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Feb. 22, 2020 - The Dan Bongino Show

43:16

Interview With Jocko Willink (Ep 1187)

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

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	Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
	Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show interview series.
	Great guest today, Jocko Willink, author of the terrific book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.
	You're going to love this book.
	Folks, I always record these.
	As you know, if you're a regular listener, the intros to the show, after the interview, some of the things we get into.
	Jaco tells us about some of his experiences as a Navy SEAL that are just mind-blowing.
	The story he tells about their training on an oil rig and The leadership examples they took from it is tremendous.
	You're not going to want to miss that.
	We get into all kinds of things.
	His experience with Brazilian jiu-jitsu and hand-to-hand combat, conditioning.
	This conversation goes everywhere.
	You're going to love it.
	He really did a great job.
	I appreciate it.
	Got to pay for the show.
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	I always appreciate your patience.
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	All right, without further ado, Jocko Willink.
	All right.
	I want to welcome to the Dan Bongino show, uh, a guest to listen.
	I, when I put it out there to recommend guests for the show, this name came up repeatedly, a guy I know I have enormous respect for Jocko Willink.
	Jocko, thank you so much for joining us.
	I really appreciate your time today.
	Thanks for having me on, Dan.
	Appreciate it.
	So I want to get right into your new book, which I read, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.
	Here it is, folks.
	Bought it myself.
	A phenomenal book.
	I, you know, I went through it and there's so much in here.
	I honestly, for the first time in an interview, had a tough time nailing it down to four or five good questions because you have so many great stories.
	You don't only talk about leadership, you correlate it to things you've lived
	during your time in the Navy SEALs, and just your life experience has been tremendous.
	So my first question for you is, one of the things you hit on in the book is,
	you would think in the Navy SEALs program, BUD/S and all these complicated training programs
	you went through for this elite military force, that there would have been a specific program on leadership,
	but you make the point that they didn't really focus on a leadership-specific class there,
	that this was kind of on-the-job training.
	If you could elaborate on that a little bit and how you picked up all these leadership traits on that on-the-job training, I think my audience would love to hear about it.
	Yeah, it is very surprising that we had one of the premier special operations groups in the world and there was no real leadership training inside of our pipeline.
	And like you said, and like I write about in the book, it was just on-the-job training.
	You'd watch the chief or the officer above you in the chain of command and you'd kind of imitate what they did.
	Of course, they try and show you the ropes a little bit and explain why they were making decisions.
	I know that program works OK if you have a good leader above you in the chain of command.
	If you don't have a good leader, well, then you might be learning bad habits.
	So it turns out to be pretty ridiculous.
	And it was a problem.
	And that's why later in my career, I made it a real focus of mine to incorporate leadership training into our pipeline so that guys learned how to lead.
	But what I did was I just From the time, you know, I was the youngest and most junior guy in my first two SEAL platoons.
	And I was constantly watching.
	I was constantly paying attention to the officers, to the chiefs that I had, paying attention to what they did that made me want to follow them and paying attention to the things that they did that made me not want to follow them.
	And so, as I learned from both the good and the bad, eventually over time, those things kind of gelled together in my head and turned into the kind of principles that I write about and teach about and talk about now.
	You know, ironically, Jaco, when I was an instructor in the Secret Service Academy, I was given a class to coordinate, and I hadn't been given any courses in leadership either.
	And I always had a deep respect for the military.
	One of the great regrets of my lifetime is not going into the military, to this day.
	It's a long story, but...
	You know, one of the things I learned, I was supposed to be leading the class as the class coordinator, the instructor, and we had a bunch of former Marines in our class.
	And I've got to tell you, through their five paragraph orders, these were students.
	I remember specifically learning from the students.
	Gosh, that That really worked well.
	These guys really responded to this guy.
	So I think on the job trading works, but you're right.
	In some of these elite programs, it's stunning that there really isn't a leadership course.
	There are clear tactics to use.
	And like you, I had to learn them on the job as well, even from the students.
	Let me get to another point in your book.
	Again, we're talking to Jocko Willink, author of a fantastic book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookstores everywhere.
	You're going to love this book.
	I was reading it for questions and got through the book in about a day and a half.
	It's that good, folks, I promise you.
	You tell the story in the book about training on oil platforms during your time in the Navy SEALs, in the event one of them may be hijacked, and you bring up some fascinating points.
	How when you're training to retake an oil platform, something, you know, regular civilians luckily don't have to think about, you know, you can't just start firing willy nilly.
	You got flammable compounds on oil platform.
	And how, when you were in that scene, you talk about in this training exercise, How there was this value for you from detaching yourself from this situation.
	You noticed how people in that training unit you were working with, they were focused on looking over the barrel of their firearm, but there's a value to detaching yourself and seeing the whole picture for once.
	If you could elaborate on that exercise and what you learned from that, I thought this story is one of the, one of really the best in the book.
	It's very well done.
	Yeah.
	Well, thank you.
	That was early in my career is actually when I was in my first SEAL platoon.
	So I was a brand new guy.
	Like I said, I was the youngest and most junior guy in the platoon, which meant what I should have been doing was exactly what you just said, looking down my weapon, scanning for targets.
	And we were going through this oil rig and we got to this one level of the rig and It was a huge level.
	It was very complex.
	And, you know, one of the things that they would tell us about oil rigs is everything that you see wants to either explode or catch on fire.
	So you've got to pay attention when you're on an oil rig.
	So my platoon, my whole platoon, we got 16 guys in the platoon.
	We're basically standing abreast of each other in a big skirmish line and everyone's looking down their weapons.
	Waiting for a call to be made while they're scanning for targets.
	And a little bit of time passes and I'm thinking to myself, okay, I can see that I don't have any targets to engage.
	Where's the call?
	Where's the tactical call?
	And I wait a little bit longer.
	I wait a little bit longer.
	I wait a little bit longer.
	No call, no call, no call.
	Finally, I just decide I got to do something.
	So I just high port my weapon, you know, for civilians out there.
	That means I just, you know, basically point my weapon at the sky where I'm not going to shoot anything.
	I take, I take a step like a foot back off the skirmish line.
	I look to my left.
	I look to my right.
	And first thing I see is I see that everybody else in my platoon, including my platoon commander, including my platoon chief, including the assistant platoon commander, every single guy is looking down their weapons, which means their field of view is basically the sights of their weapons, and they can't see the rest of the scenario that's unfolding.
	And yet, even though I'm a new guy, even though I'm the most junior guy, by stepping back and looking around, by detaching from that situation, I can see exactly what we need to do.
	And then, being a new guy, I was a little nervous about actually doing something about it, because you learn not to run your mouth as a new guy in a SEAL platoon, but I knew I had to do something, so I just made a tactical call.
	I said, hold left, clear right.
	And I was kind of expecting someone to look at me and say, hey, shut up, new guy.
	But instead, they repeated the verbal command and hold left, clear right, hold left, clear right, hold left, clear right.
	It goes down the line.
	And then the guys actually executed the call.
	It wasn't like I made some genius tactical call.
	It was a very common call to make, but I made it.
	But I think the point there you make for leadership is a great one.
	I mean, even in the business world, Jaco, you see people get lost.
	I mean, business owners, CEOs, C-suite people admit to you every day.
	They get lost in the next profit loss statement and they lose the bigger picture that the company's sinking.
	So, I mean, I think the story when I read it, you know, it was obviously meant to be analogous to other things in life.
	And I see that throughout the book.
	And I think in the military, nobody does a better job in training our people through experience and on the job training than that.
	Yeah, and you're right.
	I mean, you picked up exactly what the point is.
	If you get caught up in the weeds and you start focused on the tactical battle that's right in front of you, you're going to miss out on the bigger picture.
	And by the way, if you're in a leadership position and you're caught down in the weeds, who's actually leading?
	The answer is no one.
	And I got a leadership consulting company and I see this all the time with businesses at every level, where you get people that are supposed to be making decisions, people that are supposed to be figuring out where we're heading in the future, and instead they're caught up in a tactical battle and no one's leading.
	So it's something to look out for, for sure.
	I want to note, folks, Jocko also hosts a podcast, The Jocko Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts.
	It's incredible.
	If you want to get these tidbits of wisdom, you can check in.
	The podcasts are very inspirational.
	I listen all the time.
	You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere.
	Fantastic show.
	Jocko, another point in your book, again, leadership strategy and tactics, folks, again, highly recommended.
	You talk about the power of relationships, but you make a key point here.
	It's good to have a relationship with your boss, your supervisor, your officer, whoever it may be in the military to have that open relationship to be able to talk.
	But you say in a book at one point that, listen, sometimes there's a mutiny in order, which I thought was fascinating.
	What exactly do you mean by that?
	When is a mutiny in order?
	And I think a lot of people would learn to hear from these.
	It's a great lesson in the book.
	You know, we actually had a mutiny in one of my SEAL platoons, my second SEAL platoon.
	We had an officer that was, look, he was just an arrogant guy.
	He was inexperienced.
	He didn't know a lot, but he acted like he knew everything.
	He forced his ideas down everyone's throat.
	And, you know, that's a lot of times people think that's what the military is.
	The military is, hey, the officer barks order at the troops and the troops just turn around and obey.
	It doesn't work like that.
	You know, can it work like that for a day or two days or a week?
	Yeah, it can work like that for a little while.
	But eventually, if that's the only way you know how to lead, the troops are not going to respect it.
	And that's exactly what happened.
	So we had a guy that was making bad decisions.
	He was coming up with bad plans.
	Our platoon wasn't performing the way we wanted to perform.
	And so we had a mutiny and we went to our commanding officer.
	So we went to his boss and told his boss that we didn't want this guy.
	You know, we don't want to follow this guy.
	We don't want to work with this guy.
	And eventually the guy got fired.
	So the problem is this is this should absolutely be the last course of action that you should take in inside of any team.
	Because as soon as you, you know, as soon as you go and you You fight against your boss.
	I mean, it's going to disrupt everything that you're trying to do to accomplish your mission.
	So it's a last resort.
	That being said, if you've got a boss that's trying to do something that's immoral or illegal or unethical, well, then it's time to speak up.
	It's time to do something.
	And perhaps it's time to have a mutiny.
	Another situation where that might unfold is if you've got a boss that's going to do something or direct you to do something that's going to end up Getting a bunch of people killed unnecessarily.
	And that's maybe a situation where you say, you know what?
	We're not going to do this.
	Now, even in that particular situation, you have to be careful.
	Because Dan, let's say I was working for you and you told me to do something that I knew was going to cause massive casualties on my platoon.
	If I say, well, you know, Dan, I'm not doing it.
	I refuse.
	You might just say, okay, fine.
	You know what?
	You're fired.
	You take one of your, you know, one of your guys that, you know, that's a yes man.
	You put him in there and now he goes and executes the mission.
	He doesn't mitigate any risk, gets a bunch of people killed.
	It would have been better off if I had just said, okay, Dan.
	Look, I really protest what we're doing.
	If you want me to do it, I'll do it.
	Here's the reasons that I'm, I don't think we should do it.
	Eventually you order me to do it.
	I say, okay, I go out, I mitigate risk to the best of my ability.
	Maybe we don't, maybe we don't do the mission that, that you really had in mind.
	Maybe at the last minute I say, Hey, you know what boss, we saw this different thing and we had to make some adjustments and I'm able to take care of my guys.
	While I'm still, you know, resisting what you're trying to make us do.
	So these are very tricky situations.
	And you know what?
	Leadership is hard.
	Leadership is a challenge and it takes a lot to think through and having a mutiny is definitely one of the things you got to think a lot about before you execute.
	Well, and you make a very nuanced point there.
	What I believe you're getting at in the chapter is build those relationships first, hoping you never get to a mutiny.
	And if you have a relationship, you can be free to talk openly and say what you think those leadership failures are before it leads to, God forbid, death and chaos, or even dreadful business decisions that are going to cave your company in.
	So, that's what I really enjoy.
	I mean, you give all of those scenarios in the book first.
	It's very well done.
	Again, I can't recommend it enough.
	One of the other things, I have never experienced the fog of war.
	Men like you, brave men and women, and forgive me, I should have said this at the beginning of the show.
	I can't believe I missed.
	I want to thank you for your service.
	Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.
	I lost an uncle in Vietnam.
	He died rather heroically.
	He's given the Bronze star with a V cluster and he was saving his men when he was killed.
	He was shot in the back, south of Thu Duc.
	And it changed my family forever, Jocko.
	And it's one of those things that's altered my experience on how I talk about combat, war, and soldiers.
	You know, these are not Assets.
	These are not billet numbers.
	These are bleeding men and women who when they come home, either missing body parts or missing their lives, their lives and the lives of others are permanently altered.
	I know with my family.
	It was, his name was Greg Ambrose.
	It was pre Greg and post Greg.
	My family was never the same.
	You know, he was, he was 19 years old when he died.
	And men like you who do this for, let's be candid.
	There's no money in this Jocko.
	I mean, nobody, nobody's getting rich off being in the military.
	You know, when I went overseas and did advances with the president, I dealt with a two-star general.
	I think I was making more money than he was in the Secret Service.
	I mean, nobody's making any money off this.
	So thank you.
	And on behalf of my audience, who I know loves you, like I said, they wanted you on the show.
	Really, I know you guys aren't seeking praise, but it means a lot.
	So thanks for your service.
	I really mean that.
	It was an honor to serve, and I know you served as well in your capacity, and anyone that steps up and does what their country needs them to do, it's definitely appreciated.
	Well, thanks, brother.
	Nothing like you, though.
	When I went over to Afghanistan, I stayed in a nice Connex box.
	Those guys were staying in hooches, and I was like, man, you guys got to sleep in that?
	I mean, really, the Connex box looked like the Ritz-Carlton compared to what these guys... And I'll never forget, these poor guys, dirt everywhere.
	That was the one thing they complained about all the time to me.
	They're like, brother, there's dirt everywhere, all the time.
	It was driving them crazy.
	I'll never, ever forget that over at Bagram.
	One thing I wanted to ask you from a man whose experience is just incredible.
	Again, Jocko Podcast, if you want to listen to some of Jocko's experiences.
	The fog of war, having been a police officer, again, nothing even remotely compared to your experience, but having been in a couple situations where firearms was involved, you know, a shot came and there's that fog of war in the military that's got in a war situation has to be exponentially times a factor of 10.
	Can you train to overcome that fog of war in an elite unit like the Navy SEALs?
	Or is it an inevitable portion of combat and you just learn to maybe shrink the response time?
	I'd love to get your perspective on that.
	Yeah, well, there's definitely going to be situations where that fog is going to be there, right?
	It's going to be there.
	You're not going to know exactly what's going on.
	You're not going to know exactly where different troops are out on the battlefield.
	You're definitely not going to know where the enemy is all the time.
	You're not going to know where certain weapons are being fired from.
	I mean, that's one thing.
	When I took over training after I got back from my last deployment, we would put guys with paintball guns in buildings to shoot at the trainees.
	And the trainees would say, you know, it's not fair because we don't know where the, we don't know where get, we're getting shot at from overseas, my friend, you're not going to go.
	Oftentimes, you know, won't know where you're getting shot at from.
	So there are certain things when you're in combat, you're not going to know a hundred percent what's going on.
	But as you said, What you can do is you can inoculate people to that kind of stress.
	You can make sure that instead of making snap reactions where they're not fully understanding what's happening, they can make smaller decisions, they can make tighter decisions, they can make quicker decisions, they can increase their or decrease their response time so they're moving faster.
	And what that allows us to do is then make other decisions Quickly thereafter that are reflective of what we learned by our last decision.
	So these are things that you have to do.
	You have to do it by drilling, by training hard, by training like you fight, by putting guys in very stressful situations where they are in the fog of war.
	And as you get used to it, you get better at responding to it.
	It reminds me of that old Mike Tyson line, you know, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
	And, you know, from a guy like yourself, we've been training MMA for 20 years now.
	I'll never forget even messing around with a friend of mine, a really athletic guy who caught me by surprise one day, caught me in some like, you know, fourth grade headlock on the ground.
	I got to tell you, even though I'd been training on the ground for, it took me a second to think, Damn, how do you get out of this again?
	Cause I, and he was just my friend and I kept thinking in a street fight, gosh, imagine in combat that fog of war, but that just goes to show you your commitment to training that you can even mitigate that response time a little bit.
	And you get on your, you know, you get on your toes quick.
	It's just incredible.
	Um, one more question about the book and I just want to hit on some of your Brazilian jujitsu experience.
	I know you work out a lot.
	I follow your Twitter feed and your pictures are incredible.
	I, I love your take on suffering.
	I want to get to that in a second too.
	But, um, last question, there's, um, You know, I was involved in politics for a while as well.
	I decided to go run for office and give it a shot.
	You know, talk is cheap, man.
	Action matters.
	You got to put your name on a ballot.
	You want to change things.
	So I did it.
	It didn't work out.
	But one of the people I met was very inspirational, Ginny Thomas.
	And she told me once, you know, Dan, you know, we're the leaders we've been waiting for.
	And that's in your book on leadership.
	Again, folks, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.
	Here's the book.
	It looks terrific, too, by the way.
	And you write in your book that you talk about the most important member of the team.
	And the most important member of the team is you!
	And I think people forget this often.
	If you could just talk about that in relationship to your book.
	Yeah, I go through the book and I explain how I would tell the guys in my platoon, you know, I would tell the point man, for instance, Hey, you know, listen, point man, you're the guy that knows where we're going.
	You're the one that gets us to the target.
	You're the most important guy out here.
	If we get in trouble, you're the one that's going to lead us out of trouble.
	You're the most important guy.
	And then I tell the radio men, hey, you know what, radio men, you're the most important guy we've got.
	If we get into real trouble, you're the one that's going to be able to call for supporting assets, for close air support to come and help us out.
	You're the most important guy in this platoon.
	And then I tell the machine gunner, hey, machine gunner, you know what, when we get into a gunfight, It's your machine gun that's going to give us the ability to maneuver when you put down suppressive fire.
	Without you, we all die.
	You're the most important guy.
	And I tell the medic the same thing.
	I tell the leaders the same thing.
	I would tell everybody that they were the most important person in the platoon.
	And the reason I would tell them that Is because it was true, because what we had was a team.
	And there's certain moments where those individuals in those particular roles were absolutely the most important and critical member of the platoon.
	And that way, everybody knew that they played a critical role.
	And that is what makes them take ownership of what they're doing and realizing that everybody in the platoon is counting on them to do their job.
	And when everyone has that feeling, everyone has ownership.
	That's what makes a solid team.
	Folks, we're gonna take a quick break.
	We're here with Jocko Willink, a host of the Jocko Podcast.
	We'll be right back.
	All right, thanks for your patience, ladies and gentlemen.
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	Now back to Jocko.
	All right, we're back with Jaco Willink again, author of Leadership Strategy and Tactics, new book available on Amazon.
	Barnes & Noble, go pick it up today.
	You will not put this one down.
	That, I absolutely promise you, got through this thing in a day and a half.
	Jaco, just to switch gears a moment.
	I love Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
	My audience knows it.
	You are just You got your black belt under Dean Lister.
	Am I correct there?
	I mean, he was talking about foot locks before a lot of the folks today even knew what foot locks were, and ankle locks, and leg locks.
	I gotta be honest, I'm not a big leg locker.
	I probably should be, but I've been dying to ask you this.
	I've watched tons of videos where you grapple.
	They're all over YouTube.
	If you want to see Jaco on the ground just dominating a lot of his opponents, just Google Jaco grappling.
	You can see it yourself.
	How did you find Jiu Jitsu?
	I mean, it's obvious you're a pretty tough guy.
	You were a Navy SEAL.
	You're into conditioning.
	You're a big guy.
	I'm a big guy.
	I'm 6'1", 230 pounds.
	I love to lift.
	But I got to tell you, the first time I went on a mat with a guy who was about a buck 30, was a brown belt, and proceeded to kick the living rhymes with hit out of me for about an hour and a half.
	It was a rude awakening.
	About how many people out there think they can fight and then they get on the ground and they figure out this ain't the Jason Bourne movies, man.
	This is the real deal.
	How did you find jiu-jitsu?
	So, I was in my first SEAL platoon, and I went on deployment overseas.
	We went to a forward operating base over in Guam, and when we got there, there was an old Master Chief, an old SEAL Master Chief, and when we checked in as a platoon, he came in to talk to us, and he, you know, told us a couple things.
	He said, and by the way, anybody that wants to learn how to fight, show up at the at this Kwanzaa hut later on at 1500.
	So I'm a new guy.
	I'm a seal.
	You know, I figure, hey, I want to know how to fight.
	And I, of course, think I know how to fight.
	So I go in there and this old guy, this old skinny guy, you know, probably the oldest guy I'd ever seen in my life.
	So he was probably like 40 years old, right?
	And I'm 19 years old, fresh out of SEAL training.
	I mean, I'm just full of piss and vinegar.
	And he says, all right, guys, you know, I'm going to lay down.
	And one at a time, there's like three or four of us that showed up.
	One at a time, you guys just come and attack me and fight me.
	And of course, you know what he did, he choked us all out, and then did it again, and then did it again, and then did it again, and then said, do you guys want to know how to fight?
	This is called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
	And at this time, this was 1992 or 1993, and he had been training for about two years with the Gracies up in Torrance, California, and he was like a high-level white belt at the time.
	And he just, that's all you needed to know to dominate back then.
	And of course that was my first taste.
	And once I started training, I just kept training.
	Yeah.
	You're a savage on the match, man.
	I, you know, my golden rule now I'm, I'm 45 and I feel every bit of it.
	I love Brazilian jujitsu.
	I mean, love it almost as much as I love my wife.
	I mean, my wife begs me to stop because it's, I'm arthritic in about four or five different joints, but I'd never give it up.
	I mean, it's taught me, and I say this with all candor and sincerity, I think it's taught me more than my graduate degrees in college and all of that other stuff.
	I mean, about discipline.
	And one of the things on the mats is that your politics don't matter.
	Nobody gives a...
	Shit on the mat.
	I mean, pardon my language, they don't care.
	I mean, this place I go to, I've trained in four or five different schools, the place I'm at now, nobody gives a damn if you're a Republican, a conservative, a communist or whatever.
	You get on the mat and you know what, man?
	Everything's equal.
	They don't care if you're on TV, you have the Jocko podcast.
	I've watched you roll with some dudes.
	Believe me, I've seen you dominate a lot of these guys, but they're not giving you any passes, man.
	These guys are trying to choke your ass out too.
	I mean, it's just a great equalizer, isn't it?
	Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you're being very complimentary with my jiu-jitsu, but the fact of the matter is, I go and get beat up every single day, and there's guys that are all over me and I can't do anything to them, and that's why I keep going back, you know?
	I go back because I know I can improve, I know I have work to do, and that's why I keep going.
	So, I appreciate your complimentary nature, but I'm just another guy doing jujitsu.
	No, it's good.
	It's good.
	I'm sure.
	Listen, everybody loses.
	There's always someone better.
	I mean, you've always got, you know, a Gordon Ryan out there or someone who's gonna, but I've watched and I, you know, when you've been training for a while, you can just, you know, you watch transitions, you watch how they see things that, you know, my, my, I don't know about you, but my golden rule now in my old age, I was kind of getting at that before I got sidetracked.
	One of my stories is, you know, get on top, Number one, stay on top, number two.
	Number three, if you find yourself on the bottom, get up and get back on top.
	And rule number four is never forget rule number one and rule number two.
	I don't know about you, but I'm not into the guard game anymore.
	It's great.
	You know, when I was a kid and I was a little faster, you know, I could pull all kinds of heel hooks out of it, arm bars, triangles, Kimuras.
	You know, big man, you know, I could do all that, but I just can't do it anymore.
	And now that I'm a big, heavy, 230 pound guy who's learned to leverage my weight, I find when I'm on top, you're just, you're just not getting out unless you're really good.
	So that's the thing.
	I'd rather just sit on your way for the cops to show up, you know, sit on your inside control.
	And then I can see everything in my field of vision.
	When you're on the bottom, you're limited, you know?
	You're looking at the guy.
	You don't want to get grounded and pounded into the concrete.
	So, I mean, are you into the top game?
	Are you a guard player at all?
	I mean, I don't see you in guard too much when I watch your stuff on YouTube.
	Well, certainly.
	I mean, from a tactical perspective, being on the bottom is never good.
	You know, you always want to be on top if you can.
	Do I prefer to be on top?
	Absolutely.
	I prefer to be on top.
	And, you know, like I said, not only from a tactical perspective, you can break contact.
	It's easier to access weapons if you've got weapons on you.
	But the fact of the matter is I train with a bunch of guys that they like to be on top too.
	And some of them are better on top than I am.
	And even though I'm a big guy, they're bigger than me.
	They're stronger than me.
	So it's, you know, I got to learn how to play both.
	And I try to be good in every different area.
	Yeah.
	I'm with you, man.
	I mean, I'm big into shoulder lockdowns now on the bottom, just to lock you up.
	So you get frustrated so I can get the hell out of there.
	Once you get frustrated enough, do you find, you know, I watched a lot of these videos.
	I like to watch the old videos.
	I remember the videos, the Gracie Beach videos from like 30, 40 years ago.
	I find those videos are very instructive because they show you before this era.
	Now where everybody, everybody's advanced.
	Now, if you got a year of training, now you're where guys were 20 years ago with five years of training.
	But I find it, People overestimate their ability to engage in and counteract physical violence.
	And when you watch these old videos, I just, I warn people all the time.
	You always want to be able to negotiate in a situation in the street.
	You never want to fight.
	You don't want to get sued.
	I'm not a thug, man.
	I'm not into this crap.
	I got a wife and kids.
	I'm not looking to prove who's got a, you know, whatever, you know, my bigger than, it's not my thing.
	But if I have to engage in physical violence, I find that a lot of people who aren't experienced with it strongly overestimate their ability to engage in it and counteract it.
	Have you seen this too, especially when you get new guys in the gym?
	Well, there's a couple things going on there.
	And I talk, I got another book called Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual where I kind of break down my philosophy behind martial arts.
	And one of the things is why I always recommend people start with grappling and really specifically with jujitsu is look, if you want to fight me, if you approach me in the streets and you put up your hands to box with me, my habit, I already know a self-defense, it's called runaway.
	I mean, you haven't got a hold of me.
	You hold up your hands.
	You want to fight me?
	Good, I'm going to run away.
	If you're a kickboxer and you start throwing kicks at me, guess what I'm going to do?
	I'm going to run away.
	You don't have a hold of me.
	The only thing changes when you defeat my primary defensive tactic, which is to run away from you, is when you grab a hold of me.
	So when you grab a hold of me, now we're grappling, so I have to be able to contend with that.
	And guess what?
	If we go to the ground, but I fall down on top of you, well, I can still kind of push off of you and get away from you.
	Okay.
	That's fine.
	So the worst case, and so that means like wrestling's good, but if you fall down on top of me and now I'm on the bottom.
	And now I have to deal with you.
	Look, I can't run away anymore.
	You're holding on to me.
	I've got to deal with that problem.
	This is the worst case scenario.
	That's what jiu-jitsu teaches you.
	That's why I think it's the best foundation for people to learn for self-defense.
	Now, the second part of what you asked is about violence.
	And kind of like what you opened up, one of your opening questions was about the fog of war and how do you deal with that?
	And I told you, look, when you put yourself in these situations over and over again, you'll get used to it.
	And then you talked to, you told a quick story about your, one of your friends putting you in a headlock and it surprised you and you were caught off guard and it took you a second to go, Oh, I know what to do here.
	Now just imagine that's someone that I don't know how long you've been training for at the time but let's call it three years let's call it five years of getting put in that position over and over again on the mats and it's still a surprise moment it took you a second to adjust to it now let's imagine that you've never trained before And now all of a sudden somebody grabs a hold of you and has you and takes you to the ground and you don't know, you can't, you won't even get over the shock of the violence in that situation where you can do something smart to respond.
	So, you know, another thing like I, you know, I've got, I've got four kids, I got three daughters and one son and people ask me about self-defense and whatnot.
	And again, you know, Jiu-Jitsu should be the foundation of your self-defense.
	And listen, I'm not a person that believes that if you're a 105-pound female and some 230-pound person, you know, Roidy roided out cocaine using maniac attacks you.
	You're not going to be able to defeat that person.
	I mean, that's just the way it is.
	You know, that's why we have firearms, but if you don't have a firearm, well, guess what?
	You might not be able to defeat that person, but you may be able to,
	you may be able to hang on for an extra 10 seconds, an extra 20 seconds, an extra 30 seconds,
	where the cops can come, where someone else can see what's happening,
	where someone can aid you in the situation that you're in.
	Whereas if you don't know anything, in four seconds you could be grabbed and put into a van.
	If you try to grab someone, if we're the same situation,
	230 pound guy tries to grab a 110 pound girl that knows jujitsu,
	it won't take him five seconds to get her in that van.
	I promise you, it'll take him 20, it'll take him 30 and it might even make him go, you know what?
	This is too much of a hassle for me.
	I'm going to run.
	I'm going to get out of here.
	So every second counts in these situations.
	And of course, the better you get, the more use you get to violence, the better you'll be able to contend with it.
	Yeah, that's a great point.
	Can you just stay alive long enough so that the cops can respond?
	You know, do you know to drop your base if someone grabs you?
	And even I had been training 10 years.
	I was a new purple belt.
	And it took me, honestly, about two to three seconds to remember to arm frame, create some distance, get my leg around his head.
	I mean, I eventually got out, but I never forgot that.
	I was like, holy I have done this technique seriously a thousand times and it's still in that quick fog of war.
	And again, Jaco, this was my friend messing around.
	There was no danger that I was going to be hurt here.
	Imagine it's someone again, trying to kidnap you.
	As you just said, you got to be able to respond or at least stay alive long enough.
	Listen, you're a busy guy.
	Oh yeah.
	Sorry.
	Go ahead.
	Let me add one more thing, because we're just purely talking about jiu-jitsu right now.
	And that's good.
	And certainly from a self-defensive, jiu-jitsu is great for you.
	But let me just tell you, there's a bunch of other things that jiu-jitsu do for you.
	You know, they add, it makes you think in a different way.
	That whole idea that I talked about detaching, if you can learn to detach in jiu-jitsu, you'll be able to apply that to your work.
	You'll be able to apply that to your business.
	You'll be able to apply it to your family.
	When one of your kids is getting out of hand and you start losing your temper, you'll be able to get yourself back under control.
	So, Training Jiu-Jitsu, yes, it's good for self-defense, and it's a good way to exercise.
	It's also great for your brain, too.
	It makes you a better person.
	So, there's a million different reasons to train Jiu-Jitsu, and I definitely recommend people go out and do it.
	Yeah, I mean, I wasn't being hyperbolic before when I said that.
	I've learned more from my 20 years on the mats than any single thing in my life.
	I'm not kidding.
	And you know, I think you'd attest to this, too, Jaco.
	There's nothing that will test your physical limits.
	I mean, I remember specifically, I'm sure you have these memories too, as a relatively new white belt, back in Matt Serra's barn in Babylon, before he even, I think he was a brown belt at the time.
	And I was with this guy, and we were rolling for about 20 minutes, and we were both white belts struggling, but we had some basic idea what to do.
	And after 20 minutes, I'll never forget, this guy's gi was so soaked with sweat, That when he got inside control, the disgusting sweat so ghee had covered my face and I couldn't breathe.
	Now, Jocko, I'm at a 20 minutes now.
	I was about 180 back then, about 230 now.
	I was a little lighter, but I could not breathe.
	It's going to actually lead into my last question for you.
	So this is actually a good story.
	And I remember thinking, gosh, it would just be so easy to quit right now, but I just didn't want this guy to be, I couldn't have him beat me.
	I was like, son of a bitch, he's not going to win.
	And I sucked it up.
	And you know what he did?
	He tapped!
	I wasn't even doing anything!
	He just got tired about, and it reminded me of that old line, you know, there comes a time in both, in a fight where both sides think they've lost.
	It's the side that perseveres at that moment that wins.
	And I never forgot that.
	I vowed I would never quit.
	I would have to be tapped.
	Listen, even if I'm, if I got to give you the sub, good, you're going to win it that way, but I'm not tapping out of fatigue anymore.
	You probably had those moments too, right?
	Where you're like, this really sucks.
	I, but you realize your limits.
	You're like, my gosh, I can go further than I thought.
	This is really the worst situation in a physical, I could be in, right?
	I can't breathe.
	Dude's on top of me.
	His sweat soaky is covering my face and I'm getting my ass kicked.
	It can't get any worse.
	Yeah, just that's an interesting point that you bring up.
	And one thing I don't really like when people tap from fatigue.
	There's no reason to tap from fatigue.
	Look, if you're tired and you give me something, that's cool.
	You got to give me something.
	You can't just tap.
	That's not the way it works.
	That's not the way it works.
	You're not allowed to tap from fatigue.
	And so you definitely push yourself further because no one likes when somebody just taps out.
	That's quitting.
	No one likes quitters.
	Well, that leads to my last question.
	I'll let you go again.
	We're talking to Jocko Willink, author of the excellent book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.
	Please, folks, you're a great audience.
	Pick this book up.
	Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores.
	It is worth your time.
	You won't put it down.
	Probably the best book I've read this year and last year.
	So we had Randy Couture at our training center when I was an instructor there at the Secret Service.
	We all got to roll with him.
	And, you know, we got him in there with a bunch of guys.
	One of them was a former Delta guy who was on our SWAT team.
	We call him Cat in the Secret Service, a guy I learned a lot from as well about leadership.
	And we were sitting around during a break during the middle of the day.
	And I said to him, I said, you know, Hey, Randy, you know, are you ever scared to fight?
	When you're walking in the ring.
	You know, I thought it was a fair question.
	I mean, we're all human beings.
	Fear is a natural part of being human.
	Keeps us from putting our fingers in, uh, you know, electrical outlets, right?
	It's a good thing.
	Not a bad thing as long as you manage it.
	And I was expecting, uh, yeah, you know, once in a while, this guy was really tough.
	He said, no, I'm not scared to fight.
	He said, but I'm scared every time to fight tired.
	And I changed, I really changed my life because I didn't do cardio before that.
	Ever.
	I only lifted.
	I thought deadlift, bench press, squat, do Widowmakers, you'll be fine.
	I read Fred Hatfield's stuff about powerlifting.
	He didn't like cardio, so I never did it.
	And I never forgot that line.
	I started doing Tabata sprints after that, and even at 45, I still wreck the cardio now, because I never forgot that line.
	I'm not afraid to fight.
	I'm only afraid to fight tired.
	I know, I see your Twitter feed, follow Jocko, you'll see what I'm talking about.
	You have some really tremendous pictures there of the floor soaked with sweat after one of your Metcon workouts and stuff.
	So if you just talk briefly about how important conditioning is in your everyday life, one, to stay healthy, but because you gotta be prepared for bad stuff and if you're fighting tired, you ain't fighting at all.
	Yeah, fatigue makes cowards of us all.
	That's a, it's a patent quote.
	It's definitely true.
	And it's something that, it's something that you actually do have control over, right?
	Look, if you don't work out, if you don't train, if you don't work your metabolic conditioning, you're going to gas out.
	I've seen it over and over again.
	You know, you see it with fighters all the time.
	I'd even see it with guys in the SEAL teams.
	If they, you know, a few years into the teams, they're deciding that maybe they don't need to train as hard anymore.
	And you see these guys gassing out.
	They have heat problems on long patrols.
	It's it's awful.
	And it is the thing that's awful about it is that it's preventable.
	And so what do you have to do?
	I like what Randy said.
	You know, he obviously at some point in his life, he had to fight when he was tired, probably a situation like you were in where you want to tap out because you were on the bottom getting suffocated by some big monster guy in his wet D. You're getting waterboarded by a guy's wet D.
	You know, I have that feeling and I bet you he had that feeling at some point in his life and he said, I'm never going to let myself get here again.
	And that's, you know, I've been very, very tired in my life and I know that I do not ever want to be there.
	It makes you into a coward and I won't let it happen.
	So yes, train, train hard, train every day.
	You're damn right, man.
	You talk about the value of suffering and you got to suffer in that gym so you don't have to suffer outside of it, man.
	So God bless you, Jaco.
	Thank you for your time.
	I really appreciate it.
	My audience is going to love this interview.
	They've been looking forward to hearing from you for a long time.
	I really appreciate it.
	And thanks again for your service to this country.
	It was an honor to serve.
	Thanks for having me on.
	Appreciate what you're doing.
	I hope you enjoyed that interview, ladies and gentlemen.
	I think you can tell if you're a regular listener by my enthusiasm.
	It was one of my personal favorites too.
	Jaco is a real patriot and a real hero.
	He's given a lot to this country.
	Hope you enjoyed that.
	Please subscribe to my channel.
	My YouTube channel is youtube.com slash Bongino.
	We really appreciate it.
	And if you could also subscribe to our audio podcast on Apple podcasts, it's obviously the Dan Bongino show there.
	We'd appreciate that as well.
	Thanks folks.
	You just heard the Dan Bongino Show!

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