America Is Raising Soft Men… And It’s Going To Cost Us Everything | Jocko Willink

America doesn't win wars anymore. Not because we've lost our strength, but because we've lost our will. Today's guest is retired Navy SEAL Commander Jocko Willink, and in this episode, he exposes the uncomfortable truth behind why the West is slipping. We're raising soft men in a dangerous world, and that is not a recipe for success. Jocko lays out the hidden mechanics of leadership failure across all walks of life. What happens when ego infects your chain of command, and why the military, the government, and corporate America are all suffering from the same disease, cowardice disguised as virtue. If you want to understand why our systems are collapsing, and how to make yourself strong enough to survive what's coming, this is the episode to watch. Does watching what's going on in Russia and or Israel, Palestine, does that trigger your strategic mind at all? Oh, yeah. I definitely think about things strategically. And, you know, for Russia, as strong and as mighty as Russia is, it's Guess how strong and mighty America was in Afghanistan. Guess how strong and mighty America was in Vietnam. Guess how strong America and mighty was in Iraq. That strength and that might doesn't really mean anything in a test of wills. And And Ukraine is fighting for the ground that they live on. They're going to fight to the death. And you're going to get into, you know, I think the worst-case scenario and I is that this ends up in a, you know, like a guerrilla warfare. Worst-case scenario, that means if if Ukraine is just gets annihilated by conventional-type force, they're going to end up with a guerrilla force that's going to be picking away at Russians for the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, until Russia says, "Okay, you can have your freaking houses back." Now, I can predict that right now, but it has to play out. We still have to play the game. You still have to play the game to find out what the outcome is. Because on paper Look, on paper everyone thought Russia was going to roll into Kiev in 2 days. And they got right to the outskirts. But that didn't that didn't take into the calculus the human will. And the fact that we're not These are This is where we live. This is where my family is and I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, it's just going to be a long bloodbath. It's going to be a long nasty bloodbath. Do you try to map the minds of the people leading? Like do you try to think through, okay, what what does Putin's behavior tell me about what he actually wants? I'm not that deep into trying to figure out exactly what they want or exactly where they're going to stop. You know, like what is it going to take to get you to stop? Is it too high level? I think it No, it's just the fact that from my experience in life and history it's not that it's too high level. It's just that it is absolutely unpredictable. Mhm. This is why we get into wars because we think America, we think we will go and we will win. Would you get into a fight with me? No. Okay, right? Cuz you don't think you could win. Now, if you for some reason, you know, you had a knife in your back pocket, you had a pistol with you and you're like, okay, I can win this thing. You're going to go and fight me. We get into wars that we think we're going to win, but we think we're going to win every war. Mhm. And we're dumb. And when people go to war and they think they're going to win, they're dumb. Because you don't know what's going to happen. And would I get into a fight with you? You think I'd attack you? Do you? no, but not because you think you're going to lose, unfortunately. Much to my surprise. but I don't know what you're going to do. I don't know what you care about. I don't know if you have a knife in your back pocket. I don't know if you're going to bite my ear off or bite my face. I don't know if you're going to sue me. Like there's so many unpredictables that why am I going to get engaged in this? I'd rather just be like, "Hey dude, looks like you're having a rough day, man. I'll get out of your way." Okay, you want my parking space? Cool. I'll drive around the block. So, unless you corner me, I don't want to fight you. The primary reason that I've come up with of why America loses wars is because we lose wars we don't have to win. Mhm. So, when you get into a war that you don't have to win, the chances are you're going to lose it. The The great chances are you're going to lose it. Does Russia need to win this war with Ukraine? Honestly, no, they don't. They don't need to win this war with Ukraine. Ukraine needs to win this war. And so, therefore, when you play it out, chances are again, uh it's unpredictable. There's I All you could do is say, "Well, they have a slightly better chance." And we're going to pay with hundreds of thousands of lives to figure out which answer was correct. Wow, that is a a really interesting insight in terms of who needs to win and who doesn't. I think part of the reason that And I'm obviously speculating, but part of the reason that Putin hasn't taken any of the off-ramps is that A, he thinks he can win, to your point, but also he's turned his economy into a war economy. He has made huge promises to his country. And so, while he doesn't need to win, he has backed himself into a difficult situation. And when it's somebody else that you're sending to die, it gets a little bit easier. Also, to your point about freedom and to my coming point about how important culture is, Russia has proven over and over and over that they are willing to sacrifice. Now, I don't know if they care enough about Ukraine, if they identify Ukraine as Russian soil, uh but certainly when you try to push into Russia, they feel some kind of way, and they react accordingly. It's uh They've won. Yeah. They've won all the time. They beat Napoleon, they beat Hitler, but when they didn't have to win in Afghanistan, what happened? Yeah. When you look at what's going on in Israel versus Hamas, that is not one that I understand. Mhm. Uh but do you look at that? Does it feel just like a normal insurgency or do you see something atypical happening? You've got two opposing sides that don't agree and they're at war and they're going to kill each other until the killing is done. Much of my thoughts around forgiveness is like that same parable of the scorpion and the frog, right? You know this old parable. The scorpion says to the frog, "Can you carry me across the lake?" And the frog goes, "But you'll sting me." And the scorpion goes, "No, if I sting you, we'll both die." He goes, "No, I won't sting you, we'll die, so I won't sting you." So, okay. Uh scorpion gets on the frog's back, they halfway across the lake and the scorpion stings the frog. And as they're about to drown and die, the frog says, "Why'd you do that?" And the scorpion says, "I'm a scorpion." I love and hate that story all at the same time. That's what's happening and I and you did this to us, we're going to do this to you. In both directions. That's what's happening. I've heard you talk about in Vietnam, one of the big mistakes we made was I Dang Valley? I Drang Valley. I Drang Valley. Uh and the lesson learned there was, hey, just because we killed a thousand of them and they only killed a hundred of us means that we're going to win. That's what I see playing out here. What What America didn't realize was we did not have the appetite for the loss that they did. And when I look at Israel versus Hamas, Hamas under Sinwar, who's dead, but has laid a trap of we're going to take hostages and do something absolutely despicable, evil, horrible, and obviously required a response, but you're going to over respond and you're going to lose the world. And that's going to be part of a larger strategy, largely of psychological warfare, where we get the whole world to turn against you, to alienate you, and that's the play. And it seems to be playing out so well. There's um I don't know if you know who Eric Weinstein is, but he uh talks about this moment being like in um Breaking Bad where you'd one character who his name's Mike grabs one of the drug dealers by the lapel. And so the drug dealer's like let go. He refuses and so the drug dealer just starts beating the [ __ ] out of Mike. Israel is the guy throwing the punches. Now, if Hamas would just give the hostages back, they would stop punching. Hamas doesn't want them to stop punching. That's the whole point is to get them to punch, to get them to maximize civilian casualties so that they just look absolutely terrible so they can get isolated. You've talked about the utility of psychological warfare. Now, I think you use it differently than I'm bringing it up here, so by all means make the right case. But that's what I see here. I see a game, somebody who's being far more strategic than just a traditional military conflict. Within a short time after October 7th, I was getting interviewed and I recommended that Israel not bomb. Really? said, "Hey, they they dropped a bunch of bombs out of the gate." And I said, "Okay, like you don't want popular opinion in the world to turn against you." Mhm. And you know, that's kind of the way it's played out. You know, very very predictable. There's no one that wants innocent civilians innocent Palestinians killed more than Hamas. Every innocent Palestinian that's get gets killed is a really good victory for Hamas. It really is. And I have seen some really beautiful indications of you know, you see some Palestinians are now starting to protest against Hamas openly, which is that's Of course, it doesn't get much press, but that is a inspiring thing to see. Actual Palestinians in Gaza that recognize, "Hey, we want this to stop and we are willing to protest against Hamas to try and get this to stop." And hopefully we see more of that, but it's getting suppressed. I mean, Hamas they obviously put shut those things down very rapidly. Uh it's a terrible situation. Now, on the other hand, Israel is Yeah, okay, we get it. You you can sit here in your in your air-conditioned studio and tell us to stop bombing. We just got attacked. We had thousands of people killed. And we are not going to stop until we destroy this this group that did it to us. And you know what? This is war. And they're making a decision. Clearly they must see Clearly they do see the way that the the global view of them is turning and they are continuing to press. And they're probably in their in their strategic view saying, "Yep, it's going to take us another 4 months. We'll take a bunch of hate for the next 4 months and then we'll be done. And Hamas will be no more and then we can move forward." It seems like that's that's their that's their strategy. Mhm. They can withstand They can withstand the glo- the global popularity falling off a cliff. But when they're done with it, they're going to be done with it. It seems like that's what they're doing. And to my point earlier, whether that's a good move or a bad move, I don't know. And and not only do I not know, no one knows. Yeah. They've made a decision. This is what they're going to do. You know, I I have pointed this out to people. If a group came into your home and killed your family. Mhm. If that happened to me, a group came into my home and killed my family, I would not stop until I destroyed as many of that group as I possibly could. And it would be a good number. And so they did that to Israel. And Israel, they said, "Okay, you know what? You did this to us. We're going to We're going to now destroy you. And there's collateral damage everywhere. There's starving kids and women and children." And they're going, "Yep. This is what we're doing." I don't I don't know how the long-term impact of that is going to be. Clearly, the world has turned against Israel, or much of the world has turned against Israel. And so the strategic move by Hamas, you give them like, "Oh, yeah, good job. You You You You made a strategic victory here. You've got the world to turn against Israel." Which is a a pretty impressive thing to be able to do for for Hamas. They've got the world popular opinion turned against Israel, turned against their enemy. And they did it very rapidly. The rest of the world isn't there. The rest of the world is watching it and seeing whatever images are getting propagated. On the one hand, you see the the picture of kids in rubbles. Awful to see Palestinian kids in rubble. The other thing that you see, a IDF soldier patrolling down the street. And when you're an IDF soldier patrolling down the street, I don't know if everyone feels this, but what I feel when I see that is this individual human being is waiting to get sniped, blown up, shot, killed, destroyed, maimed. That's what that person's waiting for. And And so each of these are human emotional moments that are happening. And we're sitting down here on the outside, the rest of the world is sitting there going, "I think you should do this. I shouldn't you should do that." There's a a script to write where after October 7th, Israel said, "I We can't believe this happened. We what can we do to to defend ourselves better? And this is terrible. And they would have gotten sympathy from the world perhaps, more sympathy from the world. And same thing with with Hamas. Look at South Africa, the way South Africa that government was torn down over time from international pressure. That probably could have happened eventually for for Palestine, for for Gaza, for a two-state solution, whatever the case may be. One of those things could have happened. But this just throwing a grenade into the room and seeing the the destruction, the laws of human nature have won again and there's blood. I think the next 20 years is going to ask America the question, how much do you actually give a [ __ ] about your values? And how far are you going to push for them? So, I think that we're going to have a China question. And right now we're saying, "Yeah, we're willing to rise to the challenge economically." I think it's going to escalate. Europe is going through the throes of what does it look like when you allow so many people in your country that you no longer have shared values at a societal level and some people are willing to fight for theirs and other people are not. We just had the guy in Colorado light people on fire because he believes that Israel's out of pocket and they absolutely have to be stopped and it is worth killing people that shockingly have absolutely nothing to do with it to get people to pay attention. And so, what I'm trying to figure out is from a value system perspective at what point do you go, "Here's the line in the sand." I get from a political standpoint how easy it is to be like, "I'm not there on the ground. It's just a missile from the sky. These guys cease to exist." And people are afraid of that and so when we say, "Stop [ __ ] with the ships." they stop because they don't want to get blown up. Yeah, and I think that's the the key component there is we number one, how are they stopping, you know, how are they stopping the vessels? How would how would they were attacking free trade. And so for us to say, "Yeah, you know what? Um you can't do that. We're going to stop you. You don't do that anymore or we're going to stop you." And then if they continue to Again, this is going to infringe on on our way of life. And then we escalate. At a certain point it's like, "Oh, do you want to go and send troops onto the ground there to fight against the Houthis?" No, cuz we don't need to. We don't need to do that. We can keep them at bay and they can either learn their lesson and subdue whatever element of them is out trying to trying to interfere with our shipping or we just continue to bat them down every time they step up. Mhm. So, when I look at uh the kind of leadership that you have done where people are actually shooting at people, there is literal life and death consequences. That feels like it should be the place that would have the highest demands on leaders, but be the place where um you would naturally find breakdown of leadership the fastest. But you don't. Is that because you guys have this incredible filter going in? There's one major problem with leadership development in the military and that is for the most part your military leadership positions are held for about 2 years. And what that means is I'm a young officer in the military, in the army, or in the Marine Corps and I take over a platoon. And for a while, you know, you just met me and you're one of my guys in my platoon and you your first impressions are like, "Oh, well, we can't really judge him cuz I I'm a trained professional, right? I went to West Point or I went to the Naval Academy or I went to Officer Candidate School, so I've learned a certain way to behave that is acceptable within the norms." And so I learned that and I'm going to project that. And so, for a while, that's what you see. You see that thing that I learned that I'm projecting. Now, it takes about the first few months that we're together as a platoon, we're not really doing anything. It's some administrative stuff. And And And so, you don't really see my leadership in any way, shape, or form. Maybe I even present a pretty good front. Like, I come out and talk to the troops, and you guys are like, "Oh, he's a pretty articulate guy. Cool." And then a few months go by, and now we're going to start working together in the field. We're going to go out and start doing training exercises. Well, the first couple training exercises, you start You know, the first one goes a little bit awry, and maybe you hear me getting a little bit flustered, or maybe I lose my temper, or something like that. And you go, "Wait a second. What's What's going on here?" And But, that was one mission. The next mission goes a little bit smoother. So, you're like, "Oh, okay. It must have been just an anomaly." You see what I'm saying? It takes a long Takes months of you looking at me, and the platoon looking at me, and studying me. And finally, you see me lose my temper again. And then, every time the pressure mounts, I start Like I said, losing my temper. That's a good example. I'm losing my temper. I'm yelling and screaming. I don't listen to anybody else. It took you 8 months to figure that out. So, now, we're about to go on deployment. And as we're about to go on deployment, you and your platoon The The platoon gets together, and what do we do? Well, do we have a mutiny? Do we bring this up to the commanding officer? There's a bunch of other options. Like, and none of them are good. Because now, if you If I get fired, now guess what our reputation of our whole platoon is. Our whole platoon is bad. So, the platoon goes, "You know what? Just deal with it. We can We can We can manage him for a little while." Now, we go on deployment. I do really dumb stuff, but now you're really covering for me. Your platoon The platoon is great troops, and they're just doing everything they can, bending over backwards to make sure that I'm successful, even though I'm an idiot. We get back from deployment. We The platoon did such good work that even though I'm an idiot, we performed our mission. We got accolades for our mission. I was pretty good at articulating. So, when I went and talked to battalion commander, I looked pretty good and he gave me an up check. And so what happens? The platoon's over and you by the way, you all for the last 2 months of deployment were just holding your breath waiting for someone else for for when my time is over. So my time's over and guess what? I actually get good grades and I get promoted. And that can happen through a whole military career. So the fact that that that 2-year window of leadership, you can kind of get through anything for 2 years and and bad people can get promoted. That happens and you can certainly look at our some of our flag and general officers and go how is this person a an admiral or how is this person a general? Some of them I look at and go this is amazing. This person should be president of the United States. This person is incredible, but it's not always like that. So I don't look at the military as this factory of good leaders. I look at it as a testing ground where some leaders get experience and and and they develop in a way that is phenomenal and they end up being great leaders. There's also a bunch of knuckleheads in there. That's the that's the cold reality of it. Yeah, for sure. Uh in the business world, very similar at least from where I'm sitting. The whole idea of people get promoted to the level of their incompetence. When I first heard that I was like, what? And then I realized, oh yeah, it's exactly true. Like you'll do good at this job, so then they're like, hey, you know, it's this pyramid, so there's ever fewer positions, so we've got to move you to something that maybe you haven't before, but you were so good at the thing that you did previously. I owe you that promotion and so I move you. And then eventually you get to the point where you stall out because you're not good and nobody wants to go backwards. So um in business, it's like this constant culling of it it it if you're doing it well. So when I'm teaching entrepreneurs, I am ruthless about Listen, you want to give people an opportunity, you want to make sure that they know what success looks like, you want to make sure that you create an environment they're getting the feedback they need, on and on. But, if you've got somebody that can't do the job, you've got to get them out of that role. So, that would be sort of my rough swag at what the um the ultimate factory for leadership is that you just said the military is not. But, what would you say? Like, what is the factory that you want to set up? What are the things that we all need to go through assuming that either we're at the beginning of our career or we're now at the point where we're at our incompetence, but we don't want to get stuck there. The ability to be humble enough to look and see what you're doing and see what your shortfalls are, to me, that's the most important thing for leadership development. The minute that someone is saying, "Hey, you know what? I've got this figured out. You're damn right I should be put in this role next because I deserve to be there." The minute that that that attitude starts to take over our minds, that's when we become problematic. So, with all the leaders I've worked with, there's only one There's only like one type of person in my experience that cannot improve as a leader, and that's a person that's arrogant. What about somebody who's dumb? Yeah, dumb Dumb Dumb will get in there, too. Dumb will get in there, too. But, if you have someone that's dumb, but they're humble, we can work with that. So, if I'm your platoon commander and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm humble enough to say, "How do you guys think we should do this?" We'll be okay. We We'll be okay because I'll be you know, the dumb person if they're surrounded by some people that are smart enough and humble enough themselves, right? Because if you If I work for you and you're an idiot, and my goal then is to call you out as an idiot, make you look bad, and undermine you, which is not going to work. It's going to fail. But, if if you're my boss and you're an idiot, but I'm humble enough to be like, "Hey, you know what? He's the boss. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you know what? At least he's listening to what I say and we can put together good plans. I can get with the team and we can go and execute them and he'll get the credit, but I don't care. We'll be fine. So, as long as the a person that might not be the the smartest person is has some good people around them and they're humble enough to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm I'm a little over my underwater here. As long as I can say that, I'll be okay." We'll get back to the show in a moment, but first I want to talk about an important question you should ask before investing in crypto. What happens if someone gets in my account? Most platforms are all going to give the same answer that their security is great, but honestly, that does not go far enough in today's world. I trust capital has actually gotten much better at this problem with their premium custody accounts. It's something completely different, a closed-loop system. Here's how it works. Your crypto goes in, but it can never be transferred out as crypto ever. The only way money leaves your account is as USD, directly to your verified bank account. No external wallets, no crypto transfers, no exit points for hackers to exploit. Even if someone breaks into your account, they're going to hit a wall. The system won't let them move your crypto anywhere. This isn't just better security, it is a completely different approach that eliminates every weak point hackers normally exploit. Stop giving hackers opportunities to steal from you. Visit itrustcapital.com/impact and use code impact when you sign up to fund your account and get a $100 bonus. This is a paid advertisement. And now, back to the show. Power vacuums tend to arise, so you are correct in what you're saying, at least in my experience in the corporate world, that if you've got a boss who's an idiot, the funny thing is I will play the clip of you saying this went wrong, good. This went wrong, good. When people complain about, "Oh, my boss is an idiot." I'm like good, this is your chance. Like you've got an opportunity to rise up. There's a power vacuum that you can fill it. But I do worry that there are two things that will um wreak havoc no matter where you're at, military, politics, corporation, and that is stupidity and arrogance. Um I probably am more afraid of stupidity than you are, it sounds like. Yeah, it sounds like it. Um I I've worked for some dumb people that were actually pretty good bosses. Yes, interesting. So that'll be that'll be fun to ferret out. So so push on that for me. You're in that situation, the power vacuum opens up. What have you seen in that next layer down? Do do people battle? Like is this a um you're you're so good at being the guy underneath the idiot that everybody just sort of realizes they can draft off you and you're smart enough to know 48 Laws of Power, don't try to outshine this guy, let him take the lead. Like is that what's going on? When you watch groups that don't have you, what normally happens when a power vacuum opens up? It It really just depends on the dynamics of the group because if you this is the So this is a perfect thing that I used to explain with a SEAL platoon. So when I the my the last part of my career in the SEAL Teams, I was training the SEAL platoons to go on deployment to It was at the time it was Iraq or Afghanistan. And when I first took over, I thought to myself, okay, I really hope that this platoon commander is a good leader and I hope that the the platoon chief is a good leader and I hope that the the assistant platoon commander is a good leader and and I hope that the leading petty officer is a good leader. So I had this this hope in my mind that the the senior leaders were good leaders. And after training a bunch of SEAL platoons, over time, what I actually hoped for was that there was a a good leader in the platoon. It didn't even have to be We call that group the the top four. That's like the leadership, the designated on paper leadership of the platoon. What If one of them was a really good leader, great. But if none of them were really great leaders, but you had a one really good just enlisted sled dog, he could he could run that whole platoon. And if he was smart, he would recognize that he had that power. And I would see this a lot where you'd be like, "Oh yeah, the the real chain of command in what a platoon look like would look nothing what it looked like on paper. But if that young guy was smart enough, he would it didn't matter. He knew he was that He knew he was the the top of the hierarchy in the platoon in terms of actual leadership. And if he understood that dynamic and he was okay with the fact that even though on paper he wasn't the guy, it didn't really matter to him. He just wanted the platoon to win. Those platoons happens all the time, they would be great. The problem would come where either that guy, his ego is too big and he wanted the credit, or the the top four Someone in the top four didn't like the fact that that someone else was stepping on the power dynamic. They didn't like the the the unwritten leadership chain of command. They didn't like that. And they would then undermine that guy and you get infighting. So, what both those problems boiled down to is ego. Like either either ego could disrupt the whole thing. Either someone in the top four didn't like, you know, "Hey, why are we letting him come up with the plan? I'm the one that's in charge." Boom, just self-destruction. So, generally, if we have people that are smart enough and understand the world well enough, they get in that situation they go, "Oh yeah. Oh, I get it. Tom's leader. He's inexperienced. He doesn't have the best mind for this, but that's okay. He's listening to me. I've built a good relationship with him. I'm I'm to take this thing home run all day." Or Tom doesn't have much experience. He doesn't have the best mind for this. I deserve to be there. I'm going to undermine him. Everyone's going to know that I'm the guy and we're going to self-destruct. Yeah, that is uh that is ever-present everywhere you look. indeed. Um talk to me about Pete Hegseth. So, I know you don't know him well, but you certainly know who he is. Yeah. He is finding himself as the Secretary of Defense going into what I would say is a largely hostile environment. Uh but the people who work for him, how do you express good leadership in a moment like that? You've got all the world's eyes on you, and certainly the politically aware eyes. Um you have some percentage, whether it's 1 or 99, I have no idea, that are actively trying to undermine you. Um it's certainly tempting at that point when you've got everybody like coming at you to grab collars and [ __ ] a fist. Uh but I'm guessing that's not the advice. How do you navigate that situation well? I think one of the most disarming things you can do, and it's and it's not like a ninja trick, it's a it's a real thing, is when you tell me that hey Jocko, you don't have enough experience to do this. My answer as Jocko is I agree with you. You're right. I don't have a lot of experience here. That's why I'm going to rely on you and the rest of the team to help me. Or when you come at me and you say, "Hey, um you seem like you lose your temper sometimes." I don't say, "You're No, I don't." No, I say, "You know what? Yeah, I do. I lose my temper sometimes. And you know what? That's why I'm counting on you to help me through those moments." Or when you can see when you or you come come at me and you say, "Hey Jocko, you're you're dumb." I don't say, "No, I'm not. I'm smart. I went to college. I I I I got A's in high school." I don't say that. I say, "Yeah, you know what? There's definitely some some areas where I am academically challenged, and I'm going to need some help." And I think that's the best way to approach when people are being critical is to say, "Yeah, you're right. You should be critical of me. I'm not perfect. I I will make mistakes. I have made mistakes. I will make mistakes. I'm going to be open about them. I'm going to take ownership of them, and we're going to get through it. That's what we're doing." So, that that's, you know, if I'm surround in a room surrounded by a bunch of people that don't like me, you know, I took over a SEAL Platoon where the the platoon commander had been fired. And some of the guys were waiting for that guy to get fired, and some of the guys did not want that guy to get fired. And so, it was this not the exact same situation, but it was a similar situation in that I had some people that were open-minded to me showing up, and some people that were angry at me for being there. And, you know, I rolled into it with that sort of attitude. Like, "Okay, yep. Hey, you like the guy that got fired? Okay. What What did you like about him? Let me make sure I continue with with some of those things. Oh, and you guys that didn't like him, what didn't you like about him? Let me make sure that I don't adapt some of those things." So, I think it's just keeping an open mind, not getting too defensive. And look, it's got to be uh it's got to be wearing to just have people attacking you all day long when you're trying to do a job. It's got to be wearing, but that's the job. Good. Yeah, that's the job. I mean, you go into that political spectrum, and you are going to immediately there's a whole group of people that are going to do everything they can to destroy you. And that's what's happening. Do you try to ferret them out, build alliances against them? Like, is there a we got to cocoon the threats, or I think if you have some people that are not aligned, like, they're truly not trying to go to the same place that I'm going to, cuz that that's a problem. Look, if you and I have the same goal, and you want to go one way, and I want to go a different way to get there, I'm okay with that. But, if I'm trying to get here, and you're trying to go over here, It have a problem. So, and that shouldn't happen very often. I mean, it's the it's the United States of America. It's the United States military. What do we want our troops to be unsafe? Do you want our troops to be unsafe? No, we don't want that. Do you want our troops to be taken care of? Yes, we want that. Do we want them to have good equipment? Yes, we want that. So, there's a bunch of things where it's like, "Oh, yeah, you think it should be go this way, but okay." Uh most people, I think, are on board with the goals of the Department of Defense. But, if we have someone that's not on board, okay, we're going to find them and yeah, I would get rid of them cuz they're not aligned with what we're trying to do. So, I have in the last couple of years become obsessed with uh Machiavelli, James Burnham, people that really look at the political arena as a game of power, control, manipulation, and that if you're trying to map that arena, you're going to be constantly confused if you take them to be sincere actors that are simply trying to make the world a better place. And uh James Burnham wrote a book called The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, people who believe that they are So, basically, his thesis is there's always going to be an elite group. It doesn't matter if it's you and your brother. One of you is going to be in a position of leadership. And to your point, often times the real leadership is very different than what's written on paper, but there's always a command structure. Somebody's in lead, other people are following. And of course, it will change from time to time, but but you have that structure. Given that it's inescapable, you then have to understand what is the nature of man as political animal. And so, he comes down on the uh I would say very eloquently and proves it pretty forcefully in his book and it certainly echoes The Prince uh written by Machiavelli himself. It echoes what um Robert Greene wrote in The 48 Laws of Power, that there are just some of these immutable truths. And I've heard you say this, human nature shows up everywhere you go. Uh and if it is true that human nature has this um the things I need to do to get into power and stay in power are somewhat knowable, somewhat predictable, and from where I'm sitting pretty ugly. Um how one, do you accept that premise or you like that's just ridiculous on its face? Uh if you do accept the premise, one thing is every time I research you that I always walk away with is to miss your optimism would be to miss your sort of fundamental nature. And so, I can feel myself getting pulled out of my optimism into like this fatalistic, really dark thing that I'm trying to steer myself back out of. Uh so, I'd love to get your sense of if this is a Machiavellian world, um how do you stay focused, positive, and not get sucked into the darkness? Well, luckily I think there is alignment between doing good things and for lack of a better way of the way you just said it, staying in power. Right? And I I I got asked a while ago about um like medical some some some type of question around the fact that medical corporations are evil. I got I got posed some kind of question like that. And I had recently been working with a medical company who had made a ton of money. Like you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. And you could look at them and say, "Well, they're evil." Right? Cuz they're making all this money off of the the sickness of human beings. And I was at one of their events and they brought out on stage this like young girl who had been her life had been saved by this technology. And my point in saying that is like you have alignment between Yes, these people are making a lot of money and they're also doing something good at the same time. So, when I look at this power dynamic or this struggle for power, if you're not doing something for America that's going to help America move forward, then you should not be in power and you should be removed from power. But, if you're doing things that are helping America and helping the people of America, and if you do that well, then you should stay in power. If you're just looking out for yourself, going back to my earlier point, if if I'm over here just lining my own pockets as America falls, then I should be removed from power. If I'm over here and America's doing well and maybe my my own life is progressing because now I'm in whatever position I'm in, but I'm doing a good job because I'm helping America, I think that it's fine. So, I don't I don't really see these two things as mutually exclusive. Like, you can't do something good for America and stay in power. I don't think you need to undermine America in order to stay in power. I think you can actually do good things for the country and because you do good things for the country, you stay in power. One of the ways that the world works is that um psychological influence, to put the nicest spin on it, works and works very well. Um I see you as somebody who's moving into the world of cultural influence. Tell the story, if you don't mind, of what made you decide to write your first book and then what it was that you're trying to um help parents teach their kids. Yeah, I went and and got a book at the bookstore for my son and it was like a pirate book. And it had a pretty cool cover, it looked like a pirate book. And the pirate book ended up being like the weakest, most pathetic pirates ever. And I was disappointed. And so, I just thought to myself, I'm going to write books so that I can convey the type of values and lessons learned that I would want my kids to have and I would want, you you my neighbors' kids to have and my friends' kids to have. And so, that's why I wrote the books. And so, what are those values? It's hard work. It's helping other people out. It's studying hard. It's doing the best that you can in in whatever endeavor you're undertaking. It's all those things. And one of I think the most important underlying messages and probably the most important underlying message is that you can decide who you want to become and you can become that person. So, you know, in the book, the kid is weak, can't do any pull-ups, doesn't know how to swim, doesn't know his times tables, and he's getting picked on by the school bully. That's a rough place to be in for a 10-year-old kid. And what his uncle teaches him is you don't have to be weak, you can work out, and you can become stronger, and you can eat better foods. You can study and you can become smarter. You can learn how to swim and you can learn how to fight and defend yourself. And so, you can actually become through hard work and through discipline, you can become who you want to become. So, that's the message that I wanted to get to my kids. And by the time it came out, my kids were pretty much a little too old for it. But, luckily, they they absorbed that message message in other ways. Was that like a sort of intimate decision where it was like, "Ah, I wanted something for my kids, and so I did it, and it felt intimate." Or is there a sense of like, "I think I can actually nudge culture in a direction. They culture's hungry for this kind of story. I bet there's a lot of parents just like me that have kids going through the same thing." Like, do you think at that level? Like, I I want to bump culture in a certain direction, or is it a much more local decision for you? When I was writing the first book, I was typing, and I I felt like I was looking over my shoulder thinking to myself, "I hope no one sees what I'm doing cuz this is the best idea ever. Like, the world needs this right now. I need it. The world needs it. I can't believe no one's written this yet. Mhm. And so, yeah, I felt like people were going to go, "That's it. That's what we've been looking for." And they were. So, it worked. And when I definitely had that feeling. Yep. I was Yep. Writing that book, I was thinking, "People are going to Kids are going to want this book, and parents are going to want this the kids to have that book." Mhm. How far are you like how deeply do you want that to take root? For me, when I'm doing the especially the lives, I talk a lot about like America needs to find that thing that we had when I was a kid where it was uh you wanted to be tough, you believed that you could do anything, you had Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, uh you know, just so many guys playing like this really tough guy role. And I get how to a modern audience that probably looks super cheesy, but at the time it felt so cool. Um and I really want to see America re-embrace that. Now, I take it to an extreme. I think that we are on the precipice of something exceedingly dangerous for uh I think countries go broke all the time. I think countries go from number one to middle of the pack faster than you can snap your fingers. If anybody wants a lesson in that, look at Argentina. Was at the absolute top of the South America pile, only to find themselves hyper-inflating their currency and going to absolutely nothing and struggling. Uh and the only way to begin the process of coming back is to go through so much pain and suffering. Uh whenever your debt gets to the level that we have debt at, basically it ends in war, bloodshed of some kind. You can have your French version where you're just lopping people's heads off in the streets, or uh you can go to war like England did. Um but none of those seem like good outcomes to me. So, I'm like, "All right, how do you attack this problem?" You attack it at the cultural level. You focus on kids. Uh you give them this message. And so, every time I see you, for people that don't know you, have a movie that's going to be coming out. I would love to hear more about that. But, do you have any sense of urgency? It sounds like you do understand this is a huge vacuum, but do you have a sense of urgency for America or do you think I'm sort of overstating the problem? I you know, it's it's one of those things where I have kids, right? And I see what my kids are doing and I see what their friends are doing and I see them hanging out and what they're doing and I don't I'm not despaired at all. I'm kind of like pretty stoked, you know? Kids are out there. I I think they're healthier right now than they ever have been. There's the kids aren't drinking as much as they used to. I don't know what it was like when you were a kid, but when I was a kid and when I was saying kid, but when I was in the in the SEAL Teams, like alcohol was everywhere. And kids are drinking less, less drugs, they're more healthy. I think they've uh, started to embrace things like the idea of extreme ownership. The first book that I wrote, which wasn't aimed at kids, it's aimed at adults, but like people want to take ownership of their life. People want to be responsible for what's going on in the world and I think that's happening more and more. And I think there's a meme world of uh, you know, the boomers, right? The boomers bought their house for $6,000. You know, and then now, you know, no one can afford a house. It's like, okay, so there's some there's some young people that say you you the boomers got their houses for $6,000 and we have to pay a half a million for a one bedroom, whatever. And and so there's there's that, but there's also people that like, oh yeah, that's what it costs for a house now, cool. What do I need to do to make it happen? And also, you know what, the market goes up and down and we'll I'll find a way and they'll figure it out. So, I think there's a little bit of both, but I'm not overwhelmingly dis- like like overwhelmingly fearing that the younger generation is not going to step up and do good things, do positive things in the world. And when I work with military, like you work with young military people, they're young military people. They're they're ready to rock and roll. They're ready to get some. Like that's what they're ready to do. So, yeah, and and same thing with like I work with big companies with construction companies. And there's 22-year-old kids that are working construction, kids, 22-year-old young men that are out there working construction. They're they're iron workers, they're pouring concrete, like they're doing like we have lights on in this place right now cuz a lineman was out there 2 days ago in the wind or whatever repairing the power lines that give us power. This stuff is happening. That that's not a 70-year-old guy from the greatest generation of, you know, Vietnam. No, it's a kid. It's a guy that went to lineman school and he's a lineman now. So, as much as I I hear a lot of, you know, when you look at social media, when I look at social media, who are we seeing? We're seeing the kids that are on social media. A lot of kids that are not posting themselves cuz they're not at the night club with champagne cuz they're hanging from a a power line reinstalling a wire. That's what's happening. And and that's awesome. So, I I see a lot of the world beyond what what is presented via social media. And what I see is Americans that are out there working really hard to make things happen. Build companies. Create things. Work hard. Save their money. Be healthy. I see that a lot. I don't have a pessimistic a pessimistic view of America. Now, I'll tell you, maybe three or four years ago I might have been a slightly more pessimistic, but even then I was talking to guys that were 23 years old working on an oil rig saving money, making money going to school to figure out how to get that next level. Like I think they're out there. I I know they're out there. I talked to them. So, I don't have a pessimistic view. And I also think that our lives have not been affected greatly in terms of like the the way that we live in America from a war since World War II. Like in the Korean War obviously, if you were if you were a a family member or your Gold Star family or you had people overseas, it affected you, but most Americans, they were still doing what normal Americans do. When I was in Iraq most Americans were at Starbucks ordering a double latte, whatever those things are that they order. They were driving their car, their nice car, they were surfing the internet. All those things were happening while we were at war. So, we haven't had a war or even an a Maybe I guess you could say COVID kind of impact COVID impacted us on mass, but it was also one of the things where we were looking around like, wait a second, what's what's going on here? It took us a while to figure out, hold on, what is actually happening? So, everyone kind of went, oh, wait, this is this seems weird. Wait. If I think if something like that happened again today, America would be a lot different. America would be a lot different in the way we respond Americans Yeah. our American populace would be a lot different in the way that we responded as a group. The the government really lost a lot of trust on that, and the media lost a lot of trust. And so, I don't see that happening again. I don't see something like that happening again. Um so, but but by and large the values that I put out in the way of the Warrior Kid, there's a reason why that book sells like crazy. There's a reason why kids listen, I have a Warrior Kid podcast, kids listen to that over and over and over again and their parents play it for them on their way to jiu-jitsu class. There's a reason because they want to be like that and more important, they recognize that those things are true. That those things are true. That's what they recognize. It resonates with them. Just like a good song, when you hear a good song, there's something inherent in the in the chords that are put together on the guitar that are inherent that resonate with us. That resonate with people. And there's truths in that book that resonate with people. When they when they read it, they go, "Oh, yeah. This is it. This is what we should be doing. This is what my kids should be doing." And and that's why I think I'm I'm not I I'm to use your word, optimistic. I love it. The Warrior Kid podcast, is that you talking to kids? It's just me. I'll talk about I'll read stories. I'll Actually, a lot of them are me just ans- answering questions for kids. You know, I'm get- I'm in fifth grade and this There's a kid that's mean to me. What should I do? You know, just those kind of standard things that kids go through. That is incredible that you've built a brand that can reach down to kids. Do they find you through their parents or through The Warrior Kid book? How both. That's really interesting, man. You seem like you would scare the life out of somebody in the fifth grade, but Oh, I'm I'm I'm horrifying to a child. Like I am I mean, I am one scary-looking human to a child, for sure. Uh and and But it sounds like they get it. Like they're get it because I you know, I believe it or not, even though I look scary, I'm I'll I'll interact really well with kids. I I interact with kids better than I interact with adults cuz I think I relate to them more. Kids are cooler and more honest and and yeah, I have more more fun interactions with kids than I do with adults. So easy. In many cases. We'll get back to the show in a moment, but first I want to talk about a big reason many businesses fail to get off the ground. A lot of entrepreneurs fail simply because they confuse being busy with being productive. They're drowning in tasks that have nothing to do with actually growing a business. Real CEOs don't do everything themselves. Thank God we can delegate and that's the point. And now, thanks to Shopify's AI, you can finally delegate like you, even if you're by yourself, have a full team. Shopify's AI writes your product descriptions faster than any copywriter. It enhances your product photos like you hired a professional photographer. It creates email and social campaigns like you have a full marketing department. This is not some startup overpromising AI magic. This is Shopify and Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US. Companies like Mattel and Gymshark trust Shopify to run their operations. Stop pretending to be busy and start being profitable. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/impact. And now, let's get back to the show. We were talking off off camera. It is really really really interesting to me about how creative you are, how much of that side of your personality exists. You've got so much to be fancy, bonafides from the Be Tough, Be Strong, whether it's the military, which obviously is unbelievable what you've gone through, seen, done, the level that you performed at, all of that. Uh jiu-jitsu, the continued strength into your um I don't know how old you are but uh 53 Okay Jesus. So you're in better shape at 53 than most 23 years are 23 year olds are. Just yeah most people never get into your kind of shape. Most people by the time they're 40s are making excuses. So it's absolutely incredible. But then I hear that you also do music. You're writing kids books. You've now written your first screenplay which I hear has been optioned but before we get to that your book your children's book has been turned into a feature film. Walk us through that process which is incredible. I mean this is like you're living my fantasy. So I am I am really blown away at the dexterity of your mind the the breadth of your personality. It's really inspiring. I would say uh very very lucky beyond anything else. Very very lucky. I've been lucky. And I got lucky with that whole thing. Um the story of the movie is I wrote the books. And there's a guy that I did not know at the time. His name is Ben Everard and Ben has a couple kids and he walked into his kids bedroom one day and they were doing push-ups. He said, "What are you guys doing?" And they hold up this book. "We want to be warrior kids." Do you know how they found the book? I don't know. I think they got it from school. I think they got it from school library. And you know Ben who's a happens to be a movie producer he was like, "What what is happening? How did a book make my kids do push-ups? I can't even get my kids to you know Yeah. make their bed and here they are doing push-ups. So he reads the book and he's like, "Oh my gosh. I got to make this into a movie." Friend of a friend he he had known a guy I had known a guy. He reached out to that guy like, "You worked with this guy?" Yep. Ben set up a meeting with me drove down to my gym in San Diego and presented me his his vision but also his understanding. Like he I'd been I I'd had quite a few not quite a few but I probably had four or five offers over the years of buying Warrior Kid to make it a new movie, but he's the guy that sat down and said, "I see it." So, you'd turned all those down? Yeah, and I but but I don't want to glamorize that too much. I'd have people say, "You know, we're interested in turning this They didn't They didn't you know, they'd send me an email. They'd They'd call me up or something like that. But no one like he was read fully understood the book, understood the impact on his kids, and came down and said, "I can I see it. I see how this becomes what it deserves to become." And I said, "Okay, cool. Let's go." And so we started kind of formulating the idea behind the movie. Next thing you know, we needed The next thing he wanted to do was a screenplay. And so he said, "Look, you know, if we want to bring this to market, we got to put together a package. You know, part of the package is a screenplay." And I said, "Cool, you know, I'll write the screenplay." And he said, "We should hire someone to write the screenplay." And I was kind of like, "Well, you know, hey, all due respect, I've written a dozen books. I've written a bunch of New York Times bestsellers. I I know how to write. I'll write the screenplay." And you know, he said, "Look, it's not the same. It's It's a movie. It's a different medium. It's a different skill. And we should hire someone." And luckily, talking earlier about being humble, I wasn't like, "No, I got this." I was like, "Okay, you know what? This guy's a pro. He's aligned with me. He wants the movie to do well, right? He want He has this vision. We're aligned on the vision. And so I know that what he's making he's he's saying this not to undermine me, but because he has the same vision. He wants to do well. So, I said, "Okay, cool." So, we hire we interview a few screenwriters, and we finally land on this guy named Will Staples, whose whose whose dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, which to me was like, "Okay, you're you're in." But this was right before being Hollywood Well, we're in Hollywood right now, so Hollywood uh screenwriting or or strike was going to happen. Writing strike was going to happen. So, we wanted him to write the screenplay before this strike was coming. And so, we said, "Yep, let's make that happen." And then Ben said to me, "Okay, I'm going to find investors to pay for the screenplay." And I was kind of like, "Whoa." Well, like, how much is it?" And he told me how much it was. And I said, "Well, what if I just pay for it?" And he was kind of like, "You want to pay for it?" And I said, "Well, yeah." And what I didn't realize at the time and what Ben didn't tell me is and you know this .0001% of screenplays get turned into a movie. Right? So, you're putting you're putting money towards something that the likelihood of success is almost zero. Yeah. I didn't even know that. In my mind, of course, everything is awesome, right? In my mind, I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah, of course of course I'll pay for the screenplay cuz then I'll own the screenplay. And then when a movie company studio buys it, then I'll just make more money. Great. Cool. No risk." In my mind, there was no risk. In his mind, it was all risk. But, you know, and he he hinted at like, "Hey, this you know, there's no guarantee on this." I said, "Okay. Cool." So, I paid for the screenplay. Wrote the screenplay. The screenplay was just And and we did it in 3 weeks. You know, he's sending us a draft, we're sending adjustments back. Change this, make this happen. And the screenplay was was was beautiful. It was just beautiful. Wow. So, as that's happening on another part of my world Jocko Fuel and Origin USA, Jocko Fuel supplement company, Origin USA clothing company, all 100% manufactured and made in America with American-made materials. As that's happening, Chris Pratt, who's friends or or was in a series called The Terminal List, which was written by a friend of mine named Jack Carr, who's another SEAL. So, they had obviously a relationship, and then another friend of mine named Jared, who's another SEAL, trained Chris Pratt for The Terminal List, and while he was training Chris Pratt for The Terminal List to get in shape and be a stud, he gave him Jocko Fuel. And he'd give him a bunch of different supplements, and Chris liked Jocko Fuel, and so he started taking Jocko Fuel all the time. And so, he gets in great shape, and he eventually reaches out to me. This is prior to the screenplay, prior to any of that. Chris Pratt says, "You know, hey, I'd really like to I I love what you're making, and I love what you're doing with Origin USA." Cuz he's a patriotic guy, and he says, "Cool." Um I would really like to do something. So, we start having So, we kind of say, "Yeah, let's do something together." And then our business, you know, counterparts start talking, right? What would this look like? And meanwhile, Ben says, you know, like, "Hey, you should you should show this this script to Chris Pratt." And I'm like, "Dude, I'm not showing this thing to Chris Pratt. I mean, I I I can't do that. The guy is a super nice guy. He wants to do he he wants to do a different project, and now I'm going to go and, you know, 'Hey, by the way, I've got this screenplay.' It just It just I couldn't do it. Yeah. Chris is too nice of a guy. He was too, like, open and too, uh uh just just too nice of a guy for me to be like, 'And by the way, I'd like to sneak this business deal.' I just couldn't do it. So, I said, 'Look, man, I'm not I'm not doing it.' But what happened was, as our business people were having the conversation, my business people were like, "Well, you know, Jocko's working on that movie." And then his business people like, "What movie?" "Oh, it's a kids movie based on this Warrior Kid book." And they said, "Well, send us the screenplay." So, my people sent Chris's people the screenplay. And they read it and went, "Oh my god. This is awesome." They give it to Chris's film agent. And this is woman, they call her Dr. No because she says no to everything. Yeah. And when I met her for the first time, she said, "It's great to meet you." She said, "I read this script. I wiped the tears from my eyes when I got done reading it, and I called Chris and said, 'You better make this movie.'" Wow. So, that was at our first big meeting. Nonetheless, once Chris got the script, Chris read it. Said he read it one sitting. Same thing. Tears. Like, "This is epic. We're going to make this movie." And so, then we had we had a package cuz we also brought on the director McG, who is awesome. Like, just such a great guy. Uh came up through the music video world, but then eventually did Charlie's Angels, you know, and just blew up from there. And has a bunch of epic stuff going on. So, that was the package, and that's what we kind of brought to the market. We want to make this movie, and eventually um Skydance and Apple came in and said, "We want it." It's incredible. Yeah. Did you guys make the whole film before you sold it to Skydance and Apple? Okay, so they actually foot the bill. They foot the bill. That's incredible. for it. That's so exciting. It was crazy. Have you Did you have ambitions like, "I know one day I'm going to write fiction" or did that take you by surprise? You know, I always wrote a lot. And fiction stuff. Everything. Okay. Um and I was actually I found an old story that I wrote the other day, and I was like, "This is" and I probably wrote it when I was like 15 or 16, and it's freaking awesome. And I was like, "Dude, this is so cool." I love this. I'll tell you the story real quick. It was like a short story, and there was this there was these um like an an old lumber town. Mhm. And there was a train that left the lumber yard and and and drove down these tracks out of and it came out of a tunnel. And depending on where it was going to go would be on one of three tracks. And these young kids got this idea where they would It was like playing Russian roulette. They'd stand above this tunnel Wow. and jump down as the train was coming out. And if they picked the right track, they'd be okay. And if they picked the wrong track, they would die. Yeah. And it's just a whole story about where it goes from there. But That's interesting at 15 or 16 years like I was 15 or 16 years old, that's a totally fictional story that I made up. So yes, I've been writing for a long time. That's really interesting. Um have you seen the movie Contact? No. Oh my god. So uh movie Contact, the book was written by Carl Sagan. Okay. And uh for people that don't don't know, um I think he was an astrophysicist, but certainly was He was like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of his day, but I would say much more famous and dare I say respected. But he um writes this book and in it this woman ends up they they get from aliens, they get instructions on how to build uh it's not time travel, but because it bends space and time, might as well be. So they build this device that's going to allow her to explore the cosmos. They end up sending her because of her It doesn't matter why, but they end up sending her. She's a scientist. And as she's going through the wormhole, she's describing back to NASA or whatever like what she sees and all this stuff and uh she goes, "They should have sent a poet." And I always thought that was a phenomenal line. Now hearing you talk about this, I realize that we sent a writer to war. Mhm. And I now want to see what it's like to be on the ground because I and Jocko, you may have told me this stuff before like it rings a distant bell the music thing, but I I didn't update my mental map of who you are, but today when we were talking I've been following the story stuff closely because I'm so impressed by it and it it's so in line with the kind of thing I want to do. Uh so just I'm completely blown away by that. And so today for some reason I was just like hold on a second. We've got this guy. He's in one package but inside there is um leadership is so on brand with the physicality. That one didn't jar me, but this is like writing stories from the time you were a kid. You told me that you won an art contest at your high school which is like a pretty big deal. Um musician Now dude, you're a published author of kids stories but like that sell. Not like hey, I wrote a thing and I printed it for six people like and then it got turned into a movie. Chris Pratt, I mean one of the most famous human beings on planet Earth. It's not small time. And there's a damn good reason for it. Yeah, like this is like you really like you're you're doing a thing that I saw Kobe do and I was so mortified when he died. Never met him. Never interviewed him. Certainly blown away by the Mamba mentality, but more importantly he went from being a basketball player and then won an Academy Award for filmmaking and I was like whoa. It's very rare that someone can take that thing, whatever that thing is, that discipline, that focus but the creativity of it all and then point it at something else and be successful. You've now done that with receipts on both sides that are so extreme. Okay, anyway, I say all of that because now I now that I feel like I have a better map of how your mind actually works. Are are you shifting gears? Like you put I've heard you talk about like you put the night vision goggles on and it's just different. You're just there. But, are is that creative mind processing the world? Like, are you having moments where you feel the either profundity of war or the absurdity of war? Or, are you narrating to yourself like what it means to put so much trust in another person? Like, what are the insights that you can feed us back as somebody with your ability to capture a story, tell a story, paint a picture? Like, give me some of that insight. I did not ever think I would be doing this stuff. When I was in Iraq, I did not I was I was like uh only doing one thing. And that was trying to accomplish the mission and keep my guys alive. And that was the only thing I thought about. I I didn't think about any after the military. I didn't have any concept of after the military. I didn't think about after the military. I only thought about the SEAL teams. That's the only thing I thought about. That's the only thing I cared about. And nothing else really mattered to me. And you know, it's funny. I I If I If I knew the trajectory I was going to be on, or I guess I should say an indicator of me not knowing the trajectory of my life was that I have I have almost no pictures of me in the SEAL teams. Like, I have almost no pictures. So, instead of me saying, "Oh, here I am in Iraq, and here I am doing this, and here I am doing that." Or a journal. I wish I had a journal. I don't have a journal. The closest thing I have to a journal is from my last deployment to Ramadi, I have notebooks like this that only and all they're filled there's no human insight whatsoever in those. There is only you know, hey make sure to make sure to tell the guys to watch out for this. Hey, this mission is going to go down tomorrow night. We're supporting this group. Like it's only notes, operational notes. I had no other thoughts in my mind. I was only there to to fight. And that was my whole And and death was accepted as well. Of hey this is this is what this is the this is we're ready. I'm I'm okay. I don't need I'm I'm I might not come home and that's fine. I get it. This is what we're doing. This is what I'm doing. Assessing the situation on the ground from a creative perspective 100%. Interacting with other people in a creative way 100%. Talking to other people 100%. Like I I I actually will look back now and you know when you go watch a movie where the freaking the battalion commander stands up and gives a speech and you're like hell yeah. You you you've seen movies like that, right? Or the the the the high school football coach or the whatever they get I did that. Like I really did that. I really got to like for lack of a better word, give speeches to my guys. I never thought about the fact that I was giving speeches. I never that I never thought of them as speeches, but now I look back and I say, oh yeah. I remember when I said that. I remember when I I that. I remember what I was doing was I had a message that I needed to convey to the to the boys. And I had to be as articulate as I could. I had to convey this message. It can be hard to to make people understand things. So, was there creativity in all those aspects? Yes. Did I think about capturing one iota of that in a journal of any kind? No, I did not. I did not at all. Uh the only thing that I cared about and the only thing that I thought about was war and the SEAL Teams. And I didn't care about anything else. Uh and I don't even know if that's healthy. It's probably not. But that I felt like that was my one benefit I had of being older when I went to war was I knew every moment that I was there, I knew that this was this was the apex of my life. This was everything that I had ever wanted to do. This is everything that I ever dreamt of doing, and this is we I am at the moment in time where I am needed to do what I am supposed to do. And and that's where I was. Do you think you'll ever write about the war? I mean, I I've written about it, obviously, in Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy of Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. I've written about components about it. But, um as far as going back and telling that story, maybe at some point. Maybe at some point, but you know, it's funny because, you know, I whenever I tell people I wrote a novel you know, their immediate question is almost like, "What what war is it about?" And it's like, "No, it's not. It's about a laundromat." And they're always like, "What?" I admittedly did not see that coming. Yeah. Like, so I think I think, you know, if if we were to try and dissect my my brain a little bit you know m- the time that I was in the military, I think I applied the creative the creative bend that I have in my in my brain, I think I just used it for military purposes and and just was that's what I focused on. You know, I went to school I went to college while I was in the military and I studied English. And when I studied English in school, the reason I studied English was that I could write better concept of operations. Was that I could write better evaluations for my guys. That's why I did it. And it worked. Like I was a very good at that. And that's what I used it for. When I retired, I did not think for one second that I would write a book. I did not think that at all. There was a moment where that future's just unknown and I it didn't make sense to me. I never thought to myself, otherwise I'd have a bunch of pictures, right? If I would have had any iota or I would have kept a journal. I would have kept a journal. I would have kept a journal. Hey, on this date we did this operation. Here's what happened. Hey, we had casualties today. Here's what thoughts are going through my mind. You know, I I was telling my wife and I was talking to my daughter the other day and I have, you know, one thing that's beautiful about emails is, you know, they're they're permanent. And you can scan them very quickly. And I was on Memorial Day I was going back and I was seeing what I wrote my wife after my friend and my brother Mark Lee first SEAL killed in Iraq. What did I write my wife on He He died August 2nd, 2006. What did I write my wife on August 2nd, on August 3rd, on August 4th? I I went and read those emails and it's like Hey, checking in. Hope school's going well. Not a mention. Not a mention. What about August cuz there's a time where you're not allowed to say anything, but then that time passes. Nothing. So, so compartmentalized. And only focused on one thing. It's like, "Yep, the family. Got to make sure the family's doing good to go. Got to make sure that the team is good to go. Those two things do not touch each other. They do not touch each other." And And so, that's just a a little bit of a snapshot into what I was thinking about. Was I thinking about poetry? Negative. Was I thinking about songs? Negative. I was thinking about war. What environment do you think outputs the best leaders? Politics, corporations, or the military? Politics, I I would say is the one where I don't really think that might be the best example. I don't think politics produces good leaders because especially the way the system is now. When I went to Officer Candidate School, when I went to Officer Candidate School, you you have to polish your belt buckle. Well, you actually had to polish the You had to You had to scrub your belt buckle with this chemical called Brasso. You had to scrub your belt buckle until the finish on the belt buckle was gone. Oh. So, they put If you If you got a piece of a brass belt buckle, they put a finish on it so that it doesn't uh get contaminated every single day. Well, when you go to OCS, they actually make you polish that finish off of You remove the finish. And I remember just thinking to myself, it's a slow evolution where, you know, 30 years ago, someone said, "Hey, make sure your belt buckle doesn't have any, you know, smudges on it." And then it's like, "Well, make sure that you polish it." And then it's "We want you to polish this thing until it no longer has the finish on it that protects it." And it just goes totally astray, right? I think that's what happens with with politicians. Like they go into politics, they got to behave a certain Okay, well, you're you're going to be a politician now, Tom. Be more professional. Okay, so you're like, got it. And then so you adjust your behavior a little bit. And then well, we want you to adjust it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And pretty soon, the person that you were is gone. Now, you're just this weird uh articulation of a human being that you that can move its mouth and say words that it's being programmed with. So, I I would say politicians probably not the best place to formulate leaders. But the corporate world, obviously I work with all kinds of corporations. There's some incredible leaders there. And then the same thing with the military, incredible leaders in the military. That being said, there's horrible leaders in the military. There's horrible leaders in the corporate world. So, leadership is is it gets formulated from a bunch of different components. A lot of it is who you are as a human being. Just who are you as a human being? And where are you as a human being? Because depending on where you are as a human being really depends what kind of leader you're going to When you say where, what do you mean? What is your goal? What do you care about? What do you value? Because if what you care about is you, that's going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem in the military for sure. It's going to be a problem in the civilian sector as well. If your number one concern, Tom, as a leader is Tom, and it's not the team, and it's not the people, and it's not the mission, you that things just aren't going to work well. So, but if your number one concern is taking care of your people, your number one concern is executing the mission, your number one concern is making sure that you create something of value for the world, that's going to be a person that's going to turn out being a better leader than someone that's focused on themselves. So, and and by the way, you can be you can be on the surface, like you know that if you look out for yourself, you're not going to get promoted cuz you'll look like you're an egotistical maniac, and so you'll play the game, and you can do that for a little while. But usually those that that core ego sleeps slips out, and it will be problematic. Do you have a sense of what the political game is? So, if it's this constant adjustment that makes somebody really sort of a caricature of a human, uh why does that system optimize for that? When I think people, I mean, I would certainly say politicians should be the people leading the nation. That certainly I think the the cover story that it has when people are voting, but it ends up not actually outputting that thing. So, what is the essence of politics? Being able to conform to the machine and be able to execute what the machine wants. And is that uh a game of compromise? Cuz I'm watching what's going on right now with like Trump and Elon are falling apart, or so that's how it's being portrayed, but Elon does seem pretty pissed about if I had to put words in his mouth, like I went and slept on the floor and did all this stuff trying to cut the budget, and now uh you put out this big beautiful bill that ups the ceiling of the debt, and like you just betrayed everything that we stood for. And so, there's that friction of you have a guy that realizes, "Oh, you actually can't do this dance because when I look at from the administration side, they're like, 'Bro, we've got to get something passed.' And so, I get the ideology, but the reality is that we have this two-party system where people are just battering each other. And so, So, like compromise, compromise, compromise to get something to move forward, and we all sort of tell a story and turn a blind eye to in this case, a fiscal cliff that we're driving towards just cuz we have to get something that can be voted on. I would say that's a good assessment. It's a good assessment. There's there's the ideal and there's reality. And how those two how how you how you sort of thread those two together, I think a politician they're trying to do that, and I think it's a a really difficult situation that they're in, and I don't think many of them do it very well. Jocko, this has been incredible. Uh where can people connect with you, follow along, find the things you're doing? Um I guess jacofuel.com, originusa.com, echelonfront.com. jocko.com, and I'm on social media at Jocko Willink. That's where I'm at. I love it. Brother, thank you again for being here. Absolutely incredible. I appreciate every second of it. Good seeing you, man. Boys and girls, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you liked this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. Jeffrey Epstein's story was never about sex. It was an illusion, like the dress some see as blue and others see as gold. Intelligence agencies exploit the same trick. They shape what you notice and distort what it means. Enter compromat, the art of collecting dirt