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Oct. 9, 2019 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:39:21
Jocko Willink 2 | This Past Weekend #236

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts http://bit.ly/ThisPastWeekend_    Retired Navy Seal, podcaster, author, and entrepreneur Jocko Willink returns to the podcast.   Jocko Willink https://instagram.com/JockoWillink   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   This episode brought to you by   MyBookie Visit https://MyBookie.ag and use code THEO to double your first deposit   Skillshare Visit https://Skillshare.com/TheoVon for 2 months free   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Find Theo   Website: https://theovon.com  Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend  Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEKV_MOhwZ7OEcgFyLKilw   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Producer Nick https://instagram.com/realnickdavis -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Music   “Shine” - Bishop Gunn  http://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunn    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Gunt Squad www.patreon.com/theovon  Name Aaron Rasche Adam White Alaskan Rock Vodka Alex Hitchins Alex Person Alex Petralia Alex Wang Alexa harvey Andrew Valish Angelo Raygun Annmarie Reilly Anthony Holcombe Ashley Konicki Audrey Hodge Ayako Akiyama Ben Deignan Ben in thar.. Benjamin Herron Benjamin Streit Bobby Hogan Brandon Woolsey Christian Coyne Christina Peters Christopher Becking Claire Tinkler Cody Cummings Cody Kenyon Cody Marsh Crystal Dan Draper Dan Perdue Danielle Fitzgerald Danny Crook David Christopher David Witkowski Dentist the menace Diana Morton Dionne Enoch Doug C Dusty Baker Eric Tobey Faye Dvorchak Felicity Black Gillian Neale Ginger Levesque Grant Stonex Greg Salazar Gunt Squad Gary J Garcia Jamaica Taylor James Briscoe James Hunter James Schneider Jameson Flood Jayme Sta Jeffrey Lusero Jeremy Siddens Jeremy Weiner Joakim Joaquin Rodriguez Joe Dunn Joel Henson Joey Piemonte John Kutch Johnathan Jensen Jon Blowers Jon Ross Jordan Josh Cowger Josh Nemeyer Joy Hammonds Justin Doerr Justin L justin marcoux Kennedy Kenton call Kevin Best Kirk Cahill kristen rogers Kyle Baker Lacey Ann Laszlo Csekey Lawrence Abinosa Lea Rashka Leighton Fields Luke Bennett Madeline Matthews Mandy Picke'l Marisa Bruno Matt Nichols Meaghan Lewis Mike Mikocic Mike Nucci Mike Poe Mona McCune Nick Roma Nikolas Koob Noah Bissell NYCWendy1 OK Qie Jenkins Ranger Rick Robyn Tatu Rohail Ruben Prado Ryan Hawkins Sagar Jha Sarah Anderson Sean Scott Secka Kauz Shane Pacheco Shona MacArthur Stephen Trottier Suzanne O'Reilly Theo Wren Thomas Adair Tim Greener Timothy Eyerman Todd Ekkebus Tom Cook Tom Kostya Tugzy Mills Tyler Harrington (TJ) Vanessa Amaya Victor I tuck back and sit down to pee Johnson II Vince Gonsalves Vlog Master William Reid Peters Yvonne Zeke HarrisSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today's guest, it's his second time coming in here and man this guy I don't know he reminds me of like the incredible incredible He reminds me actually of a little bit like the dad from the Incredibles I think I was gonna say incredible Hulk but he's more evolved than that he is retired Navy SEAL author and host of the Jocko podcast my friend Jocko
Willing Yeah,
that's the thing about a lobster man is really the travel cost people don't think about that when they see them people don't think about the travel costs that have gone into getting that bastard running it back and forth and dude they have a new thing now where they'll have a um skill crane which is like you know a thing the kids put the money in and they can you know do the control and you can get a lobster out and you try to win the lobster like it's at for real yeah and it's usually at like a shitty bar or something it's not even like yeah so i spent like nine dollars they went over to the airport i spent about nine dollars trying to get a lobster and
then here's the thing i finally got one i had to go yeah i had to catch my flight so i was like what'd you do then throw it back i had to throw it back in i was like well i can't you know i can't check this lob bro so oh we got a couple different flavors now this was tropic thunder yeah yeah this one you'll end up in black fix if you have too many cameras you want to know why because it's really a piña colada oh really that's the flavor but i can't you know jocko can't be calling something piña colada right be a little bit little bit little
not what we're looking for a little shocking you've already came just call it tropic thunder and you're good do people when they meet you expect you to be kind of violent do you feel like the funny thing is people meet me and they're like you're a lot you're a lot i'm i'm 5'11.
people meet me like i i thought you were a lot taller really and then they and then yeah so they they think i'm taller because i'm only 5'11 and they think i'm gonna be in black and white because i always take pictures in black and white that's kind of a joke but no i mean so that's what i think people i think when they finally come up to me you know i'm pretty laid back yeah i'm not i'm not going crazy all the time right some of the time yeah but not all the time yeah yeah um do you feel like that you whenever you started
um podcasting really because so many people love your show do you feel like that in the beginning you were different than you are now like it's that you were more of an entertainer like i'm just wondering what that journey's been like for you at all honestly no i don't feel like i'm any different i i'm just doing the same kind of stuff i've always been doing i've always been doing what i've done what i'm doing right now it's just that now there's like a window to it for people to see what's going on
and see kind of the life through my eyes right you know and i don't it's hard you can't you you know the deal you can't be someone else on a podcast for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of talking you can't play a role you know you just eventually the real you is there and so for me i've just always kind of been that's just me you know that's just me do you um do you still do you find as you're getting a little bit you know i
know that jocko doesn't age but you know if you looked at a calendar you've been alive longer than you were last time i saw you it was maybe a year and a half ago year ago something like that yeah you're one of our first guests i think actually nick wasn't he he was very early on it was over a year ago but uh we were nervous bro i remember calling my insurance provider and just letting him know i even sent him a picture a screen grab good call i said this guy's like this guy's coming if i make him angry we don't know what's going to happen could be the end this guy's been drinking his own
plasma i think um uh fuck i forgot what i was even going to ask you man oh there you go that's what you were talking about your memory i was listening to your podcast today you were talking about your memory failing quite a bit yeah i think this bad oh no you were talking about your emotional memory and that's why you keep making the same mistakes all the time emotional mistakes yeah see that's i i think i have a good emotional memory really like locked wow i remember what that feels like i'm not doing that again see for some reason i forget it's like it's yeah it's like that
kid with the stove kind of it's like uh yeah i just don't it's just like yeah i find myself just running in the same circles um yeah recently i've been trying to get a little bit more into uh finding just motivation because then at least i'm like active in each i've been trying to get more active into each end of my day each day so then at least i'm like not just like playing from behind all day i don't feel like it by active do you mean like some kind of physical activity or just mean more proactive in the way you approach your day um both actually
so more physical activity instead of just thinking like the second i think okay i should go for a gym or i should go to the run or i should you know set get an appointment for a trainer you know i know you don't have a trainer but no um it's like you couldn't even imagine some soft man yelling at you with a whistle dude um but but yeah it's like i just go ahead and do it and then and then just to try and approach this my day a little bit more like just like okay i want to do this i
call that like going on offense instead of being on defense you just go on offense i'm going to make some stuff happen thinking about doing this and that's a good attitude when you think about something thinking about doing it just go do it yeah don't even waste time thinking about even what you're going to do at the gym just go to the gym you can figure it out when you get there or your trainer can tell you yeah because my brain man it just yeah once it gets into my brain that's where it's not good you know it's like when i'm in action that's when yeah everything will work out usually okay as long as i get my action going you know so
yeah for recently it's just been just something that i i guess i've been struggling with is just finding that motivation so but now i feel like i'm getting a little bit more like all right let's just go you know let's go let's get in motion and i know it but sometimes it's like i'll have learned a lesson and then it'll just kind of fade away a little bit you know and then off to or you know the Value like the new practices I have in my life, sometimes they go by the wayside, and it's like I have to kind of recalibrate.
Well, I always tell people you can't sit around waiting to feed until you're motivated to do something.
Because if you sit around waiting until you're motivated to do something, who knows when that's going to come?
It may come, but it may not come.
And it may only come twice a week.
And if it's only coming twice a week, that's a lot less than you actually need.
So you don't wait.
You don't wait.
You just put the discipline on.
You know, you put the discipline on.
And when you wake up, you go do what you're supposed to do.
And the crazy thing is, speaking of emotional memory, you know when you get done, you're going to feel better.
Like that's a guarantee.
If you go to the gym and you get your workout in or you do whatever thing you know you're supposed to do, it's a guarantee that when you get done, you're going to feel better.
So remember that emotion and put that thing into play so that you can actually get it done the way you're supposed to.
Yeah, I wonder why then sometimes like I'll know that I'll know how to help myself and sometimes I still don't want to.
That's the whole world, right?
That's the whole world.
Everyone, you know, what are you going to, who wants to eat the broccoli instead of the Twinkie, right?
People are like, oh, they're going to eat the Twinkie.
Everybody knows that it's bad for them.
Yeah.
But they're just, I mean, what, you ever been to a 7-Eleven?
You know what I mean?
What do they sell there?
They don't sell broccoli there.
They're trouble, bro.
They just sell candy, straight sugar, mainlining sugar, corn syrup.
Get it in the veins.
And people are, that's all day.
That's what happens.
Yeah.
So it's not like you're different.
You're in the same boat as everybody else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, I guess that's a good point.
Like, that's the boat you have to get out of.
It's not like that's a, if you're behaving that way that you've been sentenced to that.
That's the baseline.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No different than everybody else.
Right.
That's the baseline is that, yeah, it's not like, I'm fucked man, I'm not making great decisions for myself.
Most people aren't.
Yeah, most people aren't.
That's why there's a difference between when we do and when we don't and right and kind of getting out of that.
Really, it's like a slumber.
I feel like it gets into all, once it starts to seep into one aspect of my life, it kind of starts to seep around, you know.
Well, the good thing is, is when you put some discipline in your life, that seeps around too.
So when you start doing things right, you start doing more things right.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, it's classic, right?
You have one of those weekends where you're like, you know what, I think I'm just going to, I'm just going to order a pizza.
Oh, yeah.
Well, then, so you order that pizza, you know, from wherever.
Gray block?
Is that what you're talking about?
You order that gray block hitter and you get the triple cheese and you get the meat, whatever.
And so then you just dive into that thing.
And what does that do?
Well, that kind of, you think, well, since I did that, I'm not even going to go for a run today.
Right.
So I'm just going to kick back.
And then, you know, you just start going down that path.
I'm going to get ice cream.
I'm going to do weed or something.
I'm not going to watch my children.
I'm not going to call my mom.
I'm going to sleep outside.
There you go.
That's how you get it.
It's a little decision.
But when you say, when you're like about to dial the number and then you say, you know what?
No, I'm just going to make a salad right now and put a chicken in it and just eat that clean.
And then you get done with that.
You say, you know, I feel pretty good.
I'm going to go out and get a little run done.
I'm going to get a run in.
I'm going to clean my fucking car.
I'm going to clean this up.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm going to go ahead and get a lot of my fucking bad.
So that's what happens.
So the little decisions, they build up.
So the bad decisions build up.
So that's what happens.
Now, that's not an excuse to say, okay, now I'm going to make 28 bad decisions in a row.
What it is, is an indicator.
You say, oh, I just made one bad.
Okay, stop.
Reset.
The pizza was good.
Fine.
Let's get back on the path.
Let's do it now.
That's a mistake that people make.
Yeah.
And by the way, that's a mistake that people can make for like nine years.
People will get into that.
Keep ordering that five, bro.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, it's funny.
I wonder, especially, do you find as we get into more of like an automated, almost an automated humanity in a way, do you feel like it's becoming harder for people to make good choices for themselves?
Are they up against like greater evils?
Do you ever have any thoughts like that?
Or it's still...
I mean, let's face it, it's a lot easier to order a pizza than it is to go out and huck a spear at a buffalo or a buffalo.
Yeah, a buffalo or a pepperoni.
Yeah.
Yeah, some banana peppers.
Yeah, so that's definitely a difference.
And even today, I mean, you know, you live in LA, I live in San Diego.
You can pretty much get anything you want into your house in maybe two hours maximum.
So if there's some evil food that you want to eat, you can get it.
And it's going to be delivered to your door.
So even the resistance, you know, some people are like, well, you know, I'd really like to have.
But I'm not going to go get it.
Yeah.
I'd really like to have a chocolate donut right now, but I don't want to go all the way to the store.
So maybe that saves some people.
Now that that savior's gone, because now they're just on their phone and they got chocolate donuts stacking up at the front door.
So that could be a problem.
That could be a problem.
So if that's starting to occur, then there really is kind of becoming a line between if we're going to be strong enough to make choices for ourselves or if we're going to not, you know, like, do you think that?
Or is that, you think it's just still the same?
And there's always been like, you know, back in the day, maybe a duck would wander up to your door.
You'd be like, oh, I'll never have any duck, you know, and then a fucking mallard lands, you know, on your welcome mat.
You're like, oh, you know?
Yeah, I think we also, but I think we're more aware now of the effects, the negative effects of this bad stuff, you know?
Because let's face it, when I was a kid and I was thirsty, probably the same as you.
When I was a kid and I told my mom, like, I'm thirsty, she'd be like, cool.
There's Cokes in the fridge.
Yeah.
And I'd go drink three of them, right?
Like, no factor.
This was just what it was.
Hey, I'm hungry.
What am I going to eat?
A Snickers bar.
Yeah.
That was they had some little motto.
Snickers satisfies.
That was the motto.
So, hey, remember payday bar?
It was a health bar.
Oh, it was a health bar.
Yeah, I was like, hey, this is good for you.
Which I didn't even really compute that because I was like, it's food, right?
Food's good for you.
So, so we're more aware.
Like, even my, I got one daughter that's only 10 years old.
And she, even she knows that.
She'll like, look, oh, there's a ton of sugar in this.
She's 10 years old.
So I think people are more aware.
I mean, you know, my parents, it wasn't them being bad parents.
Right.
It was just what was going on.
But it was just what was going on.
The dang, what were they called?
Funny bones.
Have you ever had a funny bone before?
It was like chocolate cut.
Look it up now.
It was kind of like a Twinkie situation, but it was chocolate.
It had chocolate draped over it, but then the inside was a creamy peanut butter filling.
So, you know, you could just, you could, and it wasn't no high.
Sounds like a way I'd like to be buried, actually.
Yeah, it's not a bad deal.
At least throwing a couple in there in the coffin.
Boot, funny bones right there.
Drake's, I couldn't remember that.
So, yeah, my mom would buy, you know, like they got the 10-pack right there.
Yeah, my mom would buy like three of those and just be, hey, what are you going to have for, what are you going to have for breakfast?
A funny bone, maybe three.
So I think even though there's some things that make it easier to be less healthy nowadays, I think at least we're aware of it and we're not mainlining Coca-Cola in the morning.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess there is it.
Yeah, I remember as kids would make that sound after we drank it.
It was like, that was like a big thing.
But yeah, getting a Coke was, and your parents had Diet Coke and you thought that was crazy.
Like, what fucking creepy senior is sipping that shit.
But yeah, so yeah, it's like.
I actually, I'm pretty sure I remember, I think I remember a world before Diet Coke.
Actually, there was something called Tab.
Oh, yeah.
I remember Tab?
It was really, had a very strange font on it.
I think that was the first kind of diet soda.
Oh, really?
Yeah, that I can remember.
Because Coke was just Coke.
There wasn't even anything else.
It wasn't Coke light and Coke everything else.
It was just Coke with 97 grams of fucking corn soda.
Good, brother.
Yeah.
Coke, yeah, and they're supposed to refresh you.
That's insane when you think about that.
Yeah, but that's how it was.
But yeah, I guess I wonder if there was any positives to it.
I mean, sugar is such a killer.
How much sugar is in this?
Zero.
Oh, really?
Yeah, so what tastes good, what's making your sweetness is that there's something called monk fruit in it, which is religious, no?
It's not very religious.
It's something like, you know, 87,000 times more sweet than sugar.
Well, I don't know what the numbers, but it's something like that, so it's super sweet.
Three times softer than cotton, you mean?
Yeah, yeah.
But it's just, it's a fruit.
And so we just put a little bit of that in there, and it makes it taste sweet.
It tastes natural.
So, yeah.
Yeah, it does pretty smooth.
So they're all go.
Is Jalaco Go?
Yeah.
And do your kids have to drink it or not?
Yeah, there's too much caffeine in it for a kid.
There's 95 milligrams of caffeine in it.
Fuck, man.
Yeah.
So are you going to go crazy now?
You have to watch out.
I don't want to join the ROTC or something this afternoon.
No, it's like the same as a cup of coffee.
Okay.
Would you guys, did you do ROTC when you were younger?
No.
Because I remember there was this group at our school.
It was like ROTC.
Oh, for sure.
Nobody told us, first of all, what it was, right?
Which was a huge alarm.
Because suddenly after school, there would be these kids running around the school with wooden guns.
And you're like, what is going on?
Yeah.
For me, I wasn't into that part of the military.
I wasn't into thinking, hey, let's march around.
I was into the commando stuff.
So I actually got in trouble on the soccer team because I was leading runs and I was singing cadences.
And I remember getting in trouble for singing the cadence of Ho Chi Minh is a son of a bitch, which I was into that kind of thing.
Were we all playing Ho Chi Minh?
No, no.
You're like, oh, it's a goal, not a foxhole.
You're like, everybody out of the goal.
Yeah.
So we didn't even have ROTC in my school.
I grew up in a really small town in New England.
I think there was 85 people in my graduating class or something like that.
It's really small.
So was it more the leadership then that you, was it, I'm trying to figure out like kind of pinpoint what it was and was it.
Oh, yeah, G.I. Joe, all of that.
That's it, man.
That's it.
And that was just a real strong feeling for me.
Every kid, that's all we did.
Yeah, most of the kids stopped doing that.
Yeah, I didn't.
Wow.
I didn't.
And when people would look and say, oh, the fucking elbow crawling across the graduation stage.
People see somebody walking around with a briefcase when you're a little kid and be like, wow, that person, they're getting in a Cadillac.
Like, whoa, that person's something powerful, a banker or something.
Right.
And I'd never had that thought.
I only thought, whoa, that guy's got a machine gun or that guy's getting into a tank.
Yeah.
And that just was what I always wanted to do.
Wow.
That's awesome.
So as you said, I just never stopped.
Yeah.
And here you are.
We had so many wonderful questions that came in.
I just want to get into some of them because they'll lead us into some conversation stuff too.
Sounds like you're out of good questions.
Oh, no, I'm not.
I'm not, but people had so many good ones today.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it was really, really good.
Do we look over there?
Is that the deal?
Yeah, we'll just look over here.
Yeah, cool, cool.
Hey, guys, Jason here.
I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for what you guys are doing.
I do have a quick question, I guess, for both of you.
I know a few, I guess, a podcast ago, you guys were talking about how you got to keep your emotions right and keep them under, you know, keep them under wraps, if you will.
I'm doing my best.
I'm currently at 440 pounds.
I was just diagnosed with severe sleep apnea.
I stopped breathing like 64 times an hour, which is insane.
Got my little machine now, so I'm getting that right.
Trying to get my eating right with the keto and the whole good thing.
But I've had this peaks and valleys of how I've gone up and down with my weight, struggling with food.
So I guess, you know, it might be a good person to ask, how do I keep my emotions in track?
Do I continue to make good decisions?
And how can I actually make this work so I make a lifestyle change forever?
All right.
Thank you guys.
Gang, gang.
Have a good one.
Gang, bro.
And a life.
You want to be able to live, man.
I can't imagine that, but you'd almost feel trapped, I think, at that weight.
Yeah, yeah.
But I mean.
But motivated.
It sounds motivated.
Yeah, it'd be real easy to think, hey, you're trapped at that weight, but man, he's alive.
He's on the right path right now.
You know, and I would say, I always tell this to people, you can't let your emotions dictate what you're going to do.
Well, it's kind of the conversation we just had.
Because, I mean, if you think about it, motivation is really just an emotion.
It's just an emotion.
You feel really good and motivated.
You can't let your emotions dictate your actions.
You got to let your logic dictate your actions.
And hey, it's not going to feel good every day.
I just, this morning, I didn't feel like working out.
I was sore.
I've been working out hard for the last few days.
I did not feel like working out at all.
And I went down there and I went through the motions.
And you know what?
You know, people say, you're just going through the motions.
I was like, yes, I was.
But that's better than not going through the motions because I got down there.
I did the work.
It wasn't the best workout I ever had.
No records were broken.
Nothing was crazy.
But I went down there and did what I was supposed to do.
There was no motivation involved whatsoever.
Zero.
I was unmotivated.
I was motivated to just snuggle into bed.
Yeah.
But no, you got to get up.
So don't let your emotions dictate it.
And peaks and valleys, guess what?
That's what life is.
Life, you're going to have times when you feel good.
You're going to have times when you feel bad.
And you can't let those things be so broad span.
So you can't let those peaks be so high and those valleys be so low that it throws you off course.
When I feel down, it's like, okay, you know what?
That's going to pass.
And the way you make it pass is through action.
It's what you just said.
You said, you know, when I get going, that's when I'm good.
That's the same thing to Jason.
Hey, Jason, if you're not feeling like it, you know what?
Do what Theo does.
Just stop that.
Stop the thinking about it.
And just go and go for the walk.
Go get on the treadmill.
Get whatever exercise you're going to start doing.
Start doing it.
And the other thing is, look, man, this is a long war.
This isn't a battle that you're going to fight one day, two days.
You're in a campaign.
In a campaign, World War II, four years of combat to get where you want to go.
Maybe seven years, maybe eight.
I don't know.
But part of you don't have to think, hey, if only I could be at the end.
Man, enjoy where you're at right now.
I know it sounds crazy, but you said, dang, Trapton, man, you're lucky.
You're lucky.
You know, I got friends that have been so severely wounded.
You know, they can't go for a run.
They lost their legs.
They lost their arms.
They lost their vision.
Whatever.
Hey, man, you're good to go.
You're good to go.
Go out.
And like you said, live.
Yeah, I think, I mean, that's it.
It's like you got to keep, you have to get moving.
You know, you have to get, it's just, it's so funny, man, because that's one thing that I've, I think in the past year that I've definitely had an easier time with is when I don't feel good, even just recently, man, knowing, really starting to know at a real level, not just like hearing and hoping, but knowing that that will pass.
That how I'm feeling is not always real.
Some of us are, you know, it's just like we just have maybe thicker emotions or deeper emotions.
You might have bigger highs and bigger lows.
But it's almost like nobody told us in the beginning, like, hey, how you feel isn't exactly what's going on sometimes.
Like, yeah, you might feel like shit, but you just, like, you just keep going, you know?
And yeah, the unmotivation, it's funny.
It's like when I'll go to the gym and stuff and I don't want to, or when I'll go for a run, once I get to about eight minutes and you start to hit that sweat a little bit, about seven and a half minutes, that's when I start to actually start to, I almost feel ashamed of myself sometimes for even feeling good a little bit.
Because I was so set on like, oh, I'm going to have such a shitty, you know, oh, I'm going to show myself.
I'm going to have a shitty time.
I'm going to have a shitty day.
And then I'll get kind of moving and stuff.
And I'll be like, fuck, man, I'm almost enjoying myself a little bit.
You know what's, you know what I'm thinking about right now?
Because people always ask, well, how did you get this way?
You're like, to me.
Oh, yeah.
And as I'm sitting here thinking about it, one of the things that...
No, it's think about this.
So when I was in the SEAL teams, and as I moved through my career, I moved into leadership positions, right?
Well, when I was in leadership positions, you can't be moping around because if your guys see you moping around or being negative, they're going to react.
They're going to follow you, right?
They're going to take the way your actions are.
So at some point, pretty early, I realized, oh, if I act like that, everyone's going to act like that.
So I can't act like that.
So if I don't feel like doing something, the last thing I'm going to do is say, hey, guys, oh man, I don't feel like doing it.
No, I would never let those words exit my mouth.
And by the way, in the SEAL teams, that's kind of the way it is.
You know, no one's like, no one will admit to, hey, I'm cold right now.
You never hear someone say, hey, I'm cold.
Can I borrow your jacket?
It's better to freeze.
It's better to freeze, right?
Or, hey, I'm tired.
No one's going to say that.
So that's where you get, you realize.
And so then when you power through it and you power through it over and over and over again, you realize, you know what, my emotions, as you said, they're not real.
They don't have to impact the way I'm actually going to act.
Yeah, Jason, that's a muscle.
It really is a muscle.
It's like, it really is a muscle of breaking through that little barrier.
It's so thin to that barrier of I'm not going to do this.
It's so, it's crazy because it feels so heavy sometimes, but it's so, it's so thin, man.
And it changes.
It's like, you know, like I'll, and then the rest of my day is always better when I get it.
I'll get going.
It's always better.
I try and explain that to people all the time.
Even though it sucks to leave your pillow in the morning, the rest of your day will absolutely be better.
And you're right.
That little barrier, the hardest part about the gym is going to get there.
That's the hardest part.
The hardest part about not eating whatever sort of crap is sitting for a bag of Cheetos is sitting there.
If you just take and throw it away and just walk away, you'll be fine.
You won't think about it.
You're not going to be thinking about it for an hour, right?
How long do you think if you just throw that bag of Cheetos away?
You're not going to be like in your journal.
Yeah, you're not despondent to yourself.
You're chester.
Yeah.
Sorry, but it happened.
You're just moving on.
So put yourself somewhere else.
Throw the Cheetos as far as you can throw them and walk away.
Walk away.
Yeah, Jason.
What's interesting is you've really, your life has set you up with a real, you've got a journey in front of you, kind of, which is kind of cool.
It's kind of cool to have.
You're at war.
Yes.
You have a mission.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
It's pretty cool, yeah.
Because a lot of life, sometimes it's just you're not finding your war sometimes.
You know, some of it is, you know, some of that aimlessness sometimes.
But you've got it, man.
And I think, yeah, that emotional part is just don't believe those feelings sometimes because we all have them.
I mean, I think one of Jocko's skills, one of his skills, besides being a beverage entrepreneur, is actually pretty fucking good.
I'm starting to get scared.
I got the recruiters inbounds.
You're going to the Marine Church.
I'm afraid if I have one more sip, somebody's going to parachute into the ceiling.
But part of one of his things that he seems to have really mastered is not letting that first voice be the loudest, you know, and having your own voice against that.
Good luck, Jason, man.
Maybe check in.
Can we check back in with Jason maybe?
Absolutely.
And just see what's going on because I would just even love to know how you move forward.
Like what happens emotionally, no matter what direction you're kind of going in with some of your choices, what's making you feel down or what's making you feel up, you know?
We had one question I know about tapping out.
Do we have that one in here?
Yes, I do.
All right.
I want to know from Jocko, and Theo, I love you, boy.
You're my boy, Theo, but I want to know how quick he thinks he'd be able to tap you out.
Just because I think it'd be kind of interesting.
I think some other people will want to know too, but you're still my boy, Theo.
I fucking love you, bro.
But how quick does Jocko think he'd be able to tap you out?
And then also, do you think you'd be able to tap him out?
Like if you did like bass salts or something?
Because I know that shit has people feeling just feeling loopy, bro.
That's my question.
Dang, man.
That's a good question, dude.
Have you ever trained jiu-jitsu before?
I mean, I've trained, like, I've had, you know, I've chased like a small animal around the house.
Have you ever trained jiu-jitsu?
No, I have not.
Yeah, that's going to be a problem.
Okay.
Yeah, it's going to be a problem.
It's not, it wouldn't take very long.
Okay.
You know, it wouldn't take very long.
What do you think?
Two, three minutes?
And this is the thing, man, is I was trying to explain this people, it's not because I'm a badass at all.
Right.
It's because, it's because I trained for a really long time.
So what like sport are you really good at?
Probably outdoor activities, probably.
That's not a sport, bro.
Sorry, sorry.
Let me think about something.
Probably basketball.
Okay, so let's say you and I were, let's say I never played basketball ever in my life.
Right.
And you and I played one-on-one.
How long, how, would I, do you think I'd even score one single basket?
I bet you'd score one based on some of your abilities.
Okay, so one single basket and you beat me 11 to 1, right?
So in Jiu-Jitsu, it's the same thing.
I just know, I know the game.
You don't know the game at all.
And so it would be really easy.
It'd be really easy, not just for me, but anyone that trained jiu-jitsu.
What do you think?
Three, four minutes, probably?
To tap you out?
No, no, no, no.
No, no.
What if I was wearing like a real slippery suit or something?
That might gain you a little bit of time, but we're talking sub one minute.
Oh, no way.
What if it's windy out?
You've trained before.
I'm good in the wind.
You've trained before, though, right?
You've trained.
Okay, then that's where that little hesitation, because that's what's amazing about it.
Same thing when I first trained.
When I first trained, I just graduated from SEAL training.
Jesus.
And I thought I was the man.
And I was 19 years old.
I was, you know, you just got done.
It's the most elite training in the world and all this stuff.
At 19. Yeah.
And so this old master chief, like the oldest guy I'd ever seen.
Jesus.
He was probably like 40. Grandpa.
Remember how old he was when you were young.
Yeah.
I was looking at him like grandpa.
You're like nothing for me.
Who's this old fucker with a driver's license?
Yeah, so he goes, you know, who wants to learn how to fight?
And I'm like, hey, me.
So he brings us out, brings us on the mat, and just lined up.
There's like five of us new guys.
And he tapped us all out.
Damn.
Less than a minute each.
And that's what it is.
That's what jiu-jitsu is.
That's why people talk about it a lot.
Because when it first happens to you, you can't even believe it.
And immediately when you get tapped out for the first time, when you're 19 years old and you're like, oh, yeah, I can take anybody.
No, that's wrong.
Because I don't know anything.
Yeah, exactly.
You're just pouring shots of your own urine right there.
Just getting after that urine.
Oh, dude.
Yeah.
I'd have a half a quarter, bro.
Who gives a shit?
Bro, if 19-year-old pisses, fucking, you know, his testosterone's in the chest.
Actually, I do.
Zero.
Zero.
I don't know.
You missed out.
You got to get to the bottom.
Theoretically, I like where you're at, but you're not really there scientifically.
So, yeah, that's what happens.
You just don't know.
And Jiu-Jitsu is a really powerful, powerful thing.
And you should go train sometime, you know?
I really want to go train.
And I need to go train.
I've been trying what I've been focusing on this year.
You've been saying that for a while.
I know.
Well, one of my fears is that I'm not flexible enough.
That has nothing to do with anything.
It has nothing to do with you not training.
I have people that come to my gym that start jiu-jitsu when they're 52 years old.
Wow.
Or 43 years old or whatever.
It doesn't matter.
You can get in there and you can train.
Be careful.
You don't want to train with like some 19-year-old kid that's been training for like six months.
Right.
That's all crazy.
Right.
That is nothing to lose.
Don't go with him because he's going to take your arm and put it on his wall at home.
You're like, that's the omelet.
You see that one arm?
He's like, oh, I got that hitter.
I got his other arm.
So watch out for that guy.
But other than that, if you find some people that are going to relax, it'd be cool.
And yeah, you should definitely start training jiu-jitsu.
Yeah.
The thing you should do is stretch.
I mean, I hope you're doing like some kind of stretching protocol.
That's a no.
Yeah, that's a no, yeah.
That's a no to start with a why, though.
It's a you know.
It's the exactly.
Yeah, I do know.
But that's why I've been trying to do it because stretching is so unsatisfying.
Yeah.
I find it so unsatisfying.
If there's the Achilles heel?
The Achilles heel for me, or just the thing that I really don't like doing, even though I know it's beneficial, is I don't like stretching a lot.
Yeah.
So because there's just, you just don't, you don't get done.
You know what I said when you always feel better?
Yeah.
There's less of that feeling.
When I get done, I'm not walking around like, yo, I just got done stretching out.
Look how far I can fucking reach, bro.
I don't do that, so that's why stretching.
But yeah, if you got a bad back, you should definitely, there's protocols you can do that'll definitely help your back out for sure.
For sure.
Yeah, no, I think, I think maybe it is time, man.
I think I need some stuff that makes me feel, yeah, I think just that kind of, I think I could, recently I realized I need to put more things into my life that are just fun, you know, exciting, just new adventures that keep me kind of like motivated and keep me doing things.
Like sometimes all I even do is just either podcast or just do stand-up comedy and it's great, but it's not like sometimes adding to my experience.
Yeah.
I love jiu-jitsu because it's always, you can always get better.
You always get tangled up.
You always get tapped out by somebody.
It's always evolving.
That's what makes it.
That's one of the things that makes it really cool is just how much it evolves all the time.
And it's, you don't ever feel like, I got this.
Never feel like that.
You always feel like, I could get a little bit better.
Yeah, I like that.
Here's a guy that has something to say.
Theo, Max from Mississippi.
Gang, bro.
Jocko, what was a light hunt for the first time with John Dudley, Cameron Haynes, Joe Rogan, and Andy Stump?
Yeah, man.
Just got back from a hunt up in northern Utah, a bow hunt.
And, I mean, you couldn't really ask for a better crew of people as you heard.
He just rattled off.
Yeah, I don't know Mr. Dudley, but Haynes is very intense.
He loves to hunt.
Yep, yep.
And Dudley's the same way.
And then Rogan, he loves to hunt.
And then Andy Stumpf loves to hunt as well.
It was my first time going bow hunting.
And yeah, it was awesome.
It was just awesome from the whole experience was awesome.
How nice was the place you guys went?
Was it a nice place?
It was a nice place.
And that's another thing.
So just to clarify, and people, there's like, you know how in different parts of the world, different things in the world, there's like a different, there's like a little subculture in there, right?
Oh, yeah.
So like you're a comedian, and I'm sure there's people that are like, well, you know, you got such a good deal because you got to this thing and people look down on these.
So there's all that stuff.
I didn't really know too much about it.
But, you know, we got, I got the luck and the blessing of going on a really awesome hunt.
Okay.
It's something called private land, which means not everyone can go hunt there.
So there's more animals than there is if you do something called a public hunt.
So public hunt is like you're out there and anybody can hunt there.
Right.
Maybe there's animals, maybe there's not.
Maybe there's somebody on drugs.
Maybe somebody's camping.
Yeah.
So you might go out four, five, eight, ten days.
You might not even see an animal.
Yeah.
And the animal that you're hunting for.
So I got really lucky, really blessed to be tied in with this group and go out there.
And the hunt was awesome.
The whole experience was awesome.
There's something very primal, right?
About going hunting.
Kind of like for me, it's like jiu-jitsu.
I always say there's something primal about doing jiu-jitsu, right?
Like you're fighting.
You know, when you were a little kid and you and your friends would just get sticks and put on helmets and just go to war with each other, right?
I mean, that's what we used to do.
And little boys do that, right?
So there's something primal and instinctive about just war.
Right.
Same thing with hunting.
So you're out, you're stalking, you're sneaking around.
It has a lot of correlations to my old job being in the Navy where you're trying to be quiet.
You're setting up tactics.
You're trying to maneuver on these animals.
Just like you'd be maneuvering on the enemy.
You've got a raccoon under a spot lightning.
You're like, tell us what you know.
We're them hellcat, boy.
Where's a recycling bin?
Yeah.
So that was awesome.
And, you know, going up there, it was really nice for me because I'm very busy all the time.
I always got stuff going on.
And we got up there and like the internet didn't even, it worked.
Like there was one little hill you could go over where you'd get an internet for three minutes.
But I just, because of that, I just said, you know, I'm just going to shut this thing off.
So it was really nice for me to be up there.
And then you have one mission.
You know, and that's what's cool about, that's one of the best things about my old job.
You got one mission.
You go on deployment, you pack up your bags, you leave the world behind, and you have one mission.
And that is to close with and destroy the enemy, take care of your guys.
That's what you're doing.
So that's what this, that's what my first experience of hunting was, okay, I'm disconnected from the outer world and I have one mission.
So it was awesome.
Was it interesting?
Because those are some big personalities.
I mean, those are like a big, you know, that's a unique group that you're with.
Oh, yeah.
The thing is, I mean, all those guys are just great guys, man.
You know, I've known Joe Rogan for a while.
And people, I'm sure people ask you, what's he really like?
Yeah.
What's he really like?
And it's like, he's like just exactly what you see is what you get.
He's super nice guy.
Same thing with, I mean, Dudley has invested personally in like, he wanted me to get into hunting and he gave me a bow.
And again, this is where it sounds crazy that I could be so lucky in my life that one of the best archery hunters in the world would say, hey, I want you to get an archer.
Here's a bow.
Let me teach you.
Cam Haynes, you know Cam Haynes, same thing.
He was super cool debriefing me on stuff.
And then my buddy Andy Stumpf, which, you know, Andy and I, we work together a little bit in the SEAL teams, but, you know, I just being out there with one other SEAL, you know, we just have a connection that, you know, you can only have with that brotherhood.
So, man, it was just, it was awesome.
I look forward to doing it again.
And for me, you know, you talked about getting in this new stuff.
For me, it was totally new.
I never shot a bow and arrow before.
And then I had the opportunity to train and then go out and do it.
So, yeah, it was awesome.
And I appreciate everyone that I just mentioned in that group.
Yeah.
Just great guys.
Was the experience were you, when you're, so when you're getting direction Like on something you've never done.
How is that for you?
Like coming from a place where it's like, you know, you are, you know, you're used to having a good knowledge base of what's going on in your field.
Do you find yourself to be a pretty good student?
Do you find yourself having a tough time being a student?
I'm all ears, man.
I have no problem.
I have no problem at all saying, look, I have no idea.
You know, tell me what to do.
Tell me what to do from the get-go.
No problem at all with that.
How did you find the bowhunting?
Was it pretty tricky or did you find it was...
It's definitely tricky.
How far could you shoot it?
I can see you just fucking Uncle Rico and that bitch over the mountains.
I can see you just being like Cupid, you know?
Really good architecture.
Like Cupid's been in an anytime fitness for a couple hundred years.
I can see you just firing that thing.
Obviously, the better you are, the further range you can go, you know?
But I would say the average normal hunter's probably trying to go 50-something meters, something like that.
He's around.
That's me.
But yeah, that's a little video of me trying to get tuned up before I cut it out.
Regional color.
And did you find, like, did you start to notice that you lost, is it a really fine line between how accurate you can be and the amount of strength you're using and stuff like that?
It's not really a strength thing.
It's technique.
So you can't like just like anything, man.
Just like anything.
I mean, jiu-jitsu is not about strength.
Right.
That's perfectly well.
Have you ever been rock climbing before?
Oh, yeah.
Like rock climbing is so much technique.
So much.
And you think, oh, you know, because I can do, like, like, for instance, I can do a lot of pull-ups.
I do a lot of pull-ups.
I could see that.
And you think, oh, you know, you can just grab on the rocks and climb.
No, bro.
No.
There's so much technique involved that you have to learn the technique, just like basketball, just like playing guitar.
You have to practice.
You have to learn the technique.
And that's the same thing with archery.
And you just have to do it over and over again, like shooting a gun.
You got to do it over and over again.
You got to keep those reps in.
Did you find that as the week progressed, the time you guys were out there, that it got easier for you?
We were patrolling through the woods, you know?
And that was cool.
Again, I was out with John Dudley, who's a master hunter.
Wow.
And just...
And I keep calling it on patrol.
But I suppose it's called we were hunting, we were walking.
But for me, my mind, I was on patrol.
Oh, hell.
You know, so it was good.
What's that?
Oh, you're like, oh, that bison's from China.
And you're like, fucking shooting it.
Yeah.
Dude, imagine sneaking a jingle bell out there with you.
That would ruin everybody's vibe.
You'll have to be real quiet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, we weren't bringing jingle bells out there.
Even one will shake the world up on a hunt.
No.
Got to be careful of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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what else we got nick so uh we had jocko give some advice to will he he was a 22 year old who knocked up his 19 year old girlfriend and he felt like he ruined her life and uh he actually had the baby at the end of august and we were gonna call and uh check in with will assuming yeah because we played a good video and you gave him some good suggestions and stuff we just wanted to check in with him we thought it would be uh just kind of a neat moment for him for sure okay cool we're gonna call him right now then oh we're calling will i'm gonna introduce you guys unless
he's at work hopefully he has a job he got off at five east coast time he's in traffic he probably is with that baby probably crying where's dad Hello?
Hey, Will.
Hey, Will.
How's it going?
What's up, man?
This is Theo.
How are you?
Hi, Theo.
How are you?
Sorry, there's a baby screaming in the background.
I got a rocker.
Yeah, you got that O-spring rocking back there, huh?
You got that plebeiate, plebe, I think they call him.
Dude, I wanted to say thanks for reaching out a while back.
I know you were thinking that, you know, you were, you know, you had the kid on the way.
And we had Jocko willing, you know, we had him offer up a video of some suggestions and stuff.
And then I have Jocko here in the studio.
So I just wanted to just kind of follow up and see how fatherhood's going for you.
And Jocko's got a couple of enlistees that have come out of his own scrodem, I guess, to say the least.
Yeah.
I'll let my daughters know.
How's it going over there?
Jocko.
What's up, man?
I'm doing good, man.
What's up, Jocko?
How are you doing?
I'm doing awesome.
How about you?
I'm good.
First of all, I just want to say thanks for calling Theo.
Thanks for calling Jocko.
I'm really nervous to do this.
Dude, I'm nervous too, bro.
At least you don't have to sit by Jocko, bro.
It's extremely fucking nerve-wracking, bro.
It's like being in every high school class you've ever been in all at once forever.
And the teacher just wants to strangle you.
Dude, I was looking at his Instagram yesterday and I was nervous.
It's very scary, dude.
I mean, I feel you.
I gained two pounds of muscle last looking at his Instagram a couple of weeks ago.
But no, Jock, I wanted to know.
Yeah, how's it going?
It's going really good.
It's really rewarding.
I mean, I'm loving it.
She's my world.
So, I mean, obviously I'm very nervous to do this, so you might have to ask me more questions to get me going.
Are you getting any sleep?
Yeah, I'm getting plenty of sleep.
I mean, I think people make being a father or parent out to be way harder than it actually is.
I like it.
So far, it's been easy.
I mean, like, it's just a baby.
There's like all you really do is you cuddle with her, you feed her, chain her diaper, and you know, that's it.
You just make sure she doesn't die.
Give her some love.
Well, I mean, it sounds like you're keeping her alive, so we got that going for us.
Yeah, I got proof right here.
What were some of your fears like, and what are, have some of your fears gone away since the baby's come into the world?
Like, what's some of that experience been like?
Oh, absolutely.
Before, I was just really worried about, I don't know, just providing for and just being a good dad.
Because, like I said in the original call, my dad wasn't there.
Like, I was afraid maybe when I met her that I would be just like him and just get out of her life.
But I always had this feeling that I could be a good dad, but I just wasn't sure.
So, I mean, after having her, it's just been super easy.
It feels super natural.
And I don't know.
I mean, my fears have kind of gone away entirely, honestly.
Like, everything is so much better.
Well, that's like many things in life.
We build up the fears in our own head.
And once we actually get put in the position, you realize, hey, there's not that much to be afraid of.
And you can proceed on and keep doing a great job, man.
That's awesome to hear.
Yeah, it's pretty powerful, man, to think that, you know, that your life was or your childhood, some of it has been one way.
And then to think that you are going to have a new experience with your own kid.
It's real powerful to hear that, I feel like.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you, man.
I think you should have one, Theo.
I think you should have a kid because, man.
I'll probably move.
This shit's so easy, dude.
Think about taking care of a plant.
That's taking care of a kid.
Buy an orchid.
Okay.
I'll buy an orchid with a strong heartbeat.
See how it plays out.
Yeah, same thing.
Same thing.
Yeah, Nick has a question for you, Will, Nick.
So you were worried about the implications for your girlfriend.
You said she had a bright future in front of her, either she was in law school or medical school.
Do you guys, have you kind of made a plan where she can continue on down that path?
Do you have that figured out?
Yeah, so originally she was going to UMass Amherst.
Oh, yeah.
A lot of chicks put out over there, too.
I'll tell you, that's the truth, bro.
Oh, dude.
Yeah.
Easy, easy.
Sorry, sorry.
Not her.
I'm not her.
Not her, obviously, you know.
Well, she's the one with the baby.
So you're kind of picking the hole, bro.
Never mind.
Why don't you guys finish this question and answer?
Sorry.
Yeah, how were you feeling about the concerns you had for your baby mama?
Well, obviously, that was my second main concern behind the baby.
Like, I just kind of felt like I ruined her life.
Like, you got someone pregnant and they have all these big things coming ahead.
But yeah, we made plans.
Like, she's starting nursing.
Obviously, it's not med school, but she did have to drop out of UMass to go to a local community college, which it still bothers me.
But, you know, we're really happy.
So I think everything just kind of fell into place and we're making plans.
Like, she's doing nursing.
I'm finishing up my degree.
It's just, yeah.
I mean, I don't feel bad about it, but it worked out.
Yeah, it sounds like it's working positively.
Nursing is a great job, man.
And plus, she gets a couple credit hours probably for nursing that baby.
You know what I'm saying, bro?
Blowing milk into that little mouth.
Dude, we should send him some of this.
You want to, Jocko?
Yeah, we definitely should.
Jocko has a new drink out that you can nurse as well, so we'll send you some of it.
It's actually really, really good, brother.
This pineapple coconut, I might fucking relapse, dude.
What is it?
Is it like caffeine, protein shake, or caffeine?
There's some caffeine in it, yeah.
It's like a little mind.
Little mind blaster.
Yeah, just go back and you're working out.
You can step it up.
Oh, yeah.
We send you a little bit of this mind blast.
Jocko called it.
But, dude, that's awesome, man.
It sounds exciting.
It sounds like you're definitely more in a position of, what would you say?
Well, what's cool to me is, look, you have the vision of what the path of your life is going to be like, right?
Everyone's got this vision of what it's going to be like.
And the chances of you actually being able to stay on that path are next to none.
And if every time you get pushed off the path a little bit, you just surrender, well, that's where you end up in a horrible place.
But what you did, and you're setting a great example for other people, you and your girl have said, look, we had this path laid out.
Oh, we just got pushed off the path big time.
But guess what?
We're not surrendering.
We're just readjusting the path.
We're taking a little detour.
We're going to get back on eventually, but the journey is still awesome.
So that's what life is about, man.
Nothing comes easy.
And you're going to look back and you're going to be able to tell your little girl, hey, this is what we did to bring you up.
And these are the sacrifice we made, and it was worth every second.
So what you're doing is awesome.
What your girl's doing is awesome.
And the end result will be infinitely better and more rewarding than it would have been had you just had everything served up to you on a silver platter like you had originally thought it would be.
Yeah, and you know what's funny, Will, obviously you haven't been listening to this whole episode because it's not even out yet, but Jocko and I have been sitting here for about 40 minutes talking about stuff, and a lot of it's been just how some of our behaviors, and even I struggle with this a lot, but how some of our behaviors, once we start to set some new good behaviors for ourselves, how it will influence the next behavior we do.
So yeah, man.
Like patterns, yeah.
So the next thing that comes along for you, dude, I can't, after this, it's probably going to be a damn cakewalk, bro.
You're going to have fucking, you know, funny bones on your feet.
You're going to have sugar on your shoes, bro.
This is going to be a cakewalk.
So it's a little bit more.
I heard this quote the other day.
I think it was Bill Belichick.
He was talking about something like, let's not just have a good day.
Let's have a good week.
Let's have a good month.
And like, just building those patterns and those steps.
So that really spoke to me.
And like everything Jocko is saying and what you're saying, like when Jocko was just speaking, I got the chills because like, damn, man, like, that's inspirational.
Very awesome.
Yeah, I took a lot of what he said the first time and just now like it's it's pretty unbelievable when you reach out and you and you hear these things so well it's funny man because yeah I mean I have some of the same fears in my own life of having children and that sort of thing so it's all kind of full circle dude we're all out here just trying our best and stuff like that but but thanks so much for calling in man and um yeah dude you'll definitely won't get any sleep after we send you a case of this jocko's energy drink bro yeah
no man and io can i ask you one more question yeah how's uh quitting cigarettes going you haven't really talked about it that's true man it's going pretty good i've had half of a cigarette in two weeks so are you lying to me nope i'm not not feel good man good man i feel pretty good man dude you know what you should have had you should have had a cigar with bill burr because that dude was pissed yeah that dude trust me he already burnt me
at a couple of my ends so i don't need it no more no more nothing else getting lit up in this room dude after he smoked me when he was in here i feel like a fucking salmon um what uh what do you have for him jocko thanks so much too will for uh for uh for answering man and your daughter sounds beautiful oh dude she is uh i actually sent your producer her little instagram my girlfriend made instagram for her so if you want to look at pictures of babies then then
you got her she's bald and she's got a mullet just like you guys are in i'm in brother dude she's got a i'll post a nice picture of her mullet and dude she might even be your kid i don't know anything's possible look yeah girls from amherst you never know man hey i wrote a bunch of kids i wrote a bunch of kids books i'll send you out some uh kids books for the for the little baby thank you man i appreciate that yeah and actually one of the one of them says right on the front where there's a will it's
pretty cool um will man be good dude we'll check in oh yeah there she is right there baby a lot oh she is pretty and she does have a moment eliana yeah a lot of babies very unattractive but this baby pretty hot i mean attractive dude you and you and producer nick dude producer nick last night he was loving pictures of her i think he liked every single one on my instagram producer nick's gonna be and
uh obviously indicted soon i told will i wasn't following back he dm'd me from this baby's account i was like uh will man be good dude we'll send you some of this stuff man and um and we'll check in we'll check in on you and uh and baby ileana sounds good man thanks for all you're doing thanks jocko no problem brother all right stay strong cheers brother yep man that's pretty cool huh that is awesome that is awesome that's crazy because
he called and he was like he didn't he was like worried and then you hear the baby in the background and you're like that's a live grenade bro you're scared huh yeah i get pretty scared about that there's a lot of responsibilities at what you're scared of you think let me think about it for a second until i can really feel what i'm scared about i think i'm scared he's not met the right girl i just don't know i i just don't know if i want my life to change that much sometimes if i'm ready
how old are you 39.
cool you know part of that but then part of it like yeah this think about what am i scared of man because i i just want to get it right because i think about it sometimes like yeah i mean the look on your face when you heard that your eyes got big like you just went flashback yeah like somebody just made their own little jurassic park yeah i just don't know here sometimes if i'm ready yeah uh judging by
the look on your face my answer is negative you need to give it a little bit more time yeah i think but i think um I think I want to be a good parent.
I think sometimes I could use, and I don't know if this is a negative way to think about it, but I could use a child because sometimes I think it would give, because I like to care about other people.
It would give me something to care about.
Plus, your dad was like 87 when he had you.
So you're like, hey, I got all kinds of time.
What are you talking about, Jocko?
I'm over here on the slow roll.
We'll make this happen when it happens.
No factor.
Yeah, dude.
So if I even see a girl, like, yeah, my dad was 38 years older.
So if I see like a nine-month-old, you know, even baby Iliana, I'm not hitting on her, but I do want to know what her work ethic is like, you know.
I want to know what kind of woman she is.
You see some potential down the line.
Yeah, I'm thinking down the line, bro.
So that's pretty crazy.
We have a couple of more good questions that came in.
Let's do it.
Hey, how's it going?
This is Jace from Harriman, Utah.
Hey, quick question for Jocko, by the way.
This is my dog, Jocko.
Named Matt for you.
It's a cool name.
Handsome.
Couldn't decide on anything else, so there you have it.
Anyway, Jocko, from listening to your podcast and just some of the podcasts you've been on, it seems to me as if you may be a little bit emotionally detached as well as very self-critical.
I find these two traits in myself to be very prevalent.
My question is, do you find that to be a benefit or detriment in your life?
Where on the personal side, I find it difficult sometimes to relate to my spouse, my kids, my friends, my family, because I just simply do not understand where they're coming from on an emotional level.
So my question is, do you feel this way or have you figured out the balance between the two?
Any advice would be great.
Appreciate it.
Thank you guys for everything you do.
Thanks.
That's a good question, huh?
That's a good question.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I definitely, this sounds like I'm a crazy person or whatever, but I try and keep control over my emotions, as we've been talking about this whole time, right?
Like, I'm not going to fly off the handle.
You know, I don't yell at people.
I don't, I don't, don't get in big arguments with my wife.
In fact, I don't really even argue with my wife, you know?
Like, hey, if she's getting emotional about something, cool.
I just, I just like accept the emotions, try and absorb a little bit, and then figure out how I can de-escalate the situation.
You know what I mean?
Like, that seems to be the smart thing to do.
I don't think I'm too emotionally detached.
I mean, I, I, and if you listen to my podcast all the time, you can hear sometimes I get very emotional when I'm on there because I'm, I'm having memories of my friends or things like that.
And, and yeah, I'll get, I'll get very emotional at times.
I won't let it get out of control, you know, but so I don't think I'm too emotionally detached.
And, and then the other thing is being self-critical.
I, you know, I'm definitely critical of myself, but I think I've found a good balance there.
So, so what does that look like?
I mean, how do we, how do we measure that?
If you're just constantly beating yourself down, that is not positive.
So what am I going to be self-critical?
I will look at myself being so critical of myself that it's causing a negative reaction.
You're being too self-critical.
So balance it out a little bit.
You know, you've got to live your life.
So I always look at all these things.
And same thing when you talk about not relating to your family or whatever.
And I just told the guy this on Twitter.
You know, a guy's like, hey, I'm having a hard time relating with my family.
I'm trying to get after it.
I'm trying to, you know, be my best.
And they're not, you know, they don't get it.
And I'm like, hey, man, it's not about you.
The world doesn't revolve around you.
You got a family?
Cool.
You need to adapt your life around your family.
Here's something interesting that I said the other day.
Like, I've written a bunch of books.
I wrote probably 95% of the pages in all my books when every single person in my family was asleep.
You see what I'm saying?
I didn't sit there and, hey, everyone leave me alone because I'm trying to do this.
I work out in the morning.
Guess what?
No one's awake in my family when I'm working out in the morning.
I'm only awake in the world.
So I sacrifice things so that I can be there and do what I got to do for my family.
I see.
So that's your journey.
So your journey and what you're doing, they don't need to conflict.
Right.
Right.
I don't demand that everyone is on board the same bus that I'm on board.
Yeah.
Hey, I'll get on the bus before I get on my bus and then I drive where I'm going.
And then when my little, you know, when my oldest daughter was a ballerina.
Jesus.
You know what that is?
Yeah, I've heard of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's not my thing, right?
That's not, I'm not into that.
But I went to some damn recitals.
You know what I'm saying?
And I wasn't.
How close were you?
I could see you like 200 yards away, but Benaki.
I can't make it to the recital.
I got to work out tonight.
I wasn't doing that.
I was like, oh, cool.
We're going to the recital.
Let's watch the kids.
And of course, I was a little bit critical sometimes because I'd be like, what did they learn?
Yeah.
How did that help?
But you're watching something crazy.
You're going to stop a fucking falling.
Here's what's funny.
My daughter that was a ballerina got more injuries.
Do you know how psycho ballet is?
She got more injuries from ballet than my other daughter did from wrestling and gymnastics.
So it's a tough sport.
And that's what I realized.
I said, hey, you know what?
She likes it.
It's highly disciplined.
They're super strict.
She used to come home.
I used to have to, you ever seen those things, those like massage things that you roll out?
It's like little, little, little rollers on a stick.
Yeah, yeah.
And she would come, she's like 12 years old.
12 years old.
She'd be like, Can you roll out my calves?
And she'd be sitting there with tears coming out.
I'd be rolling those things out.
Because that's what she's trying to prevent.
And now she's nine feet tall.
If you were rolling out the calves, bro, she probably got three foot of calves on her took.
So like Charleston shoes going on down there below her knees.
Yeah.
So that's the thing.
I'm not making the world.
This is the thing.
The world is not about you.
Right.
So you're not sacrificing the other things that you have to do and your other responsibilities.
Occasionally.
You know what I mean?
Occasionally, it's like, hey, you know, maybe I don't need to watch 14 recitals in a row, right?
Because, you know, the kids will do the play or whatever, and they show at night, whatever.
Six nights, not going to six nights.
Look, I'll be there at the Nutcracker Suite holler when Father Drosselmeyer's in the building.
Otherwise, I'm not.
Exactly.
But I think part of it, do you think, though, that your mentality, because you have to have some elements of, you know, you have to have, I think, probably more like Gr than, you know, do you think that it's tough sometimes to has it, is it tough to manage?
I think maybe, and I'm not saying that's not what he's asking you, but I'm just saying like.
Here's the thing.
What could he be struggling with?
He said it at the end.
He said the word balance, right?
I wrote that book right there called The Dichotomy of Leadership.
You have to balance all these different things in your life.
So as a leader, right?
As a leader, as a leader, you got to communicate with your people, obviously, right?
Can you communicate too much with your people?
Do you think you can?
Yes.
Oh, yes, you absolutely can.
That's where they stop listening to you.
Can you communicate not enough?
Yes, you can.
Now they don't know what's going on.
You've got to be somewhere in the middle.
You know, everyone looks at me and goes, oh, you're super hyper aggressive, right?
Do you have to be aggressive as a leader?
Yeah, you do, because you got to make things happen.
Can you be too aggressive?
Oh, yes, you can.
Can you be not aggressive enough?
Oh, yes, you can.
So where do you have to be?
You have to be in the middle.
You have to be in the middle.
And so it's the same thing with your personal life.
I talk about this all the time.
If I'm, okay, I want to build my business, whatever it is.
I want to do my job.
And the reason I'm doing that is so I can make more money.
If I make more money, I can provide for my family.
So I'm doing this for my family.
So I'm going to work 89 hours a day.
Then you look up in six months, you look up in a year, you don't have a family anymore.
They don't know who you are.
So you went too far.
The other side of the spectrum is you're like, well, I can't do any overtime today because I got to go to the recital and the practice recital.
I won't be here tomorrow either.
And now you look up in six months or a year and you don't have a job and you can't provide.
So what do you have to do?
You have to find the balance.
You have to find the balance with how critical you are of yourself.
You have to find the balance of how detached you're going to be.
If you get too, he talked about being emotionally detached.
Can you be too emotionally detached?
Absolutely you can.
You looking at your kids like with a stone cold face all the time.
They can't connect with you.
Not just your kids.
If you work for me, if we were in a SEAL platoon together, which I know is an unlikely scenario, but if we were a SEAL platoon together and all I did was no connection, just said, hey, here's what the next mission is, go do it.
After a while, you're like, this guy doesn't care about me.
So you're not going to want it.
You're not going to put forth the extra effort.
So one of the most important things that you have to do with the people you work with up and down the chain of command is form a relationship with them.
Same thing with your family.
If you're not forming a good relationship and maintaining a good relationship with your family, you're going to look up and you're not going to have a family anymore.
And that's not good.
So with everything that we're talking about in life, you have to maintain balance.
You have to.
When you get out of balance and you'll feel it, you'll feel it.
When you feel it, when you feel like, oh, my wife doesn't want me to go to jiu-jitsu again tonight, you don't have to think my wife doesn't ever want me to do jiu-jitsu again.
You can say, oh, I have to ease back a little bit.
Maybe if I'm going to go, I got to spend a little bit of extra time in the morning.
You got to find the balance.
You don't have to go extreme one way or the other.
That's what a lot of people do.
They go extreme in one direction, and then anyone that's in their way, they mow them down.
And that is not the long-term results of that is never good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think leadership as well is leading.
You're leading.
It's not just you.
You know, with leadership.
100%.
It's a group.
Yeah.
There's more than just you involved.
And in the long run, if you're like, this is what's cool.
So this is kind of weird.
A guy asked me a little while ago.
He says, he's a guy that we have a big event, a leadership event.
We do it like two or three times a year and people come.
And this one guy, he helps us out with it.
So I see him every time.
We do one of these really good guy.
He's got his own business, really, really good guy.
And he follows what I do.
And he sees that I'm writing 14 books and 97 podcasts and all the stuff I'm doing.
And he goes, you know, I've been watching how much you do, how much you produce, just the raw production materials.
He says, I don't understand how you have enough time for your family.
Like, I don't get it.
How do you do it?
Or are you doing it well enough?
And I was like, you know, that's a good question.
And I didn't have, usually I'm like prompt with answers because I get ask questions all day long like you.
And I said, you know what?
Let me think about it.
And I thought about it.
And what I realized was, and I came back to him the next day and I said, I haven't answered your question.
He says, well, what is it?
And I said, my family at this point in time doesn't really need me that much.
My wife is like really independent and emotionally independent.
And she doesn't need, you know, she sees me and we're just totally good to go.
We have fun and she knows, oh, you're going to go do something.
Hey, I get it.
Right.
You know, my oldest daughter, she's completely, you know, she's 20 years old.
She's in college.
She's doing her own thing.
She's making things happen.
Our kids, you know, she's at that age.
I know what you're trying to say.
Yeah, I was making a bad joke.
Yeah, it was really bad.
My 18-year-old daughter.
My 18-year-old daughter, same thing.
Like, she's on her own program.
She, you know, she'll text me and like, but she's, I have a 16-year-old son.
He's on his own program.
He's fully self-functional, like self-supportive.
They don't need me.
And then the only one that's a little bit needy is my 10-year-old because she's 10 and, you know, she's still a 10-year-old.
So that's where I can focus my efforts because she's younger.
So my point in saying all that is, is that through the years, I balanced, you know, I would just constantly balance and raise the kids where they are self-sufficient, where they aren't relying on me to do everything for them.
My wife the same way.
My wife's not relying on, you know, my wife will handle stuff.
Whatever it is, she can handle it.
Yeah, you got to get a capable.
I mean, people, that's one thing.
If you pick an incapable wife, dude, that's going to be sheer.
And the most part of that capable is emotionally capable.
Because when you end up with a spouse, whether it's the man or the woman, that relies on you to make them feel good emotionally, that's the one that will pick you apart.
So you got to be careful.
That one's a good one to look out for.
So in the end of the day, I guess what I'm saying is you got to have balance.
You got to build a strong structure.
And the point I was going to say with this guy is, is, Jace, while you're investing in your family, you're building them.
You're making your family stronger so that they can stand on their own.
So that in the long run, you have more freedom in your life because you won't have this family unit that's totally relying on you for every little thing.
Which is, by the way, makes them better off in the world.
When they grow up, they go out and they dominate the world because they're capable.
Yeah.
Damn, dude.
Yeah.
I don't think anybody taught me shit growing up, dude.
I don't know if I know what you're doing.
Didn't you learn a lot of stuff from Daniel?
Incapable.
Oh, dude.
Daniel's a fucking bad influence, dude.
He was drinking hot hose water, bro.
First sip.
Oh, no, I know.
You know, I heard you talking on the podcast about how, like, your first girl is sort of like the hot hose water.
And I was thinking, well, that doesn't really make any sense.
And then I realized it does, because here's what happens with the hot hose water.
When you first take, when you first start drinking it, it's all hot and uncomfortable.
But then all of a sudden you get to the cold part and you're like, oh yeah.
So it's the same thing with your first girl.
You're kind of like awkward.
It's all like doesn't taste good.
And all of a sudden you get kind of through that to the coldness.
And you're like, okay, this is good.
So yeah, you do remember that first hose pipe.
Yeah.
Hit her.
Wow, Doc is loving that dinner, man.
That's good, man.
Dude, one of my first girlfriends had real short hair, dude, and she looked like a young man, you know.
And I don't know if I really wanted to be her boyfriend, but I don't know if I had a choice.
She would pick me up and start making out with me.
It was so fucking embarrassing.
And sometimes I would wrap my legs around her.
I didn't know what else to do, bro.
And they would fucking call us all kinds of names.
How old was she?
27. Yeah, I think, I don't even know if she went to our school.
It could have been a woman.
But God, man, that was fucking, everybody has their Vietnam, you know.
That shit was insane, man.
Let's pick one more going for Jocko, Nick.
All right.
One quick Patreon, and then we'll end on a video question.
What war, this is from Jacob Wells.
What war movie or TV show is the most realistic based on his combat experiences?
Oh, that's great.
And Jacob Wells actually know him, and he's from, he has like nine brothers and sisters, and I've met him at a group of shows from Oklahoma.
Anyway, he should have a podcast.
He has great questions.
Like almost every week, I want to pick his question.
A really neat guy.
Yeah, so what's the...
There's two of them.
One of them's called Band of Brothers, which you may or may not have seen.
It's about the European theater.
It's about the First of Vival Six or the Second of 506 Battalion and fighting and easy company.
It's fantastic from a leadership perspective, from a tactical perspective.
That one's awesome.
And then they made, a few years later, they made one for the Pacific theater, which is called The Pacific.
And it's based on several books, which are outstanding books.
I've covered all the books that that series is based on on my podcast.
It's called The Pacific.
It's about the Pacific Island campaign.
And the first time I watched it, I remember I was on a plane and I had like the noise-canceling headsets on and I was staring at like my iPad.
Was it a C-130?
No, no, no.
I was in the civilian.
I was already a civilian.
So I was staring at this thing, you know, four inches from my face.
So I was super absorbed in it.
And what they did in that, what makes me always remember how impactful that series was to me was they land on this island and you're expecting this big crazy battle to break out, but it doesn't.
And so it's showing them patrolling through the jungle.
They're patrolling basically looking for the Japanese.
And the Japanese, you know, had decided.
Is it Iwo Jima or no?
No.
They had decided that they were going to let the Americans land and then hit them.
So these scenes where they're just patrolling through the jungle and you know that they're waiting.
You're waiting for the enemy to attack.
And my last deployment to Iraq, I was in this place called Ramadi.
And when you would walk down the streets or I'd be watching my guys walk down the streets or watching some soldier or watching some Marines.
And the whole time you're watching them, you're waiting.
You're just waiting for the enemy to attack and you're waiting for bullets to come down the street.
And so I had watching that, I had that same kind of anxiety.
And that's when I realized how powerful that miniseries is.
So those two are great.
And those are probably my favorite war, I don't want to call them movies, but they're scenes or it's a mini-series.
That's what it is.
Right.
Yeah, I can really imagine that if it can take somebody like you kind of to that place with that tension, it's so interesting.
It's like, yeah, combat is one thing, but that the energy before something happens sometimes is so severe.
Knowing someone's intent, knowing someone else kind of knows that intent, but they don't really know where the intersection is going to occur.
Just that kind of milling around.
Yeah, and Like we just talked to Will, the anticipation of something is always worse.
Yeah.
And so when you know that it was coming, and when you were on patrol in Ramadi, you knew it was coming.
You knew it was coming.
And so it's just that anticipation.
And from a leadership perspective, your biggest fear, from my biggest fear, was always, you know, one of my guys.
And it's a sickening feeling in your gut, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I mean, you do everything you can to mitigate risk, but you just, you just, and I had that same feeling watching the scenes from the Pacific when they're patrolling through the jungle.
If a guy gets hit, do they look at you?
It depends on the situation.
Right.
It depends on the situation.
Whoever that leader is in that moment is going to step up, make calls, make things happen.
It might be the youngest guy.
Depends who's there.
Was there ever a moment where you had ordered guys into a certain situation and something happened and you're like, and it fell on you kind of, or the guy looked at you even after he'd been hit?
So the weird thing about special operations for us on that deployment was every mission that we did was a mission that I had said, yes, we should do this.
Okay.
So that's every one of these situations where one of my guys got wounded or one of my guys got killed, it's 100% on me.
I mean, it's 100% because I'm the one that's approving the plan.
I'm the one that's saying, yes, this is what we're going to do.
And that's one of the different types of stress that you get in special operations because in a conventional unit, generally, not always, but they're getting a little bit more tasking from higher.
Hey, here's what you guys are going to do.
You can figure out how you want to do it, but this is what you're going to do.
No one was really tasking me most of the time.
It was my guys coming up with plans.
Hey, this is what we think we should be doing.
me saying, yeah, it's a good plan.
So yeah, that's something that you- You're like in a golf cart or something.
It depends on the situation.
I had basically 40 SEALs.
Sometimes they were elements as small as five guys, and they'd be out there.
Sometimes I had three or four elements out on the battlefield at the same time.
I would be back in a tactical operations center.
Sometimes I'd go out, if it was a big, giant kind of combined operation where we were working with a lot of different units, I'd go out with them.
Sometimes I'd go out with them just to go out with them.
But sometimes the best place, most of the time the best place for me to control what was happening was in a tactical operations center.
That's just the way it is.
And so, yeah, it's one of those things that as a leader, I mean, you're ultimately responsible for everything that happens.
And that's a heavy burden to bear.
And it's one that you're going to have to live with for the rest of your life.
And it's one that I wake up with every single day.
And I'm not mad about that.
I'm not mad about that burden.
In fact, to me, that burden is a reminder of the guys that made the ultimate sacrifice.
And I'm honored to have had the experience of serving with them.
Yeah.
Man, yeah, I can't imagine just the camaraderie, the repercussions of such severe camaraderie as going to war with people.
Yeah, I couldn't even imagine, you know, it's something that I could even recreate emotionally or inside of my own brain, really.
It's pretty fascinating because it's so severe.
It's just such a finality is right there on the line.
Yeah, and you do.
You develop the strongest brotherhood with the people you're on the battlefield with.
And we were working with alongside soldiers and Marines all the time.
And the relationships that we developed with them, every time someone gets, which in Ramadi, there was guys getting wounded and killed every day.
And you're going to their memorial services and you're seeing the angel flights, which they call them, which is when they take their bodies out on their last helicopter ride home.
And yeah, it's very severe.
And it's one of those things that, I mean, there's nothing, for me, there's nothing else will ever compare with all that.
There's just nothing in life will impact me as much, leave me with as much pride and at the same time as much sorrow as those days for me.
And that's the way most guys end up feeling about being in the military and going overseas on deployment.
Going through experiences like that where people are losing their lives and people are losing their abilities and their capabilities in war and in combat, has it adjusted your faith at all over the years?
Or has it affected that at all?
Or has it created it?
The biggest thing is from what I've seen, right?
When you're in war, you get to see the absolute best in human beings and you get to see the absolute worst in human beings.
I mean, we saw unspeakable evil, right?
So if you want to talk about Satan, you want to talk about pure evil, when you go to war, you get to see it.
When you face an enemy like the insurgents in the Battle of Ormati that were doing the most heinous things that you can imagine, then you realize that evil absolutely exists.
And whatever you want to attach that to, you can do it because it's there.
And at the same time, you also get to see, you get to see humanity that's making sacrifices above and beyond anything that a normal human being would do.
Pure good.
And so from a faith perspective, what you get to see with your own eyes is evil, pure evil, and you get to see pure good.
And that, I think, that leaves an impact on everybody and definitely left a mark on me for sure.
What you got, Nick, the last video?
Sure.
Let's do a super quick one.
That'll be a really quick answer just because I'm curious as well, and then end on one that he can expand on, actually.
Okay.
Hey, what's up, Theo?
This question is for Jocko.
I was wondering what your best powerlifting numbers were ever and what your powerlifting numbers are currently.
Dang.
Dang, this guy's trying to be your chef or something.
This guy's trying to spot you.
My traditional answer when people ask me what kind of weights I'm lifting is not enough.
You know, because you're always trying to get better and trying to get stronger.
Oh, yeah, of course you are.
Yeah, well, at least I am.
So let's see.
I think the most I've ever deadlifted, you know, this is another big, you know, you're asking me what people think when they meet me.
Oh, people try to ask this all the time.
No, they ask all this all the time.
They also think that I'm some superhuman athlete, which I'm not.
I'm not, I'm not.
And I've explained this over and over again.
I'm not the fastest.
I'm not the strongest.
I wasn't like, I'm not this super athlete.
And I explained that to people all the time, even jiu-jitsu, people are like, oh, that guy could never get tapped out.
Come to my gym.
Watch me get tapped out.
Like, it's the reality of it, you know?
But yeah, to try and answer this guy's question without avoiding the question or whatever.
I mean, I hardly ever.
Be honest, Jocka.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been two cans of this, man.
I hardly ever.
I hardly ever bench press anymore because I don't like it.
Because you're an adult.
Well, I don't like what it does to my shoulders.
Yeah.
I know deadlift, the most I've ever deadlift is five, 500.
Jesus.
Which is, no, it's not.
That's on five.
Yeah, that's, that's, I don't know what I'd be deadlifting today.
Even though, you know, I deadlift on the regular, you know, but I'll do, I'll do, I'll do, yeah, you know what it's like.
Yeah, of course, man, yeah.
Squat is another one.
I mean, you know, this is one of those ones where from a powerlifting perspective, I don't know what the actual number would be because, like, when I squat, I go all the way down like into the hole.
You don't have to really do it.
Yeah, well, no, I'm not saying that.
It's just that that's what I do.
Right.
I don't even know what my numbers would be right now.
Would you have three plates on each side, you think?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I used to do two and a half.
That's 315.
But yeah, dude, to answer your question, I'm not some super strong dude.
You're probably strong.
If you're working, if you're a powerlifter, you're stronger than me.
I'm not.
Like, well, not you.
Yeah.
I know that.
Even if you were a powerlifter, you wouldn't be stronger than me.
Yeah, well, I mean, you never know, bro.
You know what I'm saying?
You think you could take me in a minute, bro?
If I'm in a fucking slick suit, bro.
I'm trying to think of what the most I benched ever was.
It's not some huge number.
It's funny, when I was at SEAL Team 2, there was a guy in my platoon who was this little short guy.
He looked kind of chubby.
And I actually went through SEAL training with him.
And he could run faster than me, and he could bench more than me.
Yeah.
And he was a great guy.
He's a great SEAL.
But, you know, if you looked at the two of us, you'd be like, oh, yeah, Jocko could crush this guy.
No, he could run faster than me and bench more than me.
Do you think at some point it comes down to people's, there's something different in certain people's muscles, the way their bodies are built?
For sure.
You heard a fast twitch muscle and slow twitch muscle.
There's another kind of muscle called medium twitch muscle.
Oh, yeah.
And that's what I have.
My muscle I know likes to watch cold pace files.
I've definitely noticed that, bro.
I have a lot of what's called medium twitch muscle.
So if I put a rucksack on, I can go for a long time and not get tired.
I can almost pretty much run with that, but I would lose in a marathon and I would lose in a sprint.
But if you put me with a rucksack on, I can go for a really long time.
It's good for grappling, like not wrestling, because wrestling's super explosive.
But for jiu-jitsu, for a long, like, you want to roll for 40 minutes, I'm good, and I'll stay steady that whole time.
What professional wrestler did you ever see?
And you're like, oh yeah, I'm like that guy.
You know what?
I never really got that into wrestling.
Yeah.
Into professional wrestling.
If you threw some names out, I might be able to remember one or two.
I met Hulk Hogan one time.
You did?
He was large.
Was he?
Yeah, he's big.
Like, I guess they all, you lose perspective when you see him on TV, but he was a really big guy.
Yeah.
Dang, I think, yeah, I think his daughter had a crush on me for a little bit, but I could be making that up.
But here, this guy has a question.
Cool.
Jacko, Theo.
First things first, this stuff is amazing.
Oh, wow.
That is good.
Question is, if a guy is upper 20s, early 30s, is it even worth considering enlisting and contributing to eventually the NCO Corps?
Or would you recommend every time to go the officer route?
And to make this a little bit more broad of a question for the general audience, how would you apply this question to a generic entry-level position at a large organization that's been established for a long time or trying to just go in straight to a management position?
Do you understand that question, Theo?
I do, but I want to make sure that you do.
I guess he means, no, I don't.
Okay, so in the military, there's basically two, it's like a caste system.
Okay.
There's officers and there's enlisted people.
Officers are like the prescribed leaders.
Okay.
And there's enlisted people, which are the prescribed grunts.
Now, within the grunts, there's a rank structure and you can advance up that rank structure on the enlisted side.
On the officer side, they're same thing.
You advance as you go forward.
E8, E4, E3.
Yeah, that's the enlisted side.
So you start off as an E1 and then you go up through E10, E9.
That'd be an E walk, I think.
Yeah, for a while.
The officer, same thing.
Now, the only difference between these two people is the officers went to college.
That's what happens.
So if you go to college, you can go in as an officer.
It's not guaranteed, but you can go as an officer.
What I did, I started Off enlisted, and I got picked up for this awesome program and got moved over to the officer side.
So I got to do both.
So his question is: he's a little bit older.
Should he try and become an officer?
And or if that doesn't work, or should he go enlisted?
Maybe not if it doesn't work.
Because I was going to say, here's what you should do: you're older, you got some experience in life.
If you can, try and become an officer.
That's fine.
If you can't, because it's more selective to become an officer immediately, go into the enlisted situation.
The other question that people ask me a lot when they're 29, 30 years old, they got a life, they got a family, they got a job, but all of a sudden they wake up one day and say, man, I don't feel like I've sacrificed.
I don't feel like I've given enough to the country.
I want to do something.
Yeah, I remember asking you that last time we were on.
Yeah, and I probably gave the same answer, which is check out the reserves.
Go and see, go in the National Guard, go in the Army Reserves, go in the Marine Corps, go in the reserves.
So where you do one weekend a month and two weeks in the summertime.
Now, you have to remember that you could get called up.
When we got to the Battle of Ramadi, that whole area was controlled by reservists from, you know, guys that were in the National Guard.
There's a National Guard unit out of Pennsylvania.
They were total studs.
And they were there for 14 months, I think, fighting.
So, you know, these guys were teachers and plumbers and electricians and whatever.
And all of a sudden they were there fighting.
So it can really happen.
You can't just think, oh, it'll never happen.
No, it can absolutely happen.
But I think that's a good thing to do.
And as far as which one you should go into, I mean, I loved the fact that I went in as a grunt and came up and there's something romantic about that kind of thing.
Well, there's just a weird way.
I guess if you're weird, but there's also some factual things, right?
You learn what it's like.
You learn from the front lines what it's like to be a grunt.
So now when you get moved over to the officer, you can at least you have the experience and you understand it.
But that being said, there's great people.
That's called a prior enlisted officer.
There's some prior enlisted officers that are awesome because they have that experience.
There's also some prior enlisted officers that are just as bad as any other officer.
And there's officers that never were enlisted that are fantastic.
It really boils down to you and your personality and your leadership capabilities.
That's what's going to make you good or not, not the experience you have.
Just like, you know, there's some colleges like the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy or West Point.
Citadel.
Citadel, you go to four years learning how to be a military man or military woman.
And you might think, and I know I thought this, I thought, man, those guys are going to be so good because they have all this knowledge.
It's not true.
There are some great ones.
There's also some bad ones.
There were some great guys that went to 13 weeks of officer candidate school and then were an officer and they were awesome.
Some of them were not awesome.
So what really matters is what you bring to the table.
That's what matters the most.
I remember the ROTC kids, they used to just end up, they all bought race cars and used to race them out back of the school and everything.
And they half of them didn't do shit, I don't think.
But do you think if we that was a dead end, if there ever was one.
Tell me about it, dude.
I mean, not just their personalities, but that whole story.
It like kind of sunk my heart a little bit.
I expected it to go somewhere, and then it just went to silence, and we were good.
Yeah, that's one of those things you scratch off the list of things to talk about.
Dude, look, trust me.
When I put that idea in the first gear, I was fucking, I was ready to move into this.
It sounded good out of the gate, but man, went downhill quickly.
If we fought aliens or when we fight aliens.
Yes.
Or robots.
Do you think we will have a chance?
Yes.
Would you?
Wait, robots or?
I threw robots out there because people are always asking me about the robot wars.
I think robots.
Yeah, I just hope there's no like, you know.
I think robots will be fine.
I could beat up a fucking microwave.
You know what I'm saying?
Dude, I'll beat the shit out of a toaster with a bat.
But what I'm saying is this, especially if I had fucking a can and a half ago right now, dude.
You know what I'm saying?
I'll fucking suck sort of Hyundai right now.
But what I'm saying is this, aliens, if aliens come, would you re-enlist?
Yes.
Okay.
And who would you take into battle with you?
It's just like, it's like that movie Armageddon.
You got to take five people into battle with you.
Oh, I got a list of guys.
Yeah.
Okay, well, rattle off a couple, sir.
Well, I can't because they're, you know.
Oh, okay.
They're working.
Okay, I see.
So we can't use their names because they're working.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, most of them.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, let's say then.
I had a guy, I have had a guy on my podcast a couple times.
His name is Tony Afrati.
And him and I grew up in the SEAL teams together.
And then he was one of the platoon chiefs over in Ramadi with me.
And I actually started off the podcast saying, hey, if there's some, if there's a list, everyone has a list of guys that, hey, if it goes down, I'm bringing him.
Tony's one of the guys.
Tony's him.
He would be out on like a five-day operation in 120-degree heat, and he'd bring nothing with him but a can of Copenhagen and like a little half-liter bottle of water.
Oh, that sounds like doing cocaine out in Vancouver.
No factor.
No factor at all.
And no qualms about it at all.
No qualms at all.
Wow, making Copenhagen soup.
Yeah, that's crazy.
So yeah, there's a bunch of guys like that, man.
There's a bunch of just guys that are just, that's what they're born to do, man.
That's what they're born to do.
From the Jocko Podcast, man, thank you so much, bro.
Thanks for coming in, dude.
It's so awesome, man, because sometimes life is like you never know kind of what you need.
And then life kind of like gives you, you know, it just kind of where you are is where you're supposed to be.
You know, it's like some of you don't realize that.
But I appreciate you being here today, man.
Thank you so much, dude.
Thanks for having me out, man.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.
I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking break and let myself all mine shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine on me.
And I will find a song.
I will sing it just for you.
And I've been moving way too fast on a runaway train with a heavy load of mine.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Hi, Sui.
Easy deal.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
Jamain.
Ha ha!
I'll take a quarter potter with cheese and a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
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