a half after.

Jocko Willink 1:16:16 So there you go.

Lewis Howes 1:16:16 And a lot of guys that were friends of mine, they lived on the glory days.

Jocko Willink 1:16:20 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:16:20 So I'm assuming there's a lot of SEALs, retired SEALs, who probably have lived on the glory days.

Jocko Willink 1:16:23 Yeah. You, so you gotta, you gotta look at it and be like, "Okay." And, and if that's what you wanna do ... Like, I had a friend when I was at SEAL Team Two, and he was getting closer to retirement, and I was like, "What are you gonna re- do when you retire?" He's like, "I'm gonna be the fat, retired guy down the street talking about [laughs] what it was like on the SEAL Teams."

Lewis Howes 1:16:37 The glory days. Yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:16:38 And I was like, "That's awesome." Like, that's what he wanted to do.

Lewis Howes 1:16:40 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:16:40 Hang out with his family, and, you know, he did what he wanted to do with his life. That's cool. Like, good, good. Uh, but what's bad is if you don't ... That, 'cause that's a mission, right?

Lewis Howes 1:16:49 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:16:49 The mission is I'm gonna hang out with my family. I'm gonna, you know, enjoy ... That's cool. That's a mission. What's not a mission is like, "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what my meaning is. I don't know what my purpose is." That can be a problem. So to your point, yes, identifying what your new mission is gonna be, you should do that.

Lewis Howes 1:17:05 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:17:05 And then people say, "Well, what if I can't think of a new mission?" Then my answer is, "Well, go help someone."

Lewis Howes 1:17:12 Mm. That's a good one.

Jocko Willink 1:17:13 Well, thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:17:14 It's good.

Jocko Willink 1:17:14 If you, if you, if you're-

Lewis Howes 1:17:15 Be of service

Jocko Willink 1:17:16 ... if you're can't, if you get out of the military, you get done with a job, or you get done playing arena football, and you don't know what else to do ... Because let's face it, there are some other things that are com- ... Like, when you got done playing arena football, all of a sudden you're like, "Okay, I need money."

Lewis Howes 1:17:29 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:17:29 "I need a house. I need," you know?

Lewis Howes 1:17:31 Something, yeah. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:17:31 So, so, like, that becomes a mission, right?

Lewis Howes 1:17:34 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:17:34 But let's say, like when you retire from the military, you got a retirement check coming in. You're not rich, but you know, you can survive. Or you make a bunch of money doing something, then you, uh, you get ... Y- yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:17:44 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:17:44 You, you can't let yourself float around in that arena. You gotta figure out what your new mission is. And if you don't, can't figure out what your new mission is, the other thing that can happen is, well, I got money 'cause I got this job that I don't like, but that's not my mission. Okay, if you can't think of what your mission is gonna be, go help someone.

Lewis Howes 1:18:00 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:18:00 Go find someone to help, and that will become your mission. And in that mission you'll find y- not only will you benefit a group of people or a person or s- s- uh, some other human beings in the world-

Lewis Howes 1:18:10 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:18:11 ... but you'll start to recognize where you can improve yourself and bigger parts of the world.

Lewis Howes 1:18:17 Mm. Love that. What do you think

Lewis Howes 1:18:19 is ... What is the biggest challenge that most people are facing right now, uh, in our world of why they have anger, resentment, frustration that they're not on the mission that they wanna be doing? Uh, what is the challenge that most people are facing internally or emotionally or mentally that holds them back from having a clear sense of purpose, fulfillment?

Jocko Willink 1:18:42 Do you think it's weird to ask a question about most people? Like, what's holding most people back? This, it seems like ... I talk to so many people, and I know you do, too, and, like, different people have different things-

Lewis Howes 1:18:55 Yeah

Jocko Willink 1:18:56 ... that are problematic for them.

Lewis Howes 1:18:58 Yes.

Jocko Willink 1:18:58 That i- if you ha- if you wanted me to answer that question to the best of my ability, I would say what is preventing most people from moving in the direction that they wanna move is a lack of discipline.

Lewis Howes 1:19:13 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:19:15 And no one wants to hear that answer. It's the harshest answer.

Lewis Howes 1:19:18 That's ... Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:19:19 It's-

Lewis Howes 1:19:19 It's not sexy

Jocko Willink 1:19:20 ... it's not-

Lewis Howes 1:19:20 It's not fun.

Jocko Willink 1:19:21 Yeah. It's not, it's not cool. It's not good clickbait. Because the reason it's not good clickbait is because ... Well, you could put this as clickbait, the one reason most people don't ... uh, succeed

Lewis Howes 1:19:33 Right

Jocko Willink 1:19:34 Right? But then as soon as they, you click on that click bait and then it says discipline, they, oh, they don't even read it.

Lewis Howes 1:19:39 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:19:39 'Cause they don't wanna hear it.

Lewis Howes 1:19:40 They want the easy way.

Jocko Willink 1:19:41 Yeah. 'Cause what they actually, actually when they see that word discipline, it's actually a slap in the face because they know it's true.

Lewis Howes 1:19:47 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:19:47 They actually know it's true.

Lewis Howes 1:19:48 Discipline in what ways of their life?

Jocko Willink 1:19:50 Discipline in your life. Dis- w- in what not, [laughs] in which way should we not have discipline?

Lewis Howes 1:19:55 Sure.

Jocko Willink 1:19:56 Right? If you wanna make progress in your life, you gotta have discipline.

Lewis Howes 1:19:59 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:19:59 That's how you get there. Discipline is the root of all good qualities.

Lewis Howes 1:20:03 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:20:05 W- l- I mean, what, what, what are you gonna get without discipline? Are you gonna be in good sh- physical shape without discipline?

Lewis Howes 1:20:10 No.

Jocko Willink 1:20:10 Are you gonna be financially successful without discipline?

Lewis Howes 1:20:13 No.

Jocko Willink 1:20:13 Are you gonna, are you gonna become more intellectually powerful without discipline?

Lewis Howes 1:20:18 No.

Jocko Willink 1:20:19 Y- can you think of any other goals that I could possibly achieve without discipline? If you have them, please let me know-

Lewis Howes 1:20:23 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:20:23 ... 'cause I'm gonna jump into them.

Lewis Howes 1:20:24 I also think discipline gives you the most, uh, self-respect, belief in yourself, confidence.

Jocko Willink 1:20:30 For sure.

Lewis Howes 1:20:30 It builds those qualities of like, "Yeah, I got this. I can do something hard consistently and I can, uh, resist temptation-"

Jocko Willink 1:20:37 Yes

Lewis Howes 1:20:37 ... or delay gratification.

Jocko Willink 1:20:39 Very true. That's true, and that's a, that's a, a very interesting point that you bring up because when you take a military unit or a cor- or any team of any kind-

Lewis Howes 1:20:49 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:20:49 ... you take a team of any kind and you want to give them more confidence and give them more pride, what do you do? You put them in challenging situations-

Lewis Howes 1:20:59 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:20:59 ... that require them to come together and be disciplined as a team, and then they become stronger, and they become better, and they d- develop pride and confidence. Those are all positive things. So what do you do as an individual human being? It's the same exact thing. The tougher things you go through, the more confidence you're gonna have. The more confidence you have, the better you're gonna get. Can you go too far with that? Yes, you can. You can get, let your ego get out of control and you can believe all the, all the crap that you're s- that, that you're-

Lewis Howes 1:21:22 Right

Jocko Willink 1:21:22 ... being told, "Hey, that was great. You did great." It's like, "No, actually, I did okay."

Lewis Howes 1:21:26 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:21:26 "But I'm gonna work and try and make myself better."

Lewis Howes 1:21:29 Yeah. So there's-

Jocko Willink 1:21:30 So-

Lewis Howes 1:21:30 There's extreme discipline?

Jocko Willink 1:21:31 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:21:31 It's that thing, yeah?

Jocko Willink 1:21:32 There is absolutely extreme discipline.

Lewis Howes 1:21:33 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:21:34 There's, there's people that ha- there's people that are so disciplined that-

Lewis Howes 1:21:38 They have no joy

Jocko Willink 1:21:38 ... they have no, they have no joy.

Lewis Howes 1:21:39 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:21:40 They can't have fun anymore. That is the, that is the minority.

Lewis Howes 1:21:44 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:21:45 The minority is, "Hey, I have so much discipline-"

Lewis Howes 1:21:48 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:21:49 "... that I'm unhappy."

Lewis Howes 1:21:50 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:21:51 Right? That's, that's a minority. There are-

Lewis Howes 1:21:53 Right. There are a few people like that

Jocko Willink 1:21:54 ... there are a few people like that. I'm sure ... I know, I know some. I'm sure you know some.

Lewis Howes 1:21:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:21:57 The other end of the spectrum is like, "I have so much freedom, but I, you know, my life is a disaster 'cause I do whatever I want." You know who does whatever they want? Homeless people on the streets that are addicted to drugs.

Lewis Howes 1:22:08 Yeah, lazy people.

Jocko Willink 1:22:09 They, they're, they're doing whatever they want.

Lewis Howes 1:22:11 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:22:12 They, they have total freedom, but they become a slave. They become a slave to their addiction. They become a slave to their financial situation.

Lewis Howes 1:22:18 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:22:19 They become a slave to their emotions. All those things are negative. The, the other, the, the right place is the balance, and what most people, the majority of people, need m- a little bit more discipline in their life. So if you were to ask me, and I wasn't to attack you about asking me a weird question, what's the number one thing? Discipline. That's why I wrote The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Discipline equals freedom. You want freedom in your life? You wanna, you wanna ach- achieve what it is you want to achieve? How do you do that? You do it through discipline.

Lewis Howes 1:22:45 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:22:46 You do it through hard work. You do it by knowing what it is you're supposed to do, and then actually doing it.

Lewis Howes 1:22:51 And doing it. [laughs] Yeah. Do you, and I'm assuming you're gonna say that yes, to apply discipline in every area of your life. It's not just I'm disciplined in my nutrition and fitness, but discipline in relationships, discipline in finance, discipline ... So it's learning and mastering multiple skills that you're gonna be disciplined at, is what I'm-

Jocko Willink 1:23:11 I agree with everything you just said except for the word master.

Lewis Howes 1:23:13 Okay.

Jocko Willink 1:23:13 'Cause we're not gonna master anything.

Lewis Howes 1:23:15 Right.

Jocko Willink 1:23:15 Right? We're not gonna master anything. It's very difficult. Like s- you know, somebody asked me that on social media, "How do you master discipline?" I'm like, "You don't."

Lewis Howes 1:23:22 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:23:23 You don't. You keep working at it, though.

Lewis Howes 1:23:24 Every day.

Jocko Willink 1:23:25 Yes. Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:23:26 Continue to improve and grow.

Jocko Willink 1:23:28 Y- you better.

Lewis Howes 1:23:29 Yeah. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:23:29 You got the opportunity.

Lewis Howes 1:23:31 What happens if we, uh, stop being disciplined in our life? If we think we've made it, we think we've achieved something, and we stop repeating the discipline patterns that got us there?

Jocko Willink 1:23:40 This is a rhetorical question 'cause we all know the answer. You stop being disciplined, you're gonna s- you're gonna start to devolve-

Lewis Howes 1:23:48 Mm

Jocko Willink 1:23:48 ... and become less, and become worse, and become weaker, and become lazier, and become more pathetic as a human being.

Lewis Howes 1:23:56 [laughs] Do you become more disciplined year after year, or do you just say, "Okay, I stay consistent with my discipline"? Personally.

Jocko Willink 1:24:05 Um, I think I'm pretty consistent with my discipline. I think what you said earlier about getting more discipline here, more discipline there, I might ramp it up in some area.

Lewis Howes 1:24:13 Some things, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:24:15 And where I can focus, like, oh, I need to get more discipline in this. Cool. Make a run at it, you know? Like, like, here's a good one. Like, I write books. You write books.

Lewis Howes 1:24:22 Uh-huh.

Jocko Willink 1:24:23 Can you write a book without discipline?

Lewis Howes 1:24:25 Uh, it's very hard.

Jocko Willink 1:24:26 Very hard.

Lewis Howes 1:24:26 Very hard. [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:24:27 I mean, that book doesn't write itself.

Lewis Howes 1:24:28 Very hard.

Jocko Willink 1:24:28 And it, and how often are you like, "Oh, super cool. I'm gonna go write today"?

Lewis Howes 1:24:32 Yeah, very hard.

Jocko Willink 1:24:32 Like, it's not, it's not a joy every ... Sometimes it is. Sometimes it feels good, and I get that, but generally writing is, for me, generally writing is not the premier thing that I'm looking to do every day.

Lewis Howes 1:24:45 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:24:45 So how am I gonna write a book? I have to have the discipline to say, "Yep, I'm, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go write this. That's what I'm gonna do."

Lewis Howes 1:24:51 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:24:52 So when I'm writing a book, back to your question, you know, i- I have to impose discipline in that area 'cause I've got a due date. Either I made it up-

Lewis Howes 1:25:02 Mm

Jocko Willink 1:25:02 ... or my publisher made it up or whatever. Here's where I want this done by. Cool. I'm gonna write 1,000 words a day. That takes me about an hour a day. If I don't write 1,000 words a day, I look up in a month and I gotta write 30,000 words.

Lewis Howes 1:25:15 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:25:15 And that takes 30 hours, and you can't ... My brain doesn't like to do that.

Lewis Howes 1:25:18 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:25:19 I'd rather just write 1,000 words a day.

Lewis Howes 1:25:21 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:25:21 So, so I'll focus my discipline on some area. That doesn't mean that when I'm focusing on writing I'm, you know, laying on the couch until-

Lewis Howes 1:25:30 Eating potato chips and yeah, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:25:31 ... yeah, eating potato chips. That's not happening.

Lewis Howes 1:25:32 Yeah. So you stay disciplined in all areas of your life-

Jocko Willink 1:25:34 Yes

Lewis Howes 1:25:35 ... if you wanna be successful in every area?

Jocko Willink 1:25:36 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:25:37 Pretty basic concept, huh?

Jocko Willink 1:25:38 I know. It's, it's, it's incredible.

Lewis Howes 1:25:39 I wish there was, yeah, I wish there was something more magic about it. Uh, you've got a number of books, uh, The Di- Dichotomy of Leadership- You've got Extreme Ownership. You've got a few others, and some kids books as well. You've got a new book coming out soon

Jocko Willink 1:25:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:25:52 What's it called again?

Jocko Willink 1:25:52 In January, January 2020. It's called Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

Lewis Howes 1:25:56 And they can pre-order it now?

Jocko Willink 1:25:58 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:25:58 I'm assuming, right?

Jocko Willink 1:25:58 Yes, they can pre-order it now.

Lewis Howes 1:26:00 Now, get the book.

Jocko Willink 1:26:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:26:02 Um, what's the thing you're most excited about in your life? Is it the books? Is it the, the consulting? Is it-

Jocko Willink 1:26:09 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:26:09 ... being a dad? Is it-

Jocko Willink 1:26:10 Well-

Lewis Howes 1:26:10 ... surfing on the beach when you-

Jocko Willink 1:26:11 Yeah, I mean, the... It's wintertime so the winter waves are coming, which is nice.

Lewis Howes 1:26:15 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:26:15 To be out in the water again.

Lewis Howes 1:26:15 Are they bigger waves out now?

Jocko Willink 1:26:17 In the wintertime?

Lewis Howes 1:26:17 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:26:18 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:26:18 Okay.

Jocko Willink 1:26:18 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:26:18 I'm a, I'm not a surfer, so.

Jocko Willink 1:26:19 So in the wintertime you get, you get the, the swells from the big storms. So that's, that's always exciting.

Lewis Howes 1:26:24 Amazing.

Jocko Willink 1:26:25 And, you know, I'm, I'm... What am I excited a- about? I'm excited in the fact that I'm here. I have today. I have tomorrow.

Lewis Howes 1:26:33 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:26:33 And, and there's plenty of men and women that have sacrificed to give us this opportunity to be here.

Lewis Howes 1:26:38 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:26:39 And so I'm gonna take advantage of it.

Lewis Howes 1:26:40 Yeah, I love that. There's a couple questions I wanna ask you to, to, to wrap this up. This is a question I ask everyone at the end, it's called the three truths. So again, another weird question for you.

Jocko Willink 1:26:49 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:26:50 But we'll roll with it. So imagine, uh, many years from now it's your last day. You get to pick the day.

Jocko Willink 1:26:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:26:57 And it's, you get to be as old as you want. And you've achieved everything you want. It's a hypothetical world.

Jocko Willink 1:27:02 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:27:02 Right? You've achieved everything, you've gone after all your dreams. You've had failures and successes, but most of the things you wanted to accomplish, you made them come true. And it's your last day, and you've got to turn the lights off, and you go somewhere else afterwards. But this world, this body is gone. And for whatever reason, all the things you've created, the books, the bestsellers, all this work, it's gotta go with you to wherever you go. So no one else has access to this content and information anymore. The videos, all that stuff, gone. It's with you somewhere else. But you get to leave behind three lessons that you know to be true from your experience in this world and this life, that you would share with the rest of us. Three, three things you know to be true, or lessons you would want us to learn. What would you say are those three truths for you?

Jocko Willink 1:27:49 That should be a super hard, complex question, but it's actually-

Lewis Howes 1:27:52 Could be basic

Jocko Willink 1:27:52 ... very straightforward and simple for me.

Lewis Howes 1:27:53 Okay.

Jocko Willink 1:27:54 Uh, number one is take ownership of everything that's going on in your world. That's extreme ownership.

Lewis Howes 1:28:00 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:28:00 That's what it is. I wrote a book about it with my buddy, Leif Babin. There you go. Number two, discipline equals freedom. That was my second book.

Lewis Howes 1:28:07 Perfect.

Jocko Willink 1:28:07 Why did I write that book? Because if you wanna have freedom in your life, then you gotta have discipline. And lastly, you gotta be balanced. That's the dichotomy of leadership. If you go too far in one direction or the other, you're gonna screw things up. So balance the dichotomy of your life.

Lewis Howes 1:28:20 Wow. The trilogy of books.

Jocko Willink 1:28:21 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:28:21 There you go.

Jocko Willink 1:28:22 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:28:22 The three truths.

Jocko Willink 1:28:23 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:28:23 I love it, man.

Jocko Willink 1:28:24 I, I'm, I'm sorry, but-

Lewis Howes 1:28:25 That's perfect

Jocko Willink 1:28:25 ... it, it, it's, if... You know, it's like there's a reason why those books, that there's a reason why I wrote those books. There's a reason why those titles are what they are. Like w- when you asked me earlier, you know, "What are you, what are you trying to do? What's your mission?" My mission is to teach people the lessons that I've learned, right? So in trying to teach the lessons that I've learned, the biggest lessons that I've learned, I put them into books. They're actually in order of the way I believe them.

Lewis Howes 1:28:56 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:28:56 Right? The first one was take ownership, that's everything that's going on in your world. The second is discipline equals freedom. And the third one is d- the dichotomy of leadership. Be balanced.

Lewis Howes 1:29:04 Mm. That's powerful. You're doing it, man. I love it. What's something that you're very proud of that most people maybe don't know about you?

Jocko Willink 1:29:13 Something that I'm very proud of?

Lewis Howes 1:29:14 Yeah, maybe something, something you're proud of that maybe a lot of people, that you don't talk about that much, or maybe people wouldn't think about, that you've done or that you, that you haven't done.

Jocko Willink 1:29:25 Yeah. I mean, obviously I got, I got four kids.

Lewis Howes 1:29:28 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:29:28 And my kids are, are, are pretty awesome.

Lewis Howes 1:29:30 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:29:31 So it's weird, when I... I've, I've had my podcast for almost four years.

Lewis Howes 1:29:37 Mm-hmm.

Jocko Willink 1:29:38 And when my podcast first came out, like, my oldest daughter was 16, and then, you know, 14, and then 12, and then six. And, and people would ask me questions about parenting, and I said, "Listen, the, the jury ain't out yet [laughs] on these kids," right?

Lewis Howes 1:29:53 [laughs]

Jocko Willink 1:29:54 "I don't know how they're gonna turn out."

Lewis Howes 1:29:55 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:29:55 "I don't know if they're gonna be successful or not. And also, I don't even know how you're defining successful."

Lewis Howes 1:30:00 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:30:00 "Because if I got, if I have my kid that has made a bunch of money and owns a bunch of property, but is miserable, how successful are they? They're not. And how successful was I as a dad?"

Lewis Howes 1:30:11 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:30:11 "Not very." So as my kids have gotten older now, it's been four years, four critical years, you know? Going from high school-

Lewis Howes 1:30:19 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:30:19 ... through into college for two of them, and then, you know, the, the other one's growing up.

Lewis Howes 1:30:23 Middle school to high school, yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:30:25 Right, so I can, I can... I'm assessing them now, and I go, "Yeah, you know what? Those kids, those kids are good to go."

Lewis Howes 1:30:31 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:30:31 And, and so if there's something that I was proud of, it's the fact that my kids are, right now, seem to be on a good trajectory in their lives-

Lewis Howes 1:30:39 That's cool

Jocko Willink 1:30:40 ... which, which feels good.

Lewis Howes 1:30:41 That's great to be proud of that. That's powerful, man.

Jocko Willink 1:30:43 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:30:44 There you go.

Jocko Willink 1:30:44 And my, my, my wife, who was, you know, around for all those years when I was gone all the time, she's the one that was raising them, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:30:51 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:30:52 She's the one that instilled in them a lot of the values that they have. So even though I, I could say I'm proud of it, it should really be my wife saying that, not me.

Lewis Howes 1:31:00 Yeah. Yeah, that's cool though. Well, you gotta take ownership, right?

Jocko Willink 1:31:03 Extreme ownership.

Lewis Howes 1:31:04 Yeah. You know?

Jocko Willink 1:31:04 Well, that's another thing, is when, when good, when good things happen, you, you don't take ownership of that.

Lewis Howes 1:31:08 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:31:09 When the team does something well and the boss says, "Hey Jocko, good job with your team," I don't say, "That wasn't me, it was the team."

Lewis Howes 1:31:14 Yeah. So when good things happen-

Jocko Willink 1:31:16 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:31:16 ... you put it on other people.

Jocko Willink 1:31:18 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:31:18 When bad things happen, you take extreme ownership.

Jocko Willink 1:31:20 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:31:21 That's powerful.

Jocko Willink 1:31:21 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:31:21 That's a good leadership quality, too.

Jocko Willink 1:31:23 It is indeed.

Lewis Howes 1:31:23 Um, well, I wanna acknowledge you for a moment for showing us the way, because you are a straightforward guy. [laughs] I love that you, the way you respond to me and my weird questions for you. Um, and I really acknowledge you for the way you've transitioned from your mission of being in service to this country and to humanity in the way that you did for 20 years, two decades, and transitioning into serving in a different way, uh, into the corporate world, and to just everyone that's a listener or a reader of your content, you're really in service In a big way as well, and I would say probably a bigger way because you can reach more people now. And I really acknowledge you for sharing these wisdoms with us, the truth with us, the lessons that you learned from combat, and allowing us to apply it in our life. I think it's really important that you're doing this, and I appreciate it very much and acknowledge you for it. So thanks for, for all that you do. Make sure you guys pick up the books. You can pre-order the, the newest book or get one of the previous ones, Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership. Make sure you check them out. Check out your podcast. Uh, and where's the best site to go and learn about all this stuff where they can follow you online and-

Jocko Willink 1:32:34 Uh, so jockopodcast.com is the podcast

Lewis Howes 1:32:38 Yep

Jocko Willink 1:32:38 echelonfront.com is my leadership consultancy, and then Origin Maine.

Lewis Howes 1:32:44 Origin Maine.

Jocko Willink 1:32:45 O-M-I-N-E is, I have a company up in Maine where we manufacture, well we manufacture clothing, we manufacture jujitsu gis, we manufacture jeans, which I'm wearing right now.

Lewis Howes 1:32:57 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:32:57 We manufacture boots, which I'm wearing right now.

Lewis Howes 1:32:59 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:32:59 And we manufacture jujitsu gis, which is the uniform that you train jujitsu in

Lewis Howes 1:33:03 Okay

Jocko Willink 1:33:03 And we do it all in America. So we've, we've, we've got, we've taken a, an industry which, I grew up in New England-

Lewis Howes 1:33:11 Mm-hmm

Jocko Willink 1:33:11 ... and w- that used to be sort of the, the center for textiles in America, and, and really one of them in the world, and it all went away. It all went overseas. And so over the past few years, myself and a, and a friend of mine, business partner, we've been rebuilding that.

Lewis Howes 1:33:28 Mm.

Jocko Willink 1:33:29 And these, these towns up there have been ravaged by the, by the industry going overseas.

Lewis Howes 1:33:36 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:33:36 And-

Lewis Howes 1:33:36 You're bringing it back

Jocko Willink 1:33:37 ... we, we literally are bringing it back.

Lewis Howes 1:33:39 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:33:39 We literally bought looms. We f- so we, we found our first loom in an, in a, it was about a 500,000 square foot abandoned factory in Lewiston, Maine.

Lewis Howes 1:33:50 Wow.

Jocko Willink 1:33:51 And took that loom, which hadn't been, hadn't been used in probably 30 years, found the old timers that knew how to work on them-

Lewis Howes 1:33:58 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:33:58 ... refurbished it and started weaving our own material with, with, with American cotton, and now we've got looms that we've brought back from overseas. We started with our bui- building boots as well. So it's really cool what we're doing up there. We, we started off obviously with no employees. We have close to 60 folks up there-

Lewis Howes 1:34:17 Wow

Jocko Willink 1:34:17 ... in the factory, craftsmen, craftswomen, a lot of them are female, and it's, it's, we're rebuilding the economy-

Lewis Howes 1:34:24 That's cool

Jocko Willink 1:34:24 ... of that town, and we're bringing manufacturing back to America, where it belongs.

Lewis Howes 1:34:29 [laughs] That's great, man.

Jocko Willink 1:34:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:34:31 Uh, but you've got all that at jockopodcast.com, as well as links to these other places-

Jocko Willink 1:34:35 Yep, links to these other places

Lewis Howes 1:34:36 ... all right, cool

Jocko Willink 1:34:37 So that's what we're doing, man.

Lewis Howes 1:34:38 Amazing, man. You're doing great stuff. I appreciate it.

Jocko Willink 1:34:40 We're working on it.

Lewis Howes 1:34:40 Appreciate you. Final question.

Jocko Willink 1:34:42 Yep.

Lewis Howes 1:34:42 What's your definition of greatness?

Jocko Willink 1:34:45 My definition, what is my definition?

Lewis Howes 1:34:47 Of greatness, yeah

Jocko Willink 1:34:48 Of greatness?

Lewis Howes 1:34:48 Yeah.

Jocko Willink 1:34:49 Is to help out other people.

Lewis Howes 1:34:50 Yeah. There you go.

Jocko Willink 1:34:52 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:34:52 Jocko. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, brother.

Jocko Willink 1:34:54 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:34:54 Thank you, man. [outro music]