This episode is brought to you by 511 Tactical, a company that I've used for well over a decade,
and they have created a limited edition everyday hero shirt.
There are only 2000 of them available and 100% of the proceeds are going to go to charity.
And on top of that, for every purchase, they're going to donate an N95 mask to first responders in New York City,
which is certainly one of the hardest hit areas in America during this crisis.
And on top of that, as always, they still are offering the 15% discount to all listeners of Behind the Shield using the code SHIELD15.
And I just want to go over some of the products that I've featured in the past that I think are incredible.
So you have the Norris sneaker, which I think is a great comfortable alternative to the heavy cumbersome duty boots.
You have the uniforms, some of which I wore over a decade ago in Anaheim Fire, which I think are some of the most comfortable.
And come in a variety of fits to make sure they actually do fit the responder.
The AMP backpack, which I've used from hiking to loading with plates on a cruise ship to exercise in,
to traveling across the world when I see family and do interviews.
And then more recently, the shorts and the jeans are incredibly comfortable.
I've been using them as well and some of the flashlights.
So there are so many things that will add value to your work life and your home life in their catalog of products.
So just to reiterate again, go to 511 Tactical.
That's 511TACTICAL.com.
Use the code SHIELD15, save 15% and make a difference in your community.
Welcome to episode 313 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing.
And this week, I'm so excited to welcome back retired Navy SEAL officer, Jocko Willink.
Now, Jocko was on the podcast on episode 109.
And if you missed that, I highly advise listening to that episode as well.
In that discussion, we definitely focus more on leadership pertaining to the tactical space.
In this conversation, I wanted to draw out tools that we can use as we find ourselves leaving this pandemic and forging that new normal.
So lessons learned from this isolation period.
The way some businesses have refrained themselves to more of an online platform.
Finding efficiency, overcoming fear, mental health, physical health and so many other topics that I hope will enable people to create a better version of themselves.
Before we get to that interview, as I always say, please just take a moment.
Go to iTunes, Stitcher, whatever you listen to this on.
Subscribe to the show so you know when each episode comes out.
Leave feedback. I love reading the feedback that you write and then leave a rating.
The five star ratings really do make this podcast more visible for people who are looking for a project like this.
And as I mentioned over and over again, this is a free library of some of the greatest minds on planet Earth.
And I urge you to use this individually in your department, wherever you feel it's pertinent.
And all I ask in return is that you help share these amazing men and women stories so that we can get them to the ear holes of every single person on planet Earth that needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you again, Jocko Willink. Enjoy.
Jocko, I want to say thank you so much for being so kind and generous with your time to come back on the Behind the Shield podcast.
Thanks for having me.
All right. So where are we finding you on planet Earth today?
I'm at home in San Diego, California.
Brilliant. So firstly, it's very sad. I think last week you guys were supposed to be here in Orlando, is that right?
Yeah, we had an event planned for down there, but because of the virus, we had to cancel it.
Right. So I guess my first question would be how have you personally in Echelon Front been doing with this shutdown?
Obviously, one of the big things that you do is go out to two companies.
So what's been the impact for you business wise and personally?
Well, you know, from a mission perspective, our mission hasn't changed at all.
What we do is we try and teach the leadership principles that we learned on the battlefield to other businesses, other companies and other leaders.
So that mission hasn't changed at all.
What has changed is our venue for making that happen, where, as you just pointed out, we used to do a lot of face to face events with people, with companies, with businesses.
And now we're doing it all remotely. So we were heading in that direction.
We had made some strides and some some footsteps down that pathway.
We had an online platform that we have been utilizing, but we went from, you know, going five miles an hour with that platform to 100 miles an hour in about four days.
So it's been awesome.
Brilliant. Yeah, I think that's a dialogue that's been happening a lot with companies around the world is realizing that some of the brick and mortar models
that they had were inefficient.
You know, you get these men and women getting in their car, fighting traffic for an hour and a half to go and sit in front of a computer they could have actually done from home.
So do you see a change in the kind of business model as far as that's concerned in the future when we come out of this?
Yep, I think a lot of people are going to be a lot more comfortable working via what we used to call VTC in the military video teleconference.
So I think everyone's getting used to it. They're using it to socialize.
And when you're using something to socialize and it actually becomes easier, then people will start to lean towards it.
And I think that's what's happening.
Right. Now, what are you personally what are some of the things that you've you found in a positive way since this isolation has happened?
I mean, for me, it's just another day. Obviously, I'm not traveling, which is kind of nice for me.
It's actually very nice for me. I don't like to travel.
So for me to be at home and be able to hang out with my family, this is the most days I've ever spent with my wife in a row.
So, you know, we've been married for almost 20 years.
So that's been pretty cool.
On the other side, what are some of the negative things that you've witnessed, maybe not in your own household?
Because I think I'm like you, we've had a very positive time so far, but I'm aware of people that definitely have been struggling as well.
Have you seen any negative effects of this at the moment?
You know, I'm sure there's all kinds of negative effects out there.
You know, if people have are in a bad relationship or have a bad fractured family scenario and you put it under this kind of pressure, it's going to fracture even more.
So I think anybody that's in a tough spot is probably going to end up in a tougher spot.
Well, if they if they have those fractures that start to spread apart.
So every every different person's got to look at their situation and say, am I going to am I going to close this up or am I going to make it explode?
Yeah. Now, what about the leadership thing? So I'm very interested to get your perspective on this.
I'm not picking on any specific public figure.
We have a whole gamut from the very top all the way through to local government.
What are some of the good things that you've seen leadership wise and some of the poor things you've seen during this specific event?
The good thing I've seen is I've seen some decentralized command happening where, you know, different different down the chain of command.
People are taking actions, which I think is good.
You know, the president was saying, hey, governors handle this and the governors were stepping up and handling things.
And below them, the mayors were stepping up and handling things.
And decentralized command is the way to get things done.
Also, the decentralized command of the free market, you know, with the early getting people to start making ventilators, there's no way that the government could have pulled that off.
You just go to the free market and say, hey, if you make these ventilators, you're going to make money and people figure out how to make it happen.
So that's been good. The problems I've seen is people not saying not just admitting that they don't exactly know what's going to happen,
which if you're in a leadership position and you don't know what's going to happen, the best thing to do is say, I don't know what's going to happen.
Here's my here's the things I'm planning for. Here's what I'm going to watch out for.
And here's some contingencies I have set up. But I'm not 100 percent sure of what's going to happen.
The other thing is, from a leadership perspective, if you make a mistake or you make a bad decision, you just say, hey, you know what?
I just made that call two weeks ago. It was it seemed to be the right call at the time.
It wasn't the right call. And we're making some adjustments now.
Do you think that attitude has been discouraged?
Because I know in the political arena, you know, someone changes their mind, they get called wishy washy like it's a negative thing.
And to me, obviously saying, yeah, I screwed up or my philosophy is different than a year ago because of X, Y and Z is a very positive, powerful thing.
Yeah, I think people people are scared of it.
It's just like it's scary to take ownership of something and say it was my fault.
You multiply that times the media frenzy and the political hatred.
Then everyone has a hard time saying, you know what? That was actually a bad decision I made.
Here's what I want to do now. Yeah, I agree.
100 percent. If you truly own it and someone says, well, you changed your mind.
Yeah, exactly. I know I made a bad decision and I fixed it.
That's what I that's what I will always do.
I'm not going to draw. I'm not going to fly a plan into the ground.
I don't work that way. Yeah. Well, another thing is education.
You know, I mean, I'm sure some of these some of these leaders were advised one way.
And then as they got more information and maybe some better advisors in in their ear,
that the decision changes because they have a better information and that now turns them towards a different path.
Yeah. Well, of course, the same thing in the military.
You know, you get pieces of intelligence that come in at different times.
Sometimes they're contradictory to each other.
And you take those things, you weigh them out.
And if more information comes in, it changes. You adjust your plan.
It's no factor. Yeah. Well, you mentioned the media.
So it's an area that I talked with Tim. Tim Kennedy was on about three weeks ago now.
Is you know, you have what's actually happening and then you have this fear mongering.
And sadly, some of our news networks left and right make money from clickbait.
You know, and that's just that's a known thing.
So what kind of sickens me is the message that some of these these men and women are getting around the world is that of just fear and a lack of control.
When obviously the reality is, yes, there is a dangerous component to this, but there are many things that you can do,
many things that you can even gain positively that we spoke of before.
So what are you seeing as far as that fear mongering side?
Well, any any media companies trying to make money by getting people to click on their headlines?
That's why the headlines are as shocking as they can be and as controversial as they can be.
And that's what they're doing. So if you know that you go into it knowing that,
then you can look at various media news sources and just accept the fact that they're going to put out information that's more meant to shock you than it is to to educate you or or provide you with information.
Yeah. So where have you personally gone for good information during this whole thing?
Well, what I do is I just look at a bunch of different news sources and just take them all with a grain of salt and balance them out.
It's the same thing when you do with your gathering intel for for an operation.
You know, you don't just you don't just look at the overhead imagery.
You look at the overhead imagery. You check the the intelligence sources.
You check human human intelligence. You you try and corroborate stuff as much as you possibly can.
And and then you figure you you make your best assessment of what's correct and you make a plan that is not so rigid that if you are wrong, which you know you could be, you can adjust your plan.
Absolutely. Now, with the fear side, you know, obviously, this would be interesting getting a military perspective, even though this is a different kind of fear.
It's like an unknown enemy in a way.
And a lot of people have never prepared for this. What would be some of the advice you would give for people that that are scared right now and kind of pulling them out to mindset where is more actionable?
Well, just like any threat, you have to assess the threat, figure out what the actual threat is.
And there's going to be parts of the threat that you aren't going to be able to control.
You know, there's some chance there's some chance you're that one young, healthy, you know, 32 year old man that happens to get covid-19 and dies.
The chances of that are miniscule. But if you focus on that, you're going to be paralyzed.
You won't be able to do anything if you instead look at it and go, OK, well, there's a small chance.
But here's here are some things I can do to mitigate that risk.
I'm going to implement those things to mitigate the risk and move forward.
That's what you do. The same thing you do in combat.
You know, you can get you can get killed by a roadside bomb. That can happen.
No doubt about it. And if you focus on that fear and focus on the fact that you can get killed instead of focusing on how you mitigate that risk,
you're going to end up in a worse position than if you just say, OK, it's possible.
Now, I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to focus on the things that I can actually control and focus on mitigating the risk.
And you'll you'll get through it.
Yeah. Well, speaking of factors that we can control for me personally, as a firefighter paramedic,
having seen the ground level for the last 15 years, a glaring thing that seems to be a huge risk factor for having a severe reaction to Covid
is the the individual's health.
And yet, sadly, in a lot of these mainstream arenas, we're still not seeing that discussed.
So which lessons do you think we should take from this as far as the nation's health in general?
I mean, I mean, I guess you could take it from Covid-19 if you haven't figured out that you should try and remain healthy and eat good foods and work out.
And I can't really help you.
Yeah, well, I think that's that's a sad thing.
I mean, there's so many people out there that are are trying to bring great information, education, be inspirational.
But it does seem to fall on deaf ears.
And we do have an obesity crisis and diabetes is rampant.
And I think there's a there's a bleed into the mental health side with the obesity side as well.
And so I think this is at least an opportunity to get more attention to highlight that as a as a nation, we're not as resilient as we could be.
Yeah, work out and eat good foods, eat healthy foods and work out.
Absolutely. All right. Well, then what about the knock on effect as far as the financial side?
What are you anticipating?
Well, it's it's hard to it's hard to predict what's going to happen there. And, you know, you can even get once again,
contrarian views from different people in different parts of the media and even different people in the finance world are making different types of predictions.
I would say to me, there's there's not an underlying economic issue like there was in the 2007 2008 crash,
where there was there were some pretty significant problems with the structure of the economy at the time.
This time, it's the fact is we shut it down and hopefully when we open it back up,
you know, it'll take a little bit of time to get back, get back up to up to speed.
But, you know, there's been a bunch of money that's been injected into the economy.
And I I hope that the recovery will be, you know, relatively quick.
Now, are you surprised by some of these large businesses that literally a few weeks into it were folding?
I know Gold's Gym is one of them. I think that was only four weeks into closures that they announced bankruptcy.
Well, you've got to you've got to set up your business just like you set up your life.
And if you're living paycheck to paycheck, then you're then if you run into an emergency,
you're not going to be able to get through it. So you want to if you're running a business, it's the same thing.
You want to have enough money, you know, a set aside for emergency scenarios like this.
You know, I have a gym in San Diego and it's it's a big giant gym with 2000 members in it.
And it's been shut down, you know, for a couple of months now.
And we we are doing a bunch of repairs to the gym. We're refitting a bunch of it.
We're getting it ready to open back up again, hopefully soon.
But, you know, we had enough money to to get through the hard times and we that's what you do.
You know, same thing with that's along the front, you know, immediately, I think, four days after things started shutting down,
we had canceled 37 events in like three or four days.
So guess what? It's OK. We you know, we have money set aside.
We're not living paycheck to paycheck as a business.
So, yeah, it's a good lesson learned. Hopefully people can get through it.
The government came to the aid of a lot of people, I think, and a lot of businesses.
So hopefully that will help out and it will remind people that in the future, you know, you want to be able to fend for yourself.
Yeah. And it seems like it's highlighting again, some inefficiencies, you know, the gyms that are gyms or online businesses or any kind of business model that is efficient seems to be a little bit more resilient during this.
But one that's just stuck in a kind of brick and mortar arena that's not able to deviate from that seem to be the ones that are most at risk.
Yeah, I mean, for sure. You know, around here, I live in San Diego and the restaurants are definitely hurting and restaurants.
That's a very, very hard business to be in. And yet, if you've had a business, if you've had a restaurant for 10 years, what happens is it's easy to get complacent because you've had consistent.
If you've got a successful restaurant, you're getting you're getting consistent income month after month, year after year for five, 10, 15 years.
And so you get to a point where you've sort of set up this this cycle of survival, where, you know, you're not you're not you're not setting aside a bunch of money to survive a catastrophe like this.
And you know what? It's OK. You just got away with it for a decade.
You know, you got away with it for a decade. And now it just it hurts right now.
And it may end up costing you the business. So it's smart to set things up. It's smart to just live within your means and run your business within your means.
Yeah. Well, I mentioned the health of the nation.
One thing I wanted to get to when I was on that topic and I passed it was Tim and a couple of the military guests I've had on mentioned about the pool that they were able to pull members of military special special operations from
was getting smaller because the nation was was losing some of its inherent health.
Is that something that you've seen with the men and women that you work amongst?
The the people that are going in the SEAL teams right now, the guys, the guys are beasts.
They're total studs. I don't know.
I don't know what the pool's like, but I know the guys that are showing up there are in way better shape than we were back in back in the day.
Right. Now, what do you think that is? Is that the movement across it and Jiu-Jitsu and some of those other arenas?
I think they just have more knowledge. You know, when I came into the Navy, I didn't didn't even, you know, for me, a good pull, a good workout was to go and do, you know, five sets of max pull ups, you know, and and and finish a workout doing whatever.
Seventy five pull ups or something like that.
I never would have thought of doing, hey, I'm going to sit here and do five hundred pull ups or eight hundred pull ups.
And everybody knows to do that now. So, you know, same thing with running, same thing with lifting, same thing with squatting.
There's just so much more information out there. I mean, I couldn't go back to the library in 1990 and find a book about how to get better at pull ups.
But you can go on the Internet right now and get 10000 articles about how to get better at pull ups.
So there's more information out there and people are taking advantage of it.
Absolutely. Well, speaking of that, I've been focusing a lot on gymnastic work while we've been using the home gym again.
What are some of the things that you've been doing, not being able to be around, you know,
multiple people in the gym setting to improve your either your fitness or your Jiu Jitsu game?
You know, I have a gym in my house.
So, you know, with all the necessary things to get good workouts.
And so that's fine. And as far as Jiu Jitsu for me, it was just a little time to.
I've always found that if I was forced to take some time off from Jiu Jitsu, it allowed some stuff to gel inside my head.
So I just was like, OK, cool. I'll do some other things, you know, shoot my bow and arrow.
You know, there's the waves have been good. So I've been surfing, just doing some other things.
And I'm about to start doing Jiu Jitsu again. So no factor. Get back into it. No big deal.
Absolutely. I've been hitting the heavy bag, which I neglected my striking for years and years and years.
And it was absolutely humbling at first because I could barely kick above my waist.
But just working on the weaknesses instead.
OK, so then I wanted to get to the the school thing as well.
I know you've got some some children and older and some that are still school age.
How have they handled the shift from regular school to home school?
They're just doing the classes online and, you know,
they're spending more time surfing and working out than they were before because they have more time at home.
You know, no big deal. I don't think it's a big deal.
No, I'm saying that's an improvement.
And I'm not saying that my son my son misses school.
He wants to go back to school. But it's just been interesting the areas of school that that,
you know, the pros and cons of the way we do it right now.
I just had a guy from Finland on two days ago who goes around the world talking about different school systems.
So, you know, I'm seeing some pros with him and he's really enjoying this time at home.
And as you said, getting to do more play.
But then, you know, he's sitting down having to do the online stuff, too.
Are they do they seem an improvement in other areas of mental health, happiness, anything of that?
Or are they pretty much the same?
I have three daughters and one son.
I would say that my son couldn't be any happier than he is right now.
Seventeen years old, he's working out three or four hours a day.
He's surfing three or four hours a day.
I'd say it's no factor for him.
My girls are doing great, you know, touring college, but they're now they've been sent home from college to do their studies at home.
They're doing fine. And then I have a 10 year old daughter and she's doing what she does.
She's getting in the water, surfing, working out, doing her schoolwork online, doing a bunch of projects.
So I think it's just no factor.
Yeah, actually, I think that's the thing is it's a win win either way.
So speaking of kids staying on that subject, I reached out to you via Twitter, which I barely ever use.
A little while ago, because my son had been going through some stuff and it was tied in definitely to to what was going on in the other household.
Sadly, we're divorced and the the second warrior kid really was one of the things that he connected with.
So what's some of the feedback now?
You've got multiple different titles in that series from some of the parents that you're having reaching out to you.
Oh, it's the best feedback ever.
You know, the the big thing is, is I would say the main feedback from parents is first of all, obviously it helps the kids out.
But second of all, it helps the parents out.
And third, I'm not telling the kids things that the parents don't want the kids to know.
It's just that kids have a higher tendency to listen to Uncle Jake than they do to their own parents.
And hey, I don't mean that to be insulting.
Look, I got I got four kids and I can tell you right now we all know that there comes a certain age and a certain time when your kids are going to be rebellious.
They have to be otherwise.
They're not they're not being they're not being led correctly, because if they're not rebelling against you in some way,
that means they're looking for your protection and looking to to stay underneath your wing, which they should be wanting to get out from your wing.
That's what that rebellion signifies to me.
So they're going to be looking for other sources outside of you to guide them.
And that's just the way it is.
And if you provide them with a source, then that source will give them information that you want them to have.
It'll be from an alternate place, and it makes it more palatable to them when they're going through their rebellious stage.
And by the way, the rebellious stage starts at birth.
You know, they're they're pushing the envelope when they're born.
They're trying to figure out what they can get away with.
And, you know, they they oscillate between, you know, being extremely rebellious and slightly rebellious.
And sometimes they may even wander for a few moments into the obedience stage.
But my kids, none of them ever spent very much time in that in that phase.
So Uncle Jake is a is a guy that they can look to that will pretty much give them the same values that most parents want their kids to have.
Hard work, discipline, be clean, work out, eat right.
I mean, what parent doesn't want their kids to do those things, but they hear it from a source that's different, that's outside, that they have a respect for.
And it provides those kids with a framework to live a better life.
You think it's the same element is why when people do find someone they consider a mentor, that relationship works so well.
I guess so. You know, the the idea of mentors is something I know is is very prevalent in the world.
People talk about mentors and I just.
You know, I never used that word. I don't think I even heard that word until I maybe I maybe I was 10 years into the Navy.
Maybe I heard it once or twice, but there was there was no time in my life where I said, oh, yeah, this individual is my mentor.
I never said that. I never thought that I never had anyone come to me and say, hey, I want to mentor you.
That being said, I was absolutely watching the people around me looking at them, seeing what I could learn, asking them questions,
mimicking the things that I thought they did well, rejecting the things I saw leaders do that I thought didn't work.
So I understand mentorship as a concept, but it was never a huge part of my life, probably because I never looked to one individual to be my guide.
I always saw certain aspects of people that that was good.
And then I would usually see certain aspects that were bad.
So I always had an open mind and just look to learn as much as I can, could both from the negative and the positive that I saw.
Yeah. And that's kind of how I perceive it, too.
I know there's that one philosophy where it's a human that kind of walks you through the entire human experience.
But it's more to me if someone asked me, what are the the 10 most influential people in your life that that combined experience of all those men and women would be, you know, my mentor experience through through my profession.
Yeah, I agree.
Right. Well, then I just want to stay on the parenting for one more thing.
A few people when I asked, you know, do you have questions with Jocko online?
Parenting did come up over and over again.
So is there any kind of principles or philosophies that you and your wife had raising your children?
Yeah, it's it's the same principles that I talk about from about leadership all the time.
You know, give people you want somebody to make something you want somebody to carry out a mission.
Don't tell them exactly what it is, how you want them to do it.
You say, here's the mission. Get it done. Figure it out.
Take ownership of it and go make it happen.
Don't try and box people in. Don't try and control them.
Give them as much give them as much liberty to maneuver as you possibly can.
And as long as they treat that freedom with responsibility, give them more.
And if they if they take advantage of that liberty, then you tighten them up and you teach them about consequences.
So it's the same leadership principles you have to use all the time.
You know, stay detached from people, cover and move for them.
Keep things simple. Prioritize next. You decentralized command.
It's the same things that that I've written about that I talk about the thing.
The thing that separates leading a team from leading your family is that with your family,
you have to you have to pay more attention to staying detached emotionally because because it's our family and we care deeply about them.
We have a higher tendency to lose our temper, to get emotional, to allow something to bother us more than it should,
to want to control people more than we would in a normal person that we weren't related to.
So you have to use greater caution in controlling your emotions.
Right. Now, what about the balance between the philosophy of walk softly, but carry a big stick?
You yourself, obviously, are a very alpha figure, you know, physically and in the world in general now.
How are you able to balance them being hard with that soft kind of compassion, kindness element as well?
Well, I'm not sure that that that phrase of speak softly, but carry a big stick.
I mean, that means, hey, I'm not going to sit here and run my mouth.
But if you get out of line, I'm going to smack you in the head with this giant stick.
You know, that was that was that was America.
You know, America is not over here making a spectacle.
We're just over here doing what we're doing.
But if you get out of line with us, you're going to you're going to get the big stick.
So I don't know if that really translates to the dichotomy that you're talking about possibly of or that you're perceiving that.
Hey, as a parent, perhaps I am, you know, super aggressive in some ways and yet, you know,
caring in other ways, and that's just not a accurate perception.
I mean, it's not an accurate perception with my family.
It's not an accurate perception with with with people that I work with either.
I mean, I'm not the only the only humans in the world that would ever feel that I was a
an aggressive person that was going to do everything in my power to destroy them would be people that were the enemy of my country or people that betrayed me.
So and that's that's so as far as working with my family, I mean, my family is not thinking, oh, you're super aggressive.
You know, people that work with me aren't thinking, oh, you're super aggressive until they see me, you know,
dealing with a, you know, somebody that's crossed the line.
And then and then they might see, oh, OK, yeah, don't don't cross the line.
That's a good idea. Yeah.
But I'm not even talking from a parent point of view.
I'm talking about raising a little boy, a little girl that that is kind and compassionate.
But in the world of kindness and compassion, you also have to give them the tools to to be able to function.
And like you said, if they are required to protect themselves, God forbid that they have those tools as well.
So I don't mean big stick as far as an aggressive thing, but the hard skills of, you know, jujitsu, for example, strength, fitness
versus the soft skills of being a caring, gentle child as well.
Yeah, I mean, you you definitely want to teach your kids so that they can handle themselves, no doubt about it.
You want them to be strong and tough and resilient and be able to, you know, get physical if they need to.
And, you know, that's that's just sort of part of life.
It's a part of life that often gets ignored, but it's a part of life that you shouldn't ignore.
It's a part of life that if you ignore, it ends up being much, much worse for you in the long run.
But yeah, as far as you know, when I look at those things and that's kind of what I did in the warrior kid books,
you can see the constant theme in those books as far as relationships with other kids is understanding what the other kids perspectives are,
whether it's Kenny Williamson, whether it's Nathan James, any of these kids.
The idea isn't, oh, they're different from me.
That's why I'm going to be mean to them or that's why I'm allowed to lash out at them.
The idea is they're different than me.
Why are they different? How can I help them?
How can I understand where they're coming from?
And that's what I try and teach my kids.
Brilliant. Love that. Well, speaking of compassion, as I was writing to Jamie,
one of one of the moments, one of the things that you've spoken about that I think has had the biggest global influence,
especially outside the men and women that maybe would naturally be drawn to your work,
is the kind of sound bite they did of when someone wrote to you and Echo was reading out the question
and it was a man who'd lost a child and they asked you how you deal with grief.
So I thought the response was incredible and I saw the impact that it had.
Even when I posted just the comments that I got.
When was your first moment of grief that you started down that road of really understanding?
Because that's the emotion that you can't understand until you've personally experienced it.
Yeah, well, I mean, unfortunately for me in the SEAL teams,
you know, we have gone through a lot of that and personally, you know, I've lost a lot of friends.
And so I guess if I was to dig into it,
the first friend that I lost in the SEAL teams was a guy named Alton Lee Grizzard,
who was murdered in 1993 in San Diego and was a great guy, total stud.
You know, he was the quarterback at the Naval Academy, broke all of Roger Stalbach's records,
just a beast of a guy, charismatic, funny, charming, humble, just an incredible guy.
And he got shot by another guy from the Naval Academy, you know, over a girl.
And then the guy killed the girl and then the guy killed himself.
So there was no, you know, there was no outlet for anger or anything like that.
And yeah, that was the first time I ever went and he was a great friend of mine.
You know, we had a lot of incredible times together.
And, you know, his dad kind of knew who I was from him.
We had a couple, we'd made some really funny videos.
He was one of the first guys I knew that had a video camera.
And so we had made these really funny videos and he had shown his dad all these videos
and we looked alike.
So we kind of looked like brothers and we would tell people we were brothers and we just had a great time.
And so when he got killed, that was kind of my first experience and I was younger, a lot younger.
I think I was 22 at the time.
So, you know, I didn't really, I just, you know, just gutted through it like anybody.
But when I started losing guys in combat, you know, Mark Lee, Mikey Monsoor, Ryan Job,
those guys, I had to really think through it and see things from, you know, I was older than,
I was able to detach a little bit more.
I was able to understand what was happening.
I was able to see what was happening.
And even though no one had ever explained it to me, once I started doing reps in those
categories, you know, once you start doing things over and over again, and like I said,
these were not, you know, I had lost a couple of friends before that.
Once the war started, I'd lost like the first several SEALs that were killed.
I knew all of them.
And so, you know, each time I would feel a little bit of grief and start to go through it.
But then I think, you know, when I started losing my own guys that I really knew that were really
good friends that were, you know, in my unit, then I got to see that experience repetitively.
And then it continued on.
And because the wars lasted so long, it was just repetitions, getting the reps in and
recognizing what was happening.
And it became very obvious.
I saw the, you know, once I went through it once, then twice, then three times, four times,
five times, you start to realize, you start to see the same patterns and you know what's
going to happen.
And then somebody asked me that question and I just related what you're going to feel.
And what was interesting when I said, hey, here's what you're going to feel.
People that had been through it all said, yep, that's exactly what it is.
That's exactly what it is.
So I don't know.
Maybe I'm unlucky that I've had to experience enough loss to go through those repetitions
over and over again and actually be able to document what they are.
But I'm glad I was able to at least get something good out of it because the scariest thing
about it for someone is that you don't have, there's times where you're not in control,
you know, and if you're, you're like me and you're like have good control over your
emotions and you're a grown man and, and you realize, oh, you know what, sometimes you're
just not going to have any control over what's about to happen for the next 20 minutes.
You're, you're going to be a disaster and that's the way it's going to be.
And that can be a nightmare if you don't know what it is.
If you know what it is, then you go, okay, this is just one of those waves hitting me.
I got to go with it for right now.
It'll be over in a little while and they will subside over time.
Yeah.
Now when, when you were going through that, obviously there are all kinds of routes that
we can go down, some more positive than others.
Were there any kind of positive outlets that you would lean into when you were going through
periods like that?
Um, well, when I was overseas fighting, like just get back to work and deal with it later.
No one wants to hear that.
But the fact of the matter is when you're fighting in war, you don't have time to take
a big break and process everything.
So you just put it in the back of your mind until you get home and you can, you can go
through it later.
That's what you have to do.
And I think the human, human mind is pretty adept at making that happen.
Um, you know, but what would I do?
Yeah.
Do jiu-jitsu, surf, um, play guitar, hang out, hang out with my family, hang out with
my friends and watch the sunset and appreciate it.
Yeah.
Gratitude definitely seems the enemy of sadness.
That's for sure.
Um, well in episode 160, you did the New York life, um, episode and you talked about losing
Seth and this really kind of resonated with me because in my career personally, I've lost
tens and tens of first responders, you know, but none of them were what we would class
a line of duty death.
They were, you know, outside events, either something like a car crash or cancer, auto
immune disease, suicide overdose.
I mean, just a host of things, but so there wasn't that kind of, almost like Hollywood
ridiculous facade that well, we died doing what we love and all that stuff.
It wasn't, it was watching them fighting some horrendous tumor until it finally snuffed
them out or, you know, I'm not going to go into too much, but, and it seemed like that
particular one was incredibly hard for you, because Seth was obviously a very close friend,
but it wasn't in combat either.
Did you struggle with the fact that, you know, the, the, the way that was written was so
different from what soldiers firefighters are prepared when they enter, you know, a
life threatening scenario.
Um, did you struggle with dealing with that because it didn't fit the narrative, I guess?
Uh, no, I just, I was just, uh, hard because he was my best friend and, and a one of a
kind human and he was gone.
Right.
Well, in the, the letter that he wrote, it sounded like, you know, he, he was, uh, dealing
with some things that he brought back from war.
When, when you were in command, um, something that, you know, I think is very important
is vulnerability.
Obviously Jason Gardner was incredibly invulnerable in the interview I did with him and then Iris
on yours and she came on mine with Jason as well.
Um, it's so, so important for, I think for, for people that we admire to be vulnerable.
Um, how were you able to create an environment that the men under your command felt like
they could talk?
Like it was an open door policy, but from an emotional point of view?
Um, I guess if I was able to do that, which I'm not sure I always was because, you know,
I think guys always would have a hard time telling me that they were, uh, having issues
because, uh, they knew I was, you know, um, a hardcore guy and they would be, they wouldn't
want to let me down.
That's primarily what it was.
So I always had to kind of proactively make sure that guys were talking to me if they
needed to talk to me.
Um, but you know, I think guys would have the same attitude around these things as they
did around the fact that if they didn't like a plan that we were going to execute, they
would say, Hey, we shouldn't do this operation that way.
We should do it this way.
Or if guys were, if guys were getting worn out or they were too tired, someone would
come to me and say, Hey man, guys need a freaking break or this guy needs a break or I need
a break.
So I think it's just having the relationships with your team to make sure that, to make
sure that they can come to you and say, Hey, look, I'm, I'm done.
And you also got to pay enough attention to them because a lot of times they won't come
and tell you that you got to pay enough attention to them that at least with me, like people
don't complain to me, you know, people don't come, come to me and say, Hey, I'm tired.
Hey, um, unless there's, unless there's like a real serious problem, they don't just randomly
complain so I have to be proactive about making sure I'm checking in and, and, and measuring
where guys are at.
Because also when you're in a leadership position, everything's fun and everything's awesome.
And you're not the one that's, that's getting, you know, loading up your gear one more time.
You're not the one that's following.
You're the one that's leading and it's more fun to lead.
And so you have to be careful and think about the fact that when you're following, it's
harder.
It's harder on well, at least for some people, some people would rather follow some people's
attitude is like, they would rather just have me say, Hey man, here's what we're going to
do.
And they go awesome.
And they want to go execute it.
Other people, they would rather be the one that's, you know, has more control over their destiny.
So the bottom line is to answer your question, you got to have relationships.
You got to know your people well enough.
You got to talk to them and make sure that when they feel bad about something that they,
whether it's a plan, whether it's their emotions, whether it's the way you handled something,
if they're afraid to tell you, then, then they're not going to tell you.
And that's a problem.
And so, like I said, I wasn't, I didn't give off the, uh, the, uh, the face of, Hey, come
and tell me what all your issues are.
So I had to be proactively get it out of people and check in with people and make sure that
they were okay.
I mean, I remember my first deployment to Iraq, there was a guy that was like, I just
want, he was walking around our, our chow hall area and we had little boxed milk.
It was goat milk and it tasted like crap, but whatever.
And he's freaking out.
I just, I want some real freaking milk.
Why can't, why don't they have cows?
What's wrong with this?
And I was like, you know what?
I'm sending this guy back to a little logistics rod and for a few days to go get some, you
know, go, go get some weapons parts or whatever I made up to get this guy on a plane, get
him down to afford to, to a less intense area and pick up some weapons part.
Meanwhile, get some real freaking milk.
So he chills out.
You know, it's interesting you say that because I've mentioned some a few times with some
of the other guests in the fire service, you know, when we saw what we think was a, was
a hot button, you know, the, the perfect fireman thing to do was to start pushing it, you know,
messing with someone.
And now, you know, retroactively looking back, you see some of these men and women that actually
were were struggling.
So they weren't just being pissy.
They weren't just, you know, in a shitty mood.
It was a reason they were.
And I think that I hope that the philosophy has changed a little bit with us now, like
you were saying, to, to be able to differentiate between someone just being, you know, for
lack of a better word, little bitch that day and someone who's truly hurting.
And I think that the tricky thing about this is the fact that we have to create an environment
to be looking out for each other, but then also an environment where that person that's
in pain feels comfortable to reach out.
And that's, that's a pretty hard balance to find.
Yeah.
And there's a dichotomy too, because you can just, there, there's some guys that they're
hurting and you go, Hey bro, suck it up.
And that's actually what they need to hear.
And so the idea that what everyone needs is a shoulder to cry on somebody.
Sometimes people need like a smack across the face and like, Hey man, get a grip.
This is not a big deal.
We need to move forward.
That's okay.
And, and to think that every time someone says, Hey, I'm emotionally hurting you, you
know, the response is, well, what can we do to, you know, bend over and support you and,
and give, give you the, you know, the, the massage that you need to get you through this.
Sometimes what people need is, Hey man, this is no big deal.
We've all been through what you're going through right now.
You need to suck it up and get your shit together.
So let's not get crazy and think that everybody that has emotional issues is going to, you
know, needs some, um, some, uh, like I said, some, some emotional coddling.
Sometimes people need to get told, Hey man, get a grip on reality.
We got work to do.
And I've, I've used that eight times, nine times out of 10.
That's what people need.
That's what they actually want.
And then occasionally you get someone that you say that to, and you can see the look
in their eyes.
No, they're not going to get, they're not going to make this happen.
This isn't, they're not going to get through this without a break, without some help, without
a longer talk, without some, some kind of intervention that's going to, that's going
to move them to the right place.
Yeah.
Now an interesting thing came up a little while ago and it made me think of, you know, I want
to make sure that we talked about it.
I had a lady on Dr. Sally Spencer Thomas, who is kind of mental health professional
and she works not only with first responders, but with the construction industry and they
were seeing a lot of issues there.
And one of the things she talked about was control, which is an interesting topic seeing
as we're in a, an environment at the moment where some control has been taken from some
people, IE opening their businesses.
But I think that an area that I really learned from, from some of the other seals that I
had on was how you had that decentralized command.
You had this group of men that were trained and you would, you know, rotate the pseudo
leadership roles and there was that kind of band of brothers feeling.
And to me, from a mental health point of view, that seems like a great way to be.
And I've seen the same thing in the very cohesive fire crews that I've worked with where we
do tell each other everything.
I've literally had, I've been at a funeral of a fireman who took his own life, where
one of my men that I worked with called me in tears because I'd written a blog about
mental health saying, I realized now I've got PTSD, you know?
So even though I hadn't worked there for eight years and he was two and a half thousand miles
away in California, he still reached out to me to talk to me.
That is, you know, I think that environment.
And they also then underline the opposite where if you have the kind of micromanagement
system where men and women, let's say in the fire service, police service, whatever department
they're in, don't feel like they have a lot of control, then that splintering is not only
bad from a leadership point of view, but also from a mental health point of view as well.
Well yeah, the one of the things that I teach leaders in the civilian sector is a lesson
I learned in the military sector, which is I couldn't, I couldn't pay you more money.
I couldn't, I didn't have the ability.
Look, I could get you a promotion once every three years and you'd get an extra $280 a
month, but that's no, that's no real immediate gratification reward.
The best thing to compensate people with and the thing that people value actually more
than money is control over their own destiny.
It's freedom.
That's what they value.
And so if you worked for me and you did a good job, I couldn't give you more money,
but I gave you something even more valuable and that's freedom, freedom in the way you
did your job, freedom from micromanagement, freedom to come and go when you wanted.
As long as you were doing what you needed to get done, you had all the freedom that
you wanted.
And so yes, if you're don't give people freedom, then they, they, they suffer, they suffer.
But the other thing is when you don't have control over yourself, that doesn't feel good
either.
And that's why, you know, when it came, when it, when it comes to, when we're connecting
some of the dots here, you know, one of the things that I talked about on that, on the,
you know, getting people through when, when you're going through grief, when you lose
someone, part of it is, Hey, you can't, you're not going to be able to control some of this.
It's just not going to happen.
You're not going to be able to control your emotions.
You're going to break down.
You're going to cry like a baby and it's going to last 20 minutes and then it'll be over.
But there's nothing you can do about it.
You just have to deal with it.
But like I was saying before, sometimes when I would tell a guy, Hey man, get a grip on
your emotions right now and start acting like a man, we got work to do.
People would take control and when they would take control, they would say, Oh, you know
what?
I got this.
I can get through this.
So look, it's a fine line and I'm no mental health expert.
All I can tell you is, you know, what, what I've been through and what I've seen.
So there are times, yeah, where people need some, where people aren't in control and they
need help.
They need guidance to regain it and really that's what it is.
If you think about what a mental health practitioner does, they're trying to steer people where
they can get control of their, their mental status again.
But there are oftentimes where if someone says, you know what?
I'm not going to let this happen.
I'm not going to go down that road.
I'm going to take control of this and I'm going to move forward.
So and sometimes all it takes is someone saying, Hey man, you don't need to, you don't need
to act like this, get a grip.
And they go, you know what, Roger, you see that even in basic seal training, someone
would be, you know, ready to quit and someone else would say, Hey, shut up, don't quit.
And you'd see the guy kind of shake his head and go, yeah, Roger, that get back in line
and go do what you're supposed to do.
And if you didn't push them in that, if they didn't get pushed in that direction, they
made it may have gone and quit on the spot.
So that, that happens in with every emotion, you know, and I think people might be a little
bit nervous to say these kinds of things in this day and age.
But it's just, it's just what I've experienced, you know, and I've seen it, I've seen it
with my friends.
I've seen it with my close friends.
I've seen it with guys that work for me.
Hey man, shut up, stop acting like that and get your shit together.
And guys go Roger that and they go and do it.
Yeah, you sound like my internal monologue.
I'm about to quit myself.
Yeah, I think, I think the, the place where we get in trouble is we assume that one thing's
going to work for everyone and like, and you've illustrated it perfectly and thank you for
that.
You know, there are some of us that need to kick up the ass and it might just be that
we, you know, one day when you kick up the ass, next day, we need a hug.
Who knows?
But I think that when there's this argument, I know this is the right way of doing it.
This is the right way of doing it.
It's that's the problem.
If you, if you're telling, you know, giving people, well, here's the different options.
And as you said, you tried one and you saw in their eyes that wasn't the right one for
that time.
Then you, you know, you move to a different tactic.
And I think that's what I see goes wrong.
So so many times in, in, in fitness and nutrition and so many things is treating every human
being as exactly the same.
You've got to find, you know, what works for each particular person that you're dealing
with.
And the same, I think with a crew dynamic in a fire service too.
Yeah.
I mean, I read about them that and leadership strategy and tactics.
I don't think I've heard a better metaphor for it, but if you're a woodworker, you've
got to know what different tools to use on the pieces of wood.
And then you've got to know that there's different types of wood and the different types of wood
require different applications of those tools.
And then you've got to recognize that every piece of wood in every type of word is an
individual piece of wood that has its own individual knots and, and, and bowing to it.
And you've got to be able to adapt your tools and apply them correctly.
And if you can't do that, then you're going to ruin that piece of wood.
And it's the same thing with a human being.
Every human being is different and sure.
There's different categories of them.
You know, you've got guys, that's a hot head.
You've got a guy that's detached.
You've got a guy that's got a giant ego.
You've got a guy that's not confident.
You got everybody.
And you can, you can predict these different types of wood and you can read them.
But then once you start applying your tools to them, you got to remember that that guy
with a big ego also has some weird, you know, sadness about something that happened to them.
And the guy that's that lacks confidence or the guy that's not confident is also, you
know, super paranoid and you've got to use your tools correctly.
And you've got to modulate the application of your tools based on the feedback loop that
you get from people.
Yeah.
And you're right.
That's such a great analogy and it's so true.
And I think that that's as leaders, you know, we that's reps, as you were saying before
about grief as well, the more attention we pay, the more humility we have when we make
a mistake leadership wise, the more ability we're going to have to make the right selections
in the future.
Yeah.
And this doesn't mean that you, this doesn't mean that I, as a leader, every time I talk
to my 20 man team, that I have to break each individual directive down to each individual
person.
It means that when I give broad direction, which hits the bulk of the people, it hits,
you know, the, the middle of the bell curve solid, but there's some outliers on either
side that I might have to reinterpret it for offline and say, Hey, you know what?
I actually want you to do this.
Hey, you know what?
Can you actually push over here so that the folks that are outliers that don't receive
the normal message, you give them a little adjustment to get them moving in the right
direction.
Yeah.
So I want to ask you a question about, you know, ego and humility.
What has been your experience from going from, you know, a very well known figure within
the Navy to, you know, retiring out, starting up the podcast, writing the books and now
being this incredibly well known figure globally?
Have you had any bizarre moments during all that?
Not really.
I mean, I'm honestly still doing the same things that I, that I've always done, you
know?
When I was in the Navy, I woke up in the morning, I worked out, I went to work, I worked hard.
Um, I, the last few years that I was in, I actually taught leadership.
So that's the same thing I'm doing now.
And yeah, I mean, it's look, you can, I'm just, I'm just doing what I've always done.
It's nothing special.
Uh, there's, there's a little bit more, um, there's a little bit more of a window into
it now for more people, but I'm no different.
It certainly didn't make me any better than I was.
I've, I've always been, you know, I've, I've never been spectacular at anything and I'm
no, no more spectacular now just because I have a YouTube video or whatever.
You're an influencer now.
Um, well, speaking of people who are very prevalent and, and, you know, are influencing,
obviously one of your friends is Joe Rogan.
And recently I've been, I've really enjoyed him having these politicians on.
Now I'm, you know, blanket statement.
I'm not a huge fan of politics in general, but listening to Dan Crenshaw, listening to
Bernie and actually them having a platform of, you know, two plus hours to speak is really
such an incredible experience to humanize these people.
I know you went on with Tulsi Gabbard, listen to that one as well.
So again, not asking you to pick any, any public, um, affiliations or anything, but
just in general, what do you think as a nation we need to do to, um, you know, to improve
leadership all the way at the very top?
I'm not saying that any left or right is wrong up to this point, but it seems like the system
does seem to churn out the same kind of people over and over again.
Um, I'm, you know, like I said, I'm excited about someone like Tulsi or anyone else like
that, someone younger, someone with different backgrounds.
So what do you think as a nation, um, we can do to, to maximize the leadership in those
top positions?
I think the, the fact that you like these long conversations, I don't think you're alone
in that fact.
I think a lot of people, when they hear someone explain their ideas and they can understand
what ideas a person have has better instead of having someone's entire, you know, political
viewpoint cut down into a 45 second soundbite that gets played on the news and chopped up.
I think that's one of the problems.
Uh, and it, it makes people very polarized and you have to realize that every, like,
you know, when you come up with a plan, people are going to have different ideas about the
plan and people, you know, I, I'm very good about, you know, if one of my, one of my guys
comes up with a plan that's better than mine, I'm all about it.
Even if they come up with a plan, that's not as good as mine.
If that's a decent enough plan, I'm good with it.
I'm not going to get caught up about it, but people, it turns into a, a lot of these things
turn into an ego battle of my way versus your way when actually what we want is the best
way.
So I think these long form, um, interviews and people understanding people better and,
and, uh, having good conversations over an extended period of time is going to help us
out eventually because you'll start to see what ideas actually work.
You'll start to see them get holes punched in them or, or get them bolstered up as more
information comes to light.
So yeah, I mean, I, I certainly hope that our country moves in that direction.
You know, I think, you know, you mentioned Tulsi and she's, uh, she's very liberal in
a lot of ways and Dan Crenshaw is very conservative in a lot of ways.
And yet I'm friends with both them and, and they're friends with each other, which means
they can actually have a conversation.
And even though they may never agree on a bunch of different issues, maybe they can
get together and say, you know what?
I think this thing over here, you think that thing over there, here's a solution that will
probably appease, you know, most of what I want and most of what you want seems good
enough.
Let's go with it instead of no, I'm over here in this camp.
You're over there in that camp.
I hate you.
You hate me.
So I think people need to open their minds a little bit, understand other people's perspectives
more and not be so dug in.
You know, it's another chapter from leadership strategy and tactics.
Don't dig in, you know, don't dig into a position where you can't maneuver from it.
And people do that all the time, especially with politics.
Absolutely.
Well, you've mentioned the books.
Let's go to that now.
So what made you write leadership strategy and tactics?
As I continue to work with people all over the country, I would get the same questions
over and over again.
And the questions weren't so much, hey, what does the principle cover and move mean?
Or what does the principle simple mean?
Or what does the principle prioritize and execute mean?
Or what does the principle decentralized command mean?
Or what does the principle extreme ownership mean?
They understood what the principles meant.
What they had a hard time was actually taking those principles and figuring out the strategies
and tactics to implement those principles.
And I would answer these questions on my podcast.
I'd answer them in real life to companies.
And so I just started saying, no, I'm going to I'm going to start logging these down.
And the questions that would keep coming to the surface, I just answered them in the book
so that someone could pick up the book and say, hey, my boss has a big ego.
How do I handle it?
My subordinate doesn't want to listen to me.
How do I handle it?
My my subordinate doesn't agree with my plan.
How do I handle it?
My troops are morale is low.
How do I handle it?
My men still pride in my troops.
Just every standard leadership question, which I hear all the time, I put it into the book.
Brilliant.
Now, the the code, the evaluation and the protocol that you wrote with David Burke,
what's the difference with that one?
Well, that's not really about leadership.
That's just about you as a human being.
And you know, the thing is, we all go through life.
You go through life.
It's like if you were if you were going on a hike somewhere, if you don't have a destination
that you're going to and you don't have some waypoints along the way to make sure that
you're tracking to get to the destination, you're never going to get anywhere.
And people go through all life all the time without having a destination.
And maybe they have a professional destination.
But what's their family destination?
What's their physical destination?
What's their what's their intellectual destination?
And they just don't have these things.
They don't have a path that they want to be on or that they that they can follow.
And they don't have any protocol to handle situations that come up.
And they have no way of evaluating what it is that they're trying to achieve.
And they don't even have a code that they're making decisions by.
It's actually insane that you think about that, that there's not a code that people
can make decisions by.
There's not an evaluation to assess where you're at.
And there's not protocols to handle situations that unfold in front of you.
So wrote a book called The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols.
And it's very simple, very straightforward.
It's meant you can definitely utilize it as is, but it's meant for you as an individual
to build upon and say, you know what, here's another area that I need to evaluate myself
in in order to make progress.
You know, whether that's playing guitar or whether that's building a relationship with
your son or whether that is figuring out the best way to correct your finances.
You need to build an evaluation so that you're seeing how you're doing.
And so that's what the book is for.
And people have been stoked on it.
Yeah.
Well, that's bringing up a topic that I've wondered as well.
I'm wondering how many people having been forced to not work, obviously, if they're
not in the frontline personnel that have given this time and actually took a step back and
said, I don't want to do this job anymore.
I'm not enjoying it.
As you said, it's not getting me to a specific purpose.
I found myself falling in there.
I had bills to pay and here I am 10 years later.
So I think this would be a great guide for people to do a self-evaluation during this
time and ask themselves, are you going back to a job that you love?
If you are, fantastic.
But also, has this time given you a moment to realize you have one lifetime?
That's it.
Are you doing that dream job that you always wanted to do?
And if not, how do you get there?
Yeah, no doubt.
And you know, it says in the beginning of the book, here I got a copy.
I'll read it.
It just says without an objective, the objective will not be reached.
Without a goal, the goal will not be achieved.
Without a standard, the standard will not be met.
Without a mission, the mission cannot be accomplished.
Without an ideal, the ideal will never be realized.
Without a clear path, the path cannot be followed.
That's the opening of the book.
And then it says, yet we as humans often go through life without any of these.
And so we wander.
We wander aimlessly, moving without making progress.
Days, months, and years passes by.
Time is wasted.
It means life is wasted and our potential is wasted.
Our own potential squandered.
So that's how it opens up because it's true.
If you don't, if you don't have a goal, you won't make it.
So why not set it up, assess your life, figure out what code you're going to live by, and
then evaluate yourself and how well you do staying within the confines of that code.
Absolutely.
I just bought, it was from the Five Minute Diary.
Publishers called the, I think it's Productivity Diary.
But it's just some goals every day that you write down.
And it's amazing how effective that simple process of just making a list.
This is what I want to do.
And not beating yourself up if you hadn't got it, but you slowly, you know, working
your way up the steps to two, three weeks later, you realize you're actually getting
a lot done in a shorter amount of time that you had just by prioritizing.
And I know prioritize and execute is one of your main philosophies.
It is indeed.
Yes.
I always say if you've got stuff you need to get done, write it down and go do it.
Absolutely.
Well, just one last area I want to touch on before we kind of transition to some closing
questions.
People ask as well about work-life balance.
So you are incredibly productive.
Obviously, you're writing, you're doing the podcast, you're out there actually teaching
face to face.
How do you personally balance the work life with the home life?
You know, I got asked this question by a guy that helps echelon front at the Musters.
It's a guy named Alan, great guy.
And he said, you know, and he's been kind of following along and helping us out since
day one.
I think he heard me on Tim Ferriss like a lot of people did and then, you know, hooked
into the Jocko podcast and the books, the whole nine yards.
He's been in the game and he said, you know, and he's, you know, he watches everything
I'm doing and all the different podcasts that are coming out and gets every book.
And we met at the Muster, you know, for which we always meet at the Muster.
We were assembling at the Muster and he said, you know, he's like, I want to know if you're
doing okay when it comes to your family life.
Like, and if you are, how are you doing it?
And I said, you know what, let me think about that and let me get back to you.
And so I thought about it.
And I, next day I said, Hey, I haven't answered your question.
And he said, okay, cool.
I said, my family is a decentralized unit that does not need me to be there all the
time.
They, like, you know, you go through my family, starting with my wife, my wife is an independent,
you know, active, very engaged woman.
And when we are together, it's great.
And when I'm not there, she's doing what she's doing.
She's working out, she's involved in charitable organizations.
She's, you know, doing stuff with our kids.
She's got all kinds of things that she does that she likes to do and that don't require
my presence.
My oldest daughter, she's in college.
She's totally independent, self-sufficient, self-starter, makes things happen, doesn't
need anything from me.
My second daughter, also in college, self-starter, never had to tell either of my daughters to
do homework or study for a test or check on their grades or be home at a certain time.
Total just self-sufficient humans.
My son, totally on his own program, gets straight A's, works out every day, trains, is nice
and respectful to other people, you know, trains jiu-jitsu, wrestles, surfs.
I will do all of those things with him, but he doesn't need me there for any of them.
And my youngest daughter, this is the, you know, since she's only 10 years old, she needs
the most from me.
But even she's old enough and on her own program enough to make things happen, she doesn't
need direct supervision from me.
So because I have a decentralized command in my family, the family isn't all reliant on,
you know, dad doing this or dad doing that.
When dad's not there, they go and make things happen.
Do I love hanging out with my wife and kids?
Absolutely.
Do they need me?
No, they don't need me every single day to help them or coddle them or, you know, even
provide for them.
They're making things happen.
And it's awesome to see, it's not, it may sound weird, but it's actually awesome.
Like it's the relationships that we have is only based on, is only based on actual, you
know, enjoyment of each other's company.
There's no codependent relationship where they need me or I need them.
It's hey, it's awesome to see you.
Let's go surfing.
Hey, it's awesome to see you.
Let's go walk the dog.
You know, it's that which I think is a better way for things to work out.
And you know, a lot of this is of course, thanks to my wife who has always, you know,
I got very lucky because I don't think I could have predicted how squared away she would
be that she would be able to do multiple deployments with me being gone and me, you know, not knowing
when I'm coming home or really even if I'm coming home.
And she handled that and worked jobs and raised kids and did it all with a freaking smile
on her face and never complained about anything.
So is that luck?
Yes.
So I think that's it.
And everybody knows that I work hard.
Everyone in my family knows that I work hard.
Everybody in my family knows that that's part of the way I am.
My wife married me and I actually told her the SEAL teams is the most important thing
to me and it always will be.
And you know, then I retired from the SEAL teams and well, now I work really hard.
And the backdrop to that is, you know, when I say that the SEAL teams is the most important
thing to me and it's more important than my family.
Well, that's what's happening right now.
But I'm going to be, you know, I will retire from the SEAL teams and I'll still be here
for the family and I work really hard right now, but I'm still going to be here for the
family when all this is over.
So everybody knows that and they support it.
And that's, I guess, how it happens.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for that because that's so pertinent for the first responders out there
too, their husbands, their wives, whoever is at home, you know, is that woman or man
as well?
You know, and just to the average firefighter, for example, their spouse, basically the responder
has gone for about 10 years of a 30 year career, you know.
So it's a long time and it's very well illustrated.
I don't know if you've seen the movie Only the Brave.
It's Amanda Marsh who I had on, but she's her husband, Eric Marsh is one of the men
that were killed in Prescott, the Prescott 19 that we lost.
But when they're deployed for months at a time, the men, the women, whoever's left
home to take care of the family, they're basically effectively single parents until the husband
or the wife comes back from, you know, whatever mission they're on.
So they are the absolute backbone of what we do.
And I think that's such a great answer because there is a balance, you know, and we cannot
be there if we're at a fire station, a police station, you know, deployed overseas.
But you know, we're still their father, their mother, and we're able to slot back together
when we return.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
And you know, I had this conversation with many SEALs while I was on active duty, you
know, guys would start to say, well, I don't know if my kids, my wife, my this, my that.
And I'd say, you know, for thousands of years, thousands of years, a group of men warriors
have been loading up on the boats, loading up on airplanes, loading up on the backs of
horses and traveling away for years, months, years, sometimes, you know, decades to go
out and do what they have to do.
You know, in World War Two in America, when you left, you came home when it was over.
It wasn't a six month deployment.
It wasn't a 12 month deployment.
It was you're gone until it's over.
And that's what our forefathers did.
So and you know what?
They produced the greatest generation.
So we can handle it.
The spouses can handle it.
The kids can handle it.
But it can be done.
And it's the way it has happened for a really long time.
And by the way, it's not just fire service.
I mean, businessmen go and travel the world.
People that are merchant Marines go out to sea.
You know, there's so many occupations where you're gone working 12, 14, 18 hours a day
and you don't see your family.
And you know, that's the way it works.
Your family is going to be OK.
Your family, if you if you if you set up a good decentralized command within your family,
where they're not reliant upon you, they're going to do just fine.
And when they are when they need your help, you can you can insert yourself and fix things
and solve problems and give them guidance.
And then you go back to doing what you have to do.
So it's it's it's the reality of life.
You know, even if even if you took all this modern complexity away, guess what?
I'm going to go on a eight day hunting trip looking for a woolly mammoth to kill to feed
my family.
And while I'm gone, things are going to happen.
And my wife's going to pick up a spear and defend the tribe from the mountain lion.
You know, like that's what happens.
So it's OK.
Human beings are OK with this.
You can't you can't get too wrapped around the fact that, you know, you're not going
to be there all the time.
It's OK.
It's normal.
Yeah.
But you are funny enough.
My wife's about to go to medical school for four years for not four years for four hours
away for the next five years.
So our family dynamic is going to change.
But it's the same thing.
I mean, it is what it is.
She's got a burning desire to finish up her medical journey.
And that's what it takes.
So, yeah, I love the answers.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, no problem.
Right.
Well, then, speaking of traveling, when will the first muster be up and running and where
will it be?
Well, right now, it's supposed to be in Phoenix, Arizona in September.
And you I think last time I went back and forth with you, I think it was either Jason
or you mentioned that the roll call at the moment wasn't going ahead anymore.
The roll call.
So right now, I'm not sure what we're going to do with the next roll call.
But we we will move forward with it eventually once we are up and running again.
OK, excellent.
So for everyone, this thing that didn't hear the first interview, just tell them about
the roll call.
You wouldn't mind.
We just we just did a leadership training event for first responders.
And we did one.
We did it in Texas.
We I kind of let it get a little bit out of control, meaning it turned.
So the muster is a big event that's very, very, very logistically heavy.
It's it's just a very big, burdensome event on our side.
And I intended the roll call to be much less of that and much more just brass tacks.
Hey, here's the leadership principles.
Here's how they apply.
But we just we have a bunch of professionals in Eshlaan Front.
Everyone wanted to take it to the next level.
And before I knew it, I looked up and we had every instructor going down to Dallas, everyone
participating.
Next thing you know, we're getting, you know, what are they called little bags of gear to
hand out to everyone.
Next thing you know, we just we just kept kept making it bigger and bigger.
And it wasn't meant to be that way.
It was meant to be brass tacks.
Hey, it's a six hour training session or an eight hour training session.
Here's the principles.
And so I'm trying to bring it back under control, put it back in that direction and I'll get
it there.
It's no factor.
And that way we can we can do more of them and and get out there and talk to more first
responders, which is our goal.
Fantastic.
Well, thank you.
One of the the friends on social media who's a soldier from the UK asked if you're going
to have any musters or roll calls in the UK anytime soon.
You know, I don't know.
We we just did one in Australia and it was a long haul to get down there.
It was great event.
Great people down there.
But once again, very logistically burdensome.
You know, it pulls the entire echelon front team off, you know, off of our projects and
off of our jobs back here in America.
What I will probably do for for that is set up.
You know, I did the I did the live speaking events, the Jocko live events in right right
in January.
And they're very high speed, low drag, very logistically simple.
It's just me.
There's no there's no setup.
There's no there's not even any there's not even any audio visual needs.
It's just a microphone and me.
And so it's very slick and easy to run.
I can do it very quickly.
It's very low impact on the organization of Echelon Front.
So I talked to Jamie, you know, my operations director at Echelon Front.
And I said, hey, I should just do these, you know, Jocko live gigs in other places to kind
of assess the need and the demand signal for doing something bigger.
So we'll probably do recon missions into, you know, various countries first with just
Jocko live and then see where it goes from there.
Brilliant.
Thank you for that.
And I think that's a great idea.
Because that efficiency we're talking about is a certain point where it's diminishing
return if you're having to fly all those people when either just yourself or like you said,
the online platform is another great opportunity for people in different countries.
Yeah, the online platform is going to end up being way more popular than the live stuff,
not just because of the price point, because it's definitely I mean, it's obviously cheaper.
It's cheaper for everyone, but with the online platform, you know, you come to the muster
like when someone comes to the muster, you know, there's a thousand people at the muster
or 900 people at the muster.
You have you could you might be able to answer ask a question to me directly.
And by the way, when we're at the muster, I never take a break.
I'm there the entire time.
I don't eat.
I don't sleep.
I just you know, when I'm not on stage actively or someone else is an on stage, which by the
way, I'm on stage most of the time.
If I'm not on stage, I'm standing there in front of the stage shaking hands and answering
people's questions.
Even with that, you know, there's a chance you won't even have a you know, you won't
get face to face with me because there's long lines, etc.
If you go to if you go to EF online, you're going to talk to me.
I'm going to be there.
You know, you're going to be able to ask me a question you can put in the chat box.
And the way we're expanding EF online, there's going to be even more opportunity to do that.
So I think I think our online platform and to your point, your question earlier about
what good has come from from the virus, I think our online platform is going to expand
to a point where it becomes way more popular than having us live because, you know, when
I go to work with a company in New York City and I get on a plane and I fly out there and
it takes, you know, it takes an entire day to travel to the East Coast.
You know, it's yes, it's a six hour flight and then it's an hour to get from JFK to the
hotel and then I got to get checked into the hotel.
And so it's a whole day.
It's you know, it's a 12 hour day.
And then I show up the next morning, I meet with the executives, I spend, you know, 45
minutes with them, I meet with the rest of their team, I spend an hour with them and
then I get back on a plane and I do another 12 hours heading back to the East Coast or
to the West Coast and they spend a ton of money, yes, on the travel, yes, on my time.
And they're by the way, you are paying for the time when I'm traveling.
I mean, that's part of what you're paying for.
So they end up paying a bunch of money and they had me for two or three hours.
Well, if I don't have to travel out there, you can pay me actually a little bit less
money and get more hours from me.
So and you'll get me face to face.
And now that everyone's used to, you know, being on Zoom and being on Skype and looking
at me, I'm three inches from the camera on Skype and you're three inches from the screen.
Guess what?
We're six inches apart, just like real life.
And I think people are going to realize that the communication, look, it's not 100% the
same as a live thing.
And you know, when people ask me if we're going to keep doing live events, we are just
like, you know, you go, you and I both listen to rock music.
Well, you listen to the CDs and when a concert comes, you still want to go see them live.
So we're still going to do live events.
There still is an additive element there.
But in terms of the practicality of teaching leadership, we can get so much of it done
so much more efficiently through our online platform that I think it's going to become
the primary pillar of our spreading the word on the principles that we teach.
Absolutely.
So for people listening, where can they find Echelon Front and the online platform?
The online platform is called efonline.com.
Fantastic.
Yeah, you mentioned rock concerts.
Actually this last weekend, we're supposed to be welcome to Rockville here in what used
to be Jacksonville, now it's Daytona Beach.
And it's been interesting seeing all the bands like missing playing for their fans.
So it'd be an interesting observation to see as we're allowed to all congregate in large
numbers, again, probably more of a drive towards live events because people have missed that
social like face-to-face interaction.
Yeah, for sure.
People will want to get back in the game, I think.
Brilliant.
All right.
So then last time I asked you these next few questions, I'll kind of tell you what you
said last time and see if there's any new ones that you have.
The first one was a book that you recommend.
You mentioned about face last time, are there any new ones you've come across that can be
to do with leadership or something completely different?
Yeah, I cover books that I find interesting on my podcast.
It's called Jocko Podcast.
If you go to jockopodcast.com, you can see the scores of books that I recommend and that
I read.
Brilliant.
All right.
So then with movies, you mentioned the series The Pacific and then a documentary Restrepo.
Anything new since then?
Well, I guess if I mentioned The Pacific, I should give equal treatment to Band of Brothers.
If you didn't make that connection, then you should make it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I actually used to work with Captain Dai.
I did stunts years ago and he taught us in like a mini actor stuntman boot camp.
So yeah, great, great story.
All right.
Is there a person you recommend to come on the podcast as a guest to talk to the first
responders, military and associated professions of the world?
Is there anybody from Ashland on front that you haven't had on yet?
Yeah, I think Flynn hasn't been on.
Leif, excuse me, Leif.
Leif hasn't been on.
I apologize.
Obviously, I've had Jason, JP and Dave and yourself.
Sounds like Leif's next.
Perfect.
All right.
And then last question before we make sure everyone can find you online.
Last time I asked you this, I said, what do you do to decompress?
You said Jiu-Jitsu, is there anything over and above that or is that still the same?
It's the same.
It's always the same.
Obviously, it's less right now because of COVID, but surfing Jiu-Jitsu and playing guitar.
Fantastic.
All right.
So you mentioned EF online.
Where else can people find you on social media and on the internet?
Just the normal places of social media, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and I'm at Jocko Willing.
That's me.
Brilliant.
Thank you, Jocko.
Again, thank you so, so much.
I really, really appreciate it.
I think we've covered some different topics that last time and important topics, I think,
especially with people emerging from this isolation they've gone through.
And yeah, thank you so, so much for being so generous.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on.
Good talking to you.
Appreciate it.
And thank you to all the listeners that are out there on the front lines keeping us safe.