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March 17, 2021 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:48:05
20210317_jocko-willink-on-responding-to-adversity-personal-
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Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey everybody, it's Megan Kelly.
Welcome to the program.
Today we've got Jocko Willink.
This is a U.S. Navy SEAL, a best-selling author, the CEO of a group called Echelon Front, which is a leadership expert consulting firm.
and host of the Jocko Willink podcast, which if you haven't checked out, you should.
This guy is basically an all-around guru for how to improve your life.
He's the opposite of the helicopter parent.
He's the opposite of the person who feels victimized by everything in life.
He's the opposite of the person who wants to blame everyone else for their own circumstances.
He is a take responsibility kind of seal.
Is there any other kind?
And if you don't know who this is, he was the commanding officer of the most highly decorated special ops unit of the Iraq War.
He commanded our best and bravest, including the American sniper, Chris Kyle.
You remember him?
And many, many others.
The guy's had multiple deployments, a couple to Iraq and other areas as well, including to Ramadi during the worst of the fighting that the U.S. saw there.
Came back from Iraq.
He served as the officer in charge of training for all of the West Coast SEAL teams, right?
So the guy knows something about training, leadership, how to take charge.
And he's received everything from the Silver Star and the Bronze Star, which is amazing.
to numerous other personal and team awards.
And today he is a leadership expert.
He's a motivational speaker.
He's a mentor.
He's an author.
He's a dad.
He's a husband.
I'm going to ask him about that.
What was it like when his daughter's boyfriends came over to the house?
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine?
The boss of the American sniper.
And he's got some really funny parenting stories that I think you'll appreciate.
And also just some heart-wrenching ones about his time in Ramadi and the losses that we suffered as a country there, but that he suffered.
As a man and a seal, there.
And I think you'll find him just an example in how to live, how to live right, how to live well, and you'll figure out why he's known to his brethren as the wise warrior.
We'll get to Jocko in just one second, but first.
Let's get down to brass tacks and talk about how I can be a leader like Jocko Willink because you got some thoughts and I'm loving every one of them.
Honestly, after reading through so much of your stuff and I've listened to so many of your podcasts now and your interviews with other people because I really wanted to prepare for this.
I just deeply respect you.
Leadership Lessons From High School 00:14:45
I thought to myself, one of the benefits of my own life.
has been being exposed to a lot of men in particular in the military, but men and women in the military, because that's what you sound like.
Military men and women are no bullshit.
They don't see themselves as victims.
They're strong.
They lean into strength.
They're humble.
They want to know more about other people.
Like when I heard all these attributes about you and what you say it takes to make a leader, I thought, this is what being in the military does to you.
So before we get to that, let's start.
Let's talk about little Jocko, because I was curious, like a guy as strong as you are.
Not even just your physical strength.
I'm talking about your emotional strength.
Are you born like that?
Did you come into this world sort of born to be the Jocko you are now?
Or were you kind of like the little weakling who got pushed around by other kids and then resolved to be different?
Well, that's kind of a cool thing about when you're little, is when you're a little kid, there's always going to be kids that are bigger than you.
If they're two years older than you, they're bigger than you and they're stronger than you.
And so if you're a kid, you're always going to get picked on by people no matter who you are.
So I think that's going to come to everybody.
And certainly, you know, that was me too.
I would.
Get, I would talk too much or say something that I should have said to somebody that was older than me or bigger than me.
And I'd have to pay the price just like anybody else does at that young age.
And, but, but ever since I was a little kid, the only thing I actually ever remember wanting to do as far as a profession was to be some kind of a commando.
And so that's what I ended up doing.
You know, I ran around in the woods and played army all the time when I was a kid.
And then I just never grew up.
But yeah, so it's all I ever wanted to do.
So you're from Litchfield County, Connecticut, is that right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is, so for the listeners who don't know this, this is like one of the most beautiful places on earth.
It's bucolic.
It's a little sleepy.
It's much more country than it is city.
And it's where all of New York would love to go and spend their weekends, but it's too expensive.
But it's amazing.
And I wondered, like I can picture you running around the woods up there, but politically, it's about, it's a little bit more Republican leaning these days than I think it used to be.
But were you part of a political family growing up?
You know, both my parents were school teachers.
And so, you know, they were just kind of working all the time.
And, you know, my dad would have some other jobs to help bring in money.
And so they were just working all the time.
I wouldn't say we were the most political family in the world.
You know, my dad's pretty conservative.
My mom's a little more liberal.
And I really didn't care very much and just wanted to go in the military.
Did you have other people in the military in your family?
My grandfather was in the Army for 20 years, and so he retired out of the Army.
But my dad got kicked out of ROTC.
So my dad always says that the military gene skips a generation.
So that was my, but in Connecticut, in that small part of Connecticut, there's not a lot of people that go in the military.
So I was a little bit, I mean, I was definitely naive, not very well informed about what I was getting into, but I just knew I wanted to hopefully carry a machine gun one day.
So that's what I did.
Were you a tough guy in high school?
Like, you know, was the Jackal of today predictable at all based on if I saw the sophomore year of high school, you?
Yep.
The track is pretty clear.
How so?
I mean, you just see, you know, I was just.
I was just kind of into that mentality.
I got in trouble on my soccer team for singing military cadences while we were running and stuff like that.
So that's what I wanted to do.
Yeah, pretty ridiculous.
I know.
It was in you and you knew it.
I mean, is it true that your dad had doubts?
Yeah, so I was also a very rebellious kid.
So I liked kind of hardcore and heavy metal music.
And I've always have and still have.
A rebellious streak in me that runs pretty strong.
And so, my dad, when I didn't even tell my dad I was joining the Navy, I just came home one day and said, I joined the Navy.
And he said, What are you going to do in the Navy?
And I said, I'm going to go in the SEAL teams.
And he said, You're going to hate it.
And I said, Well, why do you think I'm going to hate it?
And he said, Because you don't like authority and you don't like anybody telling you what to do.
And I said, Yeah, but dad, I'm going in the SEAL teams.
It's a team.
There's no bosses in the SEAL teams.
And of course, that's completely naive to think that.
But once I got in there, I was.
Very happy because it's a blank slate.
No one cared where you came from.
No one cared what you did or didn't do.
They didn't care if your parents had money or didn't have money.
It's just a blank slate.
And if you work hard, you move up and you get recognized and you get more responsibility.
And with more responsibility, you can do more.
So it was a great environment for me.
I loved it.
Total meritocracy, 100%.
So now I read that your father told you, and this would become relevant to your SEAL training, of course, you were not allowed to quit anything.
You couldn't quit anything.
And I thought, Nothing?
Like, what if you selected the wrong arts and crafts course?
Like, how seriously did you guys take that?
Yeah, my dad was not a real big fan of quitting things.
So I think that definitely got ingrained in me as a young kid.
And, you know, I think it's a pretty good trait to have.
And, you know, as I grew up and I actually recognized that if taken to an extreme, just like anything else, it can actually become a negative thing.
And I'd get these young SEAL officers when I, much later in my career, when I was in charge of training, that Would try and execute some kind of a training mission and they would be failing and getting the guys shot with paintball and failing the mission and having guys put down.
And they would keep going and keep going and keep going.
And I would pull them aside and say, Hey, look, there's a time to retreat.
You know, it's not necessarily quitting, but there's a time you got to back off, retreat, reassess the situation, and then go back at it.
But yeah, I'm not really big into quitting.
And I would say that definitely came from my dad.
Now, is it to the point where if you start a book and it's bad, Will you keep going like just because you need to finish the book or will you abandon it?
No, uh, if books aren't good, I'm not wasting my time with them.
So, good.
And I read a ton of books for my podcast, and usually I can make it, I can tell within 10 pages if this book is a winner or a loser.
And if it's a loser, I shut that book and I move on to the next one.
Yes.
Okay.
I like that because I know you also are a big believer in not wasting time, it's our most precious commodity.
So, I'm with you 100%.
My husband, Doug, he can't do it.
He's an author and he just can't, like, no matter whether he likes the book or not, he will finish it.
I, I, I point the audience to the book Hirohito, which was like 2,000 pages and poor Doug was not enjoying it, but man, he labored through.
And I just thought, why?
But why?
You don't have to live.
It's like when somebody serves you a bad drink.
You don't have to finish that.
A bad meal.
You don't have to eat that.
We only get to live once.
Okay.
So you're in the perfect spot when you find yourself in the Navy at 18.
Did you do it like as soon as you could?
Yep.
Yep, I did.
18 years old.
Okay.
And you knew it was going to be SEAL team.
And forgive me because this I don't know.
Do you sign up for SEAL training right away or do you have to spend some time in the Navy before you can try to be a specialist?
I signed right up for SEAL training, and you've got to pass a bunch of screening tests when you get to boot camp and as you graduate from boot camp.
And then, but my contract was I got a chance to take those tests.
And if I passed those tests, I got to.
Got to go to SEAL training, and that's exactly what I did.
And you saw it then, and you see it now, I imagine, as an opportunity, a great opportunity for young people.
Yeah.
I mean, it's awesome.
It's so fun getting paid to work out a bunch, and they feed you a ton of food, and you get to go to sleep sometimes in a bed.
Yeah, I loved it.
It was awesome.
Well, I thought, I mean, like when I've heard you talk about it before, you just sound so enthusiastic about it.
It made me think of the John Kerry comment.
Remember when he once told those college students, if you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.
If you don't, you get stuck in a rack.
And there was such shock from the military community when he said that, because when you're in the military or related to it in any way, you do see it.
You see it as an honor.
And a lot of guys serving to see it as downright fun and just a great way to spend your life.
And I don't know.
Do you remember that comment?
Do you remember having a reaction to that?
Because that was right around the time you were serving.
Yeah, I mean, look, I would love to have him come and talk to one of my SEAL platoons, a bunch of the smartest guys.
Look, you got some knuckleheads in there?
Absolutely.
You got some of the smartest guys that you could imagine as well.
I mean, one of the guys that was in Iraq with me on my last deployment was Johnny Kim, who, right now, after he was a medic for us in my task unit, he went on to go to college, become an officer, go to medical school at Harvard, and then from Harvard got picked up for the astronaut program, and he's an astronaut right now.
So, Maybe he's not quite what John Kerry had in mind when he was thinking that the people in the military and in Iraq were not very smart.
So you get to the Navy, and to the surprise of your dad, I guess, you followed the rules just fine.
Actually, it appealed to you, right?
I mean, it seems like in reading your book, Leadership Strategies, you loved that it was very clear what you needed to do to get ahead.
And if you could follow the rules, do what you were told to do, you could be a leader in the Navy.
And for you, I imagine that just, you felt like that was home.
Yeah, it was awesome.
And, you know, I had a lot of, let's say, energy as a young kid.
And all of a sudden, you know, when you're in high school or grade school, you have all this energy, you don't know what to do with it.
And usually it got me into some kind of trouble, whether it was, you know, causing problems or fighting or just doing things that I shouldn't have been doing.
All of a sudden, once I was in the Navy, it's you could apply that energy to a positive direction.
Wanted to do that.
And then the other thing was, I really what I wanted to do is I wanted to be a good seal.
I wanted to be a good seal.
And so as I kind of brought that into my decision making process, and I would look at some decision I had to make, would that make me a better seal or not?
And if it wasn't going to make me a better seal, I wouldn't do it.
And if it was going to make me a better seal, then I would do it.
And it was, you know, it's not easy.
I'm not, you're working with some people in the seal teams that are incredibly.
Gifted in all aspects, incredible athletes, you know, incredibly smart, just a bunch of incredible people at the top end of the bell curve in the SEAL team.
So for me, I had to go hard and work hard to sort of break out and do a good job.
And that's what I just focused on.
And you've said this about yourself repeatedly.
I've now come to conclude, at first, I thought you're just being humble because you are humble and I know you prize humility, but I believe you now that you weren't the best at all these things because.
You've touted it repeatedly as something for people to consider.
Like life doesn't come easy.
Success doesn't come easy.
And you may not start off perfectly suited for the thing that you really want to do, but it doesn't mean you can't do it.
And it doesn't mean you can't be great at it.
But man, it does mean you're going to have to try hard.
You're going to have to put in more than the 10,000 hours, right?
I mean, it's about hard work.
Yeah, no doubt.
And I can promise you, I was an average at best high school athlete in soccer and basketball.
I can promise you that, you know, I'm not extremely strong or fast or anything like that.
And I just had to work hard.
So that's what I did.
You said something to the effect of you loved your job.
And if you're in the military, your job is awesome, is quoting you.
You shoot machine guns, you blow things up, you jump out of airplanes.
You do have to kill people.
So you have to overcome the sort of human ideal of thou shalt not kill.
And you also have to understand that people are going to try to kill you and they may succeed.
So talk to me about fear because I would think that at the beginning, and I know it took you 13 years before you actually had to fire your gun and you were deployed over in Iraq, but it's hard to believe that that's all an adrenaline rush and there's no fear.
Well, I guess if that's what you really like doing, then there's not really a lot of fear involved.
It's more a lot of fun.
And for me, going into combat, the thing that I was afraid of wasn't anything of me being afraid of getting hurt myself.
It was always just being afraid that one of my guys was going to get wounded or killed.
And that's the feeling that would put the knots in my stomach more than anything else.
You know, when you're a young kid and they give you the opportunity to jump out of airplanes, it's awesome.
I mean, it's fun.
That's what you want to do.
So, yeah, I think fear and any fear that I ever had of getting killed or something like that, I just kind of accepted it and moved on.
Didn't think too much about it.
Do you remember a time where you felt fearful?
Like I said, the times that I've been fearful, Normally, I would be going on an operation and being afraid that one of my guys was going to get hurt or killed.
That, that to me is a fear that I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a gut wrenching feeling thinking about that.
And it's, and it doesn't go away.
It's there all the time when, when guys are in the field.
As far as being afraid myself, normally in situations where, you know, oh, we're getting shot at or, oh, we're getting mortared or, oh, there's a, We're in an ambush right now.
You're just kind of reacting the way that you train to do, and you're going to execute your.
You don't have time to think about, I'm afraid right now because you're just doing the job.
And the other thing is, and I've talked on my podcast with a lot of veterans and guys from World War II that went into Iwo Jima and went into Tarawa.
A lot of those guys weren't afraid either because you get this feeling that it's just, it's nothing's going to happen to me.
It's going to happen to somebody else.
So you got that going for you as well.
And I always had a little bit of that too.
Of, hey, I'm going to be okay.
Moving Past Victim Mentality 00:15:43
And they can't get me.
So let's go.
That explains a lot.
I mean, you see these videos of guys storming the beach at Normandy, and you think, oh my God, like they don't look terrified.
Yeah.
And it'd be perfectly fine if you're sitting there thinking to yourself, well, Jocko is not very smart if he thinks he could do all this stuff and get away with it.
And yes, I'll say, I'll agree with you.
We, a lot of us in the military, think, you know, I think, I think, Megan, that if I, If I'm on an aircraft, like on a passenger jet flying over the ocean, and that thing blows up in the sky, I think I'm going to live.
I'm going to figure it out.
So when you have that mentality, well, you're not spending too much time being afraid.
Right.
And who knows?
Maybe you're manifesting wellness and survival.
You know, who knows how much we're able to control just with that kind of thinking in terms of our instincts and going left instead of right.
And, you know, I'm sure there have been studies on this, but I believe in that power to manifest.
And whether it works in the military or not, you know better than I, but it's better than the alternative I'm definitely the first victim.
Yeah.
You know, I would say this it's interesting.
I don't really know.
You know, it sounds a little bit, oh, if I manifest that I'm going to survive, I'm going to survive.
But So, I'm not sure I would agree with that.
But what you said that I would agree with is if I'm good, I know that nine times out of 10, me taking action is going to be better than me not taking action.
So, if I have that in my mind and I think that way, I guess it does sort of turn into a manifestation.
So, I guess I do take it back and I do agree with you.
If I know that taking action is the right thing to do and it's probably going to make my survivability higher, Then, when I get confronted with something, I'm going to do something immediately.
I'm not going to freeze.
I'm not going to lock up.
I'm going to take action.
So, maybe that does, in a way, that mentality of I'm going to go as opposed to I'm going to sit back.
It seems like a better decision as far as I'm concerned.
It seems like the military helps you believe, even if you're not a commander, which I know you were, that you are in charge of your destiny, that no one actually is coming to save you necessarily.
You have teammates.
But you have to do something.
You have to act to help yourself.
It's not up to somebody else.
And it's one of the things I think is so good about serving, right?
Which I didn't, but I know enough guys who did that I see it, where our mentality right now in this country is somebody else has to fix it.
I'm a victim.
Somebody else has to fix it.
And I've just been crippled by society's unfairness to me.
Well, I mean, I guess we could look around and say that.
And I always feel like if I'm sitting around saying that, Society's all weak.
Well, what am I going to do about it?
Like, that's almost a complaint.
It's complaining about complainers.
I don't even waste my time complaining about complainers because, as you said, that's the way you have to operate in the military if I don't make something happen right now, it's not going to happen.
And if I sit back and allow the world to happen to me, it's going to happen to me.
And the world is a lot bigger and stronger than I am.
So I need to go on the offense and make things happen, like you said.
And I would say that definitely gets instilled in you inside the military, or at least it should.
And the other misconception about the military is that someone's going to tell you exactly what to do.
And the American military doesn't work like that.
It's decentralized command where you know what the objective is and you do whatever it takes and maneuver however you need to maneuver to get to that objective.
That's the way good military units operate.
There's not someone at the top with a big plan that they're going to dictate to you.
That doesn't happen and it shouldn't happen because that's centralized command and centralized command doesn't react quickly enough to outdo.
A military that's based on decentralized command.
So you're right.
It's the mentality of I know what it is that we're trying to achieve, and I need to go make this happen.
Not someone else.
Me.
I have to do it.
I just wonder.
So if you're not going to waste time complaining about the complainers, I get that.
But what do you, how do we get people in our society who have become lovers of victimhood, right?
Things like silence is violence and words are violence from somebody who's seen real violence and lost a bunch of friends to actual violence and war.
How do we get people out of that mentality and back to mental toughness?
I think you set a good example.
You build things, you create things, you put the word out.
You know, I've, I, On my podcast, I have people that can talk about what it really means to be a victim.
You know, I had a woman on there named Rose Schindler who was in Auschwitz.
And you listen to her story and what she did to survive and how she had to go through that and then move through the rest of her life and work for everything she had.
You can't, with a good conscience, look at her and say that you're a victim.
I mean, it's almost impossible.
There's people that are out there, but.
There's people that go through such horrible things in life that, you know, and they still come out the other side.
They take ownership of what's going on in their world and they move forward.
So I think the best thing, well, what I try and do is just share stories of people that really have been in horrible situations and the indomitable human spirit can still step up, drive forward, move on, and make things happen.
And I think that that's what I try and do is not just set the example myself, but more importantly, It is to share examples of other people that have been in, you know, had a guy like I had a guy on named Captain Charlie Plum who was in the Hanoi Hilton for six years.
For six years in the Hanoi Hilton, you know, eating next to nothing, being tortured, being abused.
I've had those types of people on that it's really hard to hear their stories and consider yourself a victim.
And if you do, if you do at the end of their stories, you realize that you're still a victim or you have been a victim.
Then you look at what they did and how they handled being a victim.
What they did was they took ownership of whatever they could in their world and moved forward.
Well, that's something that you say often that I completely agree with, which is when life throws challenges at you, and sometimes one is victimized.
Think of somebody who gets raped.
Sometimes one is victimized.
But a large part of the battle of handling trauma or Hurt or massive pain or setbacks is attitude.
I'm not saying the attitude can solve it all, but it can solve a lot.
And I always say that when life throws a massive opportunity my way, right?
Some massive crisis or attack or something awful, my first reaction is to say thank you because that's the only way you build your superhero muscles.
You don't get stronger by sitting at home having nothing happen to you or only great things happen to you.
You need tumult, you need challenge to get stronger, bigger, better, the best version of yourself.
When I read that in your books, I was like, yes, this is my brother from another mother.
Because you say that exact thing that when something bad happens, you say good when you do it in your low voice.
Good.
Right?
I mean, talk about how important that is.
Well, I can talk about it.
You just talked about it, which is you nailed it.
You know, you use the word thank you when you've got something unfolding in your life that you can't control, that's miserable, and you look at it and say, okay, well, thank you.
This is going to make me stronger.
It's going to let me see another perspective.
It's going to allow me.
It's going to force me to learn more about myself or more about the world.
And I'm going to take those lessons and I'm going to become a better person.
So it's the exact same attitude, whether you're saying thank you or whether you're saying good.
What you don't want to do is something bad happens say, oh no, this is horrible.
Woe is me.
I can't do anything.
It's totally out of my control.
Well, what can you control?
What can you control?
Where can you go on offense?
Where can you maneuver so you're in a better position in the future?
And I mean, The choices are that stark.
Am I going to sit back and allow this to happen and be a victim in this situation?
Or am I going to go on offense?
Am I going to take the fight to the enemy?
And am I going to move forward?
So, If people can hear that message from me, great.
But it's one of those messages that's been around for a long time.
I certainly didn't invent it.
You and I come from totally different backgrounds, and you figured out the best thing to do when something goes wrong is say thank you and move into it.
So, universal lessons, I certainly try and spread and try and hope that people learn.
In a minute, we'll have more with Jocko Willink.
But first, listen to this.
You've had your best friends killed in front of your very eyes.
I mean, I've had terrible things happen to me.
I just had Eric Bolling on the show the other day, whose 19 year old son died from an accidental drug overdose after taking one, what he thought was a Xanax, but really it was laced with fentanyl.
It's not that you in any way celebrate the awfulness.
It's that after the awfulness happens, there's a way of handling the recovery process that can speed it along and make it, make yourself better, make you more okay.
And like Eric was saying, He organized 15 town halls and he put them on TV talking with other parents about the opioid crisis and what's happening right now in our country.
And he's reminding kids in high schools and middle schools and colleges all over the country that one pill can kill.
That to me is what we're talking about.
Like you can find an opportunity to make something good from tragedy, from horror, from horror.
And even in your own mind, if you can find a way to make yourself stronger, more enlightened, it's better for you, you know?
I think some people might look at us and say, it's not that easy, right?
It's not that easy.
I remember this woman I met at NBC telling me about this.
What she said was, not everyone is as strong as you are.
I don't know.
I understood what she's trying to say, but my feeling is anyone can do it.
You said that people might look at you and say, it's not that easy.
And my answer would be, you're right.
It's not that easy.
No one's saying it's going to be easy.
But I just think that the choice between Going on offense or sitting back on defense, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you from my experience, being on offense is better.
Trying to move forward is better.
Trying to go on the attack is better than sitting back and staying put and allowing these horrible things to continue to attack you.
Attack them.
Attack them.
I was talking to the audience not long ago about I had two years off basically after I left NBC and started this job.
And for a lot of that time, I refer to myself as like on the couch.
You know, I was upset for a while there.
I was kind of depressed.
I didn't know what the hell had just happened in my life.
And my therapist, who I love, just sort of kind of was saying, get off the couch, just get off the couch.
Right.
And ultimately I found the motivation to do it.
But it just getting off the couch is big.
Just standing up and get off the couch, go into forward movement, change the routine, wallowing is.
The wrong choice to wellness.
Yep, absolutely.
And there's, you know, I've written about this and I've talked about this when you go through, like, I've gone through losing very close friends of mine.
And when you go through that, it's very scary because the initial thing that I realized is you're, it's like being in a storm, it's like getting hit with these waves of emotions.
For me, anyways, I have pretty good control over my emotions.
And all of a sudden, I'm in this storm where I can't control these waves of emotion.
They're bigger, they're stronger than me, and they're hitting me, and I can't stop them.
And what I explain to people is that storm is going to settle.
And so, When you initially get hit with these waves of emotion, it's going to be horrible.
You're going to feel like there's no control.
You're going to feel like you don't have control.
And you don't, by the way.
But over time, the storm, the waves, they start to subside a little bit.
And now they're not quite as strong when they hit you.
They're a little bit further apart.
And eventually you get through these waves of emotion and you can start to control them.
And then people start to think, Am I a bad person because I'm no longer emotional about this loss?
And the answer is no.
It's just that you're, Your mind is processing what you've gone through.
And now you can start to have control over it.
And you can start to actually look back and take the good things away from the loss that you've had.
And I know that's, again, back to what you said about how do you look at something so horrible and how can you say that it's good?
Well, if I lose one of my friends, or when I've lost my friends, once I get through those initial waves of emotions, I get to look back and say, hey, this is an individual that I got to know.
This is an individual that I got to share all this time with and laugh with.
Have good times with and go through trials and tribulations with them.
And I have those forever.
And those were a gift to me.
And even in their loss, even in them dying, I get to take away from that.
I get to learn more lessons.
I get to experience pain and sorrow so that I can remember how good the rest of the things in life can be.
So I think that attitude of taking a step back, but when you go through these horrible situations, there's going to be emotions.
You're going to feel like it's out of control.
And when you feel like it's out of control, It's okay.
The storm will subside.
And when the storm starts to subside, that's okay too.
And that's when I think you have that opportunity to look around and say, okay, what good can I take away from this?
And you can find it.
And you don't have to make it up.
You don't have to lie to yourself.
You can find it.
You can find it there.
So I've heard you talk about this in the context of breakups and also to some extent dealing with death.
And the message, it's not your only message, but it's one of the messages that stuck out of me, which is basically when it comes to a breakup, one must detach.
One must move on.
One mustn't spend hours and hours and hours just thinking about it.
You have to find a way to emotionally detach.
And ultimately, when you're dealing with the loss of somebody, a death, it is the same.
You know, one must move forward.
And as they say, perhaps more tritely, life is for the living.
And you've got to find a way to keep moving forward.
Forward motion is the key.
But you know, there'll be a lot of people listening to this saying, how?
How?
How do I emotionally detach from someone who I loved who left me, you know, or who died?
Like, how on earth can I stop my brain from obsessing over this 247?
So, I think what you have to do is you have to accept what's happening.
Detaching Emotionally After Loss 00:07:50
And, you know, this is something I, you talked, you asked me about fear earlier.
And one of the things I would talk to guys about is when you get that twisting gut, you start to feel afraid about something, is to think to yourself, oh, I know what that is.
What that is is fear.
That's my body going, getting ready for a combat situation.
That's my body getting tuned, getting the adrenaline flowing.
It's all those things.
And it's actually, if you know what it is, if someone says, if you tell a new guy that's never been in combat before, hey, listen, before you go out, your stomach's going to be a knot.
You're going to be, you're going to be, you might be actually shivering because you're scared of what's about to happen.
That's normal.
It's okay.
It's your body preparing you to go into combat.
So, So it's okay.
And once people realize that, you say, oh, okay, what I'm feeling is normal.
What I'm feeling is normal.
So when you go through a breakup or you go through the loss of someone, that's what I'm trying to say those emotions that you have.
They're normal.
It's going to happen.
But once they start to subside a little bit, you say, okay, now I've got to get control of these emotions because I've got to move forward.
Because to get, you know, I say this about death as well remember, but don't dwell.
So, you remember, you got to remember this person that you lost.
You got to remember them always, but you don't want to dwell in the past because that's not healthy.
And yeah, I mean, I've got some things about breaking up.
And look, I've been married for a really long time.
I guess, uh, Coming up on, I don't know, but a really long time, you know, since I was 25 and 49.
So it's 24 years, 24 years I've been married.
And a lot of the information that I put out about relationships and when relationships go wrong and things like that is what I learned.
Well, obviously from when I was a young single guy, but then also when I was a leader in the SEAL teams.
And I'd have these guys between the ages of 18 and 40 going through whatever trials and tribulations they're going through in their relationships and saying, hey, here's what you need to do, here's the best way to move forward.
Because when you're in a leadership position, you're responsible for all aspects, or you're responsible for trying to take care of your troops in all aspects of their lives, and they're going to come to you with these problems.
So, a lot of the experience that I have about challenging, let's call them challenging relationships, comes from just talking to a 23 year old SEAL who's broken up with his girlfriend and he's in, she left, and whatever happened, and he's in the dumps because of it.
How do we move that guy forward?
And so, that's where a lot of the kind of relationship counselor.
Information comes from real world experience dealing with guys that are going through these breakups.
This is why they call you the wise warrior.
Now, how does one do it though?
Because I am a big believer in cognitive behavioral therapy, where it's like, okay, my mind keeps obsessing over this thing.
And the answer is to focus on this other thing.
And I know this is bizarre, but it's always worked for me.
I had a dog for 14 years, little cute dog.
Her name was Basha.
And she had the sweetest little face.
And I, Used to and now continue to think of Bosch's face.
And it's basically just like it's a click, you know, it's like a reset.
It's just something to go to when I'm like, oh my God, my mind's starting to obsess over the thing.
Here's the thing over and over and over in my head.
Bosch's face, Bosch's face.
It's just like a break to get you away from the obsession.
And before you know it, you're like, what am I going to have for lunch today?
What am I going to cook for dinner?
Oh, wait a minute.
I'm going to go for a walk.
Oh, I've got to pick up that prescription.
Oh, I'm not thinking about the thing.
So I like that as a way of breaking.
Cycles of negative thinking or obsessive thinking, whether it's about a breakup or a death or something awful.
What do you recommend?
It's an interesting thing that you say that because when I lost my first guy in combat, Mark Lee, who was the first SEAL killed in Iraq, and he was just the most epic human and seemed to be totally indestructible in the way he behaved and the way he acted, just an incredible guy.
And when he died, obviously it crushed.
Me and it crushed, you know, his platoon mates and the rest of the guys in the task unit.
And we, I didn't, I didn't, I was in the leadership position.
I had never been trained on what to do when you lose someone in combat.
There was no one in my chain of command that had ever lost anyone in combat because we had grown up, the guys in the chain of command, like me, had grown up in the 90s.
And so there was no wars going on in the 90s and very little combat going on in the 90s.
So there was no instructions that I got about what to do, how to handle it, what's the emotional.
What's the emotional toll going to be on the troops?
And what I actually told the guys was look, we're going to take a couple of days off.
We're going to mourn Mark's loss, we're going to celebrate his life.
And then we're going to go back to work.
We're going to lock and load our weapons.
We're going to put our gear on and we're going to go out and do our job.
And much to what you're talking about, I thought to myself, this is what we need to do to get our minds off of thinking about Mark and dwelling about Mark's loss, which is a hard thing to do in combat.
And certainly, I think it's the right thing to do.
And then it's probably going to come back at you when you get home three months or six months or nine months later.
You get home and all of a sudden you got some time to dwell and dive into that.
But I think that you're right.
That the to distract your mind a little bit when you lose somebody is a good thing.
The other thing, I mean, as far as like a breakup, what I would tell these young guys when they were breaking up with girls, and I actually have three daughters now, so I've run this routine a little bit on the other side as well.
And what you've got to realize is that the person that you just lost, this person that you built up in your head, they don't really exist.
They don't really exist.
The dream that you have, this ideal that you built, that's not the person.
And so you're obsessing over an ideal.
You're obsessing over something that's not real.
So once you realize, oh, this person was actually treating me bad, this person was actually, actually said things that they shouldn't have said to me.
This person wasn't this ideal that I built up.
So I didn't lose what I think I lost.
I lost something with much less value than I thought.
So I'll go out and look for something with more value.
That's exactly what I thought it was worth.
What was it?
Basha?
Basha's face.
No, but I love what you just said because I think about this all the time.
I've had, sadly, Many friends who have had their husbands cheat or their boyfriends cheat in like massive ways that are really shocking.
And, you know, they'll cry a lot of tears saying, you know, I love him so much.
And, you know, we had this perfect marriage.
And my response is always, but you didn't.
But he wasn't this great guy.
You're just now finding out, but you didn't have the thing you thought you had.
You didn't have it for many, many years.
It was gone a long time ago.
You're just coming to terms with it now.
You're just realizing the veil has come down.
And yes, there's sadness at, At what you thought you had, at not having that thing, but you haven't had it for a long, long time.
And that's somehow soothing, I think, because it's like whatever I thought I had, I lost years ago, or maybe I never had it to begin with, but my loss is not fresh.
It's just the information that is.
Yep.
I think that's a good attitude to have.
Can I ask you, is it freaking terrifying for your daughters to bring boyfriends home to you?
Well, when they were going through that phase, and I've got one that's 21, one that's just about 20, and I've got an 18 year old son and then an 11 year old daughter.
I would say that's probably uncomfortable for a young man to come to my house wanting to go out with my daughter.
Accepting Reality And Failure 00:06:42
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Do you ever like pull them aside for a talk?
Yeah, yeah.
Like a scary talk?
Certainly.
I mean, you can probably whatever you think I would say to someone that wants to go out with my daughter is probably pretty close to what I would say.
Just walk them by your wall of medals, you know, like you're you with your teammates, your comrades.
Just let me give you a tour of the house.
I thought you'd like to see where we live.
Yeah.
Say, if you, you know, this is my daughter and don't hurt her.
Has anyone ever had the nerve to do that?
No, no.
Very, very, very nice young men, very respectful.
I can see why.
All right.
So let's jump back.
Let's jump back to the young you.
You go through, it's called Bud's training, basic underwater demolition seal training.
Which is hideous from what I hear.
I mean, maybe not for you, but everyone quits basically, right?
Like almost nobody makes it.
It's like 80% of people quit.
And yeah, it was definitely fun.
If your mindset is that it's going to be fun, it's fun.
Believe it or not, you're laughing a bunch.
There's all kinds of crazy things happen.
It's a good time.
I had a good time.
And I'm not saying it was easy.
Sometimes I've had my SEAL buddies say, like, oh, you made it sound like it was easy.
It's not easy.
No, it's definitely going to suck.
It's hard and you're going to get pushed.
And no matter who you are, there's going to be weakness revealed.
There's no one that goes through there that doesn't have any weakness revealed.
Some people can't.
Handle the water, some people can't handle the cold, some people can't handle the being tired, some people can't handle the physical abuse.
And by that, I just mean that your body is getting beat down every single day.
So, in some maybe some people can't hold their breath very well.
So, there's going to be weakness, everyone's going to have a weakness, it's going to get found out, it's going to get exploited, and it's going to get picked apart.
And you're either going to quit or you're going to suck it up and make it through.
So, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's also to me, it's not some people make it out like it's this big transformational thing in their life.
And I think a lot of people show up there.
They were going to have to kill me to make me quit.
I never thought about quitting in any way.
And if they would have said, Hey, you got to die now, I'd have been said, Cool, let's rock and roll.
So I never thought about quitting.
And I don't think it's some people make it out to be a bigger deal than it is.
I'm not saying it's easy, it's definitely hard.
It wasn't easy for me.
I'm like, I already told you, I'm not the fastest runner, I'm not the fastest swimmer.
I had to, let me give you an example.
For every timed run, That we did, which I think you do at least one timed run a week, like a four mile timed run in soft sand with boots on.
Every one of those, I had to run as fast as I possibly could to pass.
So, and the swims were the same way.
Every one I did, I had to swim as hard as I possibly could, like my life depended on it to pass.
Obstacle course, same thing.
Just about everything there was a challenge for me.
So I'm not saying it's easy, but you suck it up.
You're cold, you're wet, you're miserable, and you have to work hard.
It's not that crazy of a thing.
Well, that's where you drew your inside straight in just not being a quitter, being raised, you just don't quit.
That's just, you just don't, period.
So it's like not even there for an option for somebody like you, but for the rest of us mere mortals, it's there and it's lovely when you really need it.
But wait, can you just talk a little bit more about the physical?
I think, you know, maybe people don't know what, what I don't, I don't understand what the physical challenges are.
Like, what do they do to you that during Hell Week?
Hell Week, you don't get to sleep.
You probably sleep.
An hour, maybe two hours during the week, and you do a bunch of physical exercises the whole time carrying logs around, carrying boats around.
They put you in the water, which Southern California water, I know from Baywatch, everyone thinks the water is probably 75 degrees or 80 degrees, like a tropical island.
It's not.
It's 55 to 60 degrees most of the time.
It's cold.
And so they make you cold, wet, miserable, and tired, and make you do a bunch of physical evolutions, and they get a bunch of people to quit.
And as far as what the actual Exercises are, it's whatever dumb exercises a person can do.
You do pushups until you can't do any pushups anymore.
And then you do squats until you can't do squats anymore.
And then you carry a log until you can't carry the log anymore.
And then they go back to pushups and they just do that over and over and over again until they get, until they test people's, test how badly people want to be there.
So when you say quit though, does it mean I quit the Navy SEALs training?
I'm out of bud strain?
Or is it like, I mean, because you have physical limits, right?
Like at some point, your arms stop doing the pushups.
Like, so failing or your body stopping at the task, is that considered quitting?
Well, like, let's say with push ups, it's a good example.
And push ups are probably the one thing that you, hey, if you can't do any more push ups, cool, lay on the ground face down.
While you're getting somebody spraying you in the head with a hose from two feet away.
And in another 30 seconds, you can do one more push up.
So you can go a little bit further.
Carrying that boat, you may fall down and you lay there for a minute, you get back up and you keep going.
So I guess you're right.
Obviously, you do a certain number of physical things.
How many pull ups can you do?
At a point, you can't, you're no human.
There's a certain point where no human can do any more pull ups.
And what do you do then?
You drop off the bar, you shake it out.
And then you try again and you keep trying.
So that's the deal.
Don't quit, keep trying.
What if you don't run the four minute run in the sand with the boots on fast enough?
Like I'm sure there's a time by which they want you to do it.
What if you don't?
So when I went through, and it always changes a little bit, it doesn't change a lot.
But when I went through, if you failed one run, you got written up.
If you failed two runs, you were gone.
If you failed one swim, you were written up.
If you failed two swims, you were gone.
If you failed one obstacle course, you were written up.
If you failed two, you were gone.
I failed two.
One run and one swim.
And I never failed another one, luckily.
And the one that actually, this is where I learned this the one that I was, the one that I failed, the run that I failed, I decided, I was like, oh, you know what?
I'm going to pace myself today.
So I went out, didn't run as hard as I possibly could, and I failed.
And from that day on, I said to myself, okay, well, if you got to run, run as hard as you possibly can.
That's the only way you're going to pass.
And that's what I did.
Pass the rest of them.
Women In Navy SEAL Teams 00:07:11
Oh my God, it's just like an officer and a gentleman.
I saw the hose go into Richard Gere's face.
I thought it was a made up Hollywood thing.
I guess it's real, although that wasn't Navy SEAL.
And you didn't wind up with Deborah Winger at the end.
I'm sure you did better than that.
So, how long?
I did much better than Deborah Winger.
How long is the whole thing, the training?
And then I assume Hell Week is just seven days.
Yeah, I think it's actually only five days.
It starts Sunday night and then it ends on Friday.
And how long is Bud's training?
Bud's is six months.
Okay.
All right, let me ask you a personal question Did you ever break down in tears?
No.
Were we ever close?
No.
No.
You're just not built that way.
You have a mental toughness gene that you came into the world with, it sounds like.
I don't actually remember too many.
Guys would occasionally break down for whatever reason, but most guys, there's not a bunch of guys showing up there that are getting ready to cry when something goes wrong.
That's not the seal that we're looking for.
Wait, I'm sure I should know the answer to this, but didn't I just see that women are now able to be Navy SEALs?
They weren't, but are they now?
The pipeline is open at this time.
So, for, well, it used to be that women were not allowed in combat roles.
And then they changed that so that women are allowed in combat roles, which means they can go in an infantry battalion or an infantry, any of the combat arms in the Army or the Marine Corps.
And in the Navy, that would be the triumph for the SEAL teams.
I mean, so I've got, I've got, Pretty defined feelings on this.
I'm all for women giving it a go.
I think it's awesome if they want to try it, support them 100%.
But I'm definitely not for lowering of standards, whether it's the firefighters, the cops, the military.
I think, you know, the standards are what they are.
But I think in some instances that would probably be unrealistic if you're talking about bench pressing a certain number.
I mean, you know, women are not physically as strong as men as a general rule.
So what do you think the odds are that a woman could make it through Bud's training?
I don't think the odds are very good that a female could make it through.
What do you think would do her in?
I don't know what the number, I don't, well, what it wouldn't be, you know, let's say you had a triathlete that could do really well on the runs and the swims, but then.
Probably not ready to do deadlifts and buddy carries and log PTs, carrying the logs around.
And so I think the problem will be having the range of physical capability.
And look, there's females obviously that are incredible athletes and incredibly strong, and everybody knows that.
But I think just finding that range will be the biggest challenge.
Finding someone that's, there's females that are very strong, you know, an Olympic lifter or a power lifter, incredibly strong.
And there's females that are incredibly fast.
I think what will be challenging, because it's challenging for guys too, or it's challenging for men as well, is if you've got someone that's a power lifter that's super strong, they have a hard time running fast.
And if you have someone that's super fast, they have a hard time carrying that boat on their head or lifting that log.
So it's just the range that I think is going to be the biggest challenge.
I just think people get confused.
Equality doesn't mean we have to be able to do the exact same jobs, otherwise, we don't have equality.
We have to be realistic about what our physical limitations are, what women are better at than men and what we're not.
I like to joke that I'm secretly a Marine because at my last job, they sent me down to Camp Lejeune and I spent a few days with the Marines down there pretending that I was training with them and I had to actually do a lot of what they were doing.
I was such a pathetic mess.
You would have been horrified by me, Jocko.
You would have been horrified.
I could not get over any of the walls.
I couldn't climb on the ropes.
I was like, I enjoyed the mess hall.
But it was fun sleeping in the barracks and sort of, you know, trying to pretend that in some other really, really tough version of myself.
I could have done this.
But one thing the guys did tell me is women there, at least, have proven to be better shots than men.
Their aim and their ability to sort of control their breathing and their sort of focus and shooting had proven to be very exceptional.
So that's great, right?
So that's something we could take advantage of and we could, we could not force, but filter women into that kind of a role.
But we don't need to pretend that they can do the deadlift and carry a 240 pound man in order for them to be valuable to the military.
Yeah.
And I just, You know, there's men that are good shots, there's women that are good shots.
I just look at them as people, and if you can do the job, cool.
What about can you imagine being deployed side by side with women?
And how do you think that is?
You know, I guess you weren't with Navy SEALs, but I'm sure you had other branches of the military that you were with and you saw women in combat, or did you?
Yeah, there's definitely females around.
I didn't have any females attached to any of the units that I was in charge of.
But You know, it's relationship stuff that'll have to get worked out.
Obviously, there's a whole nother aspect that comes into play when you put men and women together.
I don't think there's any question about that.
So, you know, they do it in some countries.
They've done it and they do it.
I mean, the Navy, on Navy ships, there's male and females co located.
And there's, you know, so we know kind of what that looks like.
I know it's fraught because you're, you know, the the politically correct line is, yes, women can do it all.
Women in combat is great and women in the military is great.
I think we can accept that there's amazing opportunities for women and that we have equality without diminishing some of the weird dynamics that come from this change and the way we used to do it.
And I think it's healthy.
And I think that's the way we get past them by being honest about what the oddities are and what the solutions are.
The guys I talked to and the gals down at Camp Lejeune were like, once you're out there and you're training, you don't see gender.
Right, you just see like who's on your team, and that's what matters.
But I've never actually been in battle, and the young ones I'd spoken to down there hadn't either.
It's a training camp, so.
As somebody who's actually been there, but I guess you haven't been next to women or working with women there, I wondered what your thoughts were.
No, I misspoke a little bit or I didn't make myself clear.
So, in my particular units, in my SEAL platoon, I didn't have any women.
There was no women allowed when I was a SEAL platoon commander.
In my task unit, there was no women attached to us.
So, I never, but there was female army around, there was female Marines around, and I'd never had any issues with them.
In fact, there's some incredible warriors throughout history.
Females that served and served incredibly and performed heroically in combat.
No Women In My Platoon 00:02:20
So it is possible.
It is, I mean, it has happened.
So, you know, whether it's good or bad, I mean, I think it all boils down to what you already said.
And I think this has kind of become the answer don't lower standards and see what happens.
And unfortunately, I think there is political pressure to try and force things to happen a certain way.
And if you do that, it's not going to be good.
No, I mean, you're talking about life and death stuff now.
I mean, like, there's a limit to where wokeness can take over our lives.
And when you're talking about the survival of men and women who have volunteered to go save our country, protect our country on the foreign battlefields, that's it.
Like, either you can do it or you can't.
And women are strong enough to be able to say, that I can't do.
This I can.
I can kick ass over here.
Can't quite do that thing.
Let's work with that.
You know, once again, people, I feel like these like, I don't know, PC jerks just treat us like we're little cupcakes and we can't understand that this job you can't do because you're not strong enough.
We get it.
And that doesn't mean we don't have other great qualities.
It's just bullshit.
Anyway, okay, now I'm going to rant.
All right, so let's go back to your Navy career.
You worked in the Navy.
You were a SEAL for 13 years before you actually got deployed.
Is that right?
To serve in an actual battlefield.
Yeah, so I was in from 1990 until 2010.
And between 1990 and 2003, there was, I didn't go on any combat deployments.
And quite frankly, neither did too many other people because there's no wars going on.
And then in 2003, I deployed to Iraq.
And that's where, you know, I did my first combat operations.
So you wind up in Ramadi.
And I was at Fox at the time covering the war.
And those were just the darkest days.
I mean, and Ramadi was.
Awful.
And you were right there in the middle of it.
And over here, it seemed like hell.
And I read that you, well, no, you told Tim Ferriss, Ramadi was the highlight of my life.
So walk me through that.
First Combat Deployment To Iraq 00:03:02
How can that be?
As I was talking to you earlier, and I said that the only thing I ever wanted to do was be some kind of commando.
And then that's what I did.
And when you're a commando, you have one purpose.
You have one job and that is to go to war, and you want to do that.
I mean, it's like if you're on a football team and you practiced all the time and you never played a game, you'd really want to play that game.
Well, now imagine that you spent your whole life sort of preparing for this game, and now the game shows up and it's a hard game, it's a challenging game.
The opponent is tough, and you go to war.
That's why it was definitely the highlight of my life.
You finally got to do the very thing you were trained to do and were amazing at.
Coming up in one second, I'm going to ask Jocko about some of the most.
Heroic, decorated, inspirational Navy SEALs that have ever lived that he knows and knew and worked directly with.
You're going to want to hear this.
I promise you that.
But before we get to that, I want to bring you a feature we call You Can't Say That here on the Megyn Kelly Show.
You can't say that or think that or do that.
Oh, wait, this is America.
Well, we all know that you can get canceled for writing certain books, but did you know that you can be canceled for liking certain books?
You can, especially if it's a Dangerous book.
Who decides what dangerous is?
People with whom you do not disagree.
I can guarantee you that.
So, do you like the band Mumford and Sons?
We talked about this the other day.
Well, one of the members of the group, Winston Marshall, had the nerve to tweet some praise for Andy No's book, Unmasked.
You remember Andy?
We had him on the program to talk about his book on Antifa.
You remember he was talking about their riots and how nobody was cracking down on them and their disgusting methods of attacking people?
Well, apparently Marshall really liked the book.
And he tweeted out, quote, finally had the time to read your important book, You're a Brave Man, to Andy, who, of course, got attacked by Antifa and had a brain bleed as a result of it and kept on reporting.
But Marshall's praise for Andy, no, unacceptable.
After backlash, Marshall had to delete the tweet and apologize, quote, over the past few days, I have come to better understand the pain caused by the book I endorsed, he tweeted.
He'll now, quote, take time away from the band to examine my blind spots.
Ugh.
Does everyone feel better now?
Because if you liked a well-researched, fact-based book about Antifa, which is at the top of the charts right now, notwithstanding some stores attempt to suppress it, well, you can't say that.
Oh, wait.
This is America.
And now back to Jocko right after this.
Remembering Fallen Comrades 00:14:50
You ran what is called, I guess, Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special ops unit of the Iraq War.
And when it says that you were the commander of that, Does that mean you were the ultimate authority, the ultimate person in charge?
I was the senior guy.
Yes, I was the, it sounds really strong to say I was the ultimate authority because, you know, there's people above me in the chain of command, obviously.
But yeah, I was the senior guy.
So I was the senior ranking guy in task unit bruiser, which ultimately means if something went wrong, it was on me.
And yeah, we, so we had usually between 30, around 35, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less, 35 or so SEALs.
Depending, we got augments.
Some guys would come to help for a little while, then they leave.
Some guys get wounded, go home.
Obviously, guys got killed as well.
And, but, you know, so around 35 SEALs and then another 60 or 70 people that were in support of the task unit.
And these are all the kind of unsung heroes the people that are keeping our Humvees running and keeping our generators working and keeping our logistical supply chain going.
So, guys have bullets and food and all that stuff.
And the people that gather the intelligence and put together target packages for us.
So, there's a bunch of other guys that supported.
The SEALs, but, and that's what we had.
The unit that you oversaw, the one, this task unit, Bruiser, seems to have had some of the most talented, impressive SEALs who fought for our country in the Iraq War.
You mentioned Mark Lee.
Michael Monser was another one.
You mentioned Johnny Kim.
And the name that stood out to me, there were two of them Chris Kyle, who we now know as the American sniper.
He wrote his book and said to be the most lethal sniper in American history.
And his work, his wife, Taya, actually wound up.
Taking a job as a contributor at Fox for a short time while I was there.
There's another guy I want to talk to you about who I know you knew.
Very well, Ryan Job.
Before we get to Ryan, can we talk about Chris?
Because I think our audience may know that name, you know, from the movie American Sniper, and he worked under your command.
Yeah, Chris was the lead sniper and the point man for Charlie Platoon.
So inside of Tasking a Bruiser, there's two platoons, Charlie Platoon and Delta Platoon.
And Charlie Platoon, the platoon commander was Leif Babin, your friend Jenna's husband.
And then the lead sniper and the point man in that platoon was Chris Kyle.
Did you know that this was a special serviceman?
Like when you were working with him, did you know how good he was?
Yeah.
I mean, there, you know, when you said that there's all these incredible guys in the task unit, you're right.
And I will tell you that all day long.
The guys were incredible.
Chris, absolutely.
And a lot of times, if you asked a bunch of different people who in their whatever task unit, whatever platoon, whatever troop they were in, they're going to tell you that they had a bunch of awesome guys too.
The SEAL teams has a bunch of.
Really incredible humans in there.
Chris absolutely was an absolute professional.
He was a front runner and he had a lot of experience even coming into Ramadi.
He had done the push up, he had fought in Fallujah.
And so, as a sniper, he was highly experienced and he was just really dedicated to his job.
And it made him, and then the environment that we were in, the operations that we had the opportunity to do were.
They were absolutely almost custom made to fit Chris's skill set.
And so it was just a perfect fit, perfect fit for him.
Ryan Job, I met years ago.
I was at a Navy SEAL benefit.
It was probably, I want to say 2007.
And at this benefit was when my friend and colleague Jenna Lee met Leif Babin.
They met that night, and now they're happily married with three kids.
And one of the other guys I met that night was Ryan Job.
And I never forgot him.
He's somebody I've talked about many, many times because by this point he'd been injured.
His weapon was hit by artillery from the enemy and it blinded him.
It shot, as I understand it, one eye out and permanently damaged the optic nerve and the other eye.
So he was blind.
And he had the most positive.
Infectious, lovable, laughing, joyful personality that night.
I gravitated toward him.
So did everyone in the room.
He was totally generous with his personality, with his story, with his storytelling, with his time.
And he was the one who told me that seals have a thing they say, which is, say I can't.
And of course, it means as soon as you tell them they can't.
They will, and he was living it right at that point.
I mean he was just living it because after his injuries he went on to accomplish incredible things.
He climbed Mount Rainieri, like in Washington State he as as a blind man, and so all these years i've been talking about this guy because he made such an impression on me and Jocko.
I was so sad and shocked to find out he died.
I didn't know that that I missed that news, and it happened only a couple of years after I met him And it happened in a hospital as they were performing, I think, his 22nd surgery.
Anyway, when I saw it, I texted Jenna immediately, like, oh my God, I didn't know.
And We were talking about it, and I found out that they named their third child after him, after Ryan.
And I just wanted to ask you about this guy because to me, he was just the embodiment of grit.
And he's what I think of when I feel American patriotism.
That guy.
Just devastated to learn we lost him so long ago.
And I'm sure it must have been so hard for you.
Yeah, well, the impact that that.
Ryan made on you, the impact that Chris made on the world, the impact that Mikey Monsoor the, that impression that Ryan left you.
You know that you were with him for I don't know a few hours at an event and and you saw the just what an incredible person he was and yeah, he was.
He was actually shot in the face.
It was some some maybe maybe an enemy sniper shot his and it luckily hit his weapon and before it entered his face so that slowed down.
He kind of got hit from Pieces of fragmentation from his weapon and chunks of bullet and whatever else, and it was a really uh, grievous wound.
And yeah, it was his attitude.
If you know, his attitude was when he was in a medically induced coma for a while, and that was the same day that Mark Lee was killed.
I probably don't know how long it was after he got out of his medically induced coma, and we could finally talk to him, he's back in America.
And what he was telling me, what he was asking me was, he was saying, he was saying, sir, can I please come back?
Can I please come back?
He wanted to come back and be with the task unit.
He wanted to come back and be with his brothers, despite the fact that he had been so horribly wounded, despite the fact that he couldn't see.
He actually, as you know, he was a very funny guy too.
He said, if you give me my weapons, sir, don't worry.
I can smell the bad guys.
I can smell them.
I'll know where they are.
And that was his attitude.
He wasn't going to stop.
And he wasn't going to quit.
And he wanted to be with his brothers.
And so, yeah, when he died, it was just a crushing, crushing blow because we had been home for a few years.
And we had lost Mikey, we had lost Mark, and that was horrible.
But we thought we were home.
We thought we were home.
And then we lose Ryan.
And then, as you mentioned, After that, again, now we think, well, nothing worse than this can happen.
And then Chris was murdered.
And just another horrible, just another horrible, shocking, and life altering event to have Chris killed like that.
And his wife is just so strong and what she's been through.
The way she carries herself is just heroic.
So, a good example for all of us.
And then there's actually in 2017, again, thinking that we were through it, the Delta Platoon Commander, who was a very dear friend of mine and LAFE and the rest of the guys in the task unit, he was killed in a parachute accident.
And that's the last guy that we've lost from task unit bruiser, even though it's many.
Well, it was 11 years after we came home, and still never.
Never going to be, never going to forget those guys.
They were just all incredible, incredible people.
And it was an honor to be able to serve with them, an honor to be able to know them, an honor to say that I was friends with them.
And I won't forget them all ever.
God bless them and all of you guys.
We forget too often.
We go on with our lives over here and we forget about the sacrifice that's been made so that we can live them the way we do.
It's important to be reminded of these stories.
So, We understand the sacrifices that have been made.
That I've listened to Leif.
I saw the two of you guys talking about this.
And he was saying that after Ryan got hit in the face with this enemy sniper round, Leif was saying he looked horrific.
And he went over to grab Ryan, and Ryan sat up and said he was okay.
He sat up, even though he'd just been shot in the face, sat up so that he wouldn't choke.
He said he was just incredibly tough.
And, you know, as you point out, shortly after he began to be able to speak again, he was cracking jokes.
Leif was saying he joked that he was going to get a parrot for his shoulder.
And then he's telling you, I can smell the enemy.
I'll find a way.
You know, I'll find a way.
Can I come back?
And I just think it's such a bullshit price to pay.
You know, it's like what I read was that because the hospital paid his widow, I think what I read was $4 million.
They admitted that they had been negligent.
What I read was it was an accidental overdose that they gave him of painkillers.
But it just seems so damn senseless, you know?
And it's like when you talk about how you get past loss, you know of what you speak.
Yeah.
It was just, like you said, it's completely tragic.
And, you know, it makes us remind us how precious life is.
And you need to absolutely.
Live a life that these guys that are looking down on us are nodding their head and saying, That's right, keep going.
Yeah, they don't want anybody wallowing.
You know, one of the other guys I met that night, and I don't know if you know him, I don't think he was in your task unit bruiser.
Jason Redman.
Do you know that name?
Yeah, I do.
You know Jason.
Okay.
I know he was actually inspired to go climb Mount Rainier because of what Ryan did.
But he too had.
a catastrophic injury to his face.
And he's the other guy I remember from that night.
And but trust me, my audience knows my memory is not that good, but I remember these guys well because he told me about his recovery and how he posted a sign on his door that basically said, don't come in here and feel sorry for me.
I would go and do it all over again.
And I remembered that story.
And actually, I just did, I Googled it right before you came on and I found out like the sign.
became a thing.
Like it's in a military museum as something that's like celebrated as sort of an example of the mentality.
And I just want to read the note so people understand this guy.
It reads as follows.
Attention to all who enter here.
If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere.
The wounds I received, I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love.
I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery.
What is full?
That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover.
Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity.
This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism.
And intense rapid regrowth.
If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere from the management.
I love that, Jocko.
I love that.
And that's the attitude, right?
Like that's the thing that makes you fall in love with these guys.
100%.
I mean, that's just a, it's such an awesome statement by Jason Redmond.
And, you know, this is a guy that had massive, massive damage to his face and his arm.
He was going through surgery after surgery after surgery.
And he, well, you heard it.
He did not want, he didn't feel sorry for himself.
He didn't want anyone else to feel sorry for him.
He was going to do everything he could with what he had left.
And that's what he's doing today.
Wow.
This is to your earlier point.
Stories Of Everyday Heroes 00:02:18
These are the stories people need to hear.
People who think words are violence, people who think they've been victimized by some TV commercial, what, you know, that there are real. heroes in this world who have really gotten hurt and sacrificed and found a way to stay optimism about our country, about themselves, about their fellow Americans.
There's a way of doing it.
It's not to diminish hurt or pain, but there's a way of doing it.
And we have real live examples everywhere, right?
If you're just open-minded to them.
And that's, in a way, one of the gifts you've been given, Jocko, is like having a life immersed in this kind of person.
Yeah, and it's great.
We can look at the military and find all kinds of heroes for sure.
For the entire history of this country, there's hero after hero that has stepped up and made incredible sacrifices.
And then you look at everyday people, whether it's a single mom that's out there working two or three different jobs to feed her kids and coming home with the screaming kids and all that stuff, or whether it's the frontline police officers that are out there taking risks every single day, firefighters, EMTs, the The heroes of the medical community, the first responders.
There's so many people that do so much and face such tough, challenging events every single day.
I was talking to a friend of mine who's an EMT firefighter, and he had done two cases that day and he had done CPR on two people, saved one, lost one.
And you just think that's daily occurrence, daily occurrence.
So, All kinds of heroes out there, all kinds of people that face some really tough things on a daily basis.
And it definitely keeps me humble and makes me make sure that I'm not complaining about anything.
Since you've gotten back stateside, you've sort of made a career out of leadership.
You and Leith co founded a group called the Echelon Front, which is a leadership consulting company, Premier.
And it teaches some of these leadership principles to others.
And we need that.
Taking Ownership Of Mistakes 00:07:51
Right.
It's like some people are born leaders.
I think so.
They come by these traits naturally and most people have to learn it, or at least need to learn something to get better at it.
In looking at sort of the the things you say that make a good leader uh, one of the things is extreme ownership.
You gave a great TED talk, Tedx.
Extreme ownership on this mindset of not making excuses, not not blaming others when problems occur.
I my own life it's manifested as, winners take responsibility, Losers blame others.
And can you just talk a bit about that?
The episode, I think it was in Ramadi, that really brought that home for you, where you had to live it.
And it wasn't necessarily the easiest experience, but you did live it.
Yeah, that's one of the earliest operations that we did.
In the Battle of Ramadi, we had a blue on blue, or what's commonly referred to in the civilian world as a friendly fire incident.
And it was actually a firefight between some of my SEALs and an Iraqi, a friendly Iraqi army unit.
So there's friendly Iraqis that are on our side.
And some of my guys, there was confusion out on the battlefield, there was mayhem, there was the fog of war, all those things.
And some of my guys ended up in a firefight with friendly Iraqi soldiers who had a U.S. Marine with them.
Is a nightmare.
One of the Iraqi soldiers got killed.
A couple other ones got wounded.
One of my guys got wounded.
And it was only by the grace of God that none of my guys were killed.
It was just an absolute nightmare.
And look, being in combat and taking casualties from the enemy is horrible.
You can only imagine how much horrible it is when it's friendly fire.
It's your own people that you're getting wounded by, or that you're wounding, or that you're getting killed by, or that you're killing.
It's an absolute nightmare.
And after this happened, There was, you know, there was a big uproar because this shouldn't happen.
You shouldn't have these things that they do take place, but it's, it's, it's, it should not happen.
And it happened.
So my commanding officer basically shut down, shut down Taskinabruiser and said, I'm going to come out.
I want to debrief.
I want to find out what happened.
And really, in that, it's who's going to get fired because this is a terrible situation.
Someone needs to, someone needs to be held accountable.
And so he said, told me to prepare a briefing to him.
So I started preparing this briefing.
And as I'm preparing this briefing, I'm trying to figure out who I should blame for this happening.
Should I blame the radio men?
Should I blame one of the assistant platoon commanders that are out there?
Should I blame one of the NCOs, one of my non commissioned officers?
Who should I blame for this happening?
And it was probably 10 minutes.
He had flown out, so it took him a day to get out there.
And it's probably 10 minutes before I. Walked in to debrief him, and I just couldn't put my finger.
I couldn't feel comfortable picking the person to blame.
And I just was trying to figure is it this guy?
Should I blame this guy?
Should I blame this other guy?
And as I'm sitting there, I realized like a bolt of lightning hit me that the reason I couldn't figure out who to blame was because there was only one person to blame, and that person was me.
I'm the overall guy in charge, I'm responsible for what happens.
Whatever happens is on me.
And so I went in there and took ownership of the entire incident.
And, you know, this is not the first time that I ever had this idea.
This is how I was brought up in the SEAL teams.
And really, this is how I was brought up as a human.
When something goes wrong, you don't blame other people, you take ownership.
The reason that we, when Leif and I wrote this book, we made this the first chapter is because this is the most extreme situation I'd ever been in.
Someone was dead, guys were wounded, and I had to take ownership of it.
And the part that you said about it being hard to take ownership, yeah, it's very hard.
It stings.
It hurts.
It hurts your ego.
It makes you feel like you are to blame for everything.
And guess what?
You are.
That's the point.
And it's hard.
But that's what I did.
I stepped up.
I took ownership.
And, you know, when I did that, first of all, the guys in the platoon, and this is, you know, Leif and Seth and the rest of the guys debriefing me, when I said, hey, this is my fault, they, Their level of respect for me went up because I wasn't pointing my finger at anyone and saying it was their fault.
And even my commanding officer, he realized that if I was going to take ownership of the problems, I would get the problems fixed and they wouldn't happen again.
And so this attitude is just a very powerful thing.
And sometimes people think it's going to be a big burden.
And like I said, It is a burden on your ego, but also it's liberating because if you take ownership of the problems, then you have the capability to solve those problems.
So it applies not just to the battlefield, it applies not just to business, it applies to life.
And if there's something that's not going the way you want it to go, and all you do is point your finger at your boss or your spouse or your kids or someone you work with, well, then you don't change anything because it's out of your power.
But if you say, you know what, I'm going to take ownership of this and I'm going to get it solved, now you have control.
And now you can actually get problems solved.
I think some people don't take ownership because they're afraid it might not be their only mistake.
And if you take ownership of this one, what happens when the next big mistake comes along?
You take ownership of that one and then the third, and then before you know it, you're fired.
Yeah.
Well, you very well might get fired.
And when people present me with that situation, I always say, well, let's say Megan and I are working for the boss.
And we both fail at whatever project was due.
And I come in, and the boss says, What happened, Jocko?
And I said, Well, you know, we failed the project because we didn't get the supplies in time.
We had bad weather, and the contractors didn't do what they were supposed to do.
And so that's why we failed.
And he says, Okay, get out of here.
And then Megan comes in, and the boss says, Okay, Megan, why'd you fail that project?
And Megan says, Well, we failed the project because I didn't order the supplies early enough.
So the supplies didn't show up on time.
I actually didn't track what the contractors were doing closely enough.
And so they were off schedule, and that set us back.
And finally, I didn't account for the possibility that there might be bad weather.
When I do this next time, I'm going to make sure I get some time scheduled in there in case we get some bad weather days.
I'll be able to make up that time.
So those are the problems.
That's why we failed.
It's my fault, and I'll get it fixed next time.
So, who do you want to give the next project?
Who's the boss going to give the next project to?
Is the boss going to give it to me, who made a bunch of excuses and pointed my finger at a bunch of other people?
Or is the boss going to give the project to me?
The next project to Megan, who actually took ownership and is actually going to get those problems solved.
So, when you look at it from that perspective, even though you might be scared to walk into that office ready to take the blame, when you actually do it and you actually think about how it's perceived, by the way, up and down the chain of command, up and down the chain of command, because the contractors that I blamed, they don't want to work with me anymore.
They're not going to put extra effort to cover for me.
But the contractors that work for you, that you said, hey, look, we're late.
It's my fault.
I should have given you guys a tighter timeline.
I should have made sure you were tracking.
They actually want to do a good job for you.
So, up and down the chain of command, taking ownership is the way to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is, this reminds me of an experience I had at Fox News very early in my career.
I was a first year reporter there, very green.
And I had a package airing on Britt Hume's show, Special Report, that night.
Early Career At Fox News 00:08:07
It was one of my first packages where it's like a pre taped piece.
You know, you spend the whole day working on it, getting interviews.
Then you write a script.
Then you track the script.
Then you go into the edit bay and work with the editor to get it just right.
And then it airs.
And there's always time pressure.
And it aired that night and there was a mistake in the piece.
There was a sound bite that shouldn't have been in there.
And it was obvious when it aired and I should have caught it.
And so Kim Hume, who is Britt's wife and our managing editor, or she was our bureau chief, came over to me after the fact and said, how could it have been prevented?
And I said, I told the editor to take it out and he should have taken it out.
And she said, not him, you.
What could you have done to prevent it?
And honestly, it was just like a sea change for me in that moment.
I, ever since then, that's my first question, not him, you.
What could you have done to prevent it?
And she was 100% right.
I could have budgeted my time better.
I could have made sure I sat in that edit bay for the entire process.
I could have made time to review the piece.
Prior to it hitting air, so I could be assured that all the sound bites would be appropriate and one wouldn't be in there that shouldn't be.
And, you know, I'm not saying I have a perfect record from that point thereafter, but I certainly did a hell of a lot better than I would have if somebody hadn't remembered to say to me, not him, you.
100%.
That's it.
And it changes your attitude.
And the people that work with you, above you, below you, they will all have better respect.
You'll have a better relationship.
And that's just the best way for a team to operate, everyone taking ownership.
What do you think?
Because I know you, I love your, your latest book is called The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols.
And this is good.
It's a code for how to tackle life.
Just here's a few just for our audience.
I will take care of my physical health.
I'm short forming.
I will develop myself mentally by doing creative things, reading things that develop me mentally.
I will not waste time.
I will not waste money.
I will set goals.
That's an important one.
I will excel in my job.
I will be humble.
I will control my emotions.
I will put others before myself.
I will take care of and protect my friends and family.
And I was looking at that and thinking about the goal setting, because I do think that's an important part of succeeding in life of, yes, being a leader, but also just succeeding in life.
Sometimes we meander.
Sometimes we don't sit down and say, what next for me?
What do I want?
Like oftentimes we sit back and say, I'm not happy.
I don't feel good.
But we don't say, what would make me happy?
And how can I get there?
So when you talk about setting goals, like what does that look like?
Somebody listening to this right now, like write it down.
Say it out loud, put it on like a vision board.
What does it look like?
I say, write it down.
And for me, look, I have things that I'm doing all the time that I, one of my little, I guess it's a trick or a methodology that I use is I sign up for things that I know are going to be very hard to achieve, but I sign up for them.
So whether that's publishing a book.
So by the time I have a book coming out, I already have signed to write another book.
And I know I'm not saying, oh, I'm going to take a break.
I could use a little downtime, would be nice.
No, I know I have another book in me.
I already know what it is.
So I go talk to the publisher and say, yep, here's what I'm doing next.
And they say, okay, here's the date.
Can you get it in by then?
And I say, yes, I can.
So I like to take on things that are going to be hard for my podcast.
My podcast takes a lot of time to put together.
And I release one every single week.
And sometimes, It's sometimes that means Saturday.
So, in fact, most times it means Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I'm working, I'm reading, I'm preparing for the podcast because during the week I'm working with clients, etc.
And so, but I sign up for it and I get it done.
So, that's what I do.
I like to sign up for things and things that are a little bit uncomfortable.
I like to bite off a little bit more than I can chew and hope that I don't choke on it.
And I usually don't because I will grind until I get that.
Project or projects done.
Do you ever cancel last minute?
No, no.
And, you know, I've written a bunch of books and I've turned them in on deadline every single time.
I remember one time I said, Hey, I'm going to be tight on this book, but I'll have it to you by midnight.
And my publisher, I think it was like my third book, and he said, Hey, you can get it to me tomorrow.
Most people are two or three months late.
And I said, Really?
And he said, Yeah.
And I said, Well, I'm not going to get it to you by midnight.
So, I stick to those schedules.
I try and deliver.
Well, it's a self discipline that I think most of us lack.
I mean, you're extremely self disciplined.
That's very clear in listening to you and looking at your life story.
And I'm sure that's what led to your success as a SEAL.
But I don't know.
Is it hard to maintain that in the civilian world, or that's just part of you?
Because I know you get up every morning, you work out, you're big on physical well being.
I don't know.
Are you ever the guy who's like, I don't want to go to that dinner?
Tell him we're doing something else.
Like, he just phones it in at the end because he just over committed, or you know what I'm saying?
Like, are you ever that guy?
I really don't make a lot of social commitments.
I don't go to dinner at people's houses.
I don't, I mean, generally, I might do that once.
A quarter.
I'll go to dinner at someone's house because, quite frankly, I'd rather hang out with my wife, grab some dinner with her, hang out with my kids, and do stuff like that.
So I don't have a lot of social commitments out there in the world.
I guess.
What about your wife?
Doesn't she make you have them?
Usually it's the wife saying, We're having dinner with our friends.
My wife is pretty awesome and she knows that that's not one of my favorite things to do.
So she doesn't overcommit on it.
I think she just uses it as an excuse.
And I think people, my friends actually know me well enough that they don't usually invite me over.
So, what are you antisocial?
I don't know that I'm necessarily antisocial, but I'm usually just pretty busy.
And so, for me, for instance, going to someone's house for dinner, that's a four hour evolution.
And meanwhile, dinner for me is, you know, 13 minutes, and I'm actually reading while I'm eating, or I'm at least hanging out with my kids.
So, I'd say, uh, yeah, four hours versus 15 minutes.
I'd rather get it done in 15 minutes, and yeah, I don't know if I'm anti social, um, but maybe I'm a little bit anti social.
I think you know, I spend a lot of time talking to people, I mean, whether it's doing the podcast, whether it's working with clients, whether it's going to events, and so I'm interacting with people all the time.
And so sometimes when I don't have to interact with people, it's kind of nice.
So, how long after meeting your wife did you propose to her?
I don't know.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that I told one of my friends maybe two days later that if I can, I'm going to marry this girl.
So it's pretty cool.
Wow.
And I probably could have told you that in 15 seconds.
Is she British?
She is.
Yep.
She's a Brit.
Okay.
And so what was it about her?
What kind of a woman does Jocko like?
Is she tough?
Does she have sharp edges or is she soft and sort of the yin to your yang?
I would go yang.
Ying to the yang over here because she's like super nice.
And that's, you know, I realized within 30 seconds of talking to her that she was a really nice, good hearted human being.
And also, she was incredibly beautiful.
So, between those two things, I thought this might be a keeper.
So, you have four children together, right?
Four, three girls and a boy?
Yep.
Okay.
And did you have similar, because I know three of them are now college age and one is like 11 or 12.
Raising Confident Children 00:07:56
Did you have similar, do you have similar parenting styles?
I would say that there's a balance there as well, but we're pretty, we're in the same ballpark.
We're in the same ballpark.
Are you like a Navy SEAL in the morning, like up, get up, 5 a.m., run, workout, you know, lift the boat?
What do you do to them?
I'm more just like any other leadership positions I've ever been in.
I believe in decentralized command.
And so with my kids, people, this is something I said to a client maybe a month ago.
My kids, Never had curfews.
So, my older kids, if they went out until whenever they went out, I didn't, it was fine.
They could go out with their friends, they could stay over someone's house.
I didn't really put restrictions on them other than, hey, what's your You know, are you doing well in school?
Are your athletics going well?
Are you doing your job as a kid?
And if you're doing your job as a kid, I trust you and to make good decisions.
And so, my kids, it's a lot of decentralized command.
They can wake up whenever they want.
I can tell you right now, my kids wake up early and they can work out whenever they want.
And I'll tell you what, my kids work out every day.
And it's not because I yell at them or because I tell them to, it's because they understand the importance of being physically fit and getting stuff done.
So, I've always been sort of a decentralized command tighter, and that absolutely applies with my kids as well.
I don't want my kids to be robots.
Right.
But, like, what happens if they came home and they did something really stupid?
Yeah, then there's going to be consequences.
And, you know, I had a variety of punishments that I would use with my kids at various stages of their lives.
One of them was smashing toys.
So, I had to use it with my son once and then.
Once I did it, there was no more issues.
But I very calmly said, Hey, you know what?
The what you did, you're not allowed to do that.
So I'm going to have to smash one of your toys.
And this was probably when he was, I don't know, seven or eight.
No, no, actually, he was probably five or six.
Took one of his toys.
I had a hammer.
And I said, Yep, this is what's going to happen.
So I took the toy and I said, I'm sorry that I have to do this, but lessons have to get learned.
I smashed this toy.
And then I went into his room.
I took one of his other favorite toys and I put it, I put it on the table and I said, This one is on deck.
So if you don't want to behave, then this one's next.
And never had an issue again.
My kids are always scared when I tell them to put their work clothes on.
So if something happens and I tell you to put your work clothes on, you're going to be doing some serious manual labor.
And whether that's pulling weeds or cleaning up garbage or sweeping sand from one side of the driveway to the other side and back again, I can come up with some pretty good physical labor that comes into play.
But quite honestly, the amount of punishments that I had to dole out with my kids is very small because they, I think it's more important to just like, just like with a frontline SEAL.
Look, that frontline SEAL is going to be in a situation where they have to make decisions on their own.
And if they don't understand the strategy, if they don't understand how what they're doing will impact everything else that's going on, if they don't understand that, you can't count on them to make good decisions.
So you have to make sure they understand not just what to do and what not to do, but why they need to do it or why they need not do it.
So, if they understand that, okay, now they can make good decisions without direct oversight.
So, my kids are very, they have the luxury of decentralized command because I trust them.
It's the opposite of helicopter parenting.
It's the opposite of helicopter parenting.
Yes.
They know what they should and should not do, they know the consequences, not consequences from me, but consequences from life.
Look, consequences from life are much more stringent than the consequences of a parent.
So, if they understand that, if they understand what You know, getting a DUI or going down the path of drugs or whatever type of behavior, reckless behavior, they understand that those consequences are way worse than anything I could deliver unto them.
So they know that.
And they can make their own decisions based on that knowledge.
And those decisions are good.
What'd you tell your kids about dealing with bullies?
Well, for one thing, my kids all train jujitsu a lot.
And so bullying, Becomes a lot less of a problem when kids actually know how to fight.
And that goes in both directions, both in being a bully and getting bullied.
So, when you know jujitsu, someone's going to bully you.
And look, if they're going to talk to you, whatever, talk back, no big deal.
You can ignore them.
Don't worry about what someone's going to say.
I said all those to them.
Oh, they're just jealous.
They're just jealous of what you are, who you are, and that's okay.
Think about their position.
You don't know them.
And look, I've written four kids' books, and I focus heavily on bullying in those books.
But when you know jujitsu, all of a sudden, not only do you know how to fight, but people know you have.
People know you know how to fight, and the way you carry yourself is stronger.
And so you have a lot less chance of being bullied because you're not going to allow that to happen to you.
So, a beautiful solution for bullying is learn jujitsu, learn how to fight.
And I know that might sound like I'm a Neanderthal and I'm a knuckle dragger, which I can't deny either one of those two.
But when people know jujitsu, they are less likely to fight.
And they're less likely to get bullied and they are less likely to bully.
Okay, but wait, let me ask you about this because you got three girls.
And as you know, girls, they don't often fight with their fists.
They use something far more powerful, which is emotions, social access.
I mean, they put those guys in Ramadi to shame.
I mean, the 13 year old girl has got powers unseen in certain theaters of war.
And so, how do you tell your kid to?
To deal with that, right?
The emotional torture that these young girls can unleash on one another.
Yeah, certainly the psychological warfare among the young females is a thing to be reckoned with for sure.
But once again, if you have that level of confidence, then it doesn't only pertain to your physical state, it applies to your mental state as well.
It applies to the way you carry yourself.
So having that confidence is important.
Well, where do you get confidence?
You get confidence from knowing how to handle yourself.
How do you learn how to handle yourself?
Again, it's not just jujitsu, but it's being in good physical condition.
It's studying so that you can articulate what you're talking about.
And like we started this whole conversation off, when I was a little kid, everyone's going to get bullied.
Everyone's going to get bullied.
There's always going to be someone stronger, someone meaner.
And so, again, talking your kids through if someone is bullying you, let's say tormenting you verbally, why are they doing that?
What situation are they in?
What kind of home life do they have?
What trauma have they been through that they feel so bad about their own life that they want to take it out on you?
So, if you can kind of explain that to a kid, it's very helpful because they realize that they don't need to stoop down to that level.
They can rise above it and nod their head and smile and say, I hope you feel better tomorrow.
Understanding Trauma And Bullying 00:04:55
It's good.
You know, it's funny because I actually didn't know that you had written children's books.
And one of the things I did in preparing for this interview was.
I haven't read them yet, but I said to my assistant, get me every single one he's written.
And so they're all sitting there.
I'm actually really excited to get started on those with my kids because, you know, too much of the children's books are total nonsense.
And now they've gone like totally woke, which I don't want either.
I want like good practical advice for life's situations.
And it sounds like these might be right up my alley.
And by the way, it reminds me of you wrote something not long ago about toxic masculinity and what bullshit this whole thing was about like the American Psychological Association's guidelines on how, you know, You shouldn't control your emotions and you shouldn't be competitive and you shouldn't be dominant.
And you completely just killed it.
It was actually a great, great piece.
But I love that you, this is one of the lines that you had.
A leader must strive for balance and a man must do the same.
Be courageous, but not foolhardy.
Decisive but not dictatorial, open minded but principled, disciplined but not rigid.
It certainly sounds like you've lived that, Jocko.
And listen, if you'll indulge me one more second, I really wanted to ask you, as somebody who has spent your life the way you have before I let you go, can you just try to sum up what you love about America?
It's pretty simple and straightforward.
America is a wide open opportunity for.
For people, and it's based on the fact that we have freedom as individuals.
I'm living proof of that.
You know, I own multiple businesses right now.
We've got a factory up in Maine where we're making clothing and boots and jeans in America, 100% from the cotton that's grown in the fields and in the south to the dye houses down there to us bringing that material up and weaving it up in Maine.
This is just a place of incredible opportunity.
I think that that's what the strength of America is.
The strength of America is, you know, I talked about decentralized command a couple times today.
What makes America so incredible is we have decentralized command.
You know, you can pick what your goals are and you can go out.
And if you want to work hard and you want to dedicate yourself, you can absolutely achieve those goals, not based on what someone else does for you, but based on what you do for yourself.
So to me, The individual freedom that we have in this country is the strongest asset.
It's just look, decentralized command on the battlefield is the strongest asset you can have.
Knowing that people are going to make decisions and make things happen based on understanding the goal that they're trying to strive towards, that's the best kind of team.
It's the best kind of team in the business world where everybody on the team knows what the goal is and they go out there and they maneuver and work and move the team towards that goal as an individual.
And it's the same thing with this country.
We have individual freedom.
You have the freedom to go out and make things happen.
And that is what makes America so strong, in my mind.
And then, obviously, on top of that, we have incredibly brave people in this country that serve and sacrifice.
And the fact that every single day there's a new recruit walking into boot camp in the Army, in the Navy, in the Air Force, in the Marine Corps.
And no matter what race, gender, male, female, they are stepping into that role and they're ready to make that sacrifice.
And that's why we will always maintain this freedom.
That we have in this country.
Jocko Willink, thank you for your service.
Thank you for being here.
It was an honor to serve, and thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Coming up on Friday, don't forget to tune into the show because we've got country superstar John Rich of Big and Rich.
He's a pal, he's a great guy, and he recently spoke to Trump and has a little news for you.
He also recently spoke to some senators whose names you will know.
with a personal warning of kinds from John Rich, and he's going to break a little news on what happened there.
I think you're going to love him.
This is a lover of America, folks.
He, his granny Rich, who instilled him with the proper values, and he's got deep love of country and a lot of thoughts on how the rest of us need to be thinking about the United States and our government and our connection to one another.
And I know you're going to love it.
So that's John Rich.
Next episode, don't forget to subscribe, download, rate five stars, and give me a review, would you please?
I'm still reading them.
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