The Peter Attia Drive - #56 - Jocko Willink, retired Navy SEAL, Part II of II： Sleep, fasting, raising kids, discipline, taking ownership, and the impact of war

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. The drive

00:00:10.880 is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along

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00:04:08.480 supporting us directly by signing up for a monthly subscription. I guess this week is Jocko and like

00:04:14.080 Madonna, sting or share. He's one of those rare individuals that only needs to go by one name.

00:04:18.780 For those not familiar with Jocko, he spent 20 years in the SEAL teams where he was a commander of

00:04:23.260 SEAL team three's task unit bruiser, I believe, which led the battle of Ramadi becoming one of the more 0.98

00:04:29.780 decorated special operations units of the Iraq war. Jocko returned from the Iraq war, served as an

00:04:34.640 officer in charge of training SEALs on the West coast. And ultimately when he stepped down from

00:04:39.480 that role, he co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership consulting company. Along the way, he's become a

00:04:44.100 New York times bestselling author on leadership and has also written a number of frankly, fantastic

00:04:49.260 kids books, which my kids adore. He hosts the Jocko podcast, which is an amazing podcast. And of all the

00:04:57.220 podcasts I've ever been on, that episode that I did with Jocko is certainly one of my favorites. He's a

00:05:03.060 black belt in jujitsu and the co-founder of Victory MMA in San Diego. I met Jocko maybe four years ago

00:05:08.760 through another mutual friend, Kirk Parsley himself, a SEAL. This podcast was a ton of fun. It also took a

00:05:15.540 while. We sort of lost track of time. And before you knew it, I realized this was going to have to be released

00:05:19.800 over two weeks and not just one. In this second installment, Jocko and I discuss 9-11 and the war in Iraq,

00:05:26.040 the future of machines in war, as well as medicine, raising kids. We talk about one thing that I get

00:05:32.060 pinged about constantly to talk about with Jocko, which is sleep. We talk about giving up. We talk

00:05:36.960 about free will mindset. We talk about his indulgences, fasting, and we end up with a quick

00:05:43.780 guest Q and a with my daughter, Olivia, who was waiting all day to meet Jocko and couldn't wait

00:05:49.480 to poke her head in when she got home from school. So without further delay, please enjoy the second

00:05:54.620 installment of my discussion with Jocko. Where were you on 9-11 physically, like the moment you

00:06:02.800 heard? So I was in college at the time. So I was in the Navy. I had got my commission. In order to

00:06:08.120 have your commission in the military, you have to go to college. I hadn't been to college yet.

00:06:11.040 Meaning because you were enlisted, you couldn't get above a certain level.

00:06:14.420 No, I literally had to go. They told me I had to go because I tried to not go.

00:06:18.060 Okay. They said, you got to go to college. And I said, I'll just stay in. I don't need to go to

00:06:21.640 college. Don't worry about me. You don't have to pay for it. We're all good. And they said,

00:06:24.040 no idiot. You have to go to college. I said, okay, fine. So I was going to college at the 1.00

00:06:28.160 university of San Diego. I think I was waiting in my car for class and heard about it in the

00:06:33.740 morning. Like when I woke up, meaning you heard a plane, a plane hit the tower. Okay, cool. I

00:06:38.000 figured it was a prop. Yeah. I think it was a Cessna or whatever. Some idiot was trying to

00:06:42.380 sightsee or whatever. So that would have been like 6am your time. Yeah. Yeah. So now it's 1.00

00:06:47.080 7.30 AM your time, 1030 or whatever time on the East coast. And yeah, the second plane hits and I

00:06:53.780 go, okay, we're under attack. You knew at that moment. Exactly. As soon as the other one hit,

00:06:58.000 I was like, oh yeah, this is an attack. I didn't even think I knew that it was a passenger plane

00:07:02.160 yet. Cause it wasn't like I woke up, saw that something happened and said, okay, I'm going to

00:07:05.240 sit down and watch the news now. Cause every day something happens that could be the first indicating

00:07:09.460 signs of a major problem, right? I mean, you just can't track everything. A shooting happens

00:07:13.860 somewhere. Well, generally the shooting happens and they arrest someone or someone gets killed.

00:07:17.580 And then that's not the beginning of a massive terrorist attack. So when the first plane hit,

00:07:22.280 I didn't think about it. I was like, oh wow, that sucks. But as soon as the second one hit, 0.97

00:07:26.540 I realized, yeah, we were under attack. And how long until you could actually see the images on TV?

00:07:31.580 I would say by 11 o'clock. I mean, by the time I saw it on TV, the towers were still up. I don't know

00:07:37.800 how long did it take for them to fall? I do it in East coast time, but the towers were still up when I saw it

00:07:42.300 on TV. Yeah. Yeah. Which still kind of mitigated the tragedy, right? It was much less visually

00:07:49.840 striking, right? The towers were hit. They're on fire. Okay. We're going to put out the fire.

00:07:54.520 The horrible that these people were killed in a plane. Oh my gosh. I bet some of those people on

00:07:59.080 the towers were killed as well. That's horrible. Still the intensity when the towers collapsed was

00:08:05.660 really intensifying. It was an intensifying thing. It's interesting that you immediately understood

00:08:11.120 what was happening. I have another friend who was a Marine and he just happened to be in Australia

00:08:15.620 for some training gig on 9-11. His reaction was, I mean, I'm amazed at the insight, right? Which was,

00:08:22.980 he realized, oh, it's never going to be the same. He understood that to be a Pearl Harbor like moment.

00:08:28.280 Yeah. Which you did as well. I mean, that's. Yeah. Yeah.

00:08:30.680 I can honestly say I couldn't even think like, I just didn't know what to think. I was deer in

00:08:37.260 headlights. Like I was just, you know, I was thinking much more about, I remember cause I was

00:08:41.300 in the hospital. It was like, oh my God, are we going to need to open up a bigger burn unit? Like

00:08:45.400 I was just thinking about a bunch of dumb blocking and tackling stuff, purely tactical, right? Purely 0.94

00:08:50.240 tactical, not a strategic thought in my body. Yeah. And yet now in retrospect, it seems so obvious.

00:08:56.260 Yeah. I thought I was pretty cool because at the time there's a guy called a detailer,

00:09:01.940 which is someone that's in charge of your actual billet in the military. So you're going to get

00:09:08.600 assigned a job and the person that assigns you your job at a seal team or at a forward base or

00:09:13.780 whatever is going to be the guy called the detailer. The officer detailer at the time was a guy that I

00:09:19.340 had worked for, who was a friend of mine, who was a, just a fantastic guy. Great guy,

00:09:24.140 had a great relationship with him. And I called him up and said, Hey, sir, it's Jocko. Get me out of

00:09:30.460 college. I'll go to college later. I'll do online college. Don't worry about any of that. Please,

00:09:35.880 please, please get me back to a seal team right now. Please. You're having this call the evening

00:09:40.620 of September 11th. Within a day or two, I was making the call and begging him to please get me

00:09:45.820 out of college and send me to a seal team where I can go and deploy. And he told me, Hey, finish

00:09:54.020 college. This war is going to last a long time. And so here's a guy that was more mature than me and

00:09:59.760 smarter than me. And I still didn't believe him. But the reason I started off by saying I thought

00:10:03.740 I was cool because I saw him and his wife the other day and I was talking to him and I was talking to

00:10:10.700 both of them and saying, Hey, I remember on September 11th, I called and asked you please

00:10:15.920 to send me to a seal team. And this is where I thought I was cool. And he said, you know how many

00:10:21.520 people called me that day? Everyone called him. So again, when you talk about like the attitude

00:10:25.840 that right there is another great example of like every seal officer that was anywhere,

00:10:30.060 but at a seal team called up and said, please send me to a seal team right now.

00:10:33.020 So did you finish college? Yep. Yep. So you returned to the seal team. What year?

00:10:37.880 Spring of 2003. So six months after the Iraqi invasion, right after the Iraqi invasion,

00:10:43.480 I showed up at the seal team. Explain for people listening who aren't familiar with the nomenclature.

00:10:49.080 So the people have heard of obviously seal team six got a lot of discussion. What are the numbers

00:10:53.940 mean? How big is a team? So I would say the biggest misconception is people think that a

00:10:59.260 seal team, what you think of a seal team, people think of a seal platoon or a seal task unit,

00:11:03.700 which is like, Oh, you think you're a team? 12 guys, 12 guys. An actual seal team is a bunch

00:11:09.240 of platoons and all the platoons generally don't work together. So you'll work maybe in one,

00:11:14.540 two or three platoons. Sometimes occasionally you might do something bigger than that. Seal teams have

00:11:18.200 done some operations that were bigger than that coordinated, but generally you're just going to be

00:11:22.480 one, two or three seal platoons operating. So that's what it is. The seal teams, the odd

00:11:27.240 numbered seal teams are on the West coast. The even number seal teams are on the East coast.

00:11:31.160 And are they numbered in the order of like the first one was just seal team. And then the second

00:11:36.120 one became two and then three seal team one and seal team two were commissioned at the same time,

00:11:40.020 meaning back in the sixties, back in the sixties. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what it is. As we grew,

00:11:45.180 they've made more seal teams. And there are how many today? Four per coast. So there's up to eight.

00:11:49.800 Yeah. You were on more than one, weren't you? I was at seal team one, seal team two,

00:11:54.680 seal team seven and seal team three in that order. Yep. So you finished at three. Okay. Yep. So

00:11:59.920 when you're coming out of college in Oh three, you are going into seal team. I went to seal team seven.

00:12:06.060 Yep. And I showed up at seal team seven, the seal team at the time. So you do a workup to prepare,

00:12:11.640 to go on deployment. And these guys were just about done with their workup.

00:12:15.440 So what happened was the commander of seal team seven was another guy that I had worked for

00:12:22.980 and was pretty close with. And I showed up at his seal team without a seal platoon. So I was just a

00:12:29.600 guy. I was going to go on deployment, do whatever I could. And I remember I was walking, we were

00:12:34.600 walking across the walkway there and he said, you look mad, Jocko. What's wrong? He goes, what can I do

00:12:40.480 for you? That's what he said. He said, what can I do for you? And I said, give me a one-way ticket to Iraq,

00:12:43.380 which is of course, again, this is what everyone was saying at the time. And then he said, stand

00:12:47.180 by. And I was kind of interested in that reply. Fast forward a little bit. He ended up firing one

00:12:53.200 of the platoon commanders and put me in charge of a platoon. So I took over a platoon that was getting

00:12:57.860 ready to deploy. And again, I'm the luckiest guy in the world because to show up at a seal team and

00:13:03.280 get a seal platoon that's getting ready to deploy to Iraq, it doesn't get much better than that.

00:13:07.260 It really doesn't.

00:13:08.280 Did you spend any time in Afghanistan?

00:13:09.820 I went to Afghanistan, but I didn't fight there at all.

00:13:11.640 I flew through there to do some visits with some senior personnel, but I never did anything

00:13:16.800 there. No.

00:13:17.600 And when you talk to guys that saw combat in both, how do they compare it?

00:13:21.840 The funny thing was guys that were with me in task unit bruiser that then went over to

00:13:26.460 Afghanistan, the principles of combat don't change. One of the big things was one of my buddies

00:13:32.080 described it as in Ramadi, it was like, oh, you got streets and you got buildings. That's your low

00:13:36.960 ground and then your high ground. In Afghanistan, you had valleys and peaks and don't want to dominate 1.00

00:13:41.380 the high ground just like you did in the city. You want to get good angles. I mean, the geometry

00:13:45.440 is the same, but the distances are further. And then one of my other guys that went directly from

00:13:51.540 pretty close to thereafter went from Ramadi. He said that in the urban combat, the rapidity

00:13:58.020 with which things unfold is a lot tighter. So you don't have much time to make decisions.

00:14:02.540 There's a building right there. There's a guy in it. Things don't unfold for very long. Whereas

00:14:05.840 in Afghanistan, unless you're in the urban part of Afghanistan or you're in a small village,

00:14:09.500 it's the same thing. At distances, you have a little bit more time to think, but they both

00:14:14.120 have incredible challenges and both situations were brutal in many ways.

00:14:19.660 How many troops are still in Afghanistan? American troops?

00:14:22.140 I don't know what the number is right now.

00:14:23.360 As low as it's been presumably since the invasion.

00:14:25.420 Yeah, low.

00:14:26.140 What are the differences and similarities between the American experience in Afghanistan and the

00:14:31.380 Russian one a decade earlier slash Soviet, I guess, to be more precise. Because the Soviets 0.93

00:14:36.780 in Afghanistan struck me a lot like Vietnam.

00:14:39.540 Yeah, it was harsh, very harsh. The tough thing is that the differences between the US military and

00:14:46.660 the Soviet military is pretty immense. One of the books that I covered on my podcast

00:14:52.560 is written by a Russian soldier that fought in Chechnya. And it's a crazy book. And this guy,

00:15:01.100 his name is Arkady Babchenko, I think is his name. And the reason that it's interesting is,

00:15:07.860 do you remember not too long ago, maybe a year ago, there was a journalist that was assassinated

00:15:12.340 in Ukraine?

00:15:15.460 I don't think I remember this.

00:15:16.740 Yeah. So this journalist was assassinated in Ukraine and it was this guy, Babchenko,

00:15:20.840 who had written this book, which is just an incredible book. And he was assassinated by Russians. 0.88

00:15:28.420 And it turns out that he faked his own assassination so that he could like prove something. And he's just

00:15:34.820 crazy, like Russian guy. 0.99

00:15:36.220 So he's in hiding right now? 0.99

00:15:37.340 Yeah, he's in hiding right now. But anyways, he wrote this incredible book. What was really crazy

00:15:41.740 about this book is these soldiers in the Russian army, you're out fighting this brutal enemy,

00:15:46.760 which was the insurgency in Chechnya. They're sawing heads off of people. It's as bad as you can make

00:15:53.360 it. And then they come back at night and their sergeants beat them and their captains beat them

00:15:59.180 and they're just abused and they're drinking vodka. It's a horrible situation. Book's called

00:16:03.900 One Soldier's War. And it's just a book that's, it really shows you the difference between the

00:16:10.780 American military and the Russian military. And you know what? The Russians are hard people. I think

00:16:15.700 everyone knows that. There's a part where he rattles off, the sergeants beat the corporals,

00:16:20.620 the staff sergeants beat the sergeants, the lieutenants beat the, and he just goes right

00:16:26.300 down the chain of command. Everyone is getting beaten. Like really, they're going to beat their

00:16:30.620 shit out of you. Why? Because they're bored. Why? Because you didn't get water for them when 1.00

00:16:36.720 they wanted you to, you're going to get beaten and that's what they're living through. So you have

00:16:41.480 that going into Afghanistan. So the point too, is that you're saying the morale is

00:16:45.140 morale is freaking horrible. The morale is absolutely freaking horrible. The other thing

00:16:52.240 is like, who ends up in the fighting units in the Russian military? It's the downtrodden people. 1.00

00:16:58.520 It's the misconception that people think in America and people think, well, in America,

00:17:02.140 it's only the poor people that go in the military. It's like, no, there's all kinds of people in the

00:17:05.640 military and it's voluntary. So you can go, you can not go in Russia. It's like, oh, if you got money,

00:17:10.720 you're not going in there. If you're a prominent person, your kids aren't going in the military.

00:17:14.420 It's only the people that didn't have any other choice that are going to end up there.

00:17:17.860 So yeah, their morale was really bad. And then fighting against the Afghans who are hardened 0.99

00:17:22.600 fighters and kind of like the Russians use their terrain and their environment as their defense.

00:17:30.180 So the Afghans do the same thing, which is, Hey, we have mountains, we have hills. And then they got 1.00

00:17:35.060 the stinger missiles from us. And it's like, the movie, Charlie Wilson's word does a pretty good job

00:17:39.500 of actually showing some of that stuff. Yeah. It's sort of hard to believe. I remember hearing

00:17:44.400 a story. I don't know if it's correct that sometimes the stingers would miss fire and blow

00:17:50.020 up. Sorry, I shouldn't say it would fire. So you would get the shot off, but the device would

00:17:54.340 actually blow up. So the guy who fires, it dies. So he hits his target, but dies. And the story was

00:18:00.300 initially the Mujahideen thought that that was actually a feature of like, that's how willing

00:18:08.220 they were to die. Right. It was like, wait, I get to blow up a Russian airplane and die at the same 0.99

00:18:13.980 time. Yeah. Yeah. Bonus bonus program. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. That's a 0.93

00:18:19.000 miss. We have to fix the issue there. That's not the way it's supposed to be. It's another classic

00:18:22.820 case of insurgents. And you, you find out that this big organization can't maneuver like you can.

00:18:30.840 That's how you beat them. Right. That's how you beat them. I was talking with a company about that

00:18:34.600 the other day. I'm like, okay, here's what you're up against. You're up against Titans and you will

00:18:40.020 not beat them in a war of attrition. They can outspend you. They can out hire you. They can

00:18:45.040 outwork you. They can outproduce you literally. So the only way you're going to beat them is you

00:18:50.140 have to be more maneuverable than them. You have to find out what their weaknesses are because they

00:18:53.980 do have weaknesses. Because when you're that big, guess what? You're not mobile anymore.

00:18:57.640 So how are you going to attack their weaknesses? That's what you have to figure out

00:19:01.400 because you can't beat them in a war of attrition. So it's the same thing, right? That's the same

00:19:06.280 thing with what we ran into in Vietnam. We cannot beat them in a war of attrition because they don't 1.00

00:19:11.120 care. And what do they do? They find our weaknesses. What do they realize? We do care. And once we

00:19:16.500 realize we do care, cool, you can kill 200 of us and we'll kill one of you. And eventually you're 1.00

00:19:22.140 going to grow tired of it. That's the reality. Why do you think that vets who came back from Vietnam 0.98

00:19:28.480 had such a horrible experience compared to vets coming back from Iraq? So you could argue you saw 1.00

00:19:34.960 similar things that upset the public, right? So the public saw, oh, of course, it's always these

00:19:40.760 things are blown out of proportion, right? Because you're seeing a snapshot of something. You don't

00:19:43.980 necessarily know that that represents the person that's in front of you now, let alone the majority

00:19:47.920 of the people that were fighting. But you had these people coming back from Vietnam that were

00:19:52.460 pariahs. And fortunately, it doesn't seem like the vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan 1.00

00:19:57.940 were treated that way. The vets coming back nowadays have been treated great.

00:20:02.320 What do you think is the transition? Is that a transition in simply the American psyche?

00:20:07.440 A little bit of the American psyche, the wars for sure.

00:20:10.220 But why were the Vietnam vets treated so poorly?

00:20:13.300 People hated the war.

00:20:14.620 Most people hate Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well, right?

00:20:17.380 And I don't think people have made that connection of, hey, just because a guy went to fight doesn't

00:20:22.220 mean that the war is on his shoulders. Now, some people say, oh, that's crap. And I hear that all 0.99

00:20:27.280 the time. Like if, oh, if you didn't believe in the war, then why did you go fight? Right?

00:20:31.200 And some people make the distinction of like, hey, listen, this is a soldier out there doing

00:20:34.660 his job. So don't get mad at him. You want to get mad at someone, get mad at the politicians.

00:20:38.640 So I think we, people made that distinction. And there's some people that still make the

00:20:42.560 distinction like, oh, if you went and fought, then you supported the war and you deserve the

00:20:47.260 hatred from me because I don't agree with the war. But I think less people believe that

00:20:51.520 now or less people act that way now than did during Vietnam. I had one seal on my podcast.

00:20:57.680 There's a Vietnam guy that was just a legendary Vietnam guy named Roger Hayden, who was one

00:21:02.880 of the guys that I looked up to. And when I was a young seal, he came on and talked about

00:21:07.880 Vietnam. And I said, well, what was it like when you came home? He's like, oh, no one protested

00:21:11.900 to him. No one never saw anything. And again, you're living in San Diego. He's a seal. You're

00:21:16.940 kind of in a nice little environment. But I covered another book on my podcast where the

00:21:21.020 guy lost his arm, came home to Vietnam. He's going to college and like literally gets spit

00:21:25.360 on. And so it definitely was a thing, but that generally doesn't happen anymore. You

00:21:30.560 see it a little bit more, you know, see some of the radical extremist left wing people that

00:21:36.080 still might hold a grudge against the frontline soldier. But I think people realize that that's

00:21:42.160 not a good target for your anger. It's an ineffective target for your anger, right?

00:21:46.680 And I'm guessing that when you guys were there, when you were deployed, you didn't spend a

00:21:51.620 lot of time talking about your own political views because obviously you guys are pretty

00:21:56.800 well informed. In fact, you're seeing things in person that you can tell people are missing

00:22:02.740 back home, right? Scenarios like actual interactions. You know what the insurgents look like.

00:22:07.560 And we know what the insurgents are doing to the civilian populace, which will change your

00:22:11.220 mindset on what we should be doing. So when you, when you know that the insurgents have

00:22:16.000 decapitated the head of the household in a neighborhood with five families that starts

00:22:20.840 to leave, or you know that they skin the guy alive. When you hear that, you go, okay, we

00:22:25.600 should be doing something about this. We have some kind of an obligation to help these people

00:22:29.540 that are under the oppressive insurgency that's here. And you see a little kid, you see these

00:22:36.460 little families just trying to live their normal lives and you think we can help them. They

00:22:41.020 don't want these insurgents there. They hated the insurgents, but they couldn't do anything

00:22:45.000 about it. And so we can. So that does leave an impression on you.

00:22:49.740 Did you generally feel welcome where you were?

00:22:52.920 Yes. In Baghdad, because most of my first deployment I spent in and around Baghdad and

00:22:57.880 my second deployment, I spent the entire deployment in Ramadi and the civilian populace wanted us

00:23:03.760 there without question. In fact, there was a great piece on vice, you know, vice news.

00:23:09.960 They did this piece when ISIS was coming to Ramadi and there was a guy in there and I thought,

00:23:16.100 oh, this is going to be an interesting thing. Cause you know, vice is kind of a left leaning

00:23:19.980 organization. And I still watch them to hear what their perspective is. Sometimes they have a good

00:23:25.860 perspective on things. And they did this great piece of this guy who was in Ramadi as ISIS was

00:23:32.020 approaching. And he was showing all the townspeople and he was showing like the mayor or the governor

00:23:37.380 of the city of Ramadi. He's on the phone, placing phone calls, trying to get America to come back.

00:23:43.180 Please, please come back. The guys in the streets were saying, we hope America comes.

00:23:47.400 And you know what? America didn't come. And ISIS came into Ramadi and completely annihilated it.

00:23:53.620 We got reports from people that we knew that were there that when ISIS got there, they went out and

00:24:00.720 had retribution on families that had worked with coalition forces. And they ended up murdering

00:24:05.760 about 500 families, men, women, and children. What is the presence of ISIS in Iraq today?

00:24:11.320 Nil.

00:24:12.100 Are they mostly in Syria?

00:24:13.520 No, they're dead.

00:24:14.540 Really?

00:24:15.040 Yes.

00:24:15.420 Cause I had read something quite recently that said, no, there's a real pocket of them and they're

00:24:21.180 sort of hiding somewhere, but.

00:24:22.620 They were killing thousands and thousands of ISIS fighters. It was a beautiful situation because 0.99

00:24:29.320 the ISIS fighters became a conventional army for the most part, right? They got vehicles,

00:24:35.800 they had flags, they had uniforms.

00:24:38.040 So that was their strategic error.

00:24:39.500 Instead of it being in an asymmetrical situation, we were fighting against another army.

00:24:44.160 So it was like fighting a nation state.

00:24:45.240 Yes.

00:24:45.540 That was inferior.

00:24:46.380 Yes. Yes. And so we killed, I would say somewhere around 50,000 of them.

00:24:53.060 These are black uniform, ISIS flag carrying, took back the city of Ramadi, took back Mosul. 0.66

00:24:59.700 So that's, that's what it was.

00:25:01.480 If you went back to Iraq today, let's say you went with your family, 0.99

00:25:04.980 where would you want to go? What would you want to see again?

00:25:07.400 Uh, Ramadi. I'd go to Ramadi. Then I'd go to Baghdad. Have you been there before?

00:25:11.060 I've never been to Iraq.

00:25:11.900 What was surprising about Baghdad is Baghdad was a very westernized city.

00:25:15.600 Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, Iraq was very secular. You're from California or you live in California.

00:25:19.880 You would be driving down a highway around Baghdad. And if it was nighttime, you'd think

00:25:23.900 I could easily be on the I-5 here in California.

00:25:26.780 A guy in my residency program was from Baghdad. And also I just, my parents being from Egypt,

00:25:31.140 they would say, look, Iraq is by far the most secular, wonderful place in the Middle East.

00:25:36.580 Like such a stark contrast to Iran, such a stark contrast. 1.00

00:25:40.480 For sure. And in the seventies, even more so. So what your parents probably remember is like

00:25:45.320 kind of Iraq and its heyday when it was kind of open and it was doing business with other

00:25:49.560 countries and everything. That's, you know, I remember even after the first Gulf war, my parents

00:25:54.240 saying, look, Saddam Hussein is a horrible creature, but surprisingly he is not religiously like 0.93

00:26:03.240 he doesn't kill Christians. He sort of just lets people be sort of religiously what they want. 0.98

00:26:08.580 And maybe that wasn't entirely correct, but their view was he was not as horrible as we thought,

00:26:15.700 which again, maybe he was. I just remember my parents placing such a premium on the fact

00:26:21.640 that he was religiously more tolerant than other leaders in the Middle East. Now, again, I think

00:26:27.480 that's always colored through your lens, right? That's colored through the lens of your experience

00:26:31.460 in religious prosecution. But it does beg the question, which I think most people agree now,

00:26:36.800 he was sort of bluffing with his weapons of mass destruction, right? I mean, this was sort of his

00:26:40.100 way of showing strength to his people and potentially to his enemies.

00:26:44.020 Who he had used them on.

00:26:45.220 Yeah.

00:26:45.520 Right. So it's like, as much as you, again, this is going back to hindsight's 2020. Well,

00:26:50.160 if he's saying that he has weapons of mass destruction.

00:26:55.020 And he's certainly used chemical weapons.

00:26:56.720 And he has used them before. And he's saying that he has them. Well, then it's like,

00:27:00.680 okay, I guess he has them. And there you go.

00:27:05.240 But again, it just playing these stupid thought experiments. It's like, 1.00

00:27:07.920 if he could have seen how it was going to end, wouldn't he have just come up with some sort of

00:27:13.060 solution? That's like, you know what?

00:27:14.820 Absolutely.

00:27:15.300 Yeah. Let the UN inspectors in.

00:27:17.420 Of course he would have. Well, at least you'd like to think he was because he'd managed to

00:27:20.980 maintain power in that country for a long time. He made some good decisions along the way. And he just

00:27:25.700 screwed that one up because he held the line of saying, look, I have these and they're mine and you

00:27:30.180 can't come in here and inspect. And it was a bad call.

00:27:33.360 Good God. So what does the future of warfare look like? I mean, when you think about the fact that

00:27:39.200 we are still at war, most people, most of us as civilians were just so separated from it. We don't

00:27:44.680 remember it. We just don't think about it. But the lessons of the past 20 years, how have they shaped

00:27:51.060 what could be the potential for future conflicts? In other words, are there people in the military that

00:27:55.640 are spending a lot of time thinking very strategically about what military conflict

00:28:01.160 is going to look like for the United States in the next 25 years?

00:28:03.860 Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's really hard to predict exactly what it's going to be like,

00:28:07.560 but let's face it. We're going to have technology. We already have drones that are running around,

00:28:11.780 can shoot weapons, and that's the way it's going to be. Right. And will we have robots? Yes,

00:28:16.320 we will. What's a robot versus a drone? I mean, it seems like the drones are going to be

00:28:19.600 the more powerful in the air, air control. So yeah, you're going to end up with drones

00:28:23.640 killing each other, and hopefully the drones will all fight the wars and the drones versus 0.81

00:28:27.340 the robots. Will you eventually have all your drones destroyed? Possibly. Will all your robots

00:28:33.400 be defeated? Possibly. And then what do you do? You're going to be a human being on the ground.

00:28:37.200 The drones really came into their maturity, maybe the lack of the wrong word, but the drones really

00:28:41.900 made a big step forward in this past decade or the past 15 years. For sure. What has been the net

00:28:47.480 impact of that? Has it been more positive or more negative? Because you certainly hear extreme

00:28:51.180 stories on both sides, right? Well, less people at risk directly, but oh, less discernment in the

00:28:55.960 field. Definitely less people in danger, right? For the good guys, quote, good guys. What scares

00:29:01.920 people isn't the fact that the drone just is less discriminant than a human. I think it's just the

00:29:08.640 fact that it's a drone because that's what scares people. Hey, a machine can come and kill me

00:29:13.240 with no thought, no guilt, no remorse can just do it. Yeah. That's scary to a lot of people. 0.99

00:29:19.500 I think it's the way that the future wars are going to be fought. Yeah.

00:29:25.440 It's interesting because even when you take a step back and ask a broader question, which is

00:29:29.260 who will the United States be fighting in 25 years? Let me ask you this. So a human being could

00:29:34.560 do a surgery, right? And a robot could do a surgery. The robot can only do it through a surgeon's

00:29:41.140 hands. So the surgeon is still sitting there at a console operating, which is presumably the same

00:29:46.140 thing a drone is. A drone is not autonomous, right? Yeah. Yeah. True. I guess where I was going with

00:29:51.080 this is that's kind of like with handmade cars versus cars that are made by a machine. And everyone

00:29:56.860 thinks that the handmade things are better. And the reality is they're not. Yeah. And so I've seen

00:30:04.020 some things. Who was I talking to? I was talking to someone that said, if you don't have this type of

00:30:08.800 technology, if you have a human being doing this procedure on you, you're in the wrong place.

00:30:13.480 Maybe it was you that was telling me that. Well, you know what it comes down to? It comes down to

00:30:16.600 you have to ask yourself the question, what problem is being solved by the introduction of this

00:30:21.100 technology? So we love technology, right? So yeah, when robotic surgery devices came along,

00:30:26.020 the initial thought I think was this is going to completely replace surgery, but you have to take a

00:30:32.160 step back and say, well, wait a minute. There are certain operations for which the robot makes

00:30:36.600 so much sense because there are certain things that the robot can do so much better. And you have

00:30:41.960 to pair those things with it. So the best example I can think of is probably the radical prostatectomy.

00:30:48.740 And a man has prostate cancer and you want to remove it, but remove it not by going from the outside of

00:30:55.260 him, like not by taking the shortest path to the prostate, but by going sort of through the

00:30:59.800 retroperitoneum in the abdomen, that is such a hard operation to do with your hands, which is the

00:31:06.960 way it has always been done. And to this day, some people still do it that way because it's so hard

00:31:11.340 to see what the hell is going on. It's like operating in a deep, dark hole. That's bloody. It's just

00:31:17.360 miserable, right? Well, what does the robot do? The robot allows you to have much finer motor control

00:31:24.500 and much better visibility. Well, that operation is tailor-made for that. But there are some

00:31:30.620 operations like breast augmentation, visibility and tactile ability to do the operation are not

00:31:37.220 remotely problematic, right? It's a surface operation. So could you, for giggles and self-promotion

00:31:44.440 or whatever, say we're doing robot-assisted breast augmentation? Sure. Is it an advantage? No.

00:31:50.720 It's a drawback. I guess where I was trying to go with that, and I think I might've failed, but-

00:31:56.100 I mean, I think your point is there are probably applications where drones and robots make way more

00:32:01.560 sense, but there are probably places where the opposite is true, right? The point I was trying

00:32:05.360 to make was we inherently trust another human being more than we trust a robot, even though the robot

00:32:11.880 might be able to do a better job, right? I mean, if a robot kills someone on the operating table,

00:32:17.120 then it's like, oh my God, how could that? But we know that surgeons kill people on the operating

00:32:22.000 table as well. And you think, oh, well, it must've been an accident or whatever. So we inherently trust

00:32:27.560 that the human being is going to do a better job than the robot's going to do.

00:32:30.940 But when robots do things in combat that get people harmed, is the mistake usually the human

00:32:37.600 mistake on the other end or is-

00:32:39.260 At this juncture, yes. Just like in most cases with a robot surgery, it's like, hey, the surgeon

00:32:43.360 put in the wrong input, right? But in the future, it may be that you're actually having this drone

00:32:50.840 make a little bit more of the decision, and that really can scare some people. I think people

00:32:56.040 inherently don't trust robots to make decisions that are life and death.

00:33:00.200 Yeah, no, like this is not something I know anything about, but I love-

00:33:03.180 Okay, driverless cars.

00:33:04.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:05.180 Okay, let's just do that one, right? Driverless cars. Okay, which one?

00:33:09.460 I'll take driverless cars all day long.

00:33:10.780 There you go.

00:33:11.360 No questions asked.

00:33:12.140 And yet, when a driverless car gets in an accident, it's on the front page, right? It's on the

00:33:17.660 front page because, oh my God, this thing, let this happen. What, 50,000 people die every

00:33:21.660 year?

00:33:22.120 No, it's more than that.

00:33:23.380 Okay, so whatever the number is, it's a crazy number.

00:33:25.560 I think it's about a little over a million people die a year in the world in car accidents.

00:33:30.880 And yet-

00:33:31.520 It's like 1.2 million.

00:33:32.500 One Tesla hits a wall somewhere because the program failed or whatever happened, happened.

00:33:37.840 And it's on the front page and we don't trust that. But we trust a 16-year-old.

00:33:42.540 Oh yeah, no, no. That's the most egregious, the best example of the lot, right?

00:33:45.820 Yeah, yeah.

00:33:46.220 So we can't predict what the world's going to look like in 25 years, let alone who our

00:33:52.400 quote-unquote enemies are going to be or what the tools and technologies of warfare are going to be.

00:33:56.320 How much time do you spend thinking about the fact that one day you're not going to be around for

00:34:02.340 your kids? Hopefully, right? Hopefully your kids outlive you. You don't know what the world's going

00:34:06.660 to look like, but you want to prepare them to be successful in whatever way that means to you,

00:34:13.980 right? Could mean being happy, can mean being safe. It can mean being productive, having a sense of

00:34:18.960 purpose. How do you think about instilling that into your kids today? And so much of what we think of

00:34:25.280 the work you do is with the world's best teams, right? Military, business, et cetera. But in many

00:34:32.460 ways, probably your greatest lessons probably come around a kitchen table.

00:34:36.480 Well, this is why I wrote the kids' books that I've written. It's because the things that I think

00:34:42.360 kids need to know in order to become good humans, I put them in those books and they are very clear,

00:34:50.900 very simple lessons that are very easy to understand. They're timeless. And that's why I did it. That

00:34:56.720 makes it... I had a guy ask me the other day, I was at a speaking at a company and a guy said,

00:35:01.940 you know, these things that you talk about, they're so powerful and they're so meaningful.

00:35:07.380 And these theories and these principles that you live by are just so important. What are you doing

00:35:14.420 to transfer these to kids? And I was like, well, luckily you don't know this, but I've written

00:35:18.660 four kids' books and that's exactly what they are, these principles. So

00:35:22.420 way of the warrior kid, that's what it is.

00:35:25.820 What do your kids think about? Because you're their dad, right? You're not Jocko,

00:35:30.940 your dad. That's really different. And that means that they get pissed off at you. And that means that

00:35:36.080 they think you're being unfair at times. And that means...

00:35:39.280 You notice the hesitation in my voice when I said they get pissed off at me? They don't really get

00:35:43.760 pissed off at me. I don't impose things that don't make sense on them. And the things that I

00:35:50.740 steer them towards, they know that they're correct. And so you can't get mad at someone for

00:35:58.580 telling you something that's going to help you. And I think they've all grown up enough. And one thing I

00:36:05.520 was careful as they got older is to make sure that they developed their own interpretation of what I

00:36:13.920 was saying. I didn't want to impose things because I did that too much when they were little. When they

00:36:18.560 were little, I forced jujitsu on them too hard. And not only that, but I made them train. I made them

00:36:25.620 compete. I made them train all the time. I made them compete against people that were older than them,

00:36:31.900 bigger than them, heavier weight classes, more advanced. And so it wasn't fun because they would

00:36:37.120 get beat. And that's not fun. And so as they got a little bit older, as I started to try and actually

00:36:42.400 incorporate the values and the principles that I kind of attempt to live my life by, I was careful

00:36:48.840 not to make the same mistake of imposing these things so hard, but instead allowing them to discover

00:36:54.600 the principles, truths for themselves. So do they see in you vulnerability?

00:37:04.460 I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they do see too much vulnerability in me. I think they know that

00:37:12.620 my best friend died last year and they definitely saw that my heart was crushed. And so I think that was,

00:37:21.760 that was probably the time where they really realized dad's hurt. He's hurt bad. And that's

00:37:29.900 the way it is. Is that vulnerable? Perhaps, I guess. Is that me being a human being? I guess.

00:37:37.160 One of the things my wife talks about with me a lot and reminds me of the importance of is being really

00:37:42.860 good at telling them when I make mistakes and apologizing when I make mistakes, which I make a lot

00:37:47.480 of, right? I mean, I make mistakes all the time, come home in sort of a shitty mood and take it out

00:37:52.780 on them a little bit. And again, it's not like extreme, right? It's not like whack them across 0.72

00:37:56.660 the head, but it's just like whack them across the arm or just like, you know, like saying, Hey,

00:38:02.100 how many times have I told you to turn the light off in your room? Okay. Well, 50. So make this the

00:38:07.260 51st, but was that tone necessary? Is there another way I could have said it, right? Well, the reality is

00:38:11.700 I'm pissed off about something totally different and like being able to sort of apologize for that.

00:38:15.660 And that's something that's very new to me. Like it's something I've never really had much practice

00:38:19.840 in. I mean, do you think about stuff like that? Do you feel like to be a good dad, I've got to be

00:38:24.440 able to, to show them all the times I make mistakes and not be afraid of it and let them see that I'm

00:38:29.260 human and that I screw up every day. And, or do you feel that that just comes naturally to you?

00:38:33.860 I mean, I guess that's pretty easy for you. Yeah. I'm not hiding any mistakes. When I screw

00:38:36.680 something up, I laugh at it and say, wow, that was, I'm an idiot. Look at that. To me, 1.00

00:38:40.840 that's no factor. I have no ego when it comes to that kind of thing. The big joke in my

00:38:45.640 family is that I don't really like technology. I don't get along well with printers and things

00:38:51.260 like that. So when they don't work, you know, my family laughs at me because I get mad at them.

00:38:55.240 And that's the only time I allow myself to be mad because it's an inanimate object. So I can be mad

00:38:59.940 at something that has no feelings, right? So I have fun with it. So you like that scene in office space?

00:39:04.660 I play a game. I kind of play it up a little bit that technology bothers me. Let's my kids see me get

00:39:08.980 mad and yell at my computer and call it names and just have fun with it. But no, it's no factor to me.

00:39:14.200 One thing I think is that people probably have the impression that I'm some kind of tyrannical

00:39:18.540 authoritarian father and I'm not. It's funny. I wouldn't get that impression actually.

00:39:23.540 Okay. Well, I should rephrase that. You might not think that, but from the surface,

00:39:26.400 when people see me, cause I look like a serial killer and I was in the military for a long time

00:39:31.020 and all that people think, oh, this guy must be a tyrannical dad. And I'm actually very much

00:39:35.700 similar to, well, not even very much similar. Leading a family and leading your kids is the same way you

00:39:40.420 lead an organization, the same way you lead a team. And if you bark orders at your team,

00:39:45.540 your team doesn't like you, they don't respect you. And they're not going to carry out those

00:39:48.760 orders with any sort of commitment. Whereas if you allow them to come up with what the plan is,

00:39:53.320 you let them know what the goal is and you allow them to forge what their idea is and what their

00:39:58.080 plan is going to be, they're going to commit to that plan and they're going to go execute it

00:40:00.780 because it's their plan. And so that's the way you should lead your family. That's the way you

00:40:04.500 should lead your team. That's decentralized command. It's one of the major lessons that I learned

00:40:08.340 in my military career and now working with civilians. The minute you decide you're going

00:40:12.480 to bark orders at people and impose your discipline upon them, they're going to reject it. And so you've

00:40:19.520 got to be careful about that. So let's turn our discussion to a topic that I get asked about

00:40:24.920 more than anything else. Whenever your name comes up, gee, can you guess what this is going to be?

00:40:34.440 Yeah. I was following your Twitter and your Instagram when you were asking, Hey,

00:40:37.820 what do you want to talk about? And what? 50% of the people said, ask them about sleep or tell

00:40:41.600 them to listen to the Dr. Walker, Matt Walker, to talk to Dr. Walker and he should listen to that,

00:40:46.420 which I got that because he was on Joe Rogan as well. And so I got a million tweets about that.

00:40:51.060 And I responded that one of the fun ones I had was you need to listen to Walker on Joe Rogan when it

00:40:57.740 first came out. And I said, I listened to it. And if what that guy was saying was applicable to me,

00:41:05.180 I would be 120 pounds. I would be disease ridden. I would be, I would be weak, depressed and have bad

00:41:13.240 skin. That's what he was saying. And that's where I should be. So.

00:41:17.060 Well, let's talk actually practical. So tell me a typical, let's not get into jet lagged or

00:41:22.360 different time zones or stuff. But when you're in San Diego, what time are you typically going to bed?

00:41:26.040 Go to bed at 11, wake up at 4.30.

00:41:27.700 Okay. You go to bed at 11 and talk to me about the routine before bed. What are you doing?

00:41:31.240 When do you stop looking at electronics? When are you eating your last meal? Like let's go.

00:41:34.820 I usually get home from jujitsu around 7.30 or eight. I eat sometime after that. Usually that's

00:41:41.760 my biggest meal. So there's another big Jocko faux pas. Not necessarily, but we're not passing 1.00

00:41:47.600 judgment here. I just want to get the facts. I eat a big meal then. And then I'll do a little bit of

00:41:51.900 work. I'll hang around with my kids. Then I'll do some work. And then when 10.40, 10.30 rolls around,

00:42:00.560 I'll brush my teeth.

00:42:02.320 So you're in bed at 11. You fall asleep pretty quickly?

00:42:04.960 I fall asleep almost immediately.

00:42:06.540 Do you get up at all in the middle of the night?

00:42:09.320 Maybe, but not that big of a deal.

00:42:11.000 You wake up with an alarm or without?

00:42:12.580 I set an alarm. If I don't set an alarm, then I cannot sleep at all.

00:42:16.240 Sorry, say that again. If you don't set the alarm, your anxiety?

00:42:18.800 Yes.

00:42:19.060 Okay. So you set the alarm for what time?

00:42:21.560 4.30.

00:42:22.320 And how many times do you wake up from the alarm versus?

00:42:25.540 50%.

00:42:25.940 And half the time you've just woken up on your own? At what time typically?

00:42:29.000 Between 4 and 4.30.

00:42:30.800 Okay. When you wake up without the alarm, how do you feel?

00:42:34.680 Fine.

00:42:35.040 When you wake up with the alarm, do you feel any different?

00:42:36.860 No.

00:42:37.740 How many times a month do you wake up and feel tired?

00:42:40.660 I don't know. I'm not sure. The tired that I know you're not talking about is physically tired.

00:42:49.060 Meaning, I'm sore. I'm tired. I know that's not what you mean. I know you just mean like,

00:42:54.960 oh, I'm tired. I want to go back to bed. I don't get a lot of that. I'm physically tired. And this

00:43:01.280 is something that when I was going to college, I was training jiu-jitsu two to four hours every

00:43:05.160 single day. And lifting and surfing, do whatever. But the jiu-jitsu was hardcore at the time.

00:43:08.800 And then at the end of one year or whatever, my exams piled up and I had like four days of exams

00:43:15.080 and I had to study and I skipped jiu-jitsu. And like the third day with no jiu-jitsu,

00:43:19.020 I got up out of bed and I was like, dude, I feel like Superman. I was like, why do I feel so awesome?

00:43:24.560 And it's because I'm fully rested. So I usually feel a little bit sore in the morning, but I don't

00:43:30.540 generally feel like, oh, I want to go back to bed right now.

00:43:33.900 Do you ever nap in the day?

00:43:35.020 Yes.

00:43:35.540 What time?

00:43:36.320 It depends. If I'm tired, I nap. I probably nap two days out of seven.

00:43:42.480 Typically, how long is the nap?

00:43:43.720 Eight minutes.

00:43:44.480 Oh, so I wouldn't even call that a nap, but okay. So it's not like a 90 minute nap.

00:43:48.000 Oh, no, no, no. If I take a 90 minute nap, I won't be able to go to sleep at night.

00:43:51.420 If I take a 90 minute nap, I'm up until two o'clock in the morning.

00:43:53.980 So the eight minute nap. Oh, you told me about this once before. Tell us your routine.

00:43:58.400 Elevate your feet above your heart and then set an alarm for eight minutes,

00:44:03.240 10 minutes at the most, maybe 12. But if I do 12, now I feel a little bit groggy when I wake up.

00:44:08.860 Eight minutes, I feel like Superman. I feel like I just slept for eight hours.

00:44:13.860 And you don't consume a hell of a lot of caffeine. You don't drink coffee, right? You're a tea guy.

00:44:17.880 I drink tea when I need it.

00:44:19.740 I mean, you drink white tea and stuff. I mean, the Jocko tea,

00:44:22.460 which I can't believe I didn't ask you to bring more Jocko tea.

00:44:24.600 I got one for you.

00:44:25.360 You did?

00:44:25.900 Yeah.

00:44:26.060 Thanks, brother. I freaking love Jocko tea.

00:44:28.900 Yeah.

00:44:29.160 But you're not a caffeine junkie.

00:44:30.500 Nope. In fact, caffeine has a pretty big effect on me.

00:44:33.260 Stimulating.

00:44:33.700 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like I feel caffeine. Feel it a lot. So if I'm doing a long drive,

00:44:40.780 I'm going to be awake for more than 24 hours and it's nighttime, I'll drink some caffeine for sure.

00:44:45.780 Was this the same in high school?

00:44:47.140 I don't really remember. Let me rephrase that. I slept just normal, woke up in the morning,

00:44:51.840 did what I had to do, went to bed when I was tired, probably slept somewhat similar to the

00:44:58.260 same hours. Didn't wake up as early, but stayed up later.

00:45:02.140 It's funny. Yeah. I've tried to remember what I was like in high school sleep wise,

00:45:06.160 but I also know I wasn't sleeping a lot. I remember what I did. Like I remember what my

00:45:10.760 bedtime routine was exercise wise and what my morning exercise routine was like. And just doing

00:45:15.480 the math on how many hours it would have taken to do this stuff. I probably only slept six hours a

00:45:20.040 night in high school, which I think today I would caution against. Of course, if I go to bed early

00:45:25.240 for whatever reason, let's say I go to bed at nine 30, I'll wake up at three 30. That's probably a

00:45:32.140 better answer to your question of how often. So basically at six hours, I'm like, that's a normal

00:45:37.060 sleep cycle for me. Six hours. Okay. I'm up. I'm rock and roll. You don't have one of these rings,

00:45:41.300 do you? The aura ring or any of these sleep tracking devices? I do not. Kind of curious to put one

00:45:45.920 on you. I'd be sort of, they're very good at tracking duration of sleep and obviously not

00:45:50.420 entirely accurate on staging, but pretty good. It'd be interesting to see the efficiency of your

00:45:54.960 sleep because I suspect it is efficient if nothing else. My guess is it is. That is my guess

00:46:00.540 is that when I sleep, I sleep hard and I'll wake up. I sweat a lot. I'll have bad dreams and I'll wake up

00:46:07.160 like in a disgusting puddle of sweat sometimes. How many times a month would that happen?

00:46:11.860 Oh, it happens a lot. Yeah. It happens a lot. And yeah. And actually I got the thing that cools

00:46:18.240 your bed and that helps me. Yes. I have a chili pad. Kelly sent me one and that definitely helps.

00:46:24.660 And matter of fact, if I use that, I don't have those things. So that's kind of weird. I don't

00:46:28.180 know how to explain that. Yeah. I'll have a dream that something's happening and I'm running away or I'm

00:46:34.580 pulling myself or I'm engaged in some kind of a combat situation and I'm running out of bullets.

00:46:40.620 I'm out of bullets, like those kinds of nightmares and I'll wake up. The exertion that I put out in

00:46:46.940 the dream is reflected in my sweat when I wake up. So how often are those dreams about scenarios that

00:46:53.900 are real, like that you've seen in the past versus totally contrived? First of all, I don't remember

00:46:59.060 all of them, but I'll remember like that split second when I wake up, I'm like, oh man, I've been

00:47:03.560 running. Oh, okay. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is nasty. Our mutual friend, the person who introduced us

00:47:11.880 is Kirk Parsley. Have you and Kirk spent time talking about this stuff? You know what? We only

00:47:16.740 have a joked back and forth on Twitter. He tells me to sleep more. I tell him no. One of the

00:47:22.100 interesting experiments that Kirk talked about with me many years ago, and I'm going to sort of

00:47:27.560 bastardize it, but the gist of it was they basically took a bunch of guys in the military,

00:47:32.460 highly sleep deprived, and then put them in an environment where they were forced to be in

00:47:39.440 darkness for some period of time. I want to say it was like, I think it was like 10 hours a day or

00:47:43.740 something like that. And the idea was, or maybe it was 12 hours of pure darkness, 12 hours of light,

00:47:48.780 but with no sense of time. I don't think they had access to any clock.

00:47:51.920 And within two weeks, they were all basically sleeping something like seven and a half to nine

00:47:59.440 hours a night, even though they hadn't been sleeping close to that in the past.

00:48:03.300 So it begs the question, right? Have you done the experiment if for no other reason than just out

00:48:08.400 of pure curiosity to what would happen if you slept seven and a half hours a day instead of six,

00:48:15.640 what would be the impact on your memory, your performance?

00:48:18.320 The closest thing I can say to that is like I said, sometimes I'll be really tired and go to

00:48:22.220 bed early and I wake up six hours later. I'll get up and start working because even if I have nothing

00:48:27.720 to do, I'll get up and be like, okay, well, I'm not going to lay here anymore. But no, I haven't

00:48:31.820 done an experiment like that.

00:48:32.960 It'd be interesting to think about how to do it, right? You don't want to conduct that experiment by

00:48:36.540 taking a bunch of Ambien and sleeping 12 hours because that's not sleep either. You've told me before,

00:48:41.300 I think at least one of your kids is similar.

00:48:43.740 Yeah. And so this is when people get mad at me, which they do get mad at me about,

00:48:48.180 they say, you're encouraging people not to sleep. And I'm absolutely not doing that. I think people

00:48:51.780 should sleep as much as you need. I believe that sleep is important. That's why I sleep almost every

00:48:56.520 single day. That's a joke, but I got it. But I was drinking from my Topo Chico.

00:49:02.640 I don't discourage sleep. I think sleep is important. And I, one thing that I've seen is I've seen,

00:49:08.080 I've watched people's cognitive abilities go down when they're tired. I've seen it. I've watched

00:49:15.500 it happen. Like a guy gets tired and all of a sudden he can't make good decisions. I've seen

00:49:20.060 that over and over and over again. So I know that people should sleep and should sleep as much as

00:49:26.300 they need, right? I totally agree with that. I think that there's a chance that people need

00:49:32.080 different amounts of sleep. One of the things that has led me to believe that is that I have four kids

00:49:37.800 each one of my kids has their own sleep pattern that they've developed on their own. I never

00:49:44.260 mandated that my kids wake up when I wake up or anything. My oldest daughter, when she was in high

00:49:50.880 school, I would go to bed at 11 o'clock and she'd be awake studying. And I'd wake up at 4.30 and she'd

00:49:55.580 be awake studying. And she would do that all the time. And she'd go to school, no factor. She does not

00:50:01.440 need sleep like a normal person. My middle daughter, she will sleep until you pull her out 1.00

00:50:09.080 of bed. She will go to sleep as early as she wants or she can. And then she'll sleep until you pull her 1.00

00:50:14.380 out of bed. My son is somewhere in the middle and my youngest daughter, I don't have any judgment about

00:50:18.740 right now. So there seems to be some genetic role that is in play here because my oldest daughter

00:50:28.720 barely sleeps and my wife sleeps a lot and I barely sleep. So that's just maybe the way it is.

00:50:37.080 Yeah. I would love to, you know, I'm going to be seeing Matt Walker soon and the three of us should

00:50:42.720 just get together and cause I'd love to propose sort of what are things that we could check in you to

00:50:47.600 make sure they're, they're okay. Right. Just out of like total curiosity, right? Like, you know,

00:50:52.020 one of the things we talked about on our podcast was a single night of missed sleep would alter the

00:50:58.200 brain's ability to clear amyloid or maybe it was tau, but something that was sort of toxic to the

00:51:03.320 brain. And you could document this by doing lumbar punctures on patients pre and post, and you can

00:51:07.560 have a root canal and we'll follow it up with a lumbar puncture. But, but one of the things that you

00:51:12.040 propose that can't be discounted, right? I mean, it has to be at least acknowledged as plausible is

00:51:16.360 there have to be differences between people. And it's certainly entirely possible that what you need

00:51:21.800 is different from what I need because I've done the experiment, right? So I used to be the guy

00:51:26.280 that only slept five or six hours a night. But when I did the experiment of sleeping seven and a

00:51:32.560 half to eight and a half hours a night, the benefit was significant enough that it justified the less

00:51:38.520 time. You don't feel groggy when you sleep eight hours. You don't feel like slow. No, you don't feel

00:51:45.080 like a lack of mental clarity. No, you don't feel like you're physically not at your peak when you sleep that

00:51:49.860 much. No. Now, again, the challenge that I have is that I travel a lot. So I don't have the luxury

00:51:57.200 of being in the same time zone. Put it this way. The longest I've been in the same time zone in the

00:52:02.280 past eight years is four weeks. I'm probably worse than that, or at least as bad as that.

00:52:07.800 So that interferes with stuff a little bit. But when I get those like two week stretches where I get to

00:52:12.940 be in one time zone and I can dial in same time every night to go to bed, same time every morning to wake

00:52:18.920 up. I mean, it definitely feels good. And also I look back at my sort of most unhealthy period of

00:52:25.420 my life when I was overweight and heavily insulin resistant and all of those things. And I had

00:52:30.340 historically placed a lot of that blame just on my diet. I now believe at least half of that blame

00:52:37.180 belongs on my sleep deprivation. Sometimes I'll travel and I'll go somewhere and I'll show up and

00:52:44.680 the time benefit is to me. And all of a sudden I go, oh, cool. I can sleep. I can set my alarm clock

00:52:50.700 and I'm really tired right now. And I'll set my alarm clock and I'll wake up in 10 hours.

00:52:57.560 And so I'll do that and I'll go to bed and I'll wake up seven hours or eight hours later. And I don't

00:53:03.140 feel like, I feel groggy. I guess that's just jet lag, I guess.

00:53:08.340 Yeah. And it also might be that you haven't hit an equilibrium. I mean, I think that would be the

00:53:12.020 question, right? It's like, is there an equilibrium where you got to go through a sort of reconciliation

00:53:17.120 period for your body to sort of, to sort of get used to it? But I mean, I appreciate you saying

00:53:22.320 this stuff because there's one question I get asked, which is like the moment somebody knows I

00:53:26.660 know you, it's like, when are you going to talk to him about sleep? You're right. People get upset

00:53:30.800 about it. And I suspect it's because they think that, or they're interpreting what you're saying as

00:53:36.100 don't sleep. And I appreciate you clarifying that. Now that gets to a couple of the other

00:53:40.120 questions that I've actually written down from the Instagram stuff, which was actually great.

00:53:43.920 It kind of worked out as like a mini Q and a before we met. So I'm going to just read them 0.99

00:53:49.040 verbatim. Describe a time when you gave up, how did you deal with that in the end? How did you bounce

00:53:55.520 back? How do you tell the difference between giving up quitting versus the smarter calling it quits?

00:54:02.820 This is what we've been talking about all day. Strategy versus tactics. You sometimes in a tactical

00:54:07.420 situation have to give up because you've taken the wrong path. You've got the wrong plan. You

00:54:11.260 didn't suspect something was going to unfold the way it did. And so you have to give up. You have

00:54:15.540 to quit on that plan. What you don't want to give up on is your strategic goal. And so you got to make

00:54:21.740 those adaptations all the time. And I can give you the countless millions of times that I've said,

00:54:26.420 you know what, this plan that I had isn't really working out. I'm going to stop doing that plan.

00:54:30.300 I'm going to quit on that plan. And I'm going to go from a different direction because I still

00:54:34.600 want to reach my strategic goal. Now, what about quitting on the other side, which is

00:54:39.420 quitting in a moment of weakness? I don't want to keep doing this, even though I should keep doing

00:54:45.500 this. If you want to keep doing it, why would you stop doing it? So I'll give you an example from my

00:54:49.860 life. In marathon swimming, you are disqualified the moment you touch the boat. So, and every swim

00:54:58.860 has their own set of rules. So I've never been in a marathon swim, no matter how much it hurt,

00:55:03.600 no matter how miserable I was, no matter how cold, scared, thought I saw sharks, or I wanted

00:55:08.320 to touch the boat. However, there was one swim I did that was actually a relatively short swim.

00:55:13.720 It wouldn't qualify as a marathon swim. It's called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Swim. So it's out near

00:55:19.480 Maryland and it's a four and a half mile swim from one side to the other. And you swim between a span,

00:55:27.080 two enormous bridge spans. And you are disqualified from the race if you can't stay within the current

00:55:36.800 and you slip outside of the span. So there are boats on either side of the spans that are there.

00:55:41.880 And any swimmer who gets pushed out, gets yanked up. Can't remember what year it was, but there was

00:55:46.780 one year when I felt like this is my year to sort of be in the top 10. Like I really felt dialed.

00:55:54.960 I trained specifically for that distance, which is not really my sweet spot. And I had looked at

00:56:00.200 all the times in the previous year I had done well. And I was like, you know what? I'm there.

00:56:04.040 I'm going to be top 10 of a race that nobody cares about. It's like, it couldn't be a less

00:56:09.780 relevant goal here. And everyone who's ever done anything knows the feeling of 10 seconds in,

00:56:16.240 you know, it's not your day. You know what I mean? Like it's just the next hour and 55 minutes

00:56:20.620 are going to suck. And by the way, it's not going to be an hour 55. It's going to be two hours 0.74

00:56:24.340 and 15 minutes today. So I'm a quarter mile, half a mile, maybe, maybe a mile into this race.

00:56:32.920 And I'm feeling horrible. Like it's just not clicking. Like I don't have that groove. I can't

00:56:38.140 understand why, but you know, I've had this experience many times before in training.

00:56:41.560 So I'm taking a stroke and I'm outstretched. So right arm in front, left arm in the cat in the

00:56:47.020 high position recovery. And the swimmer in front of me, not of course on purpose, kicks down really

00:56:53.900 hard, hits my arm. I sublux my shoulder. So now my shoulder, my humerus is out of socket.

00:56:59.660 So a miserable day has gone to become now a much more miserable day. I put the shoulder back in.

00:57:06.860 I do have relatively loose right shoulder from boxing. So I'm able to put it back in while

00:57:11.820 treading water. But of course it hurts like hell. So I now realize you're not going to finish in the

00:57:18.500 top 10, dude. You're going to just finish. And I'm just upset. Like I'm, I'm in pain. I'm upset.

00:57:26.500 I'm just frankly, just being a little whiny bitch. And so I just got like, put your head down and swim. 1.00

00:57:32.360 Just put your head down and swim. And what I really remember struggling with as clear as day,

00:57:39.360 and this is like 13, 14, 15 years ago, the struggle I had that moment was I wanted to let

00:57:45.360 the current push me out. You see in that swim, the current is perpendicular to you. The reason

00:57:50.560 the swim takes as long as it does for the distance it does is you're not actually just swimming

00:57:55.700 straight. You're swimming against a current perpendicular. So it's very easy to go out and

00:58:01.280 get disqualified. Like it just means you just have to stop fighting the current. And I remember this was

00:58:05.900 the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I just wanted to quit so badly. I was like, look,

00:58:10.940 there's no shame. No one will even know, dude. It's a strong current. You got pushed out. Your

00:58:15.500 shoulder got dislocated. Like just get it over with. Now I didn't, I don't know why. I don't think I

00:58:22.440 deserve a hero cookie for not. I was like, no, I just couldn't bring myself to let, but I wanted to

00:58:28.040 so badly. And I guess that's sort of my story. That would be the answer to that question, which was,

00:58:34.400 that was the hardest thing I ever did. And by the way, I didn't feel good when I got to the shore,

00:58:39.540 you'd think I felt great. You did it. You conquered your demon. My wife to this day still

00:58:45.520 tells the story of how pissed I was when I got to that beach. She said, you got out of the water,

00:58:52.820 you walked past me. You didn't even say anything to me. You grabbed a bottle of water on the thing.

00:58:59.180 And you said, let's get the fuck out of here. Like, I mean, it was just like, again, 0.93

00:59:03.240 there was nothing beautiful or majestic about conquering my demon on that day. I mean, I just,

00:59:08.340 I was miserable. I hated every second of that. And, um, but I still remember it. I didn't perform

00:59:13.900 there. I wanted to going in. And then I was just like, it's one of these things. Like I'm starting

00:59:18.180 to blame everything. Oh, this guy kicks my shoulder. Now I'm dislocated shoulder and I'm in,

00:59:22.860 you know, I just got into this awful negative spiral. And then I fought this fight against myself

00:59:29.620 where I wanted to quit, but I couldn't quite let myself. And I knew enough to know that if you quit

00:59:34.900 now, you're going to really regret it in about an hour. That's what I was going to say. It's like,

00:59:38.760 you might've been pissed that you got kicked and didn't place where you wanted to place. But what

00:59:43.020 you knew in the back of your head is that you let yourself drift out of that thing. And that,

00:59:47.280 that moment is going to haunt you for a long, long time, despite your efforts to rationalize it,

00:59:54.200 despite your excuses that you're going to make in the blame, you're going to cast on everyone else.

00:59:57.560 You're going to know that at that moment you quit. And that you knew that in the back of your head,

01:00:05.300 that's why you swam on. You're still pissed off, but guess what? You took the lesser of two evils

01:00:11.040 because you washing out of that thing, you would have hurt more.

01:00:15.820 Have you had struggles like that where you really, really wanted to just tap out?

01:00:20.420 So I was paddling out on a giant day in ocean beach and that's not the San Francisco ocean beach.

01:00:28.380 That's the ocean beach, San Diego. I was paddling out on a big, big giant day where I was with my

01:00:34.700 best friend and we were paddling out. It was a huge giant closeout day of surfing. And I was on a

01:00:41.200 pretty big board that was hard to duck dive. And I didn't have a leash on, which means that you have

01:00:46.020 to hold that thing and get through the surf. And I paddled for a long, long time and I didn't make

01:00:51.560 it. It's the only time.

01:00:52.640 But hang on. Is that just because you physically couldn't make it happen or did you, did you quit?

01:00:58.140 Well, I mean, I didn't make it out, right? I mean, I didn't make it out. I tried for a long time

01:01:02.240 and I didn't make it out.

01:01:03.360 Okay. But that's like me saying, Jocko, I want you to fly. I want you to flap your arms really,

01:01:08.560 really hard until you get onto my roof.

01:01:11.200 Yeah. Well, whatever it was, it left me with a feeling of defeat. And I thought to myself,

01:01:16.940 well, that was pretty weak.

01:01:18.540 Yeah. But is that any different than not hitting a deadlift rep that you want to hit or a rep count

01:01:22.700 on something?

01:01:23.560 Okay. I'm not sure. I guess the reason I bring that up is because you're, when did I walk away? Well,

01:01:29.040 like I could have paddled more, I guess is what I'm saying. I mean, I could have paddled more. I

01:01:32.880 don't know if I would have made it or not. I don't wear a leash a lot. And that was one day I was

01:01:36.740 thinking, man, if I just had a leash, cause if you had a leash, you can just kind of let go of your board. You can

01:01:40.300 just dive onto the waves and you can swim out and it's fine. But when you have to haul that board

01:01:44.560 through with no rope, it's kind of a pain. And I didn't make it.

01:01:48.360 So that kind of feeds into another really interesting question, right? Which was,

01:01:52.100 does Jocko understand that others may have difficulty with things that are easy for him?

01:01:57.940 Here's the problem with that statement. The problem with that statement is, and this is something that

01:02:02.860 I've experienced with my kids and I've experienced it with other people that are in my life as well,

01:02:08.360 which is, well, it's different for you. It's like, oh, well, it's easy for you to get up early in the

01:02:14.460 morning. It's easy for you to work out every day. It's easy for you to write a thousand words cause

01:02:18.760 you're different and you're you. So I don't really like that concept of putting me in some position

01:02:25.540 where I'm some kind of superhero. Cause I'm not man. I'm not, I'm a normal human. And here's the

01:02:32.220 dichotomy. The dichotomy is I know that I'm not normal. I know that I say that, but I also know

01:02:37.460 that there's another weird thing going on because, okay, on the surface, the very initial thing,

01:02:43.260 you look at me and you think, oh, this guy's not normal. Right. Then you get to know me a little

01:02:46.500 bit and you go, yeah, you know what? This guy's pretty normal. Like he's a pretty normal guy.

01:02:50.760 The thing that is not normal is like the real, the deeper level. That's where it's not normal.

01:02:55.500 That's where it's like, yeah, I will not stop. You know what I mean? Like there's that little thing

01:02:59.460 in there, but I don't overtly run around with that because it's offensive to a lot of people.

01:03:03.660 And part of my job has been not being offensive to people and trying to be a part of a team and,

01:03:10.420 and have a team and be a good team member. And so if you're constantly rubbing things in people's

01:03:17.480 faces, that doesn't help your mission. You can't bark out your attitude on people all the time

01:03:23.180 because what you're supposed to be doing is being a part of a team. So as far as that question goes,

01:03:28.280 I know I'm not a hundred percent normal, but you know what? No one's a hundred percent normal.

01:03:31.160 My reading of that question is, I think that person is looking for, and again,

01:03:37.320 I don't even know who wrote this, but they're looking for some acknowledgement.

01:03:43.000 Have you got into the deep discussion with Sam Harris on free will?

01:03:46.360 No, we've danced around it a little bit, but I'm sure one of the reasons that we really haven't

01:03:53.180 had that discussion is because that's what he does. He talks about free will. He wrote a damn book

01:03:58.020 called free will. So we haven't really had a big discussion about it. Cause he'd say, Hey, 0.99

01:04:03.300 you don't make your own choices. And I'd say, well, watch this. Cause I'm going to make a choice

01:04:07.160 right now. And then he'd say, well, that choice was based upon your genetic makeup, the time that

01:04:11.500 you've spent on earth. And I don't know. I don't know. It's such an interesting topic, right? Of all

01:04:15.700 the things that Sam writes about and talks about, this is the one that bends my brain the most,

01:04:19.800 but here's where I am today. I still don't know if I believe in free will. I would say this.

01:04:24.000 I used to absolutely believe in free will today. I'm a free will agnostic.

01:04:31.380 Maybe I'll be a free will atheist. Actually, Sam told me when we were talking about what we were

01:04:36.840 going to talk about, I think we were going to do another podcast. We're going to do a live podcast

01:04:39.640 or something. And he said, I'd really like to talk about free will and extreme ownership.

01:04:45.500 He says, because they really align. And I was like, Hey, cool. I can talk about extreme ownership.

01:04:51.500 You can talk about free will because that way I don't have to study and go deep on that subject.

01:04:55.720 Because to me, it's like this, call it whatever you want. If I want to do something, I'll do it.

01:05:00.200 And if I don't want to do something, I won't do it. Kind of an interesting concept.

01:05:03.880 Of course. And when you come at it through that lens, which is, I bet you and I went through the

01:05:07.600 same things. Like I would come up with counter examples all the time. What's like, if you told me

01:05:12.380 to walk into a store and pick something out, I promise you, I have a choice of which thing I'm

01:05:16.800 picking out, which is an easier example than think of three movies. Tell me the first three movies that

01:05:21.400 pop into your head. Well, that one's a little harder, right? To say that you picked those three

01:05:25.520 movies. You know where I've shaken out on this? It has given me a little bit more understanding of

01:05:31.600 people that don't share my work ethic, that don't share some of the values that I have. Because I

01:05:37.680 think it used to be so hard for me to acknowledge the existence of people who didn't just want to crush

01:05:45.200 it every minute of every day. It just bugged me. Yeah.

01:05:47.900 It just bothered me. And I tried to separate it from the person, but deep down, I think I harbored

01:05:53.140 a resentment that I think has melted away significantly as a result of this.

01:05:57.280 I think that's a really good point. And I never framed it that way. But I tell people all the

01:06:02.200 time from a leadership perspective, people are the way they are. And so that basically is saying

01:06:07.000 they don't have free will, right? So I would have to agree with that. And you can have some level of

01:06:11.400 influence on it, but you've got a person on your team and they have a certain type of attitude and

01:06:15.240 you can move it a little bit to the left or to the right. You can give them a little bit of

01:06:18.640 course correction, but they're going to be that person. And the only thing that can change them

01:06:23.280 is them. So maybe that's where I'd have to push back a little bit. Because when you meet someone,

01:06:29.680 I'm sure you've known people, I've known people in my life that have radically transformed their

01:06:33.700 life. There's been a transformation that has taken place that they went from being one type of person

01:06:37.560 to being another type of person, right? Do you know people like that? I mean, you can take a person

01:06:41.740 that's an addict. This is a really obvious example and they come clean. Okay, cool. So they've made

01:06:46.460 a radical transformation in their life. That's good, but you can't impose that transformation

01:06:51.920 upon them. They have to come to that conclusion that they want to change. I was having a conversation

01:06:55.760 with a guy that I worked with in a company overseas and he was saying, hey, and this guy's made some

01:07:03.960 pretty radical transformations in his own life. He went from kind of being, he's opened up a bunch of

01:07:08.040 business. He's making a ton of money now. He's doing really well. And he was not doing that well

01:07:11.980 before. And he said, got a new business partner in this one business that I'm doing. And can I change

01:07:17.500 this guy? Can I change this guy? I realized maybe I shouldn't have partnered with him, but can I change

01:07:22.460 him? And I said, no, because these are text conversations and I'm, I said, no, no. And then he

01:07:30.900 replied, you changed me. And then I replied, you changed you. And sure, I illuminated the path,

01:07:37.640 but he's the one that decided he was going to change. And that's the same thing with his business

01:07:42.060 partners is you can't impose the change on them. You can show them the path though. And then hopefully

01:07:45.640 they make the transition. Well, maybe that's the answer to this next question that actually

01:07:49.520 dovetails nicely, even though it was asked by a different person, which is how does Jocko work with

01:07:54.680 people who have virtually the opposite mindset? So for example, make excuses, externalize, blame others,

01:08:00.700 procrastinate. How do you work with such people and get the best out of them? When you have to,

01:08:05.560 the answer is you get the best out of people that you can. And when somebody makes an excuse to me,

01:08:09.640 you know what I do? If I'm working with Peter and I say, Peter, that project didn't get done.

01:08:15.540 And I'm your boss. And Peter says, well, you know, we didn't get the funding that we were supposed to

01:08:19.400 have. And then I say, okay, you know what? That's my fault. What can we do to get you the funding? Or you

01:08:23.700 say, Hey, I didn't have the resources that I needed. Okay, well, that's my fault. Cause I didn't get you

01:08:27.760 the research or you say, well, you didn't give me enough people. And I say, okay, well then I need

01:08:32.440 to get you more people or I need to lower the scope of what you need to get done. Cause if you're

01:08:36.680 making a bunch of excuses, I'm going to own them. And by the way, that goes up and down the chain

01:08:39.520 of command. So if I'm working for you and you're not giving me what I need, that's my fault too.

01:08:45.720 And when you get people together like that, that's when people start taking ownership of everything.

01:08:50.900 And not everyone is going to like that. Some people do not like to take ownership. Like the person

01:08:54.980 that's being used here in his example is some people will never take ownership of everything

01:08:58.940 because it hurts their ego and they don't want to be blamed for everything. And so they just

01:09:01.760 would rather slough it off. And what's great about those people is they won't last inside my

01:09:05.940 organization. They'll get eaten up. They'll get consumed. And maybe you're in a communistic type

01:09:12.800 scenario or whatever. HR is not going to let you. I mean, there's all kinds of situations where you

01:09:16.540 can't get rid of the person because they don't have a good work ethic. So then what I'm going to do,

01:09:20.100 I'm going to get the best I can out of them. That's what I'm going to do. You can't fire people think,

01:09:24.000 this is different because in the SEAL teams, if someone's not doing their job, you can just get

01:09:26.580 rid of them. No, actually you can't. And if you do get rid of them, guess what you're going to get

01:09:29.460 for replacement? No one. So do you really want to get rid of someone? Do they have any value that

01:09:33.660 they can add? So that's what we're looking to do. Get the best you can out of people,

01:09:37.660 take ownership of things that they're making excuses about and get them fixed.

01:09:41.220 I mean, the extreme ownership is so disarming that I think that's part of its power, right?

01:09:45.380 Like who expects to hear that? For sure. And I'll tell you, we've been talking a lot about kids today.

01:09:50.120 One of the best things that I figured out with my kids was when they would mess something up,

01:09:54.940 instead of me saying, you didn't do your homework. It was, Hey, I got a call from your teacher.

01:10:01.740 And she said that you didn't do your homework again. I feel like I'm not even being a good dad

01:10:06.740 because here is the most important thing that you can do in your life is become smarter. And somehow I

01:10:14.140 haven't made that impression on you. And now you're missing out on simple things that are going to

01:10:18.500 improve your ability to contend with the world by being the smartest possible human you can be.

01:10:23.760 And I haven't done a good job. Is there anything that I can do that will help you realize why it's

01:10:29.800 so important that you improve your intellect at every chance possible that you get, you become

01:10:35.940 smarter because you're going to be out there in the world one day. And I'm not going to be there.

01:10:40.200 You're going to be on your own. And the only way you're going to be able to survive

01:10:42.920 is because of your brain. And right now I haven't done a good job of explaining to you that

01:10:47.580 that's the most important weapon that you have. So when you flip that on them, they realize that

01:10:52.560 instead of going into your homework, what's wrong with you? Guess what they're doing?

01:10:55.400 They're blaming their teacher. They're blaming you. They're blaming everyone else.

01:10:58.740 But if you take ownership, they'll take ownership.

01:11:00.980 Okay. Here's an actually an awesome question. I would have never thought to have asked you this.

01:11:04.380 I'll read it in its entirety and let you answer. I really want to know if he indulges ever

01:11:09.800 specifically, does he drink alcohol? And if he does, how often, what kind? It's always overlooked in all

01:11:17.480 of the interviews done by Tim, you and others. I'm surprised. No, I don't drink alcohol.

01:11:22.200 Okay. I don't think I knew that actually. I've never been with you drinking. So I,

01:11:25.400 but I didn't know that, is that a decided policy? Like did you decide at some point in life,

01:11:28.940 I'm not drinking at all? When I retired from the Navy, I stopped drinking. I didn't even think about

01:11:33.180 it. I retired from the Navy. All of a sudden I wasn't hanging around with a bunch of my friends

01:11:36.320 anymore. All of a sudden we weren't in random cities out there, out for dinner and hanging out

01:11:42.020 and doing that. And then I looked up in a month and I looked up in two months and I looked up in

01:11:46.540 three months and I'd had a beer here and there. And that was that. So now I just don't drink at

01:11:51.480 all. So now is policy. Like if you're at dinner and there's a glass of wine being poured, you're

01:11:55.480 not going to have a glass of wine. No. What is your biggest indulgence then? Let's start with food.

01:11:59.380 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a big list. Like I really like chocolate, dark chocolate.

01:12:03.780 What percentage is the sweet spot for you? Well, when you say sweet spot, which is optimum

01:12:07.820 for nutrition and health? No, no, no, no. Optimum for indulgence. 0.99

01:12:13.160 72%. Okay. 72%. And I lied to myself and like, you know, that's still dark chocolate. We know it's

01:12:18.200 not. And the way you can tell, the way I can tell when something is the right level of darkness is when

01:12:23.840 it tastes good, but you don't want more. When you get a good, for me, 82 squares of 80 to 85%,

01:12:29.520 and I'm satisfied and I don't even want any more. 72%, I want that whole bar and the box that the bar

01:12:36.320 came in. Dude, that is, that is a perfect metric for life. I completely agree with you, by the way,

01:12:44.240 you throw me a box of milk chocolate. I can eat all of it. Yes. A hundred. It's just too dark. There's

01:12:50.520 no pleasure in it. Right. But sort of that 85 to 90 for me, it's four squares, but four squares of that

01:12:58.160 with like a decaf espresso with dinner is like, yeah, you don't need to eat the whole thing. You could

01:13:04.060 nurse that bar for a week besides chocolate. What's a true indulgence, meaning something that

01:13:09.120 is just patently not great for you in large quantities. Oh, just name foods. Come on. It's

01:13:15.260 weird. Cause I really love steak a lot and that's by far my favorite food and steak and chicken and

01:13:22.400 pork. And so it's fine. But yeah, I mean, I love freaking normal stuff that people love. Mint

01:13:27.520 chocolate chip milkshakes used to be a real, like I would be stoked and I would earn them.

01:13:33.780 I would do something crazy and I'd be like, you deserve it. And then I ended up making a supplement

01:13:39.520 that's equivalent, right? It's equivalent to a mint chocolate chip milkshake. It's, I made that. And

01:13:46.240 then once I made that now there's no reason to, which is, which is a crazy thought, but yeah.

01:13:50.760 The supplement is like a sports powder.

01:13:52.080 Yeah. Yeah. It's called Mulk. M O with an umlaut L K. And the reason it's called Mulk, 0.93

01:13:58.100 I made up that word. Cause when I tasted it, when I got it right, I was like, this is,

01:14:02.540 this needs its own word. You mix it with milk or water with milk. Yeah. I mix it with milk.

01:14:06.940 I'm going to order some with water. I describe it like this with water. It kind of tastes like a

01:14:11.480 ham sandwich. Like it's good, but it's not enough to like really get excited about. It's fine.

01:14:17.480 But you could do it with like, I love cashew milk is my favorite type of milk.

01:14:20.420 Yeah. Cause it's fatty enough. Yes. Cashew milk, coconut milk, regular milk.

01:14:25.180 What's the sweetener you use in it? Monk fruit. Oh, great. Big fan of the monk. Yeah,

01:14:29.260 no, it's, that's the game changer. As far as I can tell, that's the game changer. And the other

01:14:33.180 important thing is don't overlook allulose for next additions. Okay. So allulose actually just

01:14:38.960 approved by the FDA two days ago in its citizen petition to have the FDA correctly acknowledge it for

01:14:46.540 what it is. So allulose is an enantomer of fructose, meaning it is something that has the

01:14:52.500 same chemical nomenclature as fructose, but it has one different position of a bond. It's about 70%

01:14:58.480 the sweetness of fructose, which is still to say it's sweet, but most importantly are two things.

01:15:03.300 One, it has the exact same flavor esque and mouth feel as sugar, but here's the best part. It's not

01:15:10.740 absorbed. It's excreted by the kidneys. So for every four grams you ingest only for every gram,

01:15:18.920 I'm sorry, you're only getting like one 10th of the absorption. So if that's not good enough,

01:15:24.380 the other property is it seems to drag glucose out with it. So when you consume allulose, like for

01:15:29.560 example, I have a bunch of it here. Let's say I had a tea or a coffee and you put allulose in it,

01:15:33.700 it would lower your blood sugar. That's impressive.

01:15:35.720 Cause it's dragging glucose out with it and doing so not into your gut where you get

01:15:41.020 gastrointestinal distress, but actually into your kidneys. So yeah, so it's really interesting.

01:15:45.660 And for up until two days ago, the FDA was basically calling it basically an added sugar.

01:15:51.400 So you weren't getting the quote unquote credit for it. So manufacturers weren't using it much

01:15:55.660 cause it showed up looking like sugar. So quest I think was one of the first companies to work with

01:16:00.220 this. It has a couple of quirks to it. For example, it gets colored easily. It browns

01:16:05.600 quite easily. So if you're making like a white bar, you couldn't use it. And then I think no

01:16:10.400 foods is using it. So anyway, I just saw this two days ago. So that's something to consider,

01:16:14.240 but monk fruit. Yeah. It's probably one of my favorite of the alcohol sugars.

01:16:17.340 And it's the one that tastes ridiculously good.

01:16:21.300 Yeah. Metabolically quite inert, but, uh, I'm not a monk and we're talking about monk fruit,

01:16:25.860 but for that person, you know, I'm not a monk. I'm a human. I'm a normal person. I like

01:16:30.200 to eat crap sometimes. What you eat typically how many meals a day? Between zero and two. 0.98

01:16:39.980 You're not a breakfast guy. Nope. So you're a lunch dinner or a dinner. Yeah. Mostly. Yeah.

01:16:44.580 What was the longest you ever went without food in combat or in training? I don't know. Probably a

01:16:49.300 few days. And then what about these days now? How often do you fast? Probably once or twice a week.

01:16:54.800 And then you mean you'll just skip a day once or twice a week? Yeah. Yeah. And then once a quarter

01:17:01.040 I'll do 72. And I know I owe more than 72 at some point in the near future. So I'll be getting some

01:17:07.100 of that. It's really not that big of a deal. I feel fine. I feel totally normal. I feel better.

01:17:13.240 You know, everyone says they feel better. You do feel better. You do feel better. I don't always feel

01:17:17.420 better. You know, my last fast, I did not feel good for the first three days. Really? Yeah. I really

01:17:21.900 didn't. I've gone back and looked and tried to figure out what did I do different? Was there

01:17:25.300 something else going on? I can't come up with what it was, but I definitely did not feel

01:17:29.480 good for three days. And then by the fourth day, I did turn the corner. It was a bit humbling

01:17:35.460 because I, at this point in the game, I feel like I'm kind of a fasting jock. Like it should

01:17:41.020 always be, it should always be easy and stuff. I still slept really well. So I feel fortunate

01:17:47.480 that I using Kirk supplement plus phosphatidylserine. I have the deepest, richest, most intense,

01:17:53.620 beautiful sleep imaginable when I'm fasting. And for that, I feel grateful because I know

01:17:57.980 for a lot of people, it's really hard. Meditation feels so much better. Like a lot of things do

01:18:02.320 get better, but the hunger was unusual and the sort of sluggishness, not in my workouts.

01:18:08.560 My workouts actually felt good, but it was just like the kind of ass dragging throughout the

01:18:12.700 rest of the day that was frustrating. I really don't know what it was though.

01:18:15.980 So I'll be back to it again in a few months. How often are you doing them right now?

01:18:20.180 I do quarterly. Quarterly five days? Five to seven, just depending on how long I'm in New

01:18:24.320 York for the given week. I don't fast here. I find it just, I don't want to do it around

01:18:27.840 the kids and stuff. So yeah, it's like, I aim for seven. I usually try to do the Sunday to

01:18:31.860 the following Saturday if the trip is accommodates it, but five at a minimum. I think there's benefit

01:18:36.460 at three. I really do. I think three is a, is a real tipping point in terms of glycogen

01:18:41.500 release. Yeah. That's kind of what I'm hearing is that three is like kind of the starting

01:18:45.060 point for their real benefits. So I've been slacking.

01:18:48.460 Yeah. But if you can get to three and feel good, you're really going to have an easy time

01:18:53.000 getting to five. At the end of three, I'm not, I can't wait. No, I'm just sort of whatever.

01:18:57.760 In fact, the first time I did, I remember I was at jujitsu and I'd squatted that day.

01:19:01.800 I did my complete normal workout, showed up at jujitsu and I was like, oh, this is going

01:19:04.960 to hit me. And I was training with one of my main training partners. And I was like, I'm

01:19:09.340 going to tell you something when we're done training. And so we trained and, and this is

01:19:13.020 a guy that I usually do better than, but I've been training longer than him. So I'm

01:19:16.800 just a little bit better than him. And that's the way the role went. We trained and I was

01:19:20.420 a little bit better than him, like normal. And we got done and, and he was like, what

01:19:24.520 were you going to tell me? I was like, that I haven't eaten for three days. Cause I didn't

01:19:27.380 want him to get the mental advantage thinking like, oh, if he isn't eating, he's going to

01:19:30.200 be trained. I didn't want him to have that. So I didn't give it to him or could have

01:19:33.580 backfired, which is a minute in, he feels like he doesn't have anything over you. He's

01:19:38.560 totally demoralized. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That seemed

01:19:41.380 like a bigger risk to take psychologically than him thinking, oh, he's not eating. So

01:19:47.900 I'm feeling good and I'm going to smash him. I'm going to go extra. Cause when people just 0.98

01:19:51.620 like in combat, just like in life, if someone thinks they have an upper hand and they get

01:19:55.720 a little bit confident and then they, they can kind of dictate the situation a little

01:19:59.360 bit more than they normally would. And this is the type of individual that when I train

01:20:03.680 with him, if he tries to dictate that, then it can be a little bit problematic for me.

01:20:08.900 Again, I've been training longer, so it's not a total game changer, but it'll make things

01:20:14.320 more difficult than they should be. So I would rather have him thinking he's on some new supplement

01:20:21.060 or he's got a new move that he's going to try on me or something like that. I want him to

01:20:24.600 be in that mindset where he's mentally defensive. And then when it was over, I told him, you know,

01:20:30.120 said no factor. I love when my patients fast, because I love how empowering it is to them.

01:20:36.160 I think the first time somebody gets through a fast, whether it's a modified fast or a outright

01:20:41.440 water fast, it's like, even if it's tough, which, you know, for many people, that first

01:20:46.980 one is actually quite tough. They realize like they did it. They did it. They did this thing,

01:20:52.500 man. They're a little more in touch with our ancestors. Like you did something that you were

01:20:57.960 genetically equipped to do. You know, my kids wrestle and my daughter, my son were in high

01:21:02.760 school right now and their season was this last season. But I remember my daughter was cutting

01:21:06.960 some weight and you were talking about how to my kids, I'm not Jocko, I'm just dad. Well,

01:21:12.520 occasionally they'll let it slip out that they're either listening to my podcast or they're reading

01:21:17.540 my books or something like that. And so one of the things that my daughter told me was she had to

01:21:23.100 cut a decent amount of weight. And she's like, yeah, I haven't eaten in 36 hours. And I was like,

01:21:27.820 how do you feel? She's like, I feel fine. And then she says, she's like, you know, you said in your

01:21:31.940 book, human beings can go 30 days without food. Like you can make it 36 hours. Do not worry. You're

01:21:38.640 not going to die. It's totally ridiculous. And so she had the attitude like, Hey, oh my God, 1.00

01:21:43.840 a three day fast or a two day of 24 hours. Like it's a joke. You're going to be fine. It's really

01:21:49.700 no factor. Well, speaking of daughters, I see mine walking around out there. Hovering. Hovering.

01:21:58.600 Well, I lost her now, but I saw her like two minutes ago. So she can't be that far. So I'm

01:22:02.460 going to go and get her because of all the questions on her list, we have got through all of them, but

01:22:07.540 two. And I can think of nothing better than bringing her in. Let's do it. All right. I'll be

01:22:12.240 right back. You need to say who you are first. My name is Olivia Tia and I'm Peter. She is

01:22:19.680 daughter. Awesome. What made you want to start being more disciplined? What made me start to

01:22:25.420 want to be more disciplined? One of the main things was when I first got to the SEAL teams,

01:22:33.680 I noticed that the people that were really good at their job, the people that were SEALs that I looked

01:22:42.720 at and said, wow, I want to be like that guy. I realized that what they were doing is they were

01:22:48.980 getting to work early. They were taking care of their gear. They were putting forth effort that

01:22:54.500 other people weren't putting forth. They had discipline and that was making them better.

01:22:59.780 And the more disciplined they were and the better they did their job, the more latitude they had to do

01:23:08.540 what they wanted to do. So that was kind of the first connection that I made with discipline,

01:23:14.180 making you better and being better, giving you more freedom in everything that you did.

01:23:19.240 Because when I was a kid, I was kind of a crazy kid and I wasn't always the best behaved kid.

01:23:25.940 And sometimes the things that I would do, they would backfire on me. And so when I got older,

01:23:30.660 I realized, wait a second, instead of doing things that are going to backfire on me,

01:23:34.240 I'm actually going to try and do a good job and have more discipline. And that's kind of where

01:23:39.000 it stemmed from.

01:23:40.880 Oh. Describe what you do during your workouts and what kind of healthy food you eat.

01:23:45.460 I do a whole bunch of different things when I work out, but I think they're all kind of the

01:23:50.560 common exercises that everyone does. Push-ups, pull-ups, dips. And then I use weights. I use kettlebells.

01:23:58.200 I do deadlifts. I do, obviously I do squats because everyone, everyone does squats because squats are

01:24:04.080 beautiful. And overhead squats, front squats, back squats. I do all those different kinds of squats.

01:24:10.560 I like to sprint. I have a rowing machine. I have a air cycle. I do a lot of burpees.

01:24:17.280 It's kind of like there's no secret exercise that I do that's different than what normal people that

01:24:23.160 work out do.

01:24:24.300 Oh. So how did you get the nickname Jocko?

01:24:26.960 Okay. So my real name is John and my dad's name is John. And so I was named after my dad. So when

01:24:36.780 you have multiple people in the household with the same name, that can be confusing because, well,

01:24:43.420 when every time someone says John, then you've got two people turning their head. So when that happens,

01:24:47.300 it's pretty common for the son to get a nickname. And so my dad wanted me to be a Jock. Do you know

01:24:54.600 what a Jock is? 0.97

01:24:55.300 Yes. Like athlete.

01:24:56.660 Yes. Someone that's all into sports.

01:24:58.120 Yes.

01:24:58.440 But my dad was very into sports and he wanted me to be a Jock. Have you ever heard of a magazine

01:25:03.680 called Sports Illustrated?

01:25:05.060 Yes.

01:25:05.640 So my dad, when they found out I was going to be a boy, he covered my whole room with the cover

01:25:11.500 of Sports Illustrated because he wanted me to be a Jock. Now, on top of that, my dad is named

01:25:18.840 after his uncle and his uncle's name is John and his last name was Oglethorpe. But everyone called

01:25:27.860 his uncle, they called him John O. John O. So when my dad was born, my dad was named John

01:25:34.980 and they called him John O. That's what they called him. And then when I was born, or actually

01:25:42.900 it was just before I was born, my dad said to my mom, I hope he's a Jock. And my mom 0.75

01:25:49.300 said, Jocko. And that's how they came up with my nickname and it stuck.

01:25:53.640 That's smart.

01:25:55.200 About Face?

01:25:56.600 About Face is a book. It's a note that your dad wrote down. It's my favorite book. Yeah.

01:26:00.960 What's your favorite book?

01:26:02.100 Way of the Warrior Kid.

01:26:04.280 Did I pay you to say that?

01:26:05.820 Yeah. No. I just read that last night.

01:26:07.820 Did you read it for the first time last night?

01:26:09.060 No. Probably the 10th.

01:26:10.120 Oh, really? The first one? The second one?

01:26:11.960 I've read the first one.

01:26:13.280 Okay. Do you have the second one?

01:26:14.760 No.

01:26:15.320 Oh, I can't believe I didn't bring that. I can't believe that. And the third one is coming

01:26:19.840 out soon.

01:26:20.580 Oh.

01:26:20.940 I'll get you that one as well.

01:26:22.040 Yeah, I need to get my hands on some of these.

01:26:23.720 What did you learn from Way of the Warrior Kid?

01:26:25.700 What I learned is that the kid, Mark, he wasn't very disciplined in the beginning, but then

01:26:32.040 he got to training and he learned to eating right and he learned how to be disciplined. And

01:26:36.500 then he had more success in school and he was better at all of these things.

01:26:41.420 Yeah. It's a big key to life.

01:26:43.820 Yeah.

01:26:44.120 People to this day say what they want to know what the secret is. And I always kind of say

01:26:47.700 that the best advice I can give someone is have discipline because then you'll end up

01:26:51.360 with more freedom.

01:26:52.240 Mm-hmm.

01:26:52.740 I saw that video where it was like a joke and you said, if you had trouble sticking to

01:26:57.480 your morning routine, get up.

01:26:59.640 Oh, yeah. When I was doing my fake yoga meditation thing, that was pretty funny. When that happened,

01:27:06.580 I was in the studio with these people from CNBC. And I'm in there and they're asking me a bunch

01:27:14.480 of questions. They don't want me to do stuff. And finally, this one girl says, hey, how do

01:27:20.300 you wake up at 4.30 in the morning? And I said, oh, when I wake up, the alarm goes off

01:27:23.660 and I get out of bed. And she says, no, but, and then she kind of like toots like that.

01:27:27.960 You know what a toot is? Like, she goes, you know, my editor really wants to hear more

01:27:33.100 detail about that. And then I decided to have some fun with it because the reality is, what

01:27:40.120 do you do? If you want to get up early, set your alarm. And when the alarm goes off, get

01:27:43.200 out of bed. That's the way a lot of things are. Your dad and I were just talking and

01:27:46.640 your dad says something along the lines of, well, you know, what about if there's something

01:27:50.560 that you want to do, but you know, you don't really want to do it. And I was like, well,

01:27:53.440 if you want to do it, then do it. I think that's the best policy.

01:27:58.400 Yeah. Thank you.

01:27:59.540 Thank you. Thanks for the good questions.

01:28:01.620 Well, my friend, thank you so much. This was so much fun. It's amazing how quickly time

01:28:06.560 can go by. And yet there's so many things that we didn't get to talk about that I know

01:28:11.220 we'll continue to talk about, but I appreciate what you're doing. I really, I really do.

01:28:16.340 And it's so fun to watch you interact with Olivia. I know that, uh, half of the interactions,

01:28:21.740 the really fun interactions actually have just taken place off Mike, you know, it's, uh,

01:28:26.900 you are kind of like a superhero to these kids, I think. And with great power comes great

01:28:31.140 responsibility. It's my favorite line from the whole Spider-Man movie, right? I think

01:28:35.040 you've seen things that most of us will never see, fortunately. And again, I don't want to

01:28:41.360 get into the, whether it's free will or not free will or how much of this you can take

01:28:44.700 credit for or not. But the point is a lot of people come back from what you've been through

01:28:49.880 and they're worse for it. And I think not only are you better for it, but more importantly,

01:28:54.620 you've sort of figured out a way to share it with a lot of people. And I feel grateful

01:28:58.000 to be one of them.

01:28:58.700 Well, I appreciate it. I can definitely tell you for what you just said, there's a lot

01:29:02.320 of people that are scared of what war does to people. And they think that war has a massively

01:29:06.740 negative impact on people. And I can tell you without a doubt, I'm grateful that I had

01:29:12.060 the opportunity to serve. I'm grateful and unbelievably humbled that I had the opportunity

01:29:17.240 to serve with the guys that I serve with and fight alongside them on the battlefield. And

01:29:21.840 I know that it's made me better being around people like that, seeing what real sacrifice

01:29:28.500 is. And it's an honor to be sitting here. And quite frankly, when I hear a little girl

01:29:35.260 like Olivia, she's on the path. And just the fact that conversation right there means so

01:29:42.420 much to me and it feels so good. And I'll be thinking about that for a long time. And

01:29:47.380 it's awesome. And I'm super happy and stoked that I get to do this. And again, I wouldn't

01:29:53.820 be here if it wasn't for other guys that put down their life, gave their life to give someone

01:30:03.460 like me a knucklehead, this gift and the opportunity to be here. So I'm happy to be

01:30:09.520 here. I'm thankful that I'm here and I appreciate you having me on. And thanks for doing what

01:30:13.800 you do, man.

01:30:16.700 You can find all of this information and more at peteratiamd.com forward slash podcast.

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The Peter Attia Drive - June 03, 2019

#56 - Jocko Willink, retired Navy SEAL, Part II of II： Sleep, fasting, raising kids, discipline, taking ownership, and the impact of war

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