The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink

00:00:01.000 Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we are here, and I'm here with Jocko Willink of Extreme Ownership, How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.

00:00:11.000 I'm really excited to read this because I really enjoyed your podcast with Tim Ferriss.

00:00:15.000 And I've seen you around the UFC a bunch of times, but I didn't know much about you.

00:00:20.000 But you're one of those dudes. 0.99

00:00:22.000 You know, where I look at this guy, I'm like, that guy probably knows some shit. 0.99

00:00:26.000 Is this something about you? 1.00

00:00:27.000 Like, when I see you, you know, you're hanging around with Lister, I saw you a few times at the UFC, I'm like, that guy probably knows some shit, or he's seen some shit. 0.88

00:00:35.000 And then I saw, or listened to the Tim Ferriss podcast, and I go, okay, well that makes a lot of sense now. 0.87

00:00:41.000 If you haven't heard that podcast, it is excellent.

00:00:44.000 And you're the first guy ever to come with your own notepad and your own pen, too.

00:00:49.000 I just want to point that out.

00:00:50.000 Just trying to be prepared.

00:00:52.000 Well, that's your whole thing, man. 0.99

00:00:54.000 I'm a big fan of your social media posts, too, because I like feeling like a lazy fuck whenever I look at your social media posts. 0.99

00:01:02.000 You have a picture of your watch, 4.45 in the morning. 0.99

00:01:05.000 This dude's out there working out.

00:01:06.000 I like it.

00:01:07.000 Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, I obviously had zero social media presence like three months ago or whatever the case may be.

00:01:15.000 And Tim Ferriss was, you know, basically said, hey, you need to get on this social media stuff.

00:01:20.000 And I said, okay, can you kind of show me what to do?

00:01:22.000 And he says, yeah, sign up.

00:01:24.000 So then I signed up.

00:01:24.000 And then he dropped that podcast that gets listened to by a bunch of people.

00:01:28.000 And all of a sudden I was engulfed in the social media world.

00:01:32.000 And I found Twitter to be the one that was the easiest to use.

00:01:37.000 And you don't have to write a lot.

00:01:39.000 So, you know, I don't like people that talk a whole bunch without saying anything.

00:01:43.000 So I figured that one's pretty cool.

00:01:45.000 Yeah, that was the thing that I was thinking when he was encouraging you to use social media.

00:01:50.000 I was like, a guy like you, you're not a peacocker, you know?

00:01:55.000 And there's something about social media that, as a person who's an avid social media user, there's some peacocking to it, you know?

00:02:02.000 And I try to do it with humor, and I try to, because it's an important aspect of promoting comedy shows and podcasts and things along those lines.

00:02:10.000 But you're much more of a keep it to yourself, One of the things that I loved about the Ferris podcast you were talking about, how you would have commanders come to various leaders and ask them, what do you need?

00:02:25.000 What do you need?

00:02:27.000 And guys would have all these requests and all these things.

00:02:30.000 We need Wi-Fi.

00:02:30.000 We need this.

00:02:31.000 And you were like, we're good, sir.

00:02:33.000 We're good, sir.

00:02:34.000 And the idea behind that is when you did need something, if you really did need something, someone would come to you.

00:02:41.000 Yeah.

00:02:41.000 You would get it quickly.

00:02:42.000 Absolutely.

00:02:43.000 When I needed something and I spoke up and said, hey boss, this is what I need and this is why I need it, they would instantly give it to me.

00:02:50.000 Because they knew that I was telling the truth and it wasn't some, you know, half-assed request that wasn't real.

00:02:55.000 It was something that we legit needed and they'd give it to me. 0.91

00:02:58.000 Well, this is the value of someone who keeps their words short and means what they say and says what they mean and doesn't have a lot of bullshit involved in their vocabulary. 0.99

00:03:10.000 And this is coming from a professional bullshitter. 0.99

00:03:12.000 I mean, this is what I do. 1.00

00:03:13.000 I bullshit. 1.00

00:03:14.000 I talk, you know, fill a lot of hours of just shooting the shit about nonsense. 1.00

00:03:19.000 Yeah, and I mean, I have to, you know, look in the mirror myself. 0.98

00:03:22.000 I mean, I just wrote with my partner, Leif Babin, who I served with, you know, we just wrote a 300-page book about us, you know, for all practical purposes.

00:03:31.000 Now, of course, it's about our team, and it's about what we learned and what we experienced, but there's no doubt that there's some level of, you know, self-promotion when you're writing a book that's got your name on the cover of it, and now I'm sitting here talking to you, and I guess that puts me in the same league.

00:03:46.000 Maybe not the same league, but at least I'm playing the same sport.

00:03:48.000 Yeah, we're definitely playing the same sport, but there's benefit to that because I think what you have to say and especially what you had to say in the Tim Ferriss podcast is very important.

00:03:59.000 It's not just important, it's unique.

00:04:02.000 Because your perspective is of one who was involved in the most intense activity a human being can participate in in today's world.

00:04:13.000 You were involved in combat in Iraq during the worst time of the war and You came through it with some pretty intense lessons and You can I think anybody listening to that podcast can get a lot out of it There's inspiration to be gotten from that podcast for sure,

00:04:32.000 but there's also an understanding That can only be...

00:04:38.000 I don't think anybody else can relay what you experienced but you.

00:04:44.000 You know, you can have all these guys that write these, you know, movies, and they could write screenplays and television shows about it, or guys can write books about it, embedded journalists can write about it.

00:04:54.000 It's not the same.

00:04:56.000 It's not the same.

00:04:57.000 I got a sense from just you talking about it Tim Ferriss podcast Literally a shift in my perspective of what it's like to be there Yeah It is you know for me it was my and I know this might sound weird,

00:05:16.000 but it was my lifelong dream To be in combat and to be in a leadership position in combat ever since I could remember wanting to do anything Of any substance with my life.

00:05:30.000 I wanted to be some kind of a commando.

00:05:33.000 And so, I really felt, and the Battle of Ramadi was, you know, like you said, it was 2006. It was Ramadi, Iraq.

00:05:41.000 It was the worst place in the world at the time.

00:05:43.000 And I knew that.

00:05:46.000 Felt like my whole life had sort of been Preparing me to be there in that position Taking care of those guys to the best of my ability and going out and and sending them out to go and kill the enemy and supporting the conventional forces that were there that were unbelievably brave and humble and Just miraculously patriotic And we formed a brotherhood that,

00:06:13.000 you know, to this day, I don't think it'll ever be replaced.

00:06:17.000 And you can see why, you know, these stories of war stand the test of time.

00:06:22.000 And when we talk about the Peloponnesian Wars, we talk about war for all time because there's something there.

00:06:28.000 And I think it's what you began with because it is the ultimate...

00:06:32.000 Human test, you know, it's the ultimate it is other people are trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them and that's just the ultimate test and Not that it's a great test or a test that everyone should want to have happen because it's it's awful and horrible and And wretched in many ways.

00:06:54.000 But at the same time, it's there and it's present.

00:06:57.000 And there is no avoiding it.

00:07:00.000 There is no avoiding it.

00:07:01.000 War is part of the world.

00:07:02.000 It's part of human nature.

00:07:04.000 I know Dana White, you know, says fighting's in our DNA. Well, you don't have to go but one or two degrees further from fist fighting to where, you know, tribes of human beings are trying to kill each other.

00:07:17.000 Yeah, it's one of the subjects that I've talked about with my friend Duncan.

00:07:21.000 We were going over this, and we essentially came to the conclusion that the history of the human race is a history of military warfare.

00:07:30.000 I mean, whenever you talk about the human race, you talk about the Civil War.

00:07:34.000 You talk about...

00:07:36.000 World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, you talk about wars, and in between those wars, people preparing for more war, or trying to avoid war, the Cold War, in between wars.

00:07:48.000 You talk about the various conflicts throughout history, whether it's Genghis Khan, or whether it's Napoleon, you're talking about war.

00:07:56.000 I mean, almost all of our history has been trying to keep people from fucking with us, and trying to take things that we think will help our people.

00:08:05.000 That's essentially the history of the human race.

00:08:08.000 Yeah, and I think what really strikes people and why there's a an almost Sick fascination with it in some ways is because there it's you know, we say that a Combat is like life but amplified and intensified so it's similar to regular life except for the consequences are obviously everything you know you can die that can be the end of you and So when you're in that moment and when you read about that and when people read these

00:08:38.000 books or watch these movies They get some sense of what that must be like and I think that's why there's like I said some Attraction to it.

00:08:48.000 I mean that's why war there's hundreds and hundreds of war movies and hundreds and hundreds of war books because people try and understand what that emotional content really means Well, there's no higher stakes.

00:09:00.000 So anytime you're involved in an activity that, literally, there are no higher stakes.

00:09:04.000 Other than the loss of your loved ones and the grief that you would suffer because of that, the loss of your own life is about the highest stake possible.

00:09:11.000 And when I talk to people like you or many of the other guys that I've talked to that have served and been involved in combat, one of the craziest aspects of it is Many want to be back there.

00:09:24.000 Many experience that life tuned up to 11, and they recall it like it's the best time of their life.

00:09:33.000 There's no doubt about it.

00:09:34.000 Best time of my life.

00:09:35.000 That's crazy.

00:09:36.000 No doubt about it.

00:09:37.000 Feeling that pressure.

00:09:40.000 Knowing what was at stake.

00:09:42.000 And again, for me in a leadership position, you know, everyone feels a little bit different.

00:09:45.000 For me in a leadership position, you're not worried about yourself getting hurt or killed.

00:09:51.000 You're worried about your guys getting hurt or killed.

00:09:53.000 And that's the most important thing.

00:09:55.000 And the thing that's keeping you awake at night.

00:09:57.000 And the thing that's driving you.

00:09:58.000 And so...

00:10:02.000 There's an intensity there, but having so much pressure and so much at stake when it goes away, it's definitely leaves a hollow empty space inside.

00:10:19.000 There's no doubt about it.

00:10:20.000 Well, you see it with fighters with boxers MMA fighters when they retire they have a real hard time finding regular life to be fulfilling.

00:10:31.000 And I can only imagine it would be way more intense because of war.

00:10:36.000 Because the thing about fighting is it's such a solitary sport.

00:10:40.000 You know, you have your team behind you, you have coaches, you have guys that you prepare with, that you train with.

00:10:45.000 But once you're locked up inside that cage or you step inside that ring, it's really all just about you.

00:10:51.000 The experience is yours.

00:10:53.000 When you're at war, your experience is protecting all those around you as well as staying alive.

00:11:01.000 And losing friends and thinking that you could have done something differently and maybe someone would still be here.

00:11:09.000 That's a completely different kind of thing to leave and to come back to. 0.86

00:11:17.000 Regular civilization and then to watch all the shit that you did in Iraq go to pieces now you watch just fucking chaos over there now every day in the news that Whether it's the the civil war between the Sunni and the Shia or whether it's what's going on with Isis and it just seems like Whatever gains that you guys made there are slowly being eroded every day. 0.80

00:11:41.000 Does that also like pull at you? 0.97

00:11:45.000 Oh, yeah Absolutely.

00:11:47.000 So, like I said, we fought, and when I say we, I'm talking about a giant group of 5,000 or 6,000 Americans, or the 1-1 AD, just a huge group of awesome guys, soldiers and Marines, and we were a part of them.

00:12:01.000 And so we all fought very hard for the city of Ramadi.

00:12:05.000 I mean, it's a city.

00:12:07.000 It's a city like a city in America.

00:12:09.000 You know, it's got roads, and it's got houses, and it's got buildings, and it's got a government center, and it's got a soccer stadium.

00:12:14.000 It's a city like what we have in America.

00:12:17.000 And we went in there and fought to take this city back from these savages that owned it at the time. 1.00

00:12:25.000 And why do I call them savages? 0.73

00:12:27.000 It's because they Tortured people they skinned people alive they beheaded people they raped little girls and little boys that was just disgusting and so we went in there and fought against them and Beat them And what we did in doing that is the people that actually lived there again,

00:12:50.000 this is a city with human beings in it and I Always have to tell this story or at least relate to people that you'd be running down the street There'd be guns firing around and you'd kick open the the door to a compound to somebody's house and you'd get in there and there'd be you know a guy a dad working on a car and There'd be two kids kicking a soccer ball and there'd be a mom cooking lunch and And so there's people there and those people wanted us to be there and wanted us to

00:13:20.000 defeat the insurgents that were terrorizing them and We did and they were joyous about that and so when you talk about what do I think now when I see Isis the black flag of Isis I mean is there any other? 0.63

00:13:34.000 More dramatic image then I could tell you then that the black flag of Isis now flies at the government center Ahmadi it's it's it's horrible and it's sickening and they went around and anybody that had had anything to do with the coalition there they went around with a list of names and they murdered all of them and all their families and you know we We as a country We kind of left them hanging and It's 0.96

00:14:04.000 it's horrible to see that we left them hanging and we instigated a Lot of crazy shit when we took Saddam Hussein out of power Which was probably ultimately a good thing to get rid of that guy. 0.94

00:14:16.000 There was no question that he was a psychopath and his sons were evil fucks but In creating that vacuum, like when the leadership is gone, you kind of have a responsibility to manage that area now. 0.99

00:14:32.000 As crazy as that sounds, like people want to say we're not in the business of nation building. 0.99

00:14:39.000 We're not in the building process or the business of...

00:14:46.000 Organizing or structuring a nation building a democracy out of one which did not have one ever But you kind of have to well look what we did in Germany in Japan.

00:14:57.000 Yeah We're still in both those countries.

00:14:59.000 Yeah, we stayed there and guess what the two you know, what are the two?

00:15:04.000 Economic superpowers behind America, you know, I know those two are both in the top five Germany's definitely the head of Europe, you know besides China but Japan and Those are economic superpowers.

00:15:14.000 They're very successful countries.

00:15:15.000 And we formulated their new structure.

00:15:19.000 No, there's a lot of resistance in this country.

00:15:21.000 There always was a lot of resistance to going to Iraq in the first place, because people didn't understand the connection between 9-11 and Iraq, and it seemed like it was manufactured.

00:15:30.000 It seemed like to people on this side that, you know, we're looking at it, and we're looking at Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all these chicken hawks that wanted us to go over there, and why?

00:15:41.000 But once you're there, you kind of have to have a different approach, don't you?

00:15:48.000 Well, there's no doubt you have to have a different approach you have to believe in what you're doing and again when you're number one and every Every soldier or marine or service member will tell you that when they're in combat They're not thinking about you know the strategic mission of the United States of America They're thinking about the guy that's next to them and what they're gonna do to keep that keep their buddies alive And that's that's all there is to and that's true and anyone will tell you that But that being said when you come back from that operation and you have time to think about what you're doing there Then you've got to believe in what you're doing

00:16:18.000 and if you don't believe in what you're doing then you're gonna have some serious issues and so for me, you know It was pretty obvious that what we were doing was Was absolutely the right thing.

00:16:28.000 I mean you've got Insurgents there that were foreign fighters that want to kill everyone in America. 1.00

00:16:35.000 They hate us They want to destroy us. 0.89

00:16:39.000 They want to do 9-11 over and over again in this country.

00:16:43.000 They want to kill us all and so For us to be there fighting them, I am totally on board and was on board and remain that way today.

00:16:53.000 Now, these insurgents that came into these places like Ramadi and were taking over the city and killing all these people and torturing all these people, why were they doing that to them?

00:17:03.000 It's the same thing that ISIS did when they went back. 0.69

00:17:06.000 I mean, they want to have a chunk of land.

00:17:08.000 At the time, they'd said that Ramadi was going to be the seat of their caliphate.

00:17:12.000 It's going to be the capital city of their caliphate. 0.99

00:17:15.000 That's what they were trying to do.

00:17:16.000 So, in a sense, once war started over there, it became a holy war.

00:17:23.000 Yes, and it's a holy war, but it's interesting because the people of Iraq, there's people in Iraq, most people in Iraq, when you talk to them, they're normal people that want to have a job,

00:17:40.000 Build a new addition on their house, fix the roof, get some good food for dinner that night, raise their kids so that they can take over the family business or whatever. 0.99

00:17:49.000 That's what they want.

00:17:50.000 They're not a bunch of people running around doing what ISIS is doing.

00:17:54.000 But who is the powerful force in Iraq right now?

00:17:58.000 Now everyone's scared of ISIS. And one thing about this is because Iraq is... 1.00

00:18:08.000 They don't have this kind of patriotic feeling that we have in America, which I know it may be dying in many cases, but there's a lot of Americans that still believe America is the greatest country on earth.

00:18:19.000 And even if you don't believe it's the greatest country on earth, and even if you see it for all of its faults that it has, you appreciate the fact that in this country you have freedom.

00:18:28.000 And so you can kind of fight for that no matter what you're thinking about.

00:18:32.000 You're fighting for freedom.

00:18:33.000 You're fighting to protect your family.

00:18:35.000 Well, in Iraq, they're like, okay, um... 0.95

00:18:38.000 I'll fight for whoever I'll fight for whoever or support whoever is just gonna allow me to live They don't have the same attitude.

00:18:46.000 That's why when Isis came into Ramadi and the Iraqi troops kind of ran away They're like well, we don't know what's gonna happen.

00:18:53.000 We don't really they don't have that core belief that they're fighting for and So I think that's where some of the challenges come in and as they grow that They will perform better, but it's definitely going to take, you know, quite a bit of time.

00:19:05.000 I think patriotism in America was at its all-time high around September 11th.

00:19:10.000 Right after that happened, you never saw more flags.

00:19:13.000 I mean, I remember driving down the street and every car had a flag hanging from it.

00:19:18.000 No doubt about it.

00:19:19.000 I mean, it was a buddy of mine, Jay London, sold flags.

00:19:23.000 That's what he used to do.

00:19:24.000 Sell car flags.

00:19:25.000 Flags that you put on cars.

00:19:26.000 Had a good business going on for a while.

00:19:28.000 But like a lot of things, people got accustomed to it.

00:19:32.000 They got settled in and everything got back down to its normal level.

00:19:37.000 So it was this big buzz of patriotism.

00:19:40.000 Well, there's a big buzz of patriotism when you feel threatened.

00:19:45.000 And we never feel threatened in America.

00:19:49.000 Everyone is driving around in a nice big SUV that gets eight miles to the gallon with big air-conditioned blasting.

00:19:56.000 They're looking at their iPhone, texting people, socially interacting through the Wi-Fi.

00:20:02.000 And they're not concerned about their safety and so when you're not concerned about your safety What is there left to be patriotic when you don't understand what it means to live in fear?

00:20:11.000 So yeah September 11th comes and you get attacked and you feel that fear guess what you rally around this This thing, America, that's protected you and your family, but you didn't even think about it before, but now you're thinking about it, and you go, you know what, I'm gonna put a flag up on my vehicle.

00:20:26.000 This vehicle that I drive around in complete luxury.

00:20:29.000 Which is what America's like.

00:20:31.000 America is unbelievably luxurious compared to the rest of the world.

00:20:34.000 There's also unquestionable evil involved in flying planes into buildings and killing civilians just Randomly haphazardly suicide bombing essentially with a plane right into a building All that was so evil that everybody just there was no there was no gray area in that It was pretty clear.

00:20:53.000 It was about as clear as any event ever in human history agree Now, when you found out, I mean, you were already involved in the military when all this was going on.

00:21:05.000 Yeah.

00:21:06.000 You signed up, like, long before.

00:21:08.000 Like, if there's anybody that I've ever met that I've ever heard talk about, I mean, this is how you feel.

00:21:14.000 You're born for this.

00:21:15.000 This is your goal, your post in life.

00:21:20.000 Yes.

00:21:21.000 What pulled you into that?

00:21:22.000 You grew up in New England?

00:21:24.000 I did.

00:21:24.000 What part?

00:21:25.000 Connecticut and Maine.

00:21:26.000 Okay.

00:21:27.000 In the sticks.

00:21:29.000 I'm on a dirt road, you know, just kind of a general American.

00:21:33.000 A general American.

00:21:35.000 What was it that drew you to it?

00:21:38.000 Like, where did you develop this sense of patriotism?

00:21:43.000 Well, I would say prior to the feeling of patriotism, you know, like I said, I always wanted to be some kind of a commando.

00:21:51.000 And I would say that when you join the military, I'd say people that are somewhat patriotic join the military, but when you travel around the world and you're in the military, that kind of confirms your patriotism more than anything else, because you see what the rest of the world is like and how...

00:22:05.000 How unbelievably amazing America is.

00:22:08.000 And again, does America have faults?

00:22:11.000 Yeah.

00:22:12.000 America's got all kinds of faults.

00:22:13.000 There's all kinds of things that we could do better, and there's things that we've done in the past that we shouldn't have done, and there's things that we'll do in the future that we shouldn't have done.

00:22:21.000 But when you compare that with the rest of the world and how the rest of the world lives and what it means to be in an oppressed society, you know, you're extremely thankful to be in America.

00:22:32.000 This is once you've already been in the military and already started traveling.

00:22:35.000 So this is just, you just had this draw towards it, almost like your destiny.

00:22:40.000 To be in the military?

00:22:42.000 Yeah.

00:22:42.000 Yes.

00:22:44.000 It's strange that it just came out of nowhere like there was no like event in your life It just seems like this was just something that it was always you were always attracted to I mean running around the woods as a little kid with BB guns shooting each other and that seemed like a good job And it's funny,

00:23:04.000 you know in SEAL teams you don't you don't grow up, you know, you don't you continue with your childhood You know play Time for your whole adult life and it's awesome You know that's the best thing about the SEAL teams is you you get to do what you always wanted to do and they pay you money and you get unlimited ammunition unbelievable types of weapons bombs explosives,

00:23:28.000 you know grenades and And they just give it all to you, and they say, get after it.

00:23:34.000 Well, they get excited when they find a guy like you.

00:23:36.000 Here we got a smart guy who was born to do this, who's really looking forward to it.

00:23:41.000 It's perfect.

00:23:42.000 I guess so.

00:23:43.000 I'm sure the recruiter was pretty fired up when he met me.

00:23:45.000 I would be.

00:23:46.000 If I was a recruiter, I'd be like, we got one.

00:23:48.000 Check.

00:23:49.000 Check the boxes.

00:23:53.000 It's even more intense because it's not just you get to play, but only the strong get to play.

00:23:59.000 The weak all get weeded out, and what's left is people of similar character.

00:24:06.000 That's what I've found most fascinating.

00:24:08.000 I think that's one of the things that's so romantic in the public's eye about the idea of the seals or Green Berets or Rangers, people that it's very difficult to get in there and only a select few have the intestinal fortitude, the willpower and the ability to lock on to a task and a goal and get through it.

00:24:29.000 Yeah, and then when you're in the SEAL teams, none of that means anything.

00:24:33.000 And like all the training and all that selection process, it just doesn't mean anything because you all, that's just the baseline of where everyone's at.

00:24:41.000 And so when people talk about this intense training, when you're in the SEAL teams, you don't talk about that training that you go through to get in.

00:24:47.000 That's just the baseline for everybody. 1.00

00:24:49.000 So it's just to make sure that you're not a pussy. 1.00

00:24:51.000 Just, exactly. 1.00

00:24:52.000 Exactly.

00:24:53.000 And here you are, 44 years old, you're still getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning doing deadlifts.

00:24:58.000 Yeah.

00:24:59.000 It never left you.

00:25:01.000 It did not leave me.

00:25:02.000 It's not going to is it?

00:25:03.000 It is not going to.

00:25:05.000 So you you get through once you get through the Intensity of buds and you you get through you know all the people that are gonna quit and you get through all the training What is life like from there on out like how structured is like training and Physical activity and things like that from there on out,

00:25:26.000 you know Again Being in the SEAL teams is awesome.

00:25:31.000 It's such a fun job that I literally didn't consider it a job except for maybe 13 months out of my career.

00:25:39.000 13 months I worked directly for the Admiral that was in charge of all the SEALs.

00:25:44.000 And he's a great guy, and I learned a ton from him and from having that job, but it wasn't a fun job, and even he would tell you it's not a fun job.

00:25:53.000 You know, you're wearing a uniform every day, and in the regular SEAL teams, you're wearing a pair of shorts, and you're barely wearing a shirt because you're out there in the field.

00:26:03.000 You know or you know getting ready to go in the field So it's it's a great life and you're constantly training You're hanging out with a bunch of guys that are pretty much have the same attitude as you for the most part There's a couple guys that don't cut it and there's some guys that are super studs and you're you're doing your best to emulate them But you're hanging out with a bunch of great guys and you know when I was a young seal well we'd get to Friday and We you know go out have a beer We'd get done.

00:26:30.000 Saturday, we'd still go to work.

00:26:31.000 Sunday, we'd still go to work.

00:26:32.000 We'd go work out.

00:26:33.000 We'd hang out.

00:26:33.000 We'd work on our gear.

00:26:34.000 We'd get ready.

00:26:35.000 And there was not even a war going on.

00:26:36.000 We were just into it.

00:26:38.000 We were just fired up for the SEAL teams.

00:26:40.000 And that was, so it's a great life.

00:26:43.000 And then once the war started, The intensity definitely picked up because, you know, everybody knew that we were going into combat and everyone pushed that much harder.

00:26:54.000 That being said, back in the 90s, we used to train really, really hard because there was an unknown element.

00:27:02.000 You know, there was an unknown element where you didn't know what was really gonna, you didn't know what combat was really like, so you trained as hard as you possibly could figure out how to train.

00:27:11.000 We trained.

00:27:11.000 And then once combat started, and we're like, okay, well, we kind of know what we're dealing with now.

00:27:15.000 It'd be like a fighter going to a camp, if he's never fought in the UFC before, he's gonna train super hard to make his debut.

00:27:21.000 Well, maybe after he wins really easily his first couple fights, maybe he backs off on that training camp a little bit.

00:27:25.000 Not that we did that, but it definitely mentally was there to push hard even before combat.

00:27:32.000 So you're just essentially saying that even before you were going to war, you were gonna be ready.

00:27:38.000 You were gonna make sure that you had all your boxes checked and you had all your ducks in a row.

00:27:44.000 100%.

00:27:44.000 How much physical training is there once you're actually deployed?

00:27:49.000 It depends on where you are and what you're doing.

00:27:51.000 You know, it depends on what type of missions you're going on.

00:27:54.000 But, you know, being in the SEAL teams is a very physical job.

00:27:57.000 And again, you know what it is?

00:27:58.000 It's a baseline.

00:27:59.000 Everyone expects that you're gonna be able to put on your rucksack and your gear and go out and move and shoot and communicate.

00:28:04.000 That's the baseline.

00:28:05.000 Everyone's expected to do it.

00:28:06.000 Whatever you have to do to make that happen is kind of on you.

00:28:11.000 Although we do do, you know, team, what we call PT, physical training, but we do team PT, but a lot of it is on you as an individual or your smaller element, you know, group of guys, and that's how you got to stay in shape.

00:28:24.000 You do not want to be the guy that, you know, can't carry his weight.

00:28:28.000 That's just, you'll get kicked out.

00:28:31.000 But it's not structured, it's not organized.

00:28:33.000 Like, say if you're deployed in Iraq.

00:28:35.000 What I was getting at was, I always wondered, like, I would imagine the type of workouts that you do, they're exhausting, right?

00:28:41.000 You know, you're deadlifting, you're doing cleans and presses and all this crazy shit, and chin-ups and running up hills.

00:28:47.000 If you had to go to war right after a hard workout like that, it's gonna take something out of you. 0.96

00:28:52.000 Yeah, you've gotta use common sense.

00:28:54.000 How do you know when to stay in shape or what to do?

00:28:59.000 You're not going to do a massive squat workout while you're on deployment.

00:29:05.000 That's going to put you in the hurt locker for three or four days.

00:29:08.000 It's just not smart.

00:29:10.000 It's like Pavel.

00:29:14.000 I heard that from him years and years ago.

00:29:18.000 Because he was training some SWAT guys up in LA, and I talked to some of those guys, and they said, you know, well, you don't need to go to exhaustion to get stronger.

00:29:26.000 I said, okay, cool.

00:29:27.000 Let's try that.

00:29:27.000 And so, you know, you've got to be ready to operate.

00:29:30.000 That's your primary mission.

00:29:32.000 You've got to be ready to go out on the battlefield and get after it, so you're not going to crush yourself so hard that you're incapacitated.

00:29:38.000 Yeah, he's not a guy that believes in going to failure, right?

00:29:41.000 He's got some interesting ideas.

00:29:43.000 Yeah, he doesn't go to failure.

00:29:44.000 And I'm not like some follower from just one of those things I heard along the way.

00:29:49.000 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different philosophies when it comes to training.

00:29:54.000 So when you're deployed, it's essentially all entirely on you, other than the group-organized PT trainings?

00:30:02.000 Just about.

00:30:03.000 Yeah, just about.

00:30:04.000 So do you guys get together and say, hey, we're going to go running, or we're going to lift today, or we're going to...

00:30:09.000 Let's go do some pull-ups. 0.77

00:30:10.000 What about martial arts training?

00:30:11.000 How much martial arts training is involved?

00:30:14.000 Again, that depends on, you know, what the situation is and who you're working with.

00:30:18.000 You know, if you were a junior officer that was working for me, then you were going to be training jiu-jitsu all the time.

00:30:25.000 If they're working for you.

00:30:26.000 So it depends on who they're working for.

00:30:28.000 Yeah.

00:30:28.000 You know, I needed training partners, and so I got them.

00:30:33.000 So when you did that, would you take guys and teach them some basic stuff and then just choke the shit out of them? 0.97

00:30:39.000 Is that the move? 0.99

00:30:40.000 Pretty much.

00:30:42.000 Do you talk them through it while you're doing it?

00:30:44.000 Like, defend, get your arm here, look out.

00:30:47.000 But, you know, I would actually improve.

00:30:49.000 You know, I'd go on deployment and come back and, you know, some guy that maybe I was having good battles with before I left, I'd come back and be better.

00:30:55.000 Because all of a sudden you go and work on really good offense against a bunch of strong, you know, psycho seals that don't want to tap. 0.97

00:31:03.000 And you've got to make it work.

00:31:05.000 So, you know, I'd come back and be better.

00:31:07.000 I wouldn't get worse on deployment, that's for sure.

00:31:10.000 That's Eddie Bravo's theory.

00:31:11.000 He believes that the real way to get better is not to train with people better than you, but to train with people that aren't as good as you and just constantly drill finishes over and over and over again, sharpen them up like a samurai sword.

00:31:23.000 And then when you do spar with people that are your level or better, you'll be much better just because you're constantly used to finishing.

00:31:31.000 Yeah, and I think there's a combination of both.

00:31:34.000 You've got to train with people that are better than you, and you've got to train with people that are worse than you.

00:31:37.000 We do that in SEAL training, too.

00:31:40.000 Because the SEAL training that I ran before I got out was not like the SEAL training we see with the guys with the The logs, carrying those around, or boats on the head.

00:31:49.000 Like I said, that's the basic training, and no one really cares too much about that once you get in the SEAL teams, because it's just over.

00:31:54.000 It's just to smash you in the beginning?

00:31:56.000 Just to smash you, make sure, like you said, make sure that you... 1.00

00:31:58.000 You're not a pussy. 1.00

00:31:59.000 Exactly. 1.00

00:32:00.000 Have the intestinal fortitude to bring it.

00:32:02.000 But once you get in the SEAL teams, then you go through something called a workup, and that's when you've got SEAL platoons that are trying to work together, and we do crazy...

00:32:11.000 Simulated combat on these guys that is awesome.

00:32:14.000 I mean it's it's devastating and what we would have paintball Again, this is like little kid stuff right you get you get awesome paintball guns unlimited paintball rounds we had this this like the best laser tag system that anyone could ever imagine this crazy expensive laser tag system where you could go out and fight each other with laser tag and When you were getting shot at,

00:32:39.000 if the rounds weren't theoretically hitting you, then there was a little speaker on your shoulder that would make noises as if rounds were going over your head so that you would know to get down.

00:32:48.000 And there'd be explosions going off on these little speakers.

00:32:50.000 And then when you'd get back from these training operations, they have little...

00:32:56.000 Embedded GPS's in them so you'd put it out on Google Earth and you could watch the whole battle unfold and watch what people did right and wrong and my point in this is that sometimes Many times especially in the beginning when the seals weren't quite up to speed yet They didn't know how to work together that well Three or four or five opposing force SEALs.

00:33:16.000 So these are guys that are pretending to be bad guys. 0.90

00:33:18.000 They would kill them all. 1.00

00:33:19.000 They would just go out there and murder them all. 0.99

00:33:21.000 And as these guys got better and started to work together and the leadership started to step up and take command and do a better job of leading, then all of a sudden the SEALs would start to beat the opposing force and annihilate them.

00:33:34.000 What an incredible tool to learn how to organize and to stay together and work together as a team.

00:33:40.000 What did they used to do in the past?

00:33:41.000 Well, that's...

00:33:43.000 Very interesting topic because it's very similar to you know what the UFC did to martial arts because you know as you know in 1991 You know you and I could sit here and talk and you could be a kung-fu guy and I could be an aikido guy and we could be like no my martial arts better and you could be saying the same thing and we could theoretically Debate it all day long,

00:34:04.000 but we'd never actually do it And it's different, so in combat, obviously you can't, you know, we can't say, okay, let's find out which one's better, and we're on the same team, but we're just going to kill each other to find out.

00:34:13.000 You can't do that.

00:34:14.000 So, the first thing that happened was Simunition, and that's, you know, they basically started paintball, but it's high-speed paintball that, you know, fits in your real gun.

00:34:23.000 It fits in a real gun.

00:34:25.000 Yeah, it fits in a real gun.

00:34:25.000 So you put a new barrel on your standard, you know, issue weapon, and now you're shooting paintballs out of your real gun.

00:34:33.000 You have 30 rounds, you change magazines, like very, very similar to real combat.

00:34:38.000 And all of a sudden, just like a punching bag, you know, when people say, oh, the punching bag doesn't punch back.

00:34:42.000 Well, when you go into a house and you shoot a bunch of paper targets, they don't move, they don't shoot back.

00:34:46.000 So it's, you know, guess what?

00:34:47.000 You win every single time.

00:34:48.000 And you can get pretty confident with your tactics, but your tactics aren't getting tested.

00:34:53.000 And so when these great technologies came out, simunition, paintball, and these laser-type systems, it was a complete change.

00:35:01.000 And we definitely changed our tactics.

00:35:03.000 Our tactics evolved just like fight tactics evolved with the advent of the UFC. And people said, oh...

00:35:08.000 This doesn't work the way we thought it did and you know this idea of oh We're just gonna go running into a room and no one's gonna stop no matter what no actually if there's a machine gun Just lay and paint into you as you go in you're stupid if you go run into that room So we've made these simple adjustments, but it was an interesting progression And it definitely imprinted the fact that you have to make your training as realistic as possible And it also it also shows you how people humans have a tendency to To believe in

00:35:38.000 what they're doing just because it's kind of what they believe in.

00:35:41.000 And, you know, again, I think those traditional martial arts that were so popular, you know, back in the day, people truly believed that, like, no, I will actually stop you with, you know, with my chi.

00:35:53.000 My chi will stop you.

00:35:54.000 And they really thought that.

00:35:55.000 One of my jujitsu buddies was, you know, had some chi guy in 1995, like, you cannot take me down.

00:36:02.000 Yeah.

00:36:02.000 And he said, well, what do you mean?

00:36:04.000 And he said, no, once I settle my chi, you cannot take me down.

00:36:08.000 And he said, well, okay.

00:36:10.000 Settle your...

00:36:11.000 Do you want to try it?

00:36:12.000 And the guy's like, sure, you can try all you want.

00:36:13.000 So the guy, you know, stands there and settles his chi out.

00:36:16.000 And my buddy goes, are you ready?

00:36:18.000 And the guy says, yeah.

00:36:19.000 And he just, like, double legs and slammed him on the ground.

00:36:21.000 But the guy believed it.

00:36:23.000 That's what's crazy.

00:36:24.000 And that's what people get lured into.

00:36:26.000 You know, our egos lure us into a lot of stuff that we need to watch out for.

00:36:29.000 Well, the belief is based on, you know, being taught it by people who also believe it, too.

00:36:35.000 And it's so confusing because no one's experienced it in real life, which was why the initial question was, when they used to prepare, like back in Vietnam or, you know, during the first...

00:36:49.000 Well, when was this stuff invented?

00:36:51.000 Did they have it during the first Gulf War?

00:36:55.000 Barely.

00:36:55.000 Very small groups had it.

00:36:58.000 Not as many as should.

00:36:59.000 They had the laser set up and everything?

00:37:01.000 No, we didn't get the good...

00:37:02.000 No, they had a worse laser system.

00:37:05.000 They've been trying to do it for years.

00:37:07.000 But what did they used to do during the Vietnam era?

00:37:10.000 Go off the experience of guys that had been in World War II in Korea and try and pass that on.

00:37:16.000 And luckily, and honestly, you know, being in combat, the basic principles of combat are not these super crazy complex things.

00:37:27.000 You know, the most basic principle that we talk about is cover and move, which is if you and I are going to go assault a building over there, I'm gonna take cover, I'm gonna engage that building so that the enemy can't put their heads up, and while I'm shooting at the building, shooting where we think the enemy are,

00:37:42.000 you're gonna get up and maneuver into a better position.

00:37:45.000 Once you get into a better position, and you get some cover, you're gonna start shooting at the enemy, and that's gonna allow me to move. 0.97

00:37:52.000 Once I get to a better position, I'll start shooting again, and we'll continue to do that, supporting each other as we move to our target, and then once we get there, we'll kill the bad guys, and it'll be done.

00:38:00.000 That's the most basic principle.

00:38:02.000 But there's times where before, you know, in between Vietnam, which is where we had major combat and people learned that cover and move, and guys that were in Vietnam were the people that taught me cover and move.

00:38:13.000 Between that time and the time when we started using simunition and the lasers the better products We actually forgot some of those lessons as crazy as that might seem we actually forgot some of these very simple basic lessons of Gunfighting and so it was great to have it back and it was you know when we when we went to combat finally we were More prepared for it Yeah,

00:38:36.000 I would imagine that kind of simulation.

00:38:38.000 You're calling it Simunition?

00:38:40.000 That's an actual name brand.

00:38:43.000 Okay.

00:38:43.000 It's a name brand.

00:38:44.000 That's the paint?

00:38:45.000 Yep.

00:38:46.000 So Simunition is the paint, and then the laser, what is the name brand of that stuff?

00:38:49.000 The one that we used was called Ditz, and it was made by Saab.

00:38:54.000 And I don't even know if they still make it or if that contract's still going, but it was awesome.

00:38:59.000 I like your analogy to martial arts, like testing it in an actual competition.

00:39:06.000 Because it would seem that that would be the only way that anybody would ever actually learn what mistakes not to make and how they could easily be replicated in combat.

00:39:15.000 And then the repeated actions of doing those over and over again and ingraining them in your mind is probably the only thing that you could draw upon when you're in those intense situations of an actual firefight.

00:39:29.000 Yeah, and there's another good comparison.

00:39:31.000 I don't know if you've ever heard somebody kind of say this but You know they'll say like let's say I trained some Kung Fu stuff where I'm like an eye attacker and I rip your throat out and all that stuff and you train You know jujitsu Muay Thai wrestling and boxing right so people will say That you're not ready for the fact that I'm gonna poke your eyes out or you're not ready for the fact that I'm gonna Try and grab your throat or whatever and therefore I have an advantage and and that you have some kind of a training scar Because you aren't used

00:40:01.000 to doing that.

00:40:02.000 You see what I'm saying?

00:40:04.000 So if, like I said, if all I do is train to grab your eyes and poke your throat or whatever pressure point type attack, then that means that I'm better prepared for a street conflict.

00:40:19.000 As you and I both know, a guy that does that versus a guy that trains in mixed martial arts, boxing, wrestling, Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, that guy's gonna destroy this other person in a street fight.

00:40:31.000 And the guy will grab for his eyes and then he's gonna get his arm broken off and he's gonna get punched in that 47 times.

00:40:35.000 But my point in telling that is that we had the same type of people inside the SEAL teams that said, oh, if you get used to training with paintball, Then you're going to develop training scars from it.

00:40:51.000 So you're not going to be used to your regular weapon.

00:40:54.000 You're not going to be used to the recoil of a real gun.

00:40:58.000 And you're going to have more courage because it's only going against paint.

00:41:04.000 While there's some small piece of truth to that, just like there's some small piece of truth to the fact that if you never think about what it's like to be punched while you're doing jujitsu, well then it's going to be a surprise for you the first time you are in guard with someone and they crack you in the face.

00:41:19.000 There's some small truth to it, but it's not a reason to throw out, you know, that type of training.

00:41:24.000 It just doesn't make sense.

00:41:25.000 And the other thing that's good about it is, you know, in jujitsu and Muay Thai and boxing and wrestling, you're going live against another human being that's maneuvering on you and trying to defeat you.

00:41:34.000 And when you have paintball or laser, you're going against another human being that's trying to maneuver on you and defeat you.

00:41:39.000 So therefore, it's very effective in teaching what real combat is going to be like.

00:41:44.000 What was it like the first time you were deployed?

00:41:47.000 And when was that?

00:41:48.000 The first time I was deployed in 2003, and deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, and it was great.

00:41:59.000 That's not what most people would think of.

00:42:01.000 They would never think of that word.

00:42:04.000 What was interesting about my first deployment to Iraq was that, again, I was so happy to be in a position where I was a platoon commander, and we were doing real missions, and I was excited and happy about that.

00:42:21.000 That doesn't mean I was running around with a smile on my face.

00:42:24.000 We had a legit job, and we had to get it done.

00:42:28.000 It was also a time where the the insurgents there wasn't an insurgents yet.

00:42:32.000 We hadn't even really heard that word in 2003 and so the operations that we did were Relatively simple and our tactical advantage over the enemy was Good enough that we just annihilated them.

00:42:50.000 You know, it was like It was like an unfair fight, which is how you want it to be.

00:42:55.000 You want to have an unfair fight in combat.

00:42:56.000 So we would go in, you know, 2 o'clock in the morning, we'd find out where a bad guy was in some house or some office or some building, and we'd load up our vehicles and go in the middle of the night, blast their door open with big explosive breaching charge, clear their house in about 30 seconds,

00:43:13.000 grab them, grab their buddies, bring them all back, interrogate them, find out where their friends are, and go out and do it again.

00:43:19.000 And it was awesome.

00:43:20.000 And it was awesome.

00:43:21.000 And it was like a rockstar deployment.

00:43:22.000 We'd come home at three o'clock in the morning and be done and Debrief the operation and get ready to do it the next day.

00:43:30.000 We probably were in four or five firefights during that whole deployment a couple ambushes and I had one guy get get wounded not very bad and So it was fun.

00:43:45.000 It was good.

00:43:47.000 And we were ready for it.

00:43:50.000 And the contrast comes when you go to my next deployment, the next deployment to Ramadi, which was completely different.

00:44:01.000 And on that deployment, everything bad that can happen to A guy in a leadership position or an element happened to us.

00:44:20.000 Everything bad that could happen happened and So it was it was radically different than my first deployment So your first deployment was in a sense a lot like what people expected the war to go like After we had experienced Desert Storm Desert Storm,

00:44:37.000 which was just this overwhelming success Just the only casualties were when that one Scud missile had hit a barracks It was just that was what America thought war was like well, this is how good we are at it right now We just go over there and we kill everybody and we lose a couple people and we're real sad about that,

00:44:58.000 but we wrapped it up tight so Your second deployment What was that like and how did it begin?

00:45:10.000 Well it began with our deployment orders changing so we were literally two weeks from going on deployment so now my first deployment to Iraq I was what's called a platoon commander I had 15 or 20 guys underneath me depending on What time during the deployment it was.

00:45:28.000 And we were an assault force.

00:45:30.000 We jokingly called ourselves Baghdad SWAT. Because that's what we did. 0.84

00:45:34.000 I just kind of described what those missions were like.

00:45:37.000 My second deployment now I was what's called a task unit commander and I had two of those seal platoons with 15 to 20 guys that were underneath me and Then we had another 70 60 or 70 support personnel so these are people that do Intel people that man the radios people that Clean and repair our weapons and people that keep the camp running all that so it's it's it's about a hundred guys but

00:46:07.000 there's only 35 or 40 seals and We found out about two weeks before we went on deployment our deployment changed instead of going to Baghdad and really doing more Baghdad SWAT operations we Went we were told we were going to Ramadi and I was again People always say,

00:46:27.000 you know, I can't believe you thought that and I can't believe how twisted you are and I can't believe what a sick individual you are and etc, etc, etc But yes, I was extremely Happy and motivated that we were going to Ramadi because it was the worst place in Iraq and that is exactly where I wanted to be my whole life So yes, 0.99

00:46:42.000 I was fired up to go there Just so crazy that I mean it's so counterintuitive to the way most people think I guess so. 0.97

00:46:52.000 And I hung around with a bunch of guys that thought the same damn thing as me. 0.76

00:46:56.000 Let's go get these guys. 0.92

00:46:57.000 Let's get after it.

00:46:59.000 Well, that's why you are who you are.

00:47:01.000 I mean, that's why it's important to have people like you in the world.

00:47:06.000 There's a spectrum of human beings.

00:47:08.000 There is a spectrum of human beings.

00:47:10.000 And you're on this extreme edge of exactly what you want when you have an army.

00:47:16.000 If you put together a military force, you want a guy like you that has that attitude.

00:47:21.000 You don't want a guy who's going to the worst place in the world Saying, why me? 1.00

00:47:27.000 What the fuck? 0.99

00:47:28.000 Why didn't I become a baker like my dad? 1.00

00:47:30.000 I could be making cupcakes right now. 0.98

00:47:32.000 Instead, I'm shooting people. 0.99

00:47:34.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:47:34.000 Yeah, no, you... 1.00

00:47:35.000 And the SEAL teams and the Rangers and the Special Forces does a very good job of attracting the type of people that you're talking about.

00:47:46.000 The type of people that are fired up to do that job.

00:47:48.000 Not encouraging it and growing it like you like the it seems like the amount of Camaraderie and the intensity of the friendships and the bond the brotherhood that you develop with those people just intensifies it all.

00:48:04.000 Yeah, it's a big gang It's a big it's a big awesome gang that you're a part of that's badass and you're a part of this fraternity this brotherhood and So yeah, they definitely Fuel the fire and and I should say it shouldn't say they fuel the fire we fuel the fire We're we are the fire,

00:48:24.000 you know the guys that are there the guys that I worked with they're they're the fired up guys that Are completely ready to do this job.

00:48:33.000 So you get over there.

00:48:34.000 You're in Ramadi totally different situation than Baghdad Totally different situation than Baghdad and immediately you realize this Immediately.

00:48:45.000 We were going, I mean, I think we went to the first memorial service for an American within, you know, 24 hours of being on the ground there.

00:48:58.000 My camp got attacked the, I don't know, maybe the third or fourth night that we were there.

00:49:04.000 Every guy was on the roof of our building shooting back at bad guys that were shooting at us.

00:49:10.000 And then we started conducting operations almost immediately.

00:49:15.000 And the operations were just radically different.

00:49:18.000 I mean, the enemy owned the downtown area of Ramadi.

00:49:23.000 They were the dominant force down there.

00:49:26.000 So whereas before, you'd be going through kind of semi-permissive environment in Baghdad, meaning, you know, it's a bunch of civilians, and they just wanted to get out of your way, and then you'd go and find this bad guy.

00:49:39.000 Well, in Ramadi, the bad guys were going to find you, and it was different.

00:49:43.000 And they were everywhere.

00:49:45.000 They were everywhere.

00:49:45.000 Who would train them?

00:49:48.000 You know, some of them were former regime elements.

00:49:51.000 So some of them were, you know, Ramadi was a was a Iraqi military city as well.

00:49:56.000 So there's some of them leftover.

00:49:58.000 Actually, a bunch of them leftover.

00:50:00.000 And then you had Syrians coming in foreign fighters, people coming in from all over Saudi Arabia, Jordan.

00:50:07.000 I mean, they'd come in from all over the place to to come and engage and get their jihad on.

00:50:11.000 And were they motivated because America was now occupying Iraq?

00:50:14.000 Is that what was driving them?

00:50:17.000 I think more than the fact that America was occupying Iraq is that they wanted to take that land.

00:50:23.000 I mean, America was no longer occupying Iraq when they went in and took Ramadi.

00:50:27.000 This time we were gone.

00:50:28.000 We'd been gone for four years.

00:50:30.000 So the occupation of Iraq was not the driving force behind this.

00:50:35.000 So once you get there and once you realize right away, it's different.

00:50:39.000 You're experiencing casualties at a level that was unheard of in Baghdad and you are engaging with an enemy that's very prepared and overwhelming.

00:50:50.000 They're everywhere.

00:50:51.000 And they did, they were similar to us, meaning they did like first world country type stuff.

00:50:58.000 They had medical evacuation plans where one of their guys would get wounded, you'd see him get evacuated.

00:51:03.000 You know, you could watch on the screens, you could watch what was happening, a vehicle would come in and Gather them up and take wounded guys away.

00:51:11.000 They'd bring in reinforcements.

00:51:12.000 They had communications.

00:51:13.000 They did fire and maneuver.

00:51:14.000 They did, you know, the same basic tactics that I was talking about.

00:51:18.000 They did those tactics as well.

00:51:20.000 And so it was a real, well-trained and well-coordinated and determined enemy.

00:51:27.000 Was this expected?

00:51:28.000 Well, we knew what Ramadi was like.

00:51:31.000 But I would say...

00:51:35.000 It was expected, but it's hard to mentally picture what that's going to be like when you're going to go up against guys that are that prepared.

00:51:45.000 So this was tactically and As far as like the strategy that was involved to try to take a city like that this was a fairly new experience For the United States military, right?

00:52:00.000 We'd never what other mean other than what Somalia like what other urban war had the United States engaged in like this where you're in a city well, I mean obviously World War two had all kinds of carbon conflict and and In Vietnam, there was portions, 0.61

00:52:16.000 you know, the Battle of Way City was a huge urban conflict.

00:52:20.000 Somalia was definitely urban combat, but you're right in the fact that we weren't going in there to try and stay.

00:52:26.000 And that was one of the biggest differences or changes in strategies that the US military had that turned the war around.

00:52:35.000 And that was...

00:52:37.000 As the as the insurgents grew and it's 2004 2005 the insurgents started getting more and more unified and better and more well-trained and more organized in America what we did was kind of Go back to our strong bases.

00:52:58.000 So there's bases.

00:52:58.000 You've got to understand this.

00:53:00.000 In Iraq in 2005, 2006, if you went to a base in, let's say, Baghdad International Airport, there's a huge U.S. military base, there was, you know, subway, The sandwich shop, Subway, Starbucks, these places had become little outcroppings of America.

00:53:18.000 And so what we did when the insurgency got worse and worse and worse, and also the public opinion of the war went down and down and down, and all of a sudden we're saying, okay, we're going to minimize casualties as much as possible.

00:53:29.000 So what does that mean you do?

00:53:30.000 You go back to your base.

00:53:32.000 And we did that as a country.

00:53:34.000 We kind of said, okay, we're not going to take huge risks anymore.

00:53:37.000 We're going to pull back to our bases.

00:53:38.000 We're going to try and support the Iraqis as much as we can.

00:53:41.000 Let them go out and try and accomplish missions and we still did do missions, but we definitely had Strong move back to these big bases well There was a guy, there were several people,

00:53:57.000 and one of them was General Petraeus.

00:53:58.000 He wrote this, you know, the counterinsurgency manual.

00:54:01.000 Now what you had was you went from this idea of we were fighting kind of terrorists, and all of a sudden we were fighting an organized insurgency.

00:54:08.000 And that was a huge strategic shift.

00:54:10.000 And so now instead of going out and grabbing a bad guy and then coming back, the new strategy, and it was implemented in Ramadi by a guy named Colonel Sean McFarland, Was seize, clear, hold, and build.

00:54:25.000 Which means you're going to go into these enemy-controlled neighborhoods, you're going to take buildings, you're going to hold those buildings, you're going to build them into your own forts, and you're going to have American and Iraqi soldiers live in those enemy-controlled territories until the enemy was gone. 0.72

00:54:39.000 Had that ever been implemented before?

00:54:41.000 It had been implemented in Talifar in Northern Iraq by a guy named H.C. McMaster, who's another kind of legendary military army colonel at the time.

00:54:53.000 All these guys are generals now because they're awesome guys.

00:54:56.000 He had implemented it up there.

00:54:57.000 He had actually turned that plan over to General McFarlane, and General McFarlane came down to Ramadi and implemented the plan there.

00:55:05.000 But what was...

00:55:07.000 What was hard to understand is no one really knew about this.

00:55:11.000 No one understood it.

00:55:12.000 All they said was, oh my god.

00:55:15.000 Wait a second.

00:55:15.000 You're saying we're gonna go into these enemy-controlled neighborhoods where there haven't been American or coalition forces for a year, year and a half, two years?

00:55:23.000 You're saying we're gonna go in there?

00:55:24.000 Right before we arrived in Ramadi, there was a road that the Marine Corps tried to penetrate down.

00:55:29.000 They hit 13 IEDs in 500 meters.

00:55:32.000 13 IEDs and 500 meters.

00:55:34.000 So essentially, 500 meters is like...

00:55:38.000 It's every 50 meters or so.

00:55:40.000 A little less than 50 meters.

00:55:42.000 What is that in football fields?

00:55:43.000 Five football fields.

00:55:45.000 That's insane.

00:55:46.000 It is.

00:55:47.000 Wow.

00:55:48.000 So this new strategy to go in there and push in there was considered to be, by many people, was considered to be too risky.

00:55:58.000 Too dangerous and and really in some cases crazy like this is a crazy strategy We haven't been able to get down there and now you're saying we're gonna go down there and live there so it was a it was a very dynamic change so this is a Gigantic gritty boots on the ground approach to taking over a city like one step at a time one building at a time That's it Wow That had to be insane Yeah.

00:56:29.000 Is there any documentary footage of this?

00:56:31.000 Were there any embedded journalists or anything like that?

00:56:33.000 There were embedded journalists.

00:56:35.000 You know, you can go on YouTube and just Google Ramadi 2006 and you'll see some good stuff.

00:56:40.000 There's a documentary that came out, I think it was on the History Channel.

00:56:43.000 It's called A Chance in Hell, The Battle for Ramadi.

00:56:46.000 And what's good about that one is it interviews a lot of the guys that we worked with while we were there.

00:56:52.000 And what I was just trying to convey to you about the fact that A lot of people were saying this was a suicidal operation.

00:57:00.000 You can hear these guys that were officers in charge of battalions and companies, they're saying the same thing.

00:57:06.000 They were getting told by their peers, like, this is a crazy idea and you guys are all gonna die if you go in there.

00:57:11.000 Wow.

00:57:12.000 Now, what is morale like when something like that gets brought down?

00:57:17.000 When these are the orders, and this is what you have to do, and everyone's telling you it's a suicide mission?

00:57:24.000 Well, that's where leadership comes into play.

00:57:28.000 One of the toughest things that I ever had to convey to my guys was this fact that we were going to be working alongside Iraqi soldiers.

00:57:39.000 Conventional Iraqi soldiers.

00:57:40.000 So you picture this.

00:57:41.000 That first deployment I talked about, we were only working with SEALs.

00:57:46.000 I mean, we were SEALs.

00:57:47.000 The guy to your left was a SEAL. The guy to your right was a SEAL. The guy behind you was a SEAL. You knew you could trust him.

00:57:53.000 You knew him.

00:57:54.000 They were your brothers.

00:57:56.000 So now we get to Ramadi and the mission changed coming down from the special operations forces that were in charge of all special operations in Iraq and the new mission was to The new mission,

00:58:11.000 I'm trying to think of the exact, was to train and fight company and platoon-sized elements of Iraqi soldiers.

00:58:19.000 Train and fight company and platoon-sized elements of Iraqi soldiers.

00:58:22.000 And when they say fight, that means, like, that's a verb saying we're going to fight with them.

00:58:28.000 So, all of a sudden, I'm telling my guys, hey, you know how you're used to working with a bunch of SEALs?

00:58:33.000 You're gonna now, when you go out, the majority of the guys you're gonna be with are Iraqi soldiers.

00:58:38.000 That's the majority of guys.

00:58:39.000 Now, Iraqi soldiers are...

00:58:42.000 They're barely even military, I mean, people.

00:58:48.000 They're just unmotivated, poorly trained.

00:58:53.000 In fact, in many cases their loyalty is questionable. 0.99

00:58:55.000 I mean these are guys that would shoot Americans in the back.

00:58:59.000 So now I'm telling my guys, okay, you're gonna go out there and do this. 1.00

00:59:02.000 And obviously, the first reaction I got was, this is crap. 1.00

00:59:09.000 This is garbage. 1.00

00:59:10.000 Why would we ever do that? 1.00

00:59:12.000 This is the worst battlefield SEALs I've fought on since Vietnam, and you want us to go out there with a bunch of Iraqi soldiers watching our back? 0.97

00:59:20.000 That's crazy.

00:59:21.000 And when I heard it, I thought it was crazy too.

00:59:27.000 So, what do you do then?

00:59:29.000 What do you do then?

00:59:30.000 You're gonna send your guys into harm's way in a much more vulnerable way, and you gotta get them to do it.

00:59:38.000 So first of all, I had to understand what we were doing in my own mind.

00:59:44.000 I had to understand why.

00:59:45.000 I understand why would somebody be telling us to do this?

00:59:48.000 Because it seems freaking crazy to me.

00:59:51.000 So as I sat there and thought about it, I realize, you know, okay, why is why is the president Making us do this.

00:59:58.000 Why is the general the why is the Pentagon making us do this?

01:00:01.000 Why are the generals and colonels on the battlefield here in Iraq?

01:00:04.000 Why in God's name would they be making us go out with Iraqi soldiers? 0.99

01:00:08.000 It's crazy, and then I thought to myself.

01:00:10.000 Well, okay.

01:00:10.000 Why let's answer that question Oh Newsflash if we don't do it if we don't get the Iraqi soldiers trained up and ready to Maintain the security in their own country then who's gonna do it?

01:00:24.000 Who's gonna do it?

01:00:25.000 Who's gonna train them?

01:00:26.000 And furthermore, who's gonna hold the security in their country?

01:00:29.000 And the answer was nobody and the answer was us.

01:00:31.000 The answer was we would be here forever because these Iraqis need to be able to get up and stand on their own two feet. 1.00

01:00:37.000 And so when I explain that to my guys, like, hey, I know you don't want to work with Iraqi soldiers. 1.00

01:00:42.000 I understand.

01:00:43.000 I understand there's more risk.

01:00:44.000 Here's why we're doing it.

01:00:45.000 We're doing it because if we don't do it, if we don't get these guys up to speed, if we don't teach them how to defend themselves and how to defeat this enemy, they're never going to be able to do it.

01:00:55.000 And we'll be mired in this conflict forever.

01:00:58.000 Once they understood that strategic picture, they were able to get their head around it and then slowly accept what we were doing.

01:01:07.000 How common were their complications dealing with the Iraqi soldiers?

01:01:14.000 And did you guys have to take steps in order to watch over them to make sure?

01:01:19.000 I mean you're talking about guys shooting guys in the back, shooting Americans in the back.

01:01:22.000 Did you have Plans in place to make sure that someone was watching them at all times.

01:01:29.000 Yeah.

01:01:29.000 Yeah, so you didn't you couldn't treat them like did someone did they speak English?

01:01:34.000 No, we had interpreters and oh, yeah, it's a nightmare and and we would have Some of the Iraqi soldiers some of the some of the leadership of the Iraqi soldiers would be very good Some of the grunts would be very good and someone would be just disastrous and did we have to change? 0.99

01:01:48.000 Yeah We had to change our tactics so that we didn't use the terms left and right.

01:01:54.000 Because they didn't understand left and right.

01:01:56.000 Or no numbers.

01:01:57.000 A lot of them couldn't count.

01:01:59.000 They couldn't count?

01:02:00.000 Yeah.

01:02:01.000 So they're totally uneducated.

01:02:02.000 Totally uneducated.

01:02:04.000 Wow!

01:02:05.000 Can't count. 1.00

01:02:06.000 Holy shit. 1.00

01:02:08.000 Go four doors down. 1.00

01:02:12.000 Something you could tell a five-year-old.

01:02:15.000 Whoa! 0.71

01:02:16.000 Yeah, so that was definitely challenging.

01:02:18.000 I think you're allowed to call them savages when they can't count.

01:02:21.000 Is that the rule?

01:02:23.000 If you can't count to four?

01:02:24.000 I reserve the term savage for somebody that commits atrocities against human beings.

01:02:32.000 Somebody that rapes an eight-year-old girl like they're doing, wholesale doing that, and ISIS is doing that right now. 1.00

01:02:38.000 That's part of their gig. 0.93

01:02:40.000 Yeah, I reserve the term savages for them.

01:02:43.000 So what steps did you guys have to take to ensure that the SEALs and the other American soldiers were protected in working with these people?

01:02:52.000 I mean, you just had to keep your eye on them.

01:02:54.000 I mean, and honestly, at this point, you saw this happen a lot more in Afghanistan, which was the, what do they call it?

01:03:08.000 Forget what they have a term for it, but when though when the friendly allegedly friendly Afghan soldier turns and shoots everyone in the back That happened more later in Afghanistan and when we were in Iraq It was pretty seldom that it happened, but we just had to be aware of it We had to you know you always had a guy that was like standing off the firing line and making sure that no one was you know pulling their weapon out and aiming at Americans and So that was a job. 0.97

01:03:31.000 Yeah, we just you got to keep an eye on these guys.

01:03:33.000 You absolutely had to keep an eye on these guys.

01:03:34.000 What a crazy added element.

01:03:36.000 And the other I mean and just again because there's dichotomy and everything at the same time you'd have some guy that was you know some Iraqi soldier that was willing to take a bullet for your buddy and so It's that's what makes war so complex and confusing is it's not cut and dry and it never is So how did it start?

01:03:57.000 Once you started this seize, clear, hold, and build.

01:04:03.000 It was a tough fight, basically, with every one of these combat outposts.

01:04:07.000 That's what they ended up calling these combat outposts.

01:04:10.000 Every one of them was a pretty tough fight.

01:04:13.000 So they're buildings.

01:04:14.000 You're calling them combat outposts.

01:04:16.000 Combat outposts.

01:04:16.000 And what kind of, are they ten stories?

01:04:17.000 Like how many stories are these buildings?

01:04:19.000 Most of them were two or three stories.

01:04:20.000 Two or three stories.

01:04:21.000 And so you set up a perimeter around the building, keep people stationed in them, guns at the windows, looking out constantly.

01:04:29.000 And it would be, we'd take the building down.

01:04:32.000 And then they would do a massive construction project in the middle of a combat zone.

01:04:36.000 So these army engineers, God bless them all, would roll down there with their bulldozers and they'd put these big concrete barriers up and they'd put sandbags in all the windows and they'd build machine gun nests on top.

01:04:48.000 And again, they're doing this in the middle of like mayhem.

01:04:51.000 Wow. 0.57

01:04:51.000 And then you'd have this secure combat outpost and while they were doing that this is sort of was our our addition to this type of operation Was while they were doing this big construction project project obviously the situation was very vulnerable for the American forces and so what we would do is I would push our seals Out into perimeter buildings that were maybe a 200 or 300 yards away and so when the enemy would come to attack We'd kill him What 0.57

01:05:21.000 a crazy scene that must have been, to be taking these buildings and then reinforcing them and then turning them into military bases.

01:05:28.000 And then one after another, you're doing this too.

01:05:30.000 Yeah.

01:05:31.000 Yeah.

01:05:31.000 It was an awesome effort.

01:05:32.000 And I think a good number, we put in one combat outpost and there was, the army engineers put in 30,000 sandbags in one combat outpost.

01:05:42.000 Wow.

01:05:43.000 It's like three buildings, just all.

01:05:44.000 Good thing there's a lot of sand out there.

01:05:46.000 Yeah.

01:05:46.000 No doubt about it.

01:05:47.000 No doubt about it.

01:05:48.000 Wow!

01:05:49.000 And so how many buildings did you guys wind up taking overall?

01:05:55.000 Probably a total of like ten combat outposts, each one having two, three, or four buildings.

01:06:00.000 And again, let me clarify, when I say we, I'm talking about this massive effort of the 11AD, which is the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and all the battalions that were underneath them, including one Marine Corps battalion.

01:06:14.000 And the reason I'm pointing that out, Joe, is...

01:06:19.000 Those guys were just unbelievable heroes.

01:06:21.000 They really were.

01:06:22.000 They were awesome.

01:06:24.000 You choked up.

01:06:28.000 Yeah, these guys were awesome.

01:06:31.000 They really were.

01:06:36.000 Yeah, I can only imagine the emotional attachment that you have to that.

01:06:43.000 Yeah.

01:06:45.000 You can Google Navy SEALs and find 20 million news stories about them.

01:06:53.000 And that's great.

01:06:56.000 But these guys, to have seen them...

01:07:04.000 Kids you know because you know you're talking about earlier how The seals you know guys like me.

01:07:10.000 This is what we want to do well these guys Didn't all necessarily have that attitude and as a matter of fact the guys that were in Ramadi with us when we first got there the They were reserve unit out of Pennsylvania, the 228 iron soldiers.

01:07:26.000 They were reservists.

01:07:27.000 These guys were teachers, like what you see when they talk about these reservists.

01:07:31.000 These guys were teachers and professors and, you know, bakers, and they had real jobs in the real world and wanted to get home to their family, and yet they were there grinding it out against a hardened enemy.

01:07:41.000 And so, yeah, it's a crazy thing to see, and it's very humbling.

01:07:49.000 To be around people like that.

01:07:51.000 It really is.

01:07:53.000 How long did this battle go on the battle for Ramadi?

01:07:59.000 Well, we got there, you know the like I said the 228 had been there for 14 months 14 months on the ground lost around a hundred guys.

01:08:08.000 I think 94 And then the 1-1 AD came in in May and implemented Seize clear hold and build and by the time I left October 21st 2006 and by the by January of 2007 the battle was for most for the most part over and these enemy attacks that had been When we were there 30 to 50 a day went

01:08:39.000 down to like one a day and then one a week and then one a month and And you know I have pictures of Probably about six to nine months after we left, we got pictures that guys sent back to us of.

01:08:54.000 They were running road races down the worst, what were the worst areas of Ramadi.

01:08:59.000 They were playing soccer games.

01:09:00.000 There was people out in the streets.

01:09:02.000 There was guys, seals, or not seals, but soldiers with no body armor on, just walking around meeting people.

01:09:08.000 It was a miraculous turnaround.

01:09:11.000 And the people of Ramadi that we had fought to support and help were joyous.

01:09:16.000 We're they had a stable city to live in and we're you know ready to carry on with their lives see I think stories like this get left out of the mainstream narrative of course they do they most people me included just don't know about it aren't aware of it have a very insulated idea of What this war was about what happened over there and what are the pros and cons of this war?

01:09:43.000 What are the pros and cons of taking a city like this and turning it into a relatively safe place?

01:09:51.000 Relatively, it was definitely a safe place.

01:09:53.000 There was less murders there than there was in Detroit.

01:09:55.000 Wow.

01:09:56.000 I mean, it was a complete turnaround.

01:09:58.000 And again, you can do that because the people there wanted to be stable.

01:10:03.000 They wanted peace and they wanted freedom.

01:10:06.000 And they wanted the insurgents out.

01:10:08.000 They absolutely wanted the insurgents out.

01:10:10.000 Do you think that most people in America have a distorted perception of the military in general and of the Iraq War in particular?

01:10:19.000 I think it's hard for me to give a perspective of what civilians think, you know?

01:10:26.000 Right.

01:10:26.000 It's very difficult because, you know, it's really easy to slip into, like, just a straight John J. Rambo, you know, there are no friendly civilians.

01:10:33.000 It's really easy to get there.

01:10:37.000 But definitely when I hear various people talking and you go, this person has no idea.

01:10:42.000 This person has no idea.

01:10:45.000 It's weird because they'll clump the people of Iraq. 1.00

01:10:48.000 They'll clump those people together as a group, and they have the wrong impression of what those people are like.

01:10:56.000 And guys that have been to Iraq and have gone into houses and talked to the local populace there and broke bread with them and drank their tea, you're like, oh, these people definitely wanted us there.

01:11:08.000 When I hear this thing about that they didn't want us there and we were occupying, it's like, oh, no.

01:11:13.000 There was there was times where they we'd kill an insurgent and they would cheer They would cheer like thank you.

01:11:19.000 Thank you for killing that person He was a terrorist and he was you know trying to trying to rape my daughter They were happy we were there What is Ramadi like now? 0.98

01:11:31.000 It's been overrun by ISIS. They keep saying now that there's gonna be an effort by the Iraqi military to take it back. 0.94

01:11:40.000 And God bless them and good luck.

01:11:42.000 They would have to do the exact same thing.

01:11:44.000 They're gonna have to do the exact same thing.

01:11:45.000 It's gonna be tough.

01:11:47.000 Very tough and without the United States military force Backing them up and leading something like that.

01:11:55.000 Do you think that's even possible?

01:11:56.000 It's gonna be difficult.

01:11:58.000 It is possible, but is absolutely gonna be difficult.

01:12:01.000 It's gonna be very difficult.

01:12:02.000 That's one of the things that again, you know and leadership Leadership is such an important thing.

01:12:13.000 It's such an important thing because it really does change.

01:12:18.000 It changes every variable in a situation.

01:12:22.000 And so when you have good leaders You can win.

01:12:28.000 And I don't know who in particular is in charge of this Iraqi force that's going in there.

01:12:33.000 The Iraqis have some very strong leadership.

01:12:36.000 And if they've got the right person in position, they will be able to take it back.

01:12:43.000 America absolutely has incredible military leaders, some incredible military leaders.

01:12:49.000 And when you have to step up and lead an assault like that on a city, I mean, American leadership would absolutely make a change and would be extremely positive for the situation on the ground.

01:13:06.000 Do you think that America should go back into Iraq?

01:13:13.000 Well, first of all, we're already back in Iraq.

01:13:15.000 We're on the ground.

01:13:16.000 We got 3,500 troops there.

01:13:18.000 This is a, and I hate to answer your blunt question with a philosophical answer, but war is very difficult and very tragic and very evil in its own right.

01:13:39.000 And so, You should be very, very cautious about pulling that trigger and initiating a war.

01:13:51.000 Because horrible things are going to happen.

01:13:55.000 Horrible things are going to happen.

01:13:58.000 Enemy are going to be killed Friendly are going to be killed Americans are going to be killed Civilians are going to be killed this idea that we're going to go into a war in an urban environment And we're not going to kill any civilians.

01:14:10.000 No civilians are going to die and you have to understand that And I talk about this when people ask me this question There is two types of will That you have to have if you're gonna go to war two types of will One is the will to kill people and Like I said,

01:14:35.000 it's gonna be enemy and you're gonna focus as much as you can on killing the enemy and Some civilians are gonna die there.

01:14:44.000 That is what is going to happen and you have to understand that that is part of what you are getting into so you have to have you have to have the will to kill and You also have to have the will to die because Americans are going to die and Young men are going to come home in coffins and that's a horrible

01:15:14.000 thing And so if you're going to go to war and You should be going to war with a clear vision to win.

01:15:34.000 To win.

01:15:37.000 And I think if we have the will and we have a plan on winning, then we should.

01:15:48.000 We should execute that plan.

01:15:50.000 But if we're hesitant, And if we don't have the will Then we should stand by Until we develop that will and we can sit outside and we can shape and we can we can try and shape events which we should We should have a leadership role in the world.

01:16:09.000 We should be looking out for American interests.

01:16:11.000 I know that sounds like taboo language in this day and age but I We're America and we should look out for American interests around the world.

01:16:21.000 That's what we should be doing.

01:16:22.000 And there's nothing wrong with that.

01:16:25.000 That's what other countries are doing.

01:16:27.000 They're looking out for their interests.

01:16:29.000 And when we're all looking out for our own interests, there's a balance and things can move forward.

01:16:37.000 So do you think right now with the limited amount of troops that are in Iraq, you said 3,500 now?

01:16:44.000 Yeah.

01:16:44.000 What was it at the height?

01:16:48.000 I don't know, over 100,000.

01:16:49.000 I mean at the height it was probably even close to 200,000.

01:16:52.000 What would it take to develop that will that you talk of?

01:16:57.000 Do you think that the United States needs to see some other Paris-like event?

01:17:04.000 Mean we already had September 11th They killed 3,000 of our people on our home soil But that was 14 years ago and for a lot of people that might as well be another world true true I I got asked the other day about the warning signs.

01:17:27.000 Are we paying enough attention to the warning signs or are there enough warning signs?

01:17:32.000 I kind of shake my head. 0.97

01:17:34.000 I mean, what more warning signs do you need than go watch YouTube videos and they're like, we are coming to kill you. 0.99

01:17:44.000 We are going to destroy you all. 0.99

01:17:46.000 That's the warning right there. 0.99

01:17:48.000 The warning has been issued.

01:17:50.000 Stand by.

01:17:51.000 For people like me that are completely on the outside of the military, it seems like ISIS came out of nowhere.

01:17:57.000 It seems like Once Arab Spring started happening, we start pulling out of Iraq. 1.00

01:18:03.000 All of a sudden you start hearing about the ISL or ISIL or ISIS. They used the term ISI, which was Islamic State Iraq.

01:18:16.000 They used that in, I think, 2007 was the first time they used that as they started to take area over in...

01:18:23.000 Syria, they threw the L on the end of it, you know, which is Levant, which is the historical name for that region.

01:18:29.000 And the other one is Syria, the S. So it's the same people. 1.00

01:18:34.000 It's the same people that were there and will continue to be there until we route them out.

01:18:39.000 What I was getting at was that it wasn't something that anybody here had heard about as an organized thing.

01:18:46.000 We had heard about insurgents in Iraq, but we had never heard of it with a name, like ISIS. Now that it's a name, it's like an identifiable enemy.

01:18:57.000 And when you're in a war against terrorism, one of the things that I think kind of freaks Americans out Especially those that don't have a connection with the military, is this idea of a war against terrorism is this open-ended proposition.

01:19:12.000 There's no enemy.

01:19:15.000 There's no definitive end to this.

01:19:18.000 When Japan surrendered, World War II was over.

01:19:22.000 People were kissing in the streets.

01:19:23.000 That iconic image of the sailor kissing his girlfriend in the street.

01:19:28.000 None of that happened for us in this country.

01:19:33.000 There was no definitive ending.

01:19:34.000 And when we've pulled out of Iraq, and we're planning on pulling out of Afghanistan, and then we see ISIS build up and get bigger and stronger and scarier, and we see what happened in Paris, and we see what happened in Lebanon and in Nigeria,

01:19:49.000 and we see these terrorist attacks, and we're like, well, when is this happening?

01:19:55.000 Is there ever going to be a point where we have a soldier and his girlfriend kissing in the street?

01:20:01.000 Is there going to be an end?

01:20:02.000 Is there going to be confetti blowing in the main street in a parade?

01:20:07.000 Doesn't seem like it.

01:20:09.000 I would say that that's an accurate assessment that it doesn't seem like it.

01:20:13.000 Yeah.

01:20:14.000 We got a long fight, you know, and you asked, you know, where did ISIS, how do we start hearing about them?

01:20:20.000 Well, the same thing we were talking about earlier, social media.

01:20:23.000 Yeah.

01:20:24.000 They've got social media.

01:20:25.000 They're aiming it at, you know, disenchanted people all around the world that can cling on to something that will give them some sort of identity.

01:20:39.000 Yeah, that's one of the most bizarre things about this when you see people like these young girls from the UK joining Isis and you know, they're escaping their country and and going over there and joining Isis like What what is happening here?

01:20:54.000 Like how disenchanted do you have to be where that looks attractive to you?

01:20:59.000 Yeah, and the two girls I'm sure you saw this and yeah the two poster girls for Isis one of them died Three to six months ago, and they just got the latest report on the other one that was trying to escape ISIS, and they beat her to death.

01:21:13.000 Yeah.

01:21:14.000 I mean, unquestionably, it seems to be a growing force and a more dangerous force every day.

01:21:25.000 I got a again.

01:21:26.000 I think it was on Twitter.

01:21:27.000 Someone hit me the other day on Twitter You know This is an idea and you can't bomb ideas was the was the statement to me and You know I try and avoid like getting into these massive sort of political debates or whatever Especially with 140 characters.

01:21:46.000 Yeah and that being said Nazism was an idea that was defeated through military force.

01:21:57.000 Slavery in America was an idea that was defeated by military force.

01:22:03.000 Imperial Japan was an idea and a religion that was defeated by military force.

01:22:09.000 And none of those ideas would have stopped without military force.

01:22:15.000 And this is an idea That can be defeated with bombs.

01:22:20.000 And this is also an idea that unfortunately in this country gets connected to all Muslims.

01:22:26.000 The idea behind what these people are doing gets connected to all Muslims.

01:22:31.000 When in reality, most of the Muslims in the world, they don't want something like ISIS to be in control.

01:22:38.000 They don't want to be in a perpetual state of war.

01:22:40.000 They don't want to have to worry about these quote unquote savages and what they're doing.

01:22:46.000 Yeah, I mean the the Isis has killed Hundreds of thousands of well.

01:22:52.000 I don't know.

01:22:52.000 I don't know what the number is But we know that Isis has killed thousands and thousands and thousands of Muslims You know they went into Ramadi and killed hundreds and hundreds of Muslims That had worked in some way with the coalition forces so that they could have a peaceful city.

01:23:06.000 They murdered them all So let's say Donald Trump becomes president And he listens to your podcast with Tim Ferriss and he reads your book.

01:23:14.000 And he goes, Jocko, I'm coming to you for advice.

01:23:18.000 What do I do?

01:23:19.000 I don't know why I said Donald Trump for president.

01:23:21.000 I'm hoping that's our own ISIS. Whatever, fill in the blank, new president person becomes, notice I said person? 0.99

01:23:31.000 I didn't even go with woman or man.

01:23:34.000 What would you do if you were in a leadership position?

01:23:38.000 If you were in a position to make a decision or to start a process, what would you do? 0.95

01:23:46.000 We would destroy them.

01:23:47.000 You would just go right back in? 1.00

01:23:49.000 We would destroy them. 0.96

01:23:50.000 And you think that that's what America should do right now? 0.98

01:23:56.000 Yes.

01:23:57.000 It is a cancer that is growing. 0.99

01:24:00.000 It is malignant, and it needs to be destroyed.

01:24:04.000 So what steps would you take?

01:24:06.000 Like, what would you do if you were in a position of power right now?

01:24:10.000 You know, it's interesting.

01:24:11.000 People get this idea that this is some crazy, complex situation, and it's going to be all hard and all this.

01:24:19.000 I could pull together like two first lieutenants from the Marine Corps, which is like the junior officer in the Marine Corps, and say, come up with a plan to defeat ISIS. You got two hours.

01:24:28.000 And they'd do it.

01:24:29.000 And it'd be a good plan.

01:24:31.000 This is not a complex situation.

01:24:33.000 How many people are you dealing with when you're talking about ISIS? I don't know.

01:24:38.000 20,000?

01:24:38.000 10,000?

01:24:40.000 4,000?

01:24:41.000 100,000?

01:24:42.000 It's tough to tell.

01:24:43.000 Yeah, it's tough to tell and doesn't matter.

01:24:44.000 You assess it, you bring what you need to the table and you defeat them.

01:24:49.000 So what do you think is holding back from us doing something like that?

01:24:53.000 I have no idea.

01:24:54.000 Is it frustrating to you?

01:24:56.000 Yes.

01:24:58.000 Because if you got kids and you see, again, a malignant cancer on humanity that is growing unchecked, we're like the master surgeons that have the ability to go in and eradicate this disease.

01:25:17.000 And instead of doing that, we're just not doing anything.

01:25:21.000 So do you blame the current administration?

01:25:24.000 Do you blame the climate of the American public right now?

01:25:30.000 The political climate where people just don't want to be involved in another war or enter into another prolonged interaction?

01:25:37.000 I think people are always looking for the easiest way out and going in is a hard decision to make.

01:25:44.000 It's a very hard decision to make.

01:25:46.000 And it's be a very unpopular decision.

01:25:50.000 And it would be the short-term pain that everyone's afraid of.

01:25:55.000 That's one of the things that's so disconcerting to me about drones.

01:26:00.000 Because it seems to me that what drones are is a way that we can avoid American casualties so people don't complain about it as much.

01:26:09.000 So we send this robot in there to fly in and then launch missiles.

01:26:13.000 And the good thing is it doesn't create American casualties.

01:26:17.000 But the bad thing is it doesn't seem to be nearly as effective.

01:26:21.000 It's like sort of a wishy-washy attempt in some ways at war.

01:26:25.000 It seems almost like it would be something that you would use in a supplement as well as a military attack.

01:26:33.000 Like it would be a part of it instead of being the only thing that you use to try to combat these people.

01:26:38.000 Does that make sense?

01:26:39.000 Don't know if we have enough drones to get the job done and They're effective, but I mean a drone is gonna take out.

01:26:46.000 I don't know 20 20 bad guys So there'd be a lot of drones in action.

01:26:50.000 I don't know if we have that kind of capability yet But we will Someday yeah, well someday we'll have a robot army and we'll be dealing with some terminator type situation, right?

01:27:01.000 Yes, but right now It's almost like we need to get smacked, like something needs to happen before we hit back.

01:27:09.000 And I cannot in good conscience agree with you because I don't even want to say those words.

01:27:13.000 Yeah.

01:27:14.000 You know, it's just a horrible thought.

01:27:15.000 You don't want to put it out there.

01:27:16.000 It's a horrible thought.

01:27:17.000 Yeah.

01:27:18.000 It's a horrible thought, especially when you start talking about a dirty bomb.

01:27:23.000 You know, and like, oh, here's a sector of America that no one can live in anymore because it's been contaminated.

01:27:31.000 It's radioactive now.

01:27:33.000 I mean, that's real.

01:27:36.000 And again, for some reason, the warning signs, which can be seen, you know, anywhere you look, we're ignoring them.

01:27:45.000 I think people, speaking for myself and speaking for the people that I come in contact with, I think people are becoming more and more concerned about ISIS on a pretty much daily basis.

01:27:55.000 I think one thing that Paris did do is it woke a lot of people up as to possibilities.

01:28:00.000 It's something like this can happen and that this isn't the end and this is this is ramping up and that if they have the kind of resources to pull off something like the Paris attacks, who knows where this is going.

01:28:13.000 Totally agree with you.

01:28:14.000 It is a very scary time.

01:28:17.000 What do you think is going to happen if you had a guess?

01:28:22.000 What do I think is going to happen in terms of a terrorist attack in America?

01:28:25.000 No, no, no.

01:28:25.000 In terms of our approach to dealing with something like ISIS. I think it's very difficult to predict the future.

01:28:37.000 Not to be just a big cop out over here.

01:28:40.000 I'm not trying to do that to you.

01:28:42.000 But there's so many different ways that this could go.

01:28:46.000 And now you've thrown Russia into the mix because they took down the Russian airline. 0.98

01:28:51.000 You've got a guy like Putin who is a gangster. 0.69

01:28:54.000 You know and I say that in both contexts of Negative and positive. 0.63

01:29:00.000 I mean the guy is in a negative way.

01:29:03.000 He's a gangster That's that's like scary with his thought process and at the same time like props the guy's a gangster and he's gonna smash some people You've got now turkey in the mix.

01:29:15.000 I mean, it's just a very it's a complex situation that's getting more complex all the time and The scariest part about it is that America is not in a leadership position.

01:29:29.000 We are not influencing the world the way we once did.

01:29:33.000 People are not looking to us as the leaders.

01:29:38.000 We're in the backseat, and that's scary.

01:29:41.000 We should be in a leadership position.

01:29:43.000 There's nothing wrong with that.

01:29:45.000 It's not bad to have a benevolent country And I know people are gonna go crazy, but a generally benevolent country that's sitting here, you know, given billions of dollars of aid around the world,

01:30:01.000 never taken any soil and kept it.

01:30:03.000 I mean, we've, you know, I guess in modern times, we've never taken any soil and kept it.

01:30:08.000 We've given Germany back to Germany. 0.95

01:30:10.000 We gave Japan back to Japan. 0.99

01:30:11.000 You know, we've we've We're a fairly benevolent country.

01:30:17.000 Again, I know we've got faults.

01:30:18.000 I know we've done things wrong in the past.

01:30:20.000 I'm sure we'll do things wrong in the future.

01:30:22.000 But to have us not in a leadership position is a very disturbing time.

01:30:30.000 And when you say that we're not a leadership position, what do you think the shift is and where do you think it happened?

01:30:38.000 I think it's been happening and I think, you know, I think the current administration is definitely not as experienced as you would hope.

01:30:46.000 And I think there's a lot of a lot of naive attitudes about what the rest of the world is like.

01:30:53.000 So this administration you think was the beginning of the shift away from America being in a leadership position?

01:30:59.000 Yes.

01:31:00.000 What kind of a president do you think would change that? 0.85

01:31:05.000 somebody that has a better understanding of The nature of the world like a John McCain type guy.

01:31:13.000 Yeah, maybe like it like like, you know, again, I'm not To sit here and try and think of who the best presidential candidate would be I mean, we have a hard time figuring that out in America as a whole But again, you look at a guy like you look at a guy like Putin and you look at a guy like Obama You know Putin's My whole existence has been geared towards this.

01:31:38.000 You know, I mean, a KGB guy.

01:31:40.000 I mean, he's been a player on the world stage and a part of it for his whole life.

01:31:44.000 And he's got an acute understanding of it.

01:31:46.000 And he's a black belt. 0.52

01:31:48.000 You know, he's a legit black belt.

01:31:51.000 And you just see these other...

01:31:55.000 You see the naivete of this administration, and it's really hard to understand.

01:32:03.000 There was one thing that Obama said yesterday or today that just drove me crazy.

01:32:09.000 He was talking about the attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, and he said, things like this don't happen in other countries. 0.99

01:32:16.000 It's like, how the fuck do you say that just days after what happened in Paris? 0.97

01:32:20.000 I was reading that just today before we started the podcast. 0.98

01:32:23.000 I was reading it.

01:32:24.000 I was like, that is one of the craziest things that someone could say after hundreds of people were killed in Paris.

01:32:30.000 Because he's talking about it in terms of gun violence from a religious perspective.

01:32:36.000 That... 0.99

01:32:37.000 What the fuck happened in Paris? 1.00

01:32:39.000 Because it's not about babies? 1.00

01:32:41.000 It's different?

01:32:42.000 Yeah.

01:32:43.000 I mean, he said something the other day, too.

01:32:46.000 I'm not interested in some notion of America leading and winning.

01:32:53.000 What does that mean?

01:32:54.000 Exactly.

01:32:55.000 That's...

01:32:56.000 Yeah, it's very...

01:32:57.000 It's just...

01:33:00.000 It's very disturbing.

01:33:02.000 What does that mean?

01:33:04.000 That's a...

01:33:05.000 Did anybody ask him to qualify that?

01:33:07.000 No.

01:33:08.000 He was kind of speaking.

01:33:11.000 Yeah.

01:33:13.000 That's a weird statement for the guy who's the commander-in-chief of the greatest army the world has ever known.

01:33:19.000 I'm not interested in staying number one.

01:33:24.000 Not good.

01:33:24.000 I think the concept of a benevolent leader, of a benevolent nation, you know, if you do concede that the world will always be in chaos, and there will always be, at least in terms of, like, foreseeable future, In the next hundred years or whatever we're in until something crazy happens I mean it would have to be something the monumental life-changing that stops conflict all around the world You'd have to if you were a rational Pragmatic person you're looking at the future.

01:33:54.000 You have to say well, we're gonna have conflict especially if you look at places like you know the Congo or you know parts of the Middle East where people don't count and there's places where like you would have to educate them to the point where The future would look radically different than the present,

01:34:11.000 right?

01:34:12.000 So if that's the case, if conflict will be something that we're going to have to mitigate no matter what, wouldn't you want to be the one that gets to decide?

01:34:23.000 Wouldn't you want to be the person in the position of power?

01:34:26.000 Yes, you would be.

01:34:29.000 It's a much smaller scale, but this is what I've always tried to tell people when they say, why would you want to learn martial arts?

01:34:36.000 And what I always say is...

01:34:38.000 You don't want to learn martial arts because you want to go beat somebody up.

01:34:41.000 You want to learn martial arts for two things.

01:34:43.000 One, because you want to learn how to overcome incredibly difficult things.

01:34:48.000 And in martial arts, you're going to encounter times where you want to quit. 0.99

01:34:52.000 You're going to get your ass kicked. 0.98

01:34:53.000 It's going to be difficult, and it's extremely difficult to get good at it. 1.00

01:34:57.000 Two, if you do get into a situation, you want to be the one who gets to choose whether or not someone gets hurt.

01:35:05.000 You don't want to be helpless, because being helpless is a terrible place to be. 0.95

01:35:10.000 But it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to go out and fuck people up. 0.52

01:35:13.000 And that's sort of the same idea on a macro scale that you would look at the concept of America being a benevolent entity or a benevolent superpower. 0.86

01:35:24.000 Absolutely.

01:35:25.000 100% right.

01:35:26.000 You know, I mean, It goes with everything that we do.

01:35:33.000 And when I say we, I'm talking about you.

01:35:34.000 You train, you work out, you try and be strong, you keep yourself aware of what's happening. 0.99

01:35:40.000 It's not because you want to go around kicking people's asses. 0.99

01:35:43.000 It's because you don't want to have to kick anyone's ass. 0.99

01:35:46.000 People are not looking at Joe Rogan and be like, oh, I'm going to beat him up right now. 0.99

01:35:49.000 No, they're going, oh, that guy, I know he trains all the time.

01:35:51.000 And if someone gets in your face, they're going to know that immediately.

01:35:53.000 You know that.

01:35:54.000 You can tell by the way someone carries themselves what You know what they have and what they know what they understand, you know I got asked the other day if you were president You know you asked me if I was got advice.

01:36:07.000 They said if you were president What would you do with Isis and I said if I was president Isis would not exist President Jocko they make it happen they would not exist because We would have a presence in the world that would prevent the growth of this kind of ideology.

01:36:27.000 But what kind of a reaction do you think you would have from the American public, from the insulated American public?

01:36:35.000 I mean, this is probably one of the most sensitive times ever.

01:36:38.000 In terms of, they throw around the term Islamophobia, if you even criticize anyone that just happens to be Muslim.

01:36:45.000 I mean, we're in a strange time when it comes to incredibly sensitive, maybe hypersensitive people that maybe don't have a good grip on reality.

01:36:57.000 Well...

01:36:58.000 What would you do?

01:36:59.000 Take them over there in buses?

01:37:00.000 Yeah, that'd be one thing.

01:37:01.000 That'd be the way to go, right?

01:37:02.000 It's interesting because I've already talked about this.

01:37:09.000 Islamophobia, I mean, I fought alongside these Muslims.

01:37:15.000 I fought alongside them to help them.

01:37:19.000 My friends did.

01:37:20.000 And America did. 0.77

01:37:22.000 We fought alongside these people to try and help them.

01:37:27.000 And we did.

01:37:28.000 So, how that gets twisted in some world to where, you know, we're not, where evil is completely beyond me.

01:37:38.000 Well, I think because there is legit Islamophobia out there in the world, just like there's a legit hatred of Christians, there's legit hatred of Mormons.

01:37:48.000 I mean, you're going to find groups of people that are hated.

01:37:50.000 And there's also people that aren't willing to look deeper into some... 0.99

01:37:56.000 Some global issue if you have a global issue that there's these people that call themselves Isis or ISIL or whatever they call themselves and you know, they call themselves the Islamic State you owe Islam Oh, Islam's bad Muslims are bad Muslims are evil. 1.00

01:38:11.000 I was watching something there was a Sam Harris had posted up on Twitter There was this guy who is proposed believe it was in Virginia. 0.98

01:38:20.000 He was at a like County One of those meetings where you're talking about building something in the town.

01:38:29.000 And he was talking about putting up a mosque. 0.99

01:38:33.000 And these people were screaming at him that Muslims are evil and your evil cult is not going to come into our town. 1.00

01:38:39.000 And you're trying to invade our town and get out of here with your evil cult. 1.00

01:38:42.000 And like, okay, that's Islamophobia. 0.95

01:38:45.000 That's right there.

01:38:46.000 I mean, you're talking about a peaceful guy who just wants to be able to worship Islam. 0.99

01:38:50.000 His, you know, his ideas, his religion, in peace in this place, he wants to build a mosque.

01:38:55.000 And people want to, you know, they're furious at this guy.

01:38:58.000 That's real Islamophobia, right?

01:39:01.000 But there's a big difference between something like that and what's going on in other parts of the world with ISIS. A giant, giant difference.

01:39:10.000 And I think that when people want to throw around that term Islamophobia, I think a lot of times what they're doing is they're just trying to be correct. 0.58

01:39:19.000 They're trying to be politically correct, socially correct, they're trying to be sensitive, and they're trying to let everybody know that they're not racist, that they're not xenophobic, that they're not Islamophobic or whatever, that they're open-minded and progressive, so they're throwing around these terms.

01:39:34.000 And it kind of clouds the water.

01:39:38.000 Okay.

01:39:41.000 I mean, yeah.

01:39:43.000 These people are running around calling Islamophobia.

01:39:50.000 I don't know.

01:39:51.000 No one's ever called me that.

01:39:54.000 Not yet.

01:39:55.000 I'm sure they will.

01:39:56.000 Get ready today on Twitter.

01:39:58.000 It's happening.

01:39:59.000 It's happening right now.

01:40:00.000 Yeah, I don't see how they could do that.

01:40:03.000 Again, we fought alongside Muslim people.

01:40:07.000 We ate with them.

01:40:09.000 We put our lives in their hands, and they put their lives in our hands.

01:40:13.000 And, you know, America and my friends were killed trying to help them.

01:40:19.000 So...

01:40:20.000 How I'm a person that could be called an Islamophobist is kind of a stretch, I think.

01:40:26.000 Yeah, well, rationally, but you're talking about people that aren't necessarily rational.

01:40:31.000 Well, you know, people paint their own layers onto things and make them into what they're not.

01:40:38.000 Well, I think it's symptomatic of what's going on with our culture, too, is that these hypersensitive, oversimplistic ideas and people that would say these things like this don't have a real grip Like you have of what it's like over there.

01:40:58.000 And I don't think anybody does other than people like you that have been over there and have been in combat.

01:41:04.000 I don't think it's possible.

01:41:05.000 I think that's one of the problems that we have.

01:41:08.000 We're behaving like children in a lot of ways because we really have never had to live on our own.

01:41:14.000 Yeah, and it's actually very similar to what we were talking about earlier with the traditional martial arts, where you can sit there in your fantasy world and think that your chi is going to protect you, and that as long as you spread love,

01:41:30.000 you're going to be protected because your chi is strong.

01:41:34.000 And until you've been in a fistfight, you're gonna believe that.

01:41:38.000 And so that's kind of like what you're saying.

01:41:39.000 Do we need to get spanked? 1.00

01:41:40.000 Do we need to get into a fistfight before America realizes like, oh no, there's real problems in the world that need to be handled.

01:41:46.000 This is one of the weirdest times ever, but I have a bit in my act about...

01:41:49.000 This is the first time ever where someone broke into the White House, or if you know that, in 2014. It was the first time anybody gained access, and there was a woman guarding the front door.

01:41:58.000 It was an unarmed woman guarding the front door, and a woman who was in charge of Secret Service. 1.00

01:42:03.000 Because diversity!

01:42:05.000 One of my favorite parts was there was an article written about when the guy knocked the chick over and ran inside, and they said it was reviewed and gender wasn't an issue.

01:42:16.000 Well, okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

01:42:19.000 Like, you mean if Brock Lesnar was guarding the door, the same thing would have happened.

01:42:22.000 The guy would have knocked him over, and no one would have ever caught the guy.

01:42:26.000 He just would have ran by. 1.00

01:42:27.000 That's fucking ridiculous, but it's that same kind of crazy thinking. 1.00

01:42:32.000 Politically correct, Asinine thinking. 1.00

01:42:34.000 You should have a fucking team. 1.00

01:42:36.000 If you're going to make the president sleep in a house that's in the park, you should probably have a team of fucking assassins surrounding that building at all times, and you should keep a lookout for dudes that are sprinting across the lawn knocking over chicks that are guarding the front door. 1.00

01:42:51.000 There's no doubt about it, but it's the same thing. 0.90

01:42:53.000 It's like we're so soft and we're so used to Being in this insulated world that we have here this nice sweet bubble where we drive our eight mile per hour or eight mile per gallon SUVs I don't know how you would ever Really illuminate all these problems that you're bringing up I don't I don't know how you could get these I mean to the head of the average person like in World War two Like you and me if we were 13 years old we weren't old enough to serve

01:43:23.000 We still knew that there was a war going on because we couldn't eat steak.

01:43:27.000 We couldn't use any metal We were gardening at night.

01:43:30.000 We were shutting off the lights like we were impacted all of America was impacted and At the height of the Battle of Ramadi, the height of it, at the height of the war of Iraq, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, Americans at the mall were not impacted at all.

01:43:46.000 At all?

01:43:47.000 At all.

01:43:47.000 Not only that, they weren't even allowed to show photographs of coffins.

01:43:51.000 It's like the first time ever in the history of the United States, the history of the United States taking pictures during wartime where they made it illegal to show photos of coffins.

01:44:03.000 Which is just absolutely insane.

01:44:06.000 How are you going to let people understand what's happening if you don't even allow journalists to show photographs of coffins?

01:44:18.000 It's the bubble you're talking about.

01:44:20.000 Same thing.

01:44:22.000 What made you decide to leave the military?

01:44:29.000 Well, a bunch of things.

01:44:31.000 I mean, it wasn't like one day I woke up and said, all right, I'm done.

01:44:35.000 You know, obviously, if you haven't caught this up to this point, I love the SEAL teams.

01:44:41.000 I love being in the military.

01:44:43.000 At the 20-year mark, I... I had a bunch of different things that kind of weighed in.

01:44:51.000 You know, I had a family that I hadn't seen or didn't know pretty much.

01:44:56.000 So you start thinking, well, you know, maybe I should pay attention to them a little bit.

01:45:03.000 Completed sort of my last real job operational job in the SEAL teams and It was gonna be a long time before I was in command again of a SEAL team or of something that was important from a warfighting perspective so that was kind of kind of another thing that I looked at that was tough and and Yeah,

01:45:25.000 I just I guess I that's it.

01:45:28.000 That's it really I So what was your transition?

01:45:33.000 How long ago did you begin to get out?

01:45:37.000 I got out in 2010. Wow, so it's five years ago.

01:45:41.000 Five years, yep.

01:45:42.000 And what was your transition?

01:45:45.000 We started this company where we go and work with civilian companies doing leadership and management and you know my buddy Leif that I was talking about earlier who was one of the platoon commanders that was with me in Ramadi and you know he he had run into a company I had run into a company and they asked us to do some stuff and the next thing you know I gave one kind of leadership training to a company,

01:46:09.000 and then they said, come back and train all of our divisions.

01:46:11.000 And then the parent company of that company watched me and said, hey, can you come to our CEO Summit?

01:46:17.000 And then went to the CEO Summit, and then a bunch of those CEOs said, hey, can you come?

01:46:21.000 And the next thing you know, I'm doing this.

01:46:22.000 So what is the process?

01:46:25.000 Like when you're doing these speeches or you're setting things up, how do you organize them?

01:46:31.000 Obviously, your lifetime was in the military.

01:46:34.000 So what was it about you and about what you brought to the table that was so attractive to them?

01:46:41.000 I think it's because the principles of leadership, and that's what we talk about, and that's what we teach is leadership.

01:46:47.000 The principles of leadership do not change.

01:46:49.000 Whether your mission is to capture or kill bad guys, or whether your mission is to manufacture something or sell something or produce something, you've got a group of people, a group of individuals.

01:47:03.000 And they're gonna be diverse, they're gonna be different, they're gonna have different intelligence levels, they're gonna have different personalities, they're gonna have different goals, they're gonna have different motivations, and you gotta take all those people and unify them and try and get them to accomplish a mission in the most effective and efficient manner.

01:47:22.000 That's leadership and it doesn't like I said that those principles that we used in combat don't change regardless of what the mission is and But what's good, you know, and I said this earlier Life is like combat but amplified and intensified in combat combat is like life but amplified and intensified and and that means when when we tell a story like a leadership story and About combat,

01:47:49.000 it's so obvious what the principle was.

01:47:54.000 Whereas in the business world, it might take six months or a year or maybe you barely even notice what the failure was.

01:48:01.000 And when we make those stark examples from combat, people go, oh, I see how we're failing in this too.

01:48:09.000 That's that's why I think people really took hold of of what we did and how we put it across So this was something that you were approached to do This wasn't like an idea that you had had and you thought about like this would be my new thing Yeah, and I mean regardless of like all this Garbage that I talk in my life and I've always telling people to like plan and be prepared Yeah,

01:48:28.000 I almost completely fell into this with the fact that you know someone said hey can you come and talk to my people about leadership and I said well, yeah, I've been talking about leadership for a You know, last several years in the SEAL teams and I've been in a leadership position in some pretty tough situations.

01:48:45.000 And, you know, that just happened.

01:48:48.000 Now, do you teach a course or is this like a one-time seminar type of a thing?

01:48:54.000 We do both.

01:48:55.000 Well, so sometimes we go in, you know, we'll do like a keynote speech.

01:49:00.000 And those are good.

01:49:01.000 Those are good.

01:49:01.000 Those are great.

01:49:02.000 You know, we get a lot of positive feedback about those.

01:49:04.000 But then sometimes we'll go in with a company, and we've done like two-year contracts with companies where we've trained everybody that they have, and we get all their leadership aligned on the same page.

01:49:12.000 And we'll go in, you know, for maybe an assessment.

01:49:17.000 We'll look and see.

01:49:18.000 We'll learn about what business they're in.

01:49:19.000 We'll learn about what they're doing, how they're doing it.

01:49:22.000 We'll see what areas they can improve on.

01:49:24.000 We'll formulate a plan around that, and then we'll come back and we'll train leadership.

01:49:28.000 That's fascinating.

01:49:29.000 So you have to kind of construct a course.

01:49:32.000 Yes, yes.

01:49:33.000 I mean, the basic, like I said, the basic principles are always the same, but some organizations have different problems than other organizations.

01:49:41.000 They all have the same, you know, five, seven problems, you know, whatever that number is.

01:49:47.000 Some of them are really bad at this, or really good at this, or they're failing here, but they're winning here.

01:49:52.000 So we got to go in, check them out, see what the issue is, and then we get it turned around.

01:49:56.000 Is this rewarding for you?

01:49:58.000 Do you enjoy doing this?

01:50:00.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:50:03.000 Well number one I can talk about combat all day long and I can talk about and even more than that I can talk about leadership all day long because it's it's it's the it's the most challenging thing the most challenging thing About being in combat in a leadership position is not you know Trying to figure out what the enemy is going to do and trying to trying to organize a good plan the most challenging thing is dealing with all these human beings That's the challenging thing is getting these guys and girls Do what they need to do what

01:50:33.000 you need them to do to get them to believe in it?

01:50:36.000 That's what's challenging and we definitely learned Lessons positive and negative, you know, that's one thing about our book that people have got a lot of feedback is This book isn't like, hey, look what we did, look how awesome we are.

01:50:49.000 No, this book is, a lot of those chapters in that book are, hey, this is what we screwed up.

01:50:55.000 Here's the failure that happened.

01:50:57.000 This was a horrible situation, and it was my fault.

01:51:01.000 That's where we learned the lessons.

01:51:03.000 And I think that's what's made people relate to it more, because we're not just saying, hey, we're the greatest thing in the world.

01:51:08.000 No.

01:51:09.000 We were humbled by combat.

01:51:11.000 We were humbled By the enemy.

01:51:15.000 We were humbled by our own guys that did amazing things when we were around.

01:51:20.000 So I think that's a little bit different as well.

01:51:23.000 And again, I think that's one of the things that appeals to the people is they look at this and they go, oh, I can relate to that.

01:51:30.000 I can understand it.

01:51:31.000 I've failed too.

01:51:31.000 I made a mistake.

01:51:32.000 Oh, how did they handle it?

01:51:34.000 Oh, they did this.

01:51:35.000 Okay, got it.

01:51:36.000 Well, when you're talking about combat, you're talking about people organizing and staying together and figuring out how to lead, you're talking about these extreme consequences, the most extreme ever.

01:51:46.000 And when you have these extreme consequences, obviously when there's a lot on the line, people are going to focus.

01:51:52.000 And some people are going to fall apart, and some people are going to pull together, but you're going to get people that understand the gravity of the situation.

01:52:01.000 It would seem to me It would be much harder to impart that into people in the business world.

01:52:09.000 Amplified and intensified.

01:52:10.000 So in combat, lives are at stake, absolutely.

01:52:14.000 In business world, Have you ever had to fire anyone before?

01:52:18.000 No. 0.99

01:52:18.000 It sucks. 0.99

01:52:20.000 Have you ever had people lose their job and couldn't pay their mortgage and feed their kids because you screwed up as a boss? 0.99

01:52:26.000 No.

01:52:27.000 That's pressure.

01:52:28.000 That is massive.

01:52:29.000 Have you ever lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of capital because you made a bad decision?

01:52:34.000 No, but you know why?

01:52:35.000 It's because I'm not a leader.

01:52:36.000 See, so there's good things in not being a leader.

01:52:38.000 The benefits of non-leadership So, you know, when people ask me that question, they ask that question all the time.

01:52:45.000 I'm like, hey, it's not about lives, but it's about livelihoods.

01:52:49.000 And you've got people that are relying on you to succeed and win.

01:52:53.000 And again, sure, you get killed in combat.

01:52:56.000 That's obviously the worst thing that can happen.

01:52:59.000 But if you lose your job or, you know, your people lose their jobs. 0.67

01:53:03.000 I mean, people kill themselves all the time when they make bad business decisions.

01:53:06.000 It's that much pressure.

01:53:07.000 It's that much pressure, for sure.

01:53:09.000 And so that's why it does translate, because business people relate to that amount of pressure, and they understand how it feels to have that bearing down on them.

01:53:17.000 It just seems to me, for a guy like you, that maybe you'd be even more attracted to going into business than you would be to teaching people how to lead their businesses better.

01:53:29.000 Yeah, and we, I mean, it is a business.

01:53:31.000 We do have a business.

01:53:32.000 It is definitely what we're doing.

01:53:36.000 And that being said, for me to now go into business, I'd have to learn some new business.

01:53:40.000 Well, why not just take the skills that I do have, which is, you know, we know about leadership, so let's just help other people.

01:53:47.000 And that is rewarding.

01:53:48.000 It's very rewarding to talk to someone and have them go.

01:53:53.000 I did what you told me to do and this is the result.

01:53:56.000 This is the outcome.

01:53:57.000 That's very rewarding.

01:53:58.000 And another piece of it is, you know, everything always ties to me back to America.

01:54:06.000 The businesses in this country are the economic power of this nation.

01:54:11.000 And our economic power is the backbone of our authority in the world.

01:54:15.000 And so to help businesses grow and achieve is very rewarding because I know that it's a very patriotic thing to do.

01:54:21.000 Capitalism is a very patriotic piece of America.

01:54:24.000 That's an interesting perspective.

01:54:25.000 That's an interesting way to look at the big picture.

01:54:28.000 And I agree with you.

01:54:29.000 I'm going to say something that people hate me saying, but I'm going to say it.

01:54:32.000 Because I need to say it to you.

01:54:34.000 You should have a podcast. 0.96

01:54:36.000 People always get mad at me because I say this all the time to interesting guests, but this is not something that's difficult to do and you'd be fucking great at it.

01:54:43.000 And I think that your perspective on the military and your perspective on our situation overseas, I think would be very unusual, very unusual and very educated.

01:54:55.000 And I just think there's no one out there that's doing it like you could do it.

01:55:02.000 Well, you're not the first person to say that to me.

01:55:04.000 As a matter of fact, when Tim Ferriss, we got done with the podcast and he pressed stop on the thing and he just looked up at me and said, you need to do your own podcast.

01:55:11.000 Good for him. 0.98

01:55:12.000 I like to do my shit publicly. 0.99

01:55:15.000 I've talked to some of my buddies about it. 0.96

01:55:20.000 We're working.

01:55:21.000 This is all you have to do, man. 1.00

01:55:22.000 Get a fucking phone. 1.00

01:55:23.000 You have a phone. 1.00

01:55:24.000 Press record.

01:55:25.000 You know?

01:55:26.000 Sit down with people.

01:55:27.000 It's not hard to do.

01:55:28.000 It's easy.

01:55:28.000 Trust me.

01:55:29.000 No, it's interesting, too, and I'm getting over the fact of, like I told you earlier, like I said on the Tim Ferriss program, People that just talk for no reason.

01:55:39.000 And it's hard for me to get used to the fact that somebody wants to hear what I have to say that's not a seal or a direct business person.

01:55:49.000 But I'll probably end up doing something with it.

01:55:53.000 Well, I think great military leaders, whether it's Zao what a Sun Tzu the art of war whether it's Miyamoto busashi from the book of five rings great warriors from the past have written books that civilians have gotten a lot out of and I think that someone like you Instead of writing a book and your book I'm sure is great and I'm sure there's a lot of lessons in that but on a daily basis to be able to do something like this anytime you

01:56:23.000 want just fire up your podcast anytime something like Paris like the Paris attack happens you could give your perspective instantaneously Uploaded onto the internet and there's just never been a time like that It's wonderful that we could sit down and read what Miyamoto Musashi wrote hundreds of years ago.

01:56:42.000 I mean, it's amazing It's interesting to try to peer into the mind of one of the the greatest swordsman that ever lived and see his philosophies on life But I think that Today with the advent of the internet and with with the ability to broadcast yourself virtually instantaneously,

01:57:02.000 I think you could you could make a gigantic impact in Sharing that perspective and taking those experiences that you have so deserved and so earned and And giving people this insight that they're just not gonna get it.

01:57:20.000 You know, I'm getting it from you, like I said, I got it from you from that Tim Ferriss episode, and I'm getting it even more from you now.

01:57:27.000 It's a perspective you're just not gonna get from someone who wasn't there.

01:57:31.000 You're just not gonna get it. 0.81

01:57:32.000 You're gonna get these fuzzy, you know, it's like two people sit, you ever heard two people talk about martial arts, don't know shit about martial arts? 0.92

01:57:40.000 You know?

01:57:40.000 That's what it's like to hear someone like me talk about the military, really.

01:57:44.000 Yeah, and it's, again, it's another thing that I'm Sorting out in my own head, which is this idea of broadcasting myself.

01:57:57.000 It's just weird.

01:57:59.000 I mean, you grew up, you were into this, you know, I think you've been a comedian for pretty much your whole adult life, right?

01:58:04.000 26 years.

01:58:05.000 So 26 years you were getting on stage.

01:58:07.000 That's what you wanted to do.

01:58:09.000 And honestly, when I first joined the SEAL teams, that was the most frowned upon thing was to be broadcasting yourself that you were a SEAL You were that what you did and it and it took me a long time I mean writing this book was a was a It's it's a really hard thing to do because You sit there and you you know,

01:58:29.000 you you're you're supposed to be humble, right?

01:58:31.000 You're a warrior supposed to be humble.

01:58:32.000 Okay.

01:58:33.000 Well, I'm gonna write a big book about myself I mean that just that just doesn't work and so it was really hard and and Leif and I that was one of the biggest things that we did as we edited it and edited it and edited it We went through it just to just to make sure that we were coming across and saying things in a manner that really reflected That humility which again,

01:58:56.000 it's very hard to do because it's a dichotomy It's a dichotomy because you're saying hey, you got to be humble as a leader But I'm gonna write a big book about myself.

01:59:06.000 It's just crazy.

01:59:08.000 And so when you're sitting here like, oh, you should have a podcast and I'm thinking, you know, you should broadcast yourself.

01:59:14.000 And again, the way I was raised, because you spent your whole adult life in comedy.

01:59:19.000 I spent my whole adult life in the SEAL teams and I was raised by these old Vietnam guys that were badasses and they were like, oh, you don't talk about this. 1.00

01:59:28.000 Right.

01:59:29.000 And so I'm kind of going against this the way I was raised.

01:59:32.000 And so again, I'm getting over it.

01:59:35.000 I'm trying to get over it.

01:59:37.000 But at the same time, I don't want to get completely over it because that's part of the way I was raised and what I believe in.

01:59:44.000 I see their point of view.

01:59:45.000 I totally understand why they would say you don't talk about it. 0.97

01:59:48.000 But what I think the benefit of talking about it today, as opposed to their time, is that through the internet, you can broadcast in a way that would be like, look, no one's gonna take a Navy SEAL back in the day and give them a gigantic television show where they could say whatever the fuck they wanted.

02:00:07.000 Broadcast anytime they wanted, but if you have a successful podcast you can reach hundreds of thousands of people with each episode which is just like a successful television show and Because of that you have the ability to educate people and give people this perspective that I said that I got from you that I'm just not get I'm not getting from anybody else unless they've been there But I get it from you.

02:00:28.000 I get it from Tim Kennedy.

02:00:29.000 I get it from Brian Stan I get it from Andy Stump.

02:00:31.000 I get it from people that have been there and you you get A different perspective than you're ever gonna get from someone who's just pontificating or guessing, waxing poetically on the nature of man and war. 1.00

02:00:43.000 It's all bullshit. 0.98

02:00:44.000 Until you talk to someone who's actually been there, you don't really understand what they're saying. 1.00

02:00:50.000 I think it would be gigantic.

02:00:52.000 I really think you should do it.

02:00:54.000 I really think it would help a lot of people.

02:00:56.000 I think it would help a lot of people understand from the perspective of someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

02:01:02.000 And there's not a lot of that in the world.

02:01:04.000 I think this is also what you're talking about when you're talking about the leadership in this country.

02:01:10.000 I don't know if you should be someone who has served in the military in order to qualify for being the president, but I don't think it's a bad idea to throw it out there to say that, at the very least, you should spend some time living in these environments where we're involved in massive conflict.

02:01:31.000 At the very least you should visit them spend a lot of time with the people who have lived and served and fought in these countries so you understand Clearly with no fuzziness at all. 0.92

02:01:43.000 What the fuck is going on in the world?

02:01:47.000 Well, there's no doubt that I think military service I mean I It was so good for me. 0.99

02:01:55.000 It was so good for me.

02:01:58.000 Would it be good for everybody?

02:01:59.000 What about Jamie over there?

02:02:01.000 Look at him.

02:02:02.000 I don't know either.

02:02:03.000 See, he just said, I don't know.

02:02:04.000 I'm not 100% sure.

02:02:07.000 I guarantee Jamie would get a lot out of it.

02:02:09.000 I'm sure he would, too.

02:02:10.000 I guarantee you would.

02:02:11.000 But he might wind up like that dude in full metal jacket with the rifle in the bathroom.

02:02:16.000 Private pile.

02:02:17.000 Get some.

02:02:21.000 Uh...

02:02:26.000 Yeah.

02:02:26.000 The military was great for me.

02:02:29.000 But again, you were born for this.

02:02:31.000 I mean, this is like something you were drawn to, like a magnet to metal filings.

02:02:36.000 Yeah, I was drawn to it.

02:02:40.000 I was still like when I joined my dad my dad said to me You're gonna hate it because you hate authority.

02:02:47.000 That's what my dad said to me.

02:02:48.000 I was like, okay And you know but that's that gives you an indication as to what kind of kid I was I was like completely out of control and didn't listen to anybody and I was probably similar to what you were like I'm guessing You know, I was just an out-of-control kid that just did whatever and And so joining the military,

02:03:06.000 it put the structure around me.

02:03:09.000 And all of a sudden, I could take all this energy that I had.

02:03:11.000 And what's really nice about it is you get this clean slate where they're like, okay, if you do this, you'll be successful.

02:03:16.000 Here's what you do.

02:03:17.000 Check these boxes.

02:03:17.000 And I was like, okay, I'm ready to do those things.

02:03:20.000 And you just do them.

02:03:21.000 And you develop the discipline, you know the discipline and I talk about that all the time You know the the fact that discipline equals freedom and the more discipline you have as a human The more freedom you're gonna have which is completely counterintuitive, you know people think oh you're living this disciplined lifestyle So that means you you you don't have any freedom and it's actually the exact opposite I have freedom because I have discipline I have I have you know financial freedom because I have financial discipline I have I have more time because I have the discipline to get up in the morning,

02:03:51.000 you know, before most normal people get up.

02:03:54.000 Those are the kind of disciplines that you put into place, and those definitely get instilled through the military.

02:03:58.000 Well, I think the one thing that discipline definitely does help you with is it helps you get things done.

02:04:05.000 And when you get things done, when you actually do things, you have more success. 0.86

02:04:12.000 If you have more success, sometimes a big part of success is just not being fucking lazy and just doing it. 0.88

02:04:18.000 Yeah. 0.95

02:04:19.000 90% of it is just showing up.

02:04:21.000 Get there and start working.

02:04:23.000 You're not going to feel perfect every day. 1.00

02:04:25.000 If I only worked out when I felt good, I'd be a fat fuck. 0.99

02:04:29.000 Because there's a lot of days I don't want to do it. 0.99

02:04:31.000 It's pretty much the same with everybody that actually gets good at something.

02:04:37.000 There's got to be those days you push through, and they're probably going to be more numerous than the days you don't.

02:04:44.000 And so the benefit of discipline in my eyes has always been that through discipline, I get things done.

02:04:49.000 I always say that I'm like the most lazy, disciplined person I know, because I don't want to do it, but I always do.

02:04:59.000 And I'd be interested to get your perspective on this statement.

02:05:02.000 So I also think that discipline Is a pathway to creativity and I'll tell you when I talk about creativity there's another misconception about the military when you're on the battlefield is an absolute Exercise in creativity,

02:05:19.000 okay?

02:05:21.000 I already talked about how you're gonna lead these people.

02:05:23.000 What are you gonna do?

02:05:23.000 How are you gonna influence them?

02:05:25.000 How are you gonna talk to them?

02:05:26.000 How are you gonna say the right things?

02:05:27.000 That's creativity now you throw on top of that.

02:05:30.000 What am I gonna do the enemy?

02:05:32.000 How are we going to attack them?

02:05:33.000 How are we going to disorganize them?

02:05:35.000 How are we going to get in their heads?

02:05:38.000 That's all just massive creativity.

02:05:40.000 And when I look at people that are artists like yourself, because you're a stand-up comedian, I would imagine that the more disciplined you are, You know, you gotta get up and write.

02:05:51.000 You gotta write stuff down.

02:05:53.000 You gotta read and find out about what's going on in the world so you have more things that you can jab at and make fun of.

02:05:59.000 You gotta increase your vocabulary so that you are quicker and sharper so that when people are saying things you have more words to battle back at them.

02:06:06.000 All those things, all that freedom that you get on stage comes from the discipline that you study, you learn, you read, you write, you talk, you go through things.

02:06:18.000 Is that an accurate statement?

02:06:19.000 Absolutely accurate.

02:06:20.000 There's a great book on it.

02:06:21.000 Steven Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art.

02:06:24.000 And Pressfield was essentially like a ne'er-do-well till he was like 40 years old. 0.99

02:06:29.000 He was kind of a fuck-up. 0.99

02:06:30.000 And then figured it out. 0.99

02:06:31.000 Somewhere along the line, figured it out.

02:06:33.000 I used to keep a stack of them in my old studio and I'd hand them out to guests if I thought they needed it.

02:06:37.000 Like, just take this.

02:06:38.000 Just trust me.

02:06:39.000 Read this.

02:06:39.000 Because a lot of artists in comics...

02:06:41.000 I bet musicians as well, but writers for sure, one of the big problems is sitting down and doing the work.

02:06:49.000 And Pressfield talks about that in the most concise and beautiful way.

02:06:56.000 And he labels it like an enemy.

02:06:59.000 He calls it resistance. 0.98

02:07:00.000 You know and that you have to sit down you have to overcome resistance and that the pro goes to work and it doesn't matter if you're sick doesn't matter if you have kids It doesn't matter what you you're a pro and you go to work and that and that just it puts it in your head That this is what I do This is what and you have pride in that and then when you are in front of that keyboard And you're you're you got you look down the count it says fuck a thousand words today I put a thousand words in you Yeah, 0.99

02:07:26.000 and you you're doing the work and out of that work Gems blossom little things, but you might have a day where you just write nothing but dog shit So what show up again tomorrow and tomorrow that dog shit a flower will emerge You never know and that's the only way to develop real like to really develop your potential a hundred percent in anything Whether it's as an author or even as a martial artist. 0.96

02:07:50.000 There's a lot of creativity in martial arts. 0.98

02:07:52.000 To be a great striker, you have to be creative because you have to develop patterns or execute patterns that aren't going to be perceived. 0.99

02:08:02.000 Like if a guy has a real simple 1-2-1-2, you're going to time that shit. 0.93

02:08:07.000 We were talking before this podcast about Holly Holm's victory over Ronda Rousey. 0.99

02:08:12.000 And one of the things that we were talking about was that Ronda... 0.96

02:08:15.000 Had this very linear, straightforward attack.

02:08:19.000 You knew she was coming, and Holly is a master at countering. 1.00

02:08:24.000 So all she had to do was wait and move, and Rhonda was coming in one direction. 0.99

02:08:29.000 There was no variation.

02:08:32.000 There was no creation.

02:08:32.000 There was no creativity.

02:08:33.000 It was a mad bulldog rush that had worked on everybody else before.

02:08:39.000 But she found one person who was a virtuoso at movement and she needed creativity and it wasn't there.

02:08:46.000 And she needed that experience that came with having faced someone who knew that position and had a deep understanding of that movement and she didn't have that in her repertoire.

02:08:57.000 And so that's the result that we saw.

02:08:59.000 Like a striker like Anderson Silva, he's extremely creative.

02:09:03.000 If you watch, he's got a fight versus Tony Fricklin in Cage Warriors.

02:09:08.000 Cage Warriors? 0.96

02:09:09.000 What the fuck was it called in England? 0.99

02:09:11.000 Small organization in England. 0.99

02:09:13.000 I think it was Cage Warriors.

02:09:14.000 Yeah.

02:09:15.000 Where he practiced this step-in uppercut elbow, like a sideways elbow. 0.99

02:09:21.000 And his coach was going, you're fucking crazy, stop practicing that. 0.98

02:09:24.000 And he would make his wife hold a pillow because his coach didn't want him to practice it anymore because he thought he was wasting his time. 0.99

02:09:31.000 So he practiced stepping, his wife would hold a pillow for him, and he'd step in and throw this uppercut elbow. 0.97

02:09:37.000 That's what he knocked out Fricklin with. 0.99

02:09:39.000 Obviously, Fricklin was outclassed in that fight, but he wanted to make a point.

02:09:44.000 And the front kick that he landed in the face of Vitor Belfort. 0.98

02:09:47.000 Vitor never saw that shit coming, because nobody had done that to him before. 0.97

02:09:50.000 Because nobody had done that in the history of the UFC. Nobody had ever knocked anybody out with the first kick you learn in martial arts. 0.99

02:09:57.000 But the creativity to try something like that.

02:10:00.000 He would throw punches to your thigh from standing.

02:10:03.000 He would throw a jab to your thigh. 0.95

02:10:05.000 He would throw a crescent kick, an inside crescent kick to your face. 1.00

02:10:08.000 Like, what the fuck? 0.99

02:10:09.000 It was part of what made him such an effective striker, is that he threw these things that you just didn't expect him to do. 0.99

02:10:17.000 There's a lot of creativity in jiu-jitsu.

02:10:19.000 You know that, right?

02:10:20.000 Yeah, well, I got...

02:10:21.000 Dean Lister and Jeff Glover are my guys.

02:10:23.000 Jeff Glover is one of the most creative guys in jujitsu today.

02:10:27.000 He's one of my favorite.

02:10:29.000 He does this thing, for folks who don't understand jujitsu, who don't know what we're talking about, he does this thing called a donkey guard. 0.99

02:10:35.000 He's so fucking crazy, this guy. 0.99

02:10:37.000 He gets on, literally, he faces you with his butt to you, and he launches himself backwards like a donkey kicking and wraps you up. 1.00

02:10:47.000 And it looks so preposterous while he's doing it that so many guys, especially when he first started executing it, just had no idea what the fuck to do. 0.99

02:10:55.000 Yeah, there he is right there. 0.99

02:10:58.000 Look how crazy he is. 0.99

02:11:01.000 He's out of his mind. 0.99

02:11:02.000 He's so comfortable in, you know, he trains at, you know, we're at the same gym and He trains every day with whoever, and he puts himself in the most ridiculously horrible positions. 0.97

02:11:15.000 I'm talking like, okay, he'll let people get a rear naked choke on him.

02:11:19.000 I mean, I'll watch him.

02:11:20.000 I'll be like, what in God's name?

02:11:21.000 How is he gonna...

02:11:22.000 And he will escape.

02:11:23.000 He'll just put himself in horrible positions all the time.

02:11:25.000 Just to work on his defense.

02:11:26.000 Just to work on his defense and just to be in a bad way.

02:11:29.000 How does he avoid getting hurt?

02:11:31.000 Because he's not a big guy.

02:11:33.000 He's super, super, super flexible.

02:11:36.000 Like, crazy flexible.

02:11:37.000 And, you know, he gets dinged up, but he just is very flexible, and he knows where to put his body.

02:11:43.000 You know, he's just a...

02:11:44.000 He's kind of a freak.

02:11:46.000 Because I knew that he trained with you.

02:11:47.000 I was going to ask you, like, the idea of you and him training together.

02:11:51.000 For folks listening to this, the majority of our podcast is audio.

02:11:55.000 Probably like 90%.

02:11:56.000 You're about, what, 240 or something like that?

02:11:59.000 Yeah, 235. Yeah, and Jeff's like, what, 150?

02:12:01.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

02:12:02.000 Yeah, what the fuck? 1.00

02:12:04.000 That's a big... 1.00

02:12:05.000 I don't want to...

02:12:06.000 I weigh 200 pounds.

02:12:07.000 I don't want to train with anybody who's 210. The fact that he's 150 pounds and he's training with gorillas. 1.00

02:12:14.000 I don't know how the fuck he does it. 0.99

02:12:16.000 I don't know how he does it. 0.99

02:12:17.000 He's just super relaxed and he just moves and moves really well.

02:12:20.000 That's amazing.

02:12:21.000 That's amazing.

02:12:22.000 No back problems.

02:12:24.000 He's alright.

02:12:24.000 No neck problems.

02:12:26.000 He is 100% at all times.

02:12:29.000 Yeah, that's amazing.

02:12:31.000 Dean's getting a little more dinged up.

02:12:33.000 Dean looks like he ate a Dean.

02:12:35.000 I saw him the other day. 1.00

02:12:36.000 I'm like, what are you, 300 fucking pounds? 0.99

02:12:38.000 And I don't mean in a fat way either. 1.00

02:12:40.000 He's huge!

02:12:41.000 He looks gigantic.

02:12:43.000 He's pretty big, yeah.

02:12:45.000 Has he just been power lifting or something?

02:12:47.000 Like, what is he doing?

02:12:48.000 I think he just eats a lot.

02:12:50.000 Yeah, but he's definitely lifting, too.

02:12:52.000 Because, like, food doesn't go right to your neck.

02:12:54.000 His neck starts at the top of his head. 0.90

02:12:57.000 He's a genetic mutant. 0.97

02:12:58.000 He's a genetic mutant.

02:13:01.000 And...

02:13:02.000 Yeah, he's I mean both those guys are are mutants.

02:13:05.000 They're actual grappling Mutants where if you and I were to like concoct some weird, you know like potion and create beings You know you'd make like a Jeff Glover because he's weird flexible Wiry and he would be really good and then you'd make a Dean Lister who's just a big mutant who you you when you when you catch Dean you have to like Do everything perfect because he's his defense is really good and he just doesn't it's really hard to tap him with stuff You know like like he'll just give people you

02:13:35.000 know his foot and be like yeah, go for it And it takes me like three days I'll have to soften his foot up with like nine foot locks Then just crank it crank it crank it and then you know on the third day I'll get a deep one and it'll already be like hurt so so you know so you have to soften him up over days like tenderizing meat.

02:13:55.000 Yeah, yeah Well, that was why it was so shocking when Josh Barnett tapped him, because Josh Barnett tapped him in an old-school side headlock choke, which is very rare.

02:14:07.000 It's very rare that you see a high-level guy that executes that choke, like the way Josh did.

02:14:14.000 But Josh's got that old-school catch wrestling knowledge, too, which is just such a different approach.

02:14:20.000 You get used to certain approaches, and Josh has a very different approach, and he's a very physically strong guy as well.

02:14:26.000 Yeah, and I mean, you know Dean is just a Dean is a mutant and he is a gifted incredibly gifted grappler But his you know his training methodology and lifestyle is not really conducive to Competing like that,

02:14:45.000 you know Unfortunately, that's a nice way of saying he's kind of lazy Let's just make those noises and not say anything.

02:14:55.000 He could definitely train harder.

02:14:58.000 I've trained with all kinds of guys in the world, world-class guys all over the place, and Dean is absolutely...

02:15:06.000 You know one of those guys that is up there with like, you know Hickson who I've trained with.

02:15:12.000 I haven't trained with Marcelo, but he's like that crazy good.

02:15:16.000 Really?

02:15:16.000 Wow.

02:15:17.000 He was one of the first real leg lock masters.

02:15:21.000 Really understood.

02:15:26.000 Who brought him in to...

02:15:29.000 Into where?

02:15:31.000 Someone brought him in to...

02:15:33.000 ADCC? Pride?

02:15:35.000 No, I know he... 1.00

02:15:36.000 Fuck. 1.00

02:15:37.000 Why am I blanking? 1.00

02:15:38.000 Alan Belcher.

02:15:40.000 Alan Belcher brought him in when he fought Husamar Poharis, who's the best leg locker in MMA. And in that fight, Alan just stomped everything Poharis threw at him and beat him down.

02:15:52.000 And literally every single movement that I saw, I was like, oh, that's this, that's this.

02:15:55.000 I knew exactly what Dean had showed him and exactly what those movements were.

02:16:00.000 That's amazing.

02:16:01.000 What is Dean doing these days?

02:16:02.000 Is he going to still compete?

02:16:03.000 Yeah.

02:16:04.000 Uh, he's, you know, he's teaching jujitsu and, you know, hanging out, um, getting after it, you know?

02:16:11.000 Uh, I would love to see him just, like, get completely refocused and make a, make a run at win an ADCC or whatever, uh, one more time before he, before he hangs it up. 0.99

02:16:24.000 Like, when you say he's dinged up, like, what kind of shit? 0.64

02:16:27.000 Oh, just normal old, you know, jujitsu type guy, you know, his neck will be sore, his shoulder will be hurt, uh, Just that kind of stuff, you know? 0.99

02:16:35.000 But, you know, he is a mutant.

02:16:36.000 He is a mutant that could...

02:16:38.000 You know, if I think...

02:16:40.000 In ADCC, his last, I think it was in China, his match against Buchecha, when Buchecha's just a complete beast, and, you know, they went at it, and that was a very close match.

02:16:51.000 And again, if you watch training videos of Buchecha getting ready for ADCC, he's training like a complete savage.

02:16:59.000 I mean, he's bringing wrestlers in, he's clean and jerk, he's flipping tires, he's doing everything that one does to prepare for a situation like that.

02:17:07.000 And Dean does not do those types of things, you know, he'll come in and train a little bit and Go on his natural ability as a mutant human being to get it done It's always frustrating when you see a guy who is so naturally gifted who kind of like lays back but that's it seems to be That's a lot of what happens is the people that are naturally gifted don't have to work as hard So they don't work as hard.

02:17:30.000 It's also part of You know when I talk about Jeff and Dean both those guys They're both, and you know, you could throw Eddie, and you could throw all kinds of people into this category who are kind of game changers.

02:17:45.000 You know what I mean?

02:17:46.000 Well...

02:17:48.000 I don't know Eddie that well.

02:17:49.000 I've hung out a couple times, but I definitely know Jeff and Dean.

02:17:53.000 And they got some weird stuff about them, right?

02:17:59.000 I mean, they got some weird personality stuff.

02:18:02.000 And from my perspective, that is, if you didn't have that weird personality thing, then how are you going to be a 15-year-old Jeff Glover and be like, oh, you know what I'm going to do all day?

02:18:14.000 I'm just going to train Jiu-Jitsu all day, every day.

02:18:15.000 I'm gonna sit there.

02:18:16.000 I'm gonna watch YouTube videos.

02:18:17.000 I'm just gonna get good at this.

02:18:18.000 I'm gonna train every day I'm gonna compete all over the country.

02:18:21.000 I'm just that's what I'm gonna do That's you know if you're not some if you don't have some if you're normal You're not gonna do that a normal person's like oh cool I'm gonna get a job at Walmart, and then I'm gonna do you know I'll train it I'll train for an hour and a half night these guys are like oh no I'm just gonna train all day every day and I'm gonna live in you know on the mat and Dean same way like He didn't have that weird like spark that made him that makes him I mean he's got some weird Like,

02:18:48.000 knowledge.

02:18:48.000 What's weird about him is, if you ask Eddie Bravo about, you know, the rubber guard, he knows all these details about it.

02:18:56.000 But if you ask him about a footlock or something that he doesn't know that well, he'd be like, oh yeah, a little bit.

02:19:01.000 You'll ask Dean about something that he knows nothing of, like, you've never seen him do before, and he'll know all these details of the moves. 0.98

02:19:06.000 And I don't know if he, I seriously don't know if he goes and watches it on YouTube, or if he, like, studies or writes it down, but he's got this weird little, almost Rain Man, um, You know idiot savant type weird thing in his head. 0.83

02:19:20.000 He was one of those guys that had a really hard time transitioning into MMA. Absolutely. 0.92

02:19:25.000 His striking just never seemed fluid like and he you know, I know he worked hard at it.

02:19:32.000 He just For whatever his body is designed for things.

02:19:36.000 Yeah, and you see that with everybody because everyone's got Strength and weaknesses and everyone's gonna be good at something and bad at something else You know you and I know all these examples of people that are like this every fighter You know has got some weak area and then you get occasionally you get a guy that like GSP that's just like well-rounded right But you know everyone even even things physical things physical attributes You know some people are just super mutant strong and some people are just super crazy flexible and some people have unbelievable natural

02:20:06.000 cardio and some people don't and And so it's the people.

02:20:11.000 Then there's some people that are really good at grappling.

02:20:13.000 There's some people are really good at striking.

02:20:15.000 There's some people that are good at putting all those things together, which I always thought Fedor was very natural at combining his striking with his grappling and kind of making it all fit together.

02:20:25.000 Better than most people could.

02:20:26.000 Yeah, I agree with you on that.

02:20:28.000 I think that was one of the things that really stood out about him, was that he didn't fall into that trap that a lot of people do, where if you're a really good wrestler but you have knockout power, you just knock everybody out.

02:20:40.000 Fedor, you would be stunned and he would see your arm and he would dive in a Kimura.

02:20:45.000 He would always take the opportunity that presented itself, whether it was a grappling situation or whether it was a striking situation.

02:20:53.000 And his well-roundedness was one of the things that made him special.

02:20:56.000 On top of his knockout power and his aggression, he was so well-rounded.

02:21:00.000 His ability to flow with whatever was happening.

02:21:04.000 And he also had that humility and he had that calm, like you saw Holly had the other day.

02:21:10.000 I actually I actually again talk about social media I post it out.

02:21:13.000 I haven't posted much on face the Facebook before but there's a video of Holly talking about she got beat by Sofia Matias in kickboxing, right?

02:21:25.000 It was a vicious fight watch it later kickboxing kickboxing It's it's it's it's insane.

02:21:32.000 I mean she gets destroyed Holly gets completely destroyed hanging on the ropes getting punched in the head It's awful Then you watch the post-fight interview with her, and it's unbelievable because everything she says,

02:21:49.000 she takes complete ownership of the loss.

02:21:52.000 She's like, I had a great training camp.

02:21:56.000 My coaches were telling me to do the right things, but I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.

02:21:59.000 I wasn't fighting the way I was supposed to fight.

02:22:01.000 The reason I lost tonight is my fault.

02:22:04.000 I did this, and I will have to change things if I'm going to beat her.

02:22:10.000 Hearing someone and the other part that was cool about it was she was getting emotional like you could see like she want to cry I mean she was crushed but she she kept control of her emotions and Was another you know, I saw that video.

02:22:24.000 I'm like man.

02:22:24.000 This girl is is Gonna do gonna do well in this fight.

02:22:28.000 I mean, I had a pretty good feeling about it.

02:22:30.000 Well, she's she is incredibly solid That's for sure and that is so admirable when someone does take ownership of their mistakes.

02:22:37.000 Yeah, it's so important It's so important.

02:22:40.000 That's like we wrote the book.

02:22:42.000 The book is called extreme ownership That's that's literally the families and gentlemen right there, but but that's that is like the key though the reason it's called that is because When we made mistakes We owned up to them and furthermore when both Leif and I ended up in positions where we were teaching leadership Leif was teaching the junior officers that were coming out of the SEAL training putting them through the the junior officer training course and I was teaching like I said the advanced guys and so you'd get two SEAL officers and like I said we put

02:23:12.000 these guys through horrible training scenarios where everyone was getting killed and blown up and they'd be buddy carrying people through the desert and just it's just awful and And you come back from these situations, and you talk to one of the, let's say, one of the good leaders, and you say,

02:23:28.000 hey, what went wrong?

02:23:29.000 And the guy would say, well, number one, I didn't give a clear enough plan.

02:23:34.000 No one really understood what my vision was.

02:23:36.000 They didn't execute, because I obviously didn't give them a good enough briefing.

02:23:40.000 And you'd be like, okay, fair enough.

02:23:43.000 And that guy would go and fix that problem.

02:23:46.000 Then you'd get a guy that was, would not take ownership of stuff, that would come in and say, uh, What went wrong that training you know that that was you guys did a terrible job what happened he said well You know my my assault force commander didn't wait for my command before he left and he screwed up and my platoon chief wasn't heads up about where our casualties were being taken and my LPO and they did make all these excuses and It really was the difference between like who would be successful and who wouldn't

02:24:16.000 be because the guy that takes ownership of the problems What do you think the rest of his team does?

02:24:22.000 Just just If if that person takes ownership of the problems everybody on that team does the same thing They don't say yeah, you're right boss.

02:24:30.000 It is your fault.

02:24:31.000 No they go.

02:24:31.000 Hey boss You know what I actually could have done a better job and and that spreads through everybody Whereas when someone says it wasn't my fault.

02:24:40.000 It was Joe's fault.

02:24:41.000 What does Joe do?

02:24:42.000 Joe goes, no, it wasn't mine.

02:24:43.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:24:44.000 We blame each other and guess what?

02:24:46.000 The problem?

02:24:46.000 Never gets fixed.

02:24:48.000 Exactly.

02:24:48.000 So to hear Holly talking about that after the fight and taking complete ownership of a loss was very impressive to me.

02:24:55.000 And she went on to beat her like six months later, I believe.

02:24:58.000 Yeah, it's one of the most important things in getting good at anything is recognizing when you're not good.

02:25:05.000 Recognizing when you make mistakes.

02:25:06.000 It seems so simple, right?

02:25:09.000 You know why?

02:25:11.000 Because ego.

02:25:12.000 Oh, ego's a monster.

02:25:13.000 Everybody's ego.

02:25:14.000 It's like, even me, because I sit here and I teach people about, you know, you've got to keep your ego.

02:25:19.000 There's a chapter in there, like, you've got to keep your ego in check.

02:25:22.000 I'll even ask somebody, I'll be like, hey, is there anything I could have done better in that speech or in that class? 1.00

02:25:28.000 And they'll be like, well, you know, one thing that you could do, and immediately I'm like, fuck you! 1.00

02:25:32.000 I'm like, bristling like my ego. 1.00

02:25:34.000 And I'm like, God, I'm such a loser. 1.00

02:25:36.000 I'm sitting here telling them about to put their ego in check, and I'm an idiot. 1.00

02:25:41.000 So everybody does that. 1.00

02:25:43.000 Everybody does that.

02:25:43.000 Everybody does it all the time.

02:25:44.000 No one can take criticism.

02:25:46.000 And, you know, part of that biggest step of moving forward is learning how to take ownership of stuff when it goes sideways, and it definitely will.

02:25:53.000 Well, you need some form, some amount of pride and some amount of ego to get good at things in the first place because it's such a counterintuitive notion because you have to have a belief in yourself.

02:26:06.000 You have to be able, like when you, when you first, when you start out at Jiu Jitsu, you're a white belt. 0.76

02:26:10.000 Like, I remember being a white belt and being like, oh my god, I am fucking never gonna get good at this. 0.99

02:26:14.000 I'm gonna suck forever. 0.99

02:26:16.000 But to look at people who are better than you and know they had to have sucked at one point in time. 0.99

02:26:22.000 Okay, there's got to be somewhere along the end of this tunnel, there's got to be a light.

02:26:27.000 I just got to keep going.

02:26:28.000 Yeah.

02:26:29.000 And that takes ego, right?

02:26:31.000 Yeah.

02:26:31.000 I was going to say, I mean, ego drives, you know, you to be successful, me to be successful.

02:26:37.000 Ego is what's driving you.

02:26:38.000 The problem is when you let ego go too far.

02:26:40.000 Yeah.

02:26:42.000 Everything takes balance.

02:26:43.000 There's a dichotomy in everything.

02:26:45.000 Every part of you has a dichotomy.

02:26:47.000 You can get so into the physical aspects of things that you end up doing a bunch of steroids and going crazy and ruining your health.

02:26:54.000 That's not good.

02:26:56.000 The other end of the spectrum, you can sit around and play video games and turn into a...

02:27:02.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:27:03.000 Well, there's, yeah.

02:27:05.000 Bodybuilding is the best example of that, right?

02:27:08.000 Yeah, it's kind of dying out, though.

02:27:10.000 Isn't it kind of bodybuilding?

02:27:11.000 I don't think so.

02:27:12.000 Is it full on out there still?

02:27:13.000 Well, to you and I, it is.

02:27:16.000 But I think there's a giant culture of people out there that want to look like huge mutants still.

02:27:22.000 I think.

02:27:22.000 I mean, I'm not in that world, but...

02:27:24.000 What I mean, bodybuilding is a great example of that, because when you start lifting weights, you're like, ah, I'd like to be stronger.

02:27:31.000 And you start getting a little bit bigger.

02:27:33.000 You're like, oh, look at that.

02:27:33.000 I got a muscle.

02:27:34.000 Woo, this is cool.

02:27:35.000 And then you keep going, and then you keep going. 0.87

02:27:37.000 But some guys get so fucking crazy, they won't stop until they have 22-inch arms. 0.98

02:27:42.000 And they want to have thighs that are so big, they have to walk like they've got a barrel in between their legs. 0.99

02:27:48.000 And they just can't help it.

02:27:50.000 They just take it to some completely unhealthy place.

02:27:53.000 Yeah.

02:27:53.000 That's rough.

02:27:55.000 Yeah, well, it's just the nature of trying to get good at something. 0.95

02:27:59.000 You've got to recognize what's good and what is just fucking insane.

02:28:03.000 Yeah, and it happens in training camps with fighters all the time, too. 0.91

02:28:06.000 Oh, yeah, overtraining.

02:28:07.000 You're overtrained so bad.

02:28:08.000 It's a big, big part of the problem with mixed martial arts.

02:28:12.000 It's so obvious, too, when you're overtraining somebody.

02:28:14.000 Because all of a sudden like one night they'll just fall apart and they just won't be able to do anything, right?

02:28:19.000 And I'm always like alright go eat two steaks and take two days off You know because they will get to a point you just feel them you'll just feel them fall apart Yeah, well you have to monitor your heart rate That's a big thing that a lot of fighters don't do Monitor your resting heart rate in the morning and if it goes up more than five beats in a day or two most likely you're overtrained or you're sick or you're struggling with something and That would make Steve Maxwell taught me that trick.

02:28:42.000 Yeah, he's like every fighter should do that.

02:28:44.000 None of them do They should monitor their heart rate and every morning his heart rate is like seven.

02:28:49.000 Yeah, Steve Maxwell can fucking he can deal with anything Yeah, he's just one of those dudes, but he's just he's another guy I want to talk about a guy who's got a lifetime of wisdom When it comes to strength and conditioning and what he calls physical culture and the culture of you know taking care of your body and Guys,

02:29:06.000 62 or 63 years old, fit as a fiddle, travels all around the world training people. 0.93

02:29:11.000 That's all he does.

02:29:12.000 Doesn't have a house.

02:29:13.000 He has a bag that he brings with him.

02:29:17.000 When he travels around, all of his stuff's in that bag.

02:29:20.000 Yeah, I ran into him in San Diego because he's been downsizing.

02:29:23.000 The first time I ran into him in San Diego, he was down to living in an RV, like a small RV. That's when I first met him too.

02:29:32.000 And then I hear him on a podcast, whatever, you know, a year later or two years later and he's, you know, I have all my worldly possessions in a backpack.

02:29:39.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:29:40.000 He sold his RV and he's like, fuck it. 1.00

02:29:42.000 I don't even know if he has a bank account. 1.00

02:29:44.000 I mean, he's a strange cat, man.

02:29:47.000 Yeah.

02:29:47.000 He really is a strange cat, but a very at-peace guy.

02:29:51.000 For sure.

02:29:52.000 Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting.

02:29:53.000 I wouldn't want to live like that.

02:29:54.000 I don't like living like that.

02:29:56.000 But he's also been the guy that's lived the other way.

02:29:58.000 He's had the house and he's had the family.

02:30:01.000 And his son, Zach, is a very successful jujitsu competitor.

02:30:04.000 Yeah.

02:30:05.000 And, you know, got divorced and gave up the gym.

02:30:07.000 He had all the trappings.

02:30:09.000 He had everything.

02:30:10.000 He's like, I like it better like this.

02:30:12.000 I like backpack life.

02:30:12.000 And maybe the key word there was trappings.

02:30:14.000 Yes.

02:30:15.000 Maybe he somehow built all these things around him that ended up making him feel trapped.

02:30:20.000 Yeah, for him, it's just he figured out what he enjoys.

02:30:24.000 He enjoys training.

02:30:25.000 He's still doing jiu-jitsu to this day.

02:30:26.000 And he teaches a course, Jiu-Jitsu for Lifetime.

02:30:31.000 It's all about maintaining your health while you train and you know, he's written articles on training smart to avoid injuries as you get older and You know how to pick the right training partners and make sure you know You know what's trying to hurt you but that you could keep a an active martial arts lifestyle Deep in your 60s like he is Yeah,

02:30:50.000 you got to be thankful that you started jujitsu a little bit younger because you got to get and even today if you start jujitsu as an older we have all kinds of older guys coming to the gym and And it's that first year where they just don't know where to put their body yet,

02:31:05.000 and they don't know to say no to that 21-year-old, juiced-up Marine that's in there to get after it.

02:31:17.000 They smack hands to roll, and this guy's going to tear them apart.

02:31:20.000 That's that's how guys get hurt if they're if they're older and you know They you need to ease into it a little bit.

02:31:25.000 Yeah training partners It's you gotta pick your training partners carefully and this there's always gonna be the guy that hurts people There's just be this giant German dude that used to roll at our gym used to always get everybody in leg locks and blow their knees out and he's just You know never rolled with that guy. 1.00

02:31:41.000 I'm like I've I've been leg locked by Dean.

02:31:44.000 I don't even know how many times like I mean, we might be talking thousands of times, heel hooked, knee locked, but, you know, I've never been hurt, you know, and I've gotten him, you know, not thousands of times, but plenty of times, and we've never hurt each other, you know, because we know what we're doing. 0.98

02:32:01.000 Yeah, I'd way rather roll with a black belt than some fucking psycho blue belt. 0.96

02:32:08.000 It's just too dangerous sometimes. 1.00

02:32:10.000 They spaz out and they headbutt you accidentally and weird shit happens. 0.94

02:32:17.000 One of the things that I think is amazing is that Anthony Bourdain has gotten crazy into jujitsu over the last, I think, two years now. 0.96

02:32:27.000 He just earned his blue belt.

02:32:28.000 He's 59. Yeah, that's awesome.

02:32:30.000 It's amazing.

02:32:33.000 Lifetime of smoking cigarettes, doing heroin, never was fit, never exercised at all.

02:32:39.000 When I first met him, he would laugh about fitness.

02:32:42.000 He just wanted to drink beer.

02:32:45.000 The first time he did my podcast, we got so high, I don't even know how we talked.

02:32:50.000 And then I just did his TV show like a couple weeks ago.

02:32:54.000 We were in Montana.

02:32:55.000 All he wanted to talk about was jiu-jitsu.

02:32:57.000 Yeah.

02:32:57.000 He's obsessed.

02:32:57.000 I'm showing him some techniques.

02:32:59.000 We're talking about different guys that like to do different things and different approaches and gi versus no gi and John Donaher and, you know, Gary Tonin and Eddie Cummins and all these different...

02:33:10.000 I'm like, this is amazing.

02:33:12.000 I can't believe it.

02:33:13.000 What a transformation this guy has overtaken.

02:33:15.000 Jiu Jitsu definitely I mean people can get into all kinds of weird stuff right people get into surfing people get into skiing people get into rock climbing there's definitely something more in Jiu Jitsu that Gets into people's heads and it definitely happened to me.

02:33:34.000 I mean I was completely and I still am I mean I still cannot like stop a YouTube video of a cool move I mean I just I just have to watch it.

02:33:41.000 Yeah, and I think it's because there's such a cerebral part of it There's something about it and I see this we know we teach kids and you'll see the the Knucklehead kids the kind of knuckle-dragging kids are kind of big They don't really get it,

02:33:57.000 but then you get this kid like some smart kid you can tell they're smart and those the kids that get really into jiu-jitsu Because they realize like oh if I learned this I can beat that big kid.

02:34:06.000 Yeah, and that's where it starts But yeah, jiu-jitsu can definitely be addictive Well jiu-jitsu is the only martial art where it really works like in the Bruce Lee movie Yeah, where the little guy really can beat the big guy.

02:34:18.000 Yeah Because the reality is, if you watch the old K-1 days where Bob Sapp was fighting, when Bob Sapp was 375 pounds with abs, you've never seen anything like it.

02:34:32.000 Was he on steroids?

02:34:34.000 He was steroids.

02:34:36.000 There was nothing human left.

02:34:39.000 And he beat Ernesto Hoost twice, who is arguably one of the top two or three greatest kickboxers ever.

02:34:48.000 And Bob Sapp just bum-rushed him and Donkey Kong'd him.

02:34:52.000 Just beat him down with clubbing punches because he was so much bigger than him.

02:34:57.000 He was more than 150 pounds bigger than him, probably.

02:35:00.000 I think Hoost, at his biggest, is probably like 230, maybe.

02:35:03.000 And to your point, I was in Japan.

02:35:05.000 I was with Dean, as a matter of fact, when Nogira submitted Sapp.

02:35:09.000 That was insane.

02:35:11.000 That was a perfect example. 0.54

02:35:12.000 But boy, it had to be Noguera though, because Sap dropped him on his head. 0.94

02:35:18.000 Piledrived him on his head.

02:35:19.000 I saw him the next day, Noguera, like after the fight, and he was...

02:35:25.000 I mean, he was beat up bad.

02:35:27.000 Oh my god.

02:35:27.000 He took some abuse.

02:35:28.000 His neck was fucked up apparently forever after that. 0.98

02:35:31.000 His neck essentially never recovered after that fight. 0.98

02:35:34.000 You know, that was one of the fights that Fedor passed on.

02:35:37.000 Fedor wouldn't fight Bob Sapp. 1.00

02:35:39.000 It's like, nah, you take your fucking clown show, take your circus act. 0.99

02:35:43.000 And no hero's like, okay. 1.00

02:35:45.000 Yeah, Fedor was like, no thanks on the freak show.

02:35:48.000 I'm gonna fight...

02:35:49.000 But then again, he went and fought Hongman Choi, who's a giant guy too, but giant, actually gigantism giant, not giant like juice to the gills giant.

02:36:00.000 But look, Bob Sapp, I mean, all power to him.

02:36:03.000 They didn't have a law against it, and he went in there and they were paying him, and that's how he made a ton of money doing that.

02:36:08.000 But...

02:36:09.000 The point is that in jujitsu, like, maybe in MMA it's a little bit different because, you know, obviously Bob Sapp dropped Noguera on his head and most people would have been done then.

02:36:18.000 But Noguera was legendarily tough.

02:36:20.000 But a small man can tap out a much larger, stronger man on a regular basis.

02:36:27.000 I watched Rico Rodriguez in Abu Dhabi go against Marcelo Garcia.

02:36:30.000 I was there.

02:36:31.000 Were you there?

02:36:32.000 Yeah, in LA? Yeah, it was amazing.

02:36:34.000 And when Rico threw him on his back, when Marcelo took Rico's back, so Rico threw himself backwards and slammed on top of, like, Marcelo's like a backpack on Rico's back.

02:36:45.000 Rico's like 240-something, maybe even heavier.

02:36:47.000 Threw himself backwards and landed all his weight on Marcelo.

02:36:52.000 Marcelo shook it off and leg-locked him.

02:36:54.000 Yeah.

02:36:55.000 Incredible, incredible.

02:36:56.000 I mean Marcelo was like 160 pounds, maybe 170, maybe, but just so skilled and so dangerous with his jiu-jitsu that he was the favorite in that, which is incredible.

02:37:08.000 And that's where I think that addiction comes in, because I think it's just a cerebral thing where people realize that it's, like you said, it's this real force.

02:37:15.000 One of my My kid asked me, you know the movie The Incredibles?

02:37:20.000 Yes.

02:37:20.000 These people have superpowers and my son asked me, hey dad, is there really such a thing as superpowers?

02:37:27.000 And I'm like...

02:37:30.000 Jiu-jitsu.

02:37:31.000 It's definitely a superpower.

02:37:32.000 It's a superpower, you know.

02:37:33.000 And if you remember the days before anybody knew it, if you knew a little tiny bit, man, no one could stop you.

02:37:41.000 It was awesome.

02:37:41.000 Well, it's also amazing to see the progression of jiu-jitsu in comparison to 1993, because the jiu-jitsu of 1993 was so primitive in comparison to what you have today.

02:37:51.000 Yeah.

02:37:51.000 Like, the guys who are winning with jiu-jitsu, God, the setups were so obvious.

02:37:56.000 You could see the arm bars a mile away.

02:37:58.000 There was nothing crazy or weird about it.

02:38:00.000 And you look at that in comparison to today, like a Jacare.

02:38:04.000 Like, when Jacare gets arm bars, it's like a work of art.

02:38:08.000 I mean, you watch his setups, you go, good lord!

02:38:11.000 Like, he tapped Chris Camozzi with an armbar, and I've watched the transition, the way he controlled them on the ground and the scramble to armbar.

02:38:19.000 I probably watched it 40 times in a row. 1.00

02:38:22.000 I just played it back and forth and went, Fuck! 1.00

02:38:24.000 One more time. 1.00

02:38:26.000 Fuck! 1.00

02:38:26.000 I need a perfect placement of the shin, the knee, the pressure, the hips. 1.00

02:38:31.000 Everything's in place.

02:38:33.000 The control of the arm.

02:38:34.000 It was a done deal from the moment he started his movements.

02:38:38.000 That, to me, is just as beautiful as any painting that anybody's ever made.

02:38:43.000 No doubt about it.

02:38:44.000 100% there's an art to that.

02:38:45.000 No doubt about it.

02:38:46.000 What year did you start?

02:38:49.000 Uh, was it 92 or 93? 1.00

02:38:51.000 Damn! 0.99

02:38:52.000 You got in early. 1.00

02:38:53.000 Yeah, I got in early.

02:38:53.000 Luckily, I had a...

02:38:54.000 Pre-UFC! Yep.

02:38:56.000 We knew.

02:38:57.000 When we watched that first UFC, we all knew.

02:38:59.000 Wow!

02:38:59.000 Well, there was three or four of us that knew that Royce Gracie was going to win.

02:39:04.000 Royce!

02:39:06.000 That's amazing, man.

02:39:08.000 Wow.

02:39:08.000 We had this old SEAL Master Chief, old Vietnam-era SEAL Master Chief named Steve Bailey, and he was like a high-level white belt.

02:39:17.000 And he had trained with Valorian Gracie up in the garage, you know, up in Torrance.

02:39:22.000 And so he knew, you know, he knew jujitsu.

02:39:24.000 The garage, the infamous garage, just like the epicenter of jujitsu.

02:39:28.000 No kidding, it's crazy.

02:39:29.000 But this guy, Steve Bailey, had trained there, and, you know, one day we were over on deployment over in Guam, and he said, hey, who here wants to learn how to fight?

02:39:37.000 And I'm like, hey, I want to learn how to fight.

02:39:39.000 And he just took us all and just choked us all out.

02:39:42.000 You know, I mean, like, okay, you attack me and just choked us all out.

02:39:45.000 I'm like, okay, I'll listen to whatever this guy's saying.

02:39:47.000 So he taught us, you know, the basic, you know, like the rear naked choke and the arm lock and like the Americana or something like, you know, we're talking like four or five different moves.

02:39:59.000 With those moves like I never I I'd every scrap I'd get into you know I just force someone into the rear naked choke or force something but they had no idea was happening so it was actually amazing but uh But again, I thought at that time that that was jujitsu.

02:40:15.000 It was this finite thing.

02:40:16.000 A lot of people did.

02:40:18.000 Yeah.

02:40:18.000 And then you realize that it's completely unending.

02:40:22.000 And it changes every day.

02:40:24.000 John-Jacques Machado had a guy that moved to black belt.

02:40:27.000 And he was a very good...

02:40:30.000 Martial artist.

02:40:31.000 He was very physically strong this guy.

02:40:33.000 He was a big like bulky dude like a naturally big bone strong guy that gave people a lot of problems and then Decided and like like didn't just decide this but said it publicly I've learned all I can learn about jiu-jitsu and now I'm going to learn all I can learn about Muay Thai and everybody just went oh dude,

02:40:54.000 we're done with you and It was so ridiculed in the jiu-jitsu community and in the people in John Jock's school that everybody... 0.95

02:41:01.000 I was on a blue belt at the time, and I was like, what the fuck is this guy on? 0.98

02:41:05.000 You learned everything? 0.99

02:41:06.000 How can you learn everything?

02:41:07.000 There's no end!

02:41:08.000 Jiu-jitsu doesn't end.

02:41:09.000 It goes on forever.

02:41:10.000 You can always get better.

02:41:13.000 It's not something...

02:41:15.000 Until you achieve the speed of light.

02:41:18.000 And that's another great thing about jiu-jitsu is because it...

02:41:22.000 Like combat...

02:41:24.000 It reflects life and if the day you start saying that you're good to go like in leadership position or whatever task you're working on the day you say I've learned everything there is to learn about this is the day you start to lose and I know that humility Is something that you have to keep yourself in check.

02:41:44.000 Because, again, I got asked the other day, you know, when was your high point of leadership?

02:41:50.000 And I'm like, I never had a high point of leadership.

02:41:52.000 I was always trying to learn.

02:41:53.000 I was always trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and what mistakes I was making.

02:41:58.000 Because if you don't do that, that's something I learned from Jiu-Jitsu.

02:42:02.000 You know, if you don't do that, then you're going to get passed by.

02:42:05.000 And other people are going to figure some new way of doing it.

02:42:07.000 And you're going to be left in the dark.

02:42:08.000 Yeah.

02:42:09.000 Yeah, as much as I like to use the term, that was perfect, there really is nothing perfect in human beings.

02:42:15.000 There's always room for improvement.

02:42:17.000 There's always a shorter path.

02:42:19.000 There's always a quicker victory.

02:42:20.000 There's always new things to learn.

02:42:24.000 And as soon as you start thinking that you've mastered something to the point of an end, Like, you kind of missed out what it's all about in the first place.

02:42:35.000 It's all about, you're constantly uncomfortable.

02:42:37.000 You're supposed to be constantly uncomfortable.

02:42:39.000 Yeah.

02:42:39.000 And then in these little victories that you get, the good thing about when people tap, you get a, oh, I get a little nice feeling right here.

02:42:44.000 Yeah.

02:42:45.000 And then they're like, let's go again. 1.00

02:42:46.000 And they're like, ah, fuck. 1.00

02:42:47.000 Back to being uncomfortable. 1.00

02:42:49.000 Yeah.

02:42:49.000 And there's no getting around.

02:42:50.000 And then he taps you and you're like, ah, shit. 1.00

02:42:52.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:42:52.000 I should have quit while I was ahead. 1.00

02:42:54.000 No, no, because you're missing the point.

02:42:55.000 The point is that it's a long path, a long, arduous path, and I think anything that's worth doing is probably like that.

02:43:04.000 There's no doubt about it, and that's another piece again, another place where jiu-jitsu is like life.

02:43:13.000 Is, you think, at some point you think you know, like, you think you're good, you think you're doing pretty good, and then you just get smacked.

02:43:21.000 You know, you get smacked with something.

02:43:23.000 And, like, now, like, when you were 25, you were like, I'm pretty good to go.

02:43:29.000 You know, I pretty much know what's up.

02:43:31.000 And then when you're 30, you're like, I didn't know anything when I was 25. Yeah, I was an idiot five years ago. 1.00

02:43:35.000 Yeah, and it's true. 0.98

02:43:37.000 Like, even, and so I think one of the One of the things that provides some small portion of maturity as a human being and as a man is when you get to the point where you actually realize that you don't know everything and you're looking at yourself like,

02:43:52.000 I'm 44 and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to learn so much in the next three years, five years. 0.99

02:43:57.000 I'm going to look at myself at 44 and go, yeah, you see how stupid you were then? 0.98

02:44:00.000 And when you come to that realization, I think that's a pretty positive thing because it takes a while to figure out that, hey, you don't have everything figured out. 1.00

02:44:09.000 You're You're pretty stupid right now, even though you don't think so. 0.97

02:44:12.000 Another thing that things like jiu-jitsu teach you, and I say jiu-jitsu, but it's really an all martial arts thing. 1.00

02:44:20.000 The problem with the other martial arts other than jiu-jitsu is at a certain point in time, you can't really practice them 100%.

02:44:27.000 Like striking.

02:44:29.000 You really can't practice striking 100% for very long or your brain starts to give out.

02:44:34.000 Just a fact.

02:44:36.000 And jujitsu, you can.

02:44:37.000 Jujitsu, you can do it deep, deep into your 50s.

02:44:40.000 I mean, there's like Anthony Bourdain.

02:44:42.000 He's pushing 60. He's still doing it.

02:44:44.000 And, you know, it's not that he's going to be a world beater, but he can get the most out of it.

02:44:48.000 The most that he can get out of it, that stays the same.

02:44:52.000 Like, what you get out of it stays the same, regardless of your...

02:44:56.000 Regardless of the success, what you're getting out of it, even if you're getting tapped, what you're getting out of it is doing your best and overcoming and improving upon what your best is every day.

02:45:07.000 And doing so in a situation where there's extreme consequences.

02:45:12.000 You're gonna get strangled.

02:45:14.000 You're gonna get your arm broken if you don't tap. 1.00

02:45:16.000 You're gonna get your leg fucked up if you don't tap. 0.98

02:45:19.000 It's not as extreme as combat. 0.98

02:45:21.000 Obviously, but it is as extreme as you can get in a sport that you're participating in, an activity that you're participating in voluntarily in America at 5.30 on a Tuesday, where you're going to get 30 people that are going to show up, slap hands together,

02:45:37.000 and then hug it out after it's over, and go, you're going to be here tomorrow?

02:45:41.000 Yeah, I'll see you, man.

02:45:42.000 And then, you know, back again tomorrow, same thing.

02:45:45.000 That's another kind of primal piece that makes jiu-jitsu...

02:45:53.000 So intense is if you and me roll like and I get you or you get me and I tap in my like heart I know that if you and I were fighting for survival I just lost and you'd have killed me and I see this with little kids when little kids compete and You tell them,

02:46:15.000 hey, listen, just go out there, have fun.

02:46:16.000 It's going to be fun.

02:46:17.000 You know, just go out there and do your best.

02:46:19.000 I don't care if you win or lose.

02:46:20.000 Just go out and have a good time.

02:46:21.000 You tell them that, you tell them that, you tell them that.

02:46:23.000 If they get tapped, they start crying.

02:46:27.000 It's so emotional.

02:46:28.000 And why is that?

02:46:29.000 Because a part of them inside their head that they don't even know exists knows that that person, had they been in a mortal struggle, they got beat. 1.00

02:46:39.000 Yeah, they got their ass kicked. 1.00

02:46:41.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:46:42.000 It's not like someone, this is what I always say, like, somebody dunks a basketball on you, it sucks, but it doesn't mean anything unless you decide it means something.

02:46:49.000 Well, what does basketball escalate into?

02:46:51.000 All sports escalate into fights.

02:46:54.000 So if you, let's get rid of the bat, the ball, whatever else, let's just fight.

02:46:58.000 That's why I think the UFC has been so highly successful, because it is.

02:47:04.000 It's the ultimate, you know, in combat sport, again, you know, barring combat itself.

02:47:08.000 Yeah, well, it's also why the dorks and pencil necks hate it so much because they think it's a regression back to the primal days of caveman combat.

02:47:16.000 Like, what are we supporting? 0.99

02:47:17.000 Some fat fuck wrote an article for, like, the New Yorker or New York Post or something like that about the Ronda Rousey loss, about how barbaric and disgusting it was. 1.00

02:47:26.000 What a what what bullshit that we were fed and that you know we were made out that she was this Unconquerable and to watch her beaten unconscious was disgusting and you don't get it man Like you don't get it like what you're doing with your fat face Like shoving cheeseburgers down your mug is way worse than anything that she did inside that octagon It's interesting because that That kind of attitude can cross borders into other things. 0.99

02:47:53.000 And, you know, I end up talking to people, you know, through our company, people that are smart. 1.00

02:47:59.000 Like, I'll be in a room where everyone went to an Ivy League college and been super successful and they're worth millions and millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

02:48:08.000 And I was given one of these talks the other day and, you know, of course they ended up asking me about ISIS and all that.

02:48:16.000 As I'm sitting there looking and I'm thinking to myself like these people are all looking at me and Thinking I'm just a savage right?

02:48:26.000 I'm just like hey, I'm a knuckle-dragger. 0.97

02:48:28.000 We just need to go kill everyone and so I tried to explain to them.

02:48:31.000 I'm like listen I almost I almost Feel ashamed to say this to everyone here because everyone here is An intellectual and is very very smart But there are some problems in the world that there is not an academic solution to and sometimes violence is the solution and again there can be a million arguments against that and But

02:49:02.000 the reality of it is, in the world, it's like you were talking about earlier, in the world, there are evil people that do evil things.

02:49:11.000 And the only way to stop them is to confront them and destroy them.

02:49:18.000 Unfortunately, we are so disconnected from that that it makes people look at UFC and go, oh my God, how could that happen?

02:49:27.000 It makes people look at a military attack and say, oh my God, how could that happen?

02:49:31.000 It can happen because we're human beings and we're imperfect and there are evil people in the world.

02:49:40.000 Well, the people that think there's no...

02:49:43.000 Ever.

02:49:43.000 There's no excuse for a violent solution.

02:49:47.000 Take those people, bring them to Ramadi right now, right? 0.99

02:49:50.000 Yeah.

02:49:51.000 I mean, how do you deal with evil when it exists?

02:49:55.000 How do you deal with it?

02:49:56.000 Do you hug them?

02:49:57.000 Do you knock on their door with flowers?

02:49:59.000 What do you do?

02:50:00.000 I mean, what is the solution?

02:50:02.000 Yeah, you destroy them.

02:50:02.000 They don't have an answer.

02:50:03.000 The only reason why they even have that attitude is because they live here in this sheltered environment, in our beautiful bubble we call the United States of America.

02:50:12.000 That many brave men and women have provided and will continue to provide regardless of what is said about them and God bless those folks out there on the wire Yes, sir, and with that extreme ownership those three hours man, we just banged out three hours damn crazy Right here,

02:50:29.000 Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

02:50:34.000 Extreme ownership, how U.S. Navy SEALs lead and win.

02:50:38.000 And Jocko is on Twitter.

02:50:40.000 Jocko Willink on Twitter?

02:50:41.000 Is that what it is?

02:50:41.000 Jocko Willink.

02:50:42.000 And what is it on...

02:50:44.000 Do you have anything else?

02:50:45.000 Website?

02:50:47.000 Well...

02:50:47.000 Yeah, we have a Facebook for Extreme Ownership.

02:50:50.000 We have an Extreme Ownership Twitter.

02:50:52.000 Yeah, we're out there in the social media world broadcasting ourselves.

02:50:56.000 And soon a podcast, right?

02:50:58.000 And I will do a podcast.

02:51:00.000 He's gonna, see?

02:51:01.000 I knew it.

02:51:02.000 Yes, I will do a podcast.

02:51:03.000 I knew it.

02:51:03.000 It's gonna happen.

02:51:03.000 Echo Charles, be ready to record a podcast, brother.

02:51:06.000 Thank you very much, sir.

02:51:07.000 This was awesome.

02:51:08.000 I really, really appreciate it.

02:51:09.000 And I will put up a link on Amazon after the podcast.

02:51:13.000 So go out and buy this book, folks.

02:51:14.000 Thank you very much, Jaco.

02:51:15.000 Appreciate it, brother.

02:51:16.000 Thanks for having me on.

The Joe Rogan Experience - December 01, 2015

Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript