Jocko Willink - Parenting, Apex Kid Myth, Failure, & Leadership

People feel that the kids are a reflection of them and so people feel like, oh well if my kid isn't the apex child then I must be not an apex parent. I think there is nurture involved but your kids are going to be kind of who they're going to be. I wonder if there are certain mistakes that you think kids have to make to be able to grow strong. Kids are just different. They want to compete every single thing, every game they want to win. I think it is a lot of nature but there is some nurture that comes into it but I don't think it's just us as parents. It's whatever's going to occur in their lives makes all kinds of little tiny adjustments. Do you think that they are meant to do something? Do you think there's a Dharma that this is their path? Let them do all kinds of stuff and then they're going to kind of gravitate. At some point you don't want to just pave the road for your kids. You want to have them have to work to get down that road and look life will do it to them. It doesn't matter what you do as a parent. Are there traits that you hope that say one of your daughters inherits? All the common traits that everybody would want their kids to have, I would want my kids to have but then you also don't want these traits taken to the extreme. If you take any trait to an extreme it will become a negative. I guess if there's one thing I would want my kids to be is... Jaco, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. You are known for leadership. I wanted to let you know. But when we think about leadership I think a lot of people don't also think about parenting and I'm raising two little kids. There's one who just interviewed you. He's four. Leonidas, by the way. The idea of leadership and parenthood. How does that play out? They're actually very similar and I think a lot of people overlook it and they don't see the similarities but they are so similar. And the only real huge difference is that it's very difficult to emotionally detach properly from your kids because if you're my employee and you do something terribly wrong, I can just fire you. Or if you're not performing the way I need you to perform and I've counseled you and I've gone through all the steps like I can fire you. There's ways, it's not a permanent relationship. But with your kid you feel like, you can't get rid of them, you can't fire them. And the other thing is people feel that their kids are a reflection of them and so people feel like, oh well if my kid isn't the apex child then I must be not an apex parent and therefore I'm a bad person. Where the reality is kids are going to be all over the map. And I've known people growing up where there was incredibly awesome parents by every metric and they would have three kids and two of the kids would turn out to be awesome kids with great jobs and great careers and one kid would go completely off the rails and be a drug addict. And perhaps you've seen that as well. So I think people get so invested in their kids as being a representation of themselves and I think that's something you have to watch out for. And you see it, if you go to a kid's soccer game or a kid's jujitsu tournament or a kid's wrestling tournament and the parents are living vicariously through the kids, you go complete the dreams that I wasn't able to complete. And so I think you've got to be a little bit careful of that. But essentially all the principles that we teach about leadership, they definitely apply to your kids. For instance, let your kids come up with a plan. Instead of me coming up with a plan, let your kid not look when your kid's four, they can only do so much planning. But if you can, instead of saying hey you need to clean your room right now, you say hey, sometime today can you get your room cleaned? And you let them figure out when they're going to do it and that kind of gives them, it empowers them, makes them feel like they have more control because they do have more control. You're actually giving them to them and it's giving them responsibility and that's also important as well. So there's the parallels all over the place. The only thing, the biggest difference is we just get it more emotional about our family. We, because of those things, because we can't get rid of them and we think that the way they are as human beings reflects on us as parents. And look, is there some level of truth to that? Of course. There's a level of truth to the way that you raise your kids, your kids are going to go out in the world and there will be some reflection of it. So we just have to be careful that we don't overindex on that. You know, it makes me think about nature versus nurture. You hear a lot about, oh no, it's mostly nurture. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if it's either. I think there is nurture involved, but you can, your kids are going to be kind of who they're going to be. And this is, you know, what I was teaching, I used to teach a lot of kids jujitsu and there's just some kids that, kids are just different. And there will be some kids that they want to compete, they want to, they want to compete every single thing, every game they want to win. This is a five or six year old kid. And by the way, their parents might be total like lazy people and the kid is just this old driven kid. And then you get some other kid comes in there, doesn't want to do anything, doesn't really want to pay attention, doesn't want to, you know, and they just, it's not that they just don't want to do jujitsu, they don't really want to do anything. Like no matter what game you put out there, they don't care. So I think it is a lot of nature, but there is some nurture that comes into it. But I don't think it's just us as parents. It's whatever's, whatever's going to occur to them in their lives makes all kinds of little tiny adjustments in people. And also I think people, they think that the trajectory of their kid is a lot more impacted by little moments in their lives. And what I mean by that is, you know, someone will say, you know, my kid quit jujitsu, my kid doesn't want to change jujitsu. And they think that their life is ruined, right? That means he's never going to be able to defend himself. It means he's a quitter. Like they'll put all these labels on their own kid. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter. The kid will start training next year, or maybe the kid's going to do wrestling and stuff, or maybe he's going to be a boxer, or maybe he's going to be a swimmer, or whatever. But it's not, it doesn't really matter that much. And people think that this little change in the course of a kid is like this permanent thing with their kid. And it's just not that way. My son had a friend who I brought to jujitsu when he was five years old. He hated it. I brought him to jujitsu at six years old. He hated it. I brought him to jujitsu at seven years old. He hated it. And I think it was like eight or nine years old. He got totally into jujitsu. He's good to go. But you just have to recognize that kids are going to, they're going to be all over the place. They're, they're a little scatterbrains and they're going to, and they're going to try different things. And you want them to, you want them to go out there and experiment and try different sports, different music, different musical instruments, just, you know, painting, art, writing, whatever your kid, just get, let them do all kinds of stuff. And then they're going to kind of gravitate at some point, probably because of their nature, more than their nurture to some particular thing. And that's what they're going to be into. We hope. We hope so. Yes. You do. You, I think that is, and it's actually a friend of mine that, you know, we all had kids growing up together. And he always said, is I just want my kid to be into something, right? And let's look, I guess something positive, right? But whether it's music, sports, school, if they're into something, and I agree with this, if they're really into something, it will just kind of all the, all the rest of their life will just kind of fall into line, whether they're really into soccer, and they'll kind of, their life will fall in line, or they're really into basketball, they're really into skateboarding, or whatever they get into. It kind of pulls the rest of your, your life in line, because when you get into something, you learn how to practice that thing, you learn how to work hard at that thing, you learn how to interact with other people that do that thing. So finding something that kids are into, I think is, they can get one thing that they're into, I think you're pretty stoked. You know, we both have kids, and it, you know, I think about my daughter, and I wonder if there are certain mistakes that you think kids have to make to be able to grow strong. Oh yeah, you definitely, you want your kids to brush up against the guardrails of failure. I say that all the time, like they're driving down a road, you want that road to be pretty wide, and occasionally they're going to hit the guardrails, and they might get a little bit dinged up. And actually they're going to get stronger and better for that. So yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to just pave the road for your kids, you want to have them have to work to get down that road. And look, life will do it to them. It doesn't matter what you do as a parent, they're going to, even if you pave that whole road for them, they will find a way to get off that road and cause issues for themselves that they're going to have to work through. So they'll figure out a way to get themselves in trouble. This might be kind of a weird question, but do you think that they are meant to do something? You know, I know when you talk about being a commando was the only thing that you could imagine. I see a bit of that in my son who's foreign is training. Do you think there's a, I don't know the best way to say this, but like a Dharma that this is their path? Probably. Yeah, and I think it's just as if we were, you know, horses and some horses are big and strong and they're meant to, to, you know, drag lumber through the woods and that's what they're going to go do. And other horses are slender and fast and they're going to go on the racetrack and same thing in a seal tune, like you get certain guys and they're a big strong guy. He's probably going to be a machine gunner, right? Oh, a smaller slender nimble guy. He's probably going to be a point man. The guy with the brain, he's going to be a radio man. Like they have these little stereotypes. What about the medics? I just asking for a friend. Yeah, medics usually just twisted people that like to cause other people pain, sadistic people. I know one of those. Yeah, exactly. Are there treats, are there treats that you, and I'm talking about daughters. I love Rana, you know, she ran and came and spoke at the event that we had last year, which was epic. She was on a panel with Danica Patrick, another, a really dear sister of mine. Are there traits that you hope that say one of your daughters inherits? Are there traits that you hope she never needs? Yeah, I think all the, all the common traits that everybody would want their kids to have. I would want my kids to have, but then you also don't want these traits taken to the extreme. So whatever that trait is. Isn't that interesting though? Because after to pause you, I would say that you have traits that take you to an extreme, which have allowed you to be phenomenal at your job. Yeah, maybe, but they're probably not quite as extreme as you think they are. They're probably a lot more, a lot, a lot softer than you think they are, or maybe not softer, but they're probably not quite as extreme as you think they are. I mean, I wrote a whole book called the dichotomy of leadership, which was about the fact that if you take any trait to an extreme, it will become a negative. So even, you know, I guess we have the Discipline Eagles Freedom Field Manual sitting back there. If you take discipline to an extreme where, and you know, I think my daughter, Rana has talked about this, she talked about it on my podcast. You know, she was cutting weight all through high school, very body conscious. She went to college for nutrition science, and she was taking a class on cooking, right? You have to take a class on cooking, and throughout the entire semester, they're cooking these amazing meals. And, you know, just incredible meals. They would spend time, and they would get done with a meal, and she, for the whole semester, didn't eat one bite of any of the meals that she made. And in her mind, she was like, I am just so disciplined. And then she realized there's something wrong with this. Like, she's not, she's too focused. She's too disciplined on this stuff. So I think any trait, if you take it to an extreme, it becomes problematic. You know, and even when I give this example to people, I say like being generous, right? Being generous is such a great quality to have. But can I go too far? Oh yeah, absolutely. You meet people in life that have been so generous that they've been a victim, and they've been taken advantage of. So every trait, I guess if there's one thing I would want my kids to be, is balanced. I actually didn't expect that answer at all. I would want my kids to be balanced and not to be extreme with any one of their traits, because I think they become problematic. 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With the smooth boost from Perfect Amino's pre-workout, you won't have to navigate the frustrations of a jittery workout, which by the way, too much caffeine can cause, or a lethargic one. Avoid chasing a quick fix for a lack of intensity and start building energy at the source. If you're ready to train hard and recover like it matters, because, my friends, it does, don't just get through your workout. Fuel it. If you're interested in trying body health pre-workout, which I highly recommend, go to bodyhealth.com and use the code LION20 to get 20% off your first order. This is an interesting one. And this question is, as I just think about, you know, as a parent, it's an interesting landscape. This idea of leadership and developing and helping raise adults. What do you think a daughter should learn about men from you, both good and bad? I think that your daughter is going to pay attention the way that you let me. I think my daughter's paid attention the way I treat my wife, you know? And so I think that they should see, oh, this is how I should probably be treated when I'm interacting with a man. I would say that's probably the main thing. And, yeah, that and a good rear naked joke and arm walk. I mean, especially nowadays, right? You know, because facing fear, and we do, we're in a totally different landscape. And by the way, don't take this the wrong way. My first choice for the podcast guest was actually Helen. Yeah, yeah. But I said, I'll settle for you instead. Yeah, no, I actually I said to her, hey, you should come and watch and maybe you could, you know, provide some kind of she's said, I'm not going, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. Yeah, the fear thing, you know, I was, I was interviewing a guy a little while ago and we were just talking about the fact that I, if you ask a guy when the last time he was afraid, he's going to be now. Oh, you know, one time, oh, I was doing a static line jump and my, you know, it's going to be, they're going to have to think about it. And it's going to be probably years, probably years. And if you ask a female, when's the last time she was afraid, they're not going to have to think about it very long. And it's going to be probably within the last month where the car broke down, walking out of a store, whatever that thing is. But yeah, right. It's a totally different, it's a totally different mindset that you have to have, for sure. Do you think that there's different frameworks for each? Yeah, I can tell you right now with my son, when he was, he was like a rogue child that was just out doing whatever 24 hours a day, he would leave on his skateboard or on his bicycle or on foot and just go with his buddies at eight, nine, 10 years old, seven years old, eight years old, nine years old, gone. And my daughter's over and all that through that. Like, it was like, okay, where are you going to be? Who's going with you? It was totally different. Yeah. Do you think it's just a protective mechanism? Yeah, I think it's a protective mechanism. And I think probably, you know, we, you would imagine like a young girl is going to have a much higher probability of being victimized than a young boy. Maybe that's not totally accurate, but in my mind, that's definitely the way it seemed. What about trust? Trust, you know, we have to or hope to trust our kids. If they break that trust, we learn to trust them again, but an employee and I've heard. So you remember Desmond, O'Neill and Evie, former Secret Service and I always think about the statement that they said, and this was that good people can do bad things. And, you know, I think oftentimes we think good and bad is very black and white, but if someone close to you, let's just say one of your buddies on echelon front did something that made you really question their, your trust for them. Do you think that's something that can ever be rebuilt? Yeah, it can be rebuilt over time. But I mean, obviously it depends on the violation that was made. There's some people that are going to make violations. There's, hey, like that's, you can't do this anymore. Like you can't, you're not going to, we're not going to interact anymore. But most of the time, you know, people, good people, good people will make, what'd you say, good people do bad things? Yeah, good people can do bad things. People will make mistakes and do some things that may not be completely good, but good people don't do things that are off the rails like bad. So I think there's a big, there's a big delta between those two. There's like a difference between an error and judgment and what was your intent and I was trying to get this thing done and overall it was a bad call, but you can kind of understand why someone did it. Yeah, but there's also people that just do bad things and we're not hanging around with people that are just out there doing bad things. But over time, you can rebuild trust and this is something you go through over and over again in the SEAL teams because you get a guy that shows up and he's promoted into a job that he's never done before. And he doesn't really know how to do the job because he's never done it before, which is what everyone in SEAL teams goes through. And so then you give them a little bit of responsibility and you see how they handle it and that builds trust. And if they do well, you give them a little bit more and if they do well, you give them a little bit more and pretty soon they're taking your job. Hopefully they're taking your job. That's what you want. And occasionally they do something, oh, well, bad judgment made a mistake. How do we correct them? How do we train them so that they don't make that mistake anymore? And it'll be the same thing with your kids. And I had really high trust with my kids. I was always surprised people like we didn't have a curfew. It was come home whenever you get done with whatever you're doing and don't do anything stupid. And that was really, really effective for me and my kids. And I know there's not a uniform way to parent, but I think that the way that my kids interacted with me growing up, and I gave them a lot of trust growing up to do things and step out of the world and build my trust with them. And they trusted me as well. My kids would come and tell me when another kid did something that was wrong, when they made a mistake, they would come and tell me. And so I think, and then when they would tell me something, I wouldn't, you know, say, you can never talk to that kid again. No, I'd say, oh, well, how do you think that's going to turn out for them? And we would have conversations and they would then trust to tell me what's happening in their world, which I think is a good thing. How did you open those lines of communication? And do you think that that's something that's very intentional for not just the kids, but also as people listen to you and look to you for leadership, there's a bridge of communication because everybody communicates differently. Do you think a lot about how to open that line so that your kids come and tell you that? Yeah, this is the same thing with adults, whatever, parents, whoever you're interacting with in life. You, when people think about opening the lines of communication, they think about what they're going to say. And the reality is what you need to do is listen and listen to what people say. And not just listen and hear their words, but actually engage with what they're saying and allow what they're saying to become part of your, become part of who you are. And so, you know, your kids are going to, you know, my, you were talking about Rana, I don't know, to make them, to mean to make this whole podcast about Rana. We love you, Rana. Yeah, but Rana, you know, she's, she's somewhat in the public light, right? She's a competitive jujitsu player, but she wanted to do cheerleading. And I didn't really, and I'm glad she did it, but at the time I didn't really understand cheerleading. Cheerleading is a great sport. There's, she was a competitive cheerleader. And I don't know if you've ever seen that before, but they, it's gymnastics. It's like synchronized team gymnastics. That's what it is. They don't call it that. They call it cheerleading. It is, gymnastics is awesome and synchronized team gymnastics is awesome, but they call it cheerleading. And me being dumb, I thought cheerleading was like pom-poms and, you know, cheering for the football team or whatever. I didn't really like the idea of cheerleading. And so what do you do? Right? Do you stop her from doing cheerleading? No, you don't. And as a matter of fact, you know, one of my neighbors whose daughter was also doing cheerleading and he said, so you're letting your daughter do the cheerleading. He was kind of, he was kind of talking smack to me. And I said, yeah, man, it's like either that or she pushes back in some crazy way because your kids are not going to be who you want them to be. They're going to be who they are. And again, ties back to the nurture thing that you mentioned earlier. And like, like you can definitely shape it somewhat, but they're going to be who they are and not who you want them to be. And so you've got to let your kids kind of explore things. And when Rana wanted to do cheerleading, okay, you know, and she was, she got a lot out of it. I mean, the confidence that you get from cheerleading and super physically active and, you know, being able to do flips and whatever back flips and all the stuff she could do. That's awesome. So yeah, you have to listen to what your kids say and then you have to actually, I guess the word is accept what they say to you, which is really, really difficult. And it's the same thing, you know, if you work for me and you come to me with a plan, I actually have to truly listen to what you say, not with the back of my mind thinking, yeah, but I actually know what we're going to do or I know a better way to do this. I need to say, oh, this is how you want to do it. Hey, that sounds good. Let's take a shot at it. And if you get used to that, people are going to be much more apt to come and present things to you and they're going to trust you more because when you put trust into people, they put trust in you. Cooking is a major pain and convenience. Slays. And yes, I just said slays. 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It is a game changer with zero risk. I know many of your team members. I don't know if you know that, but I do. I know Jay P and obviously Jamie is a great friend. You've done a great job at hiring. How do you do that? So you've known these people. They come, you know, many of them are within the community. You know, pretty much what they stand for. At least, again, there's this operating system. But for someone like me who runs businesses, hiring is not easy. Figuring out who to invest time in is not easy. Yeah, one of the things that I recommend often is as often as you can is take people and try and put them in a position that will be similar to what they'll be working in. And the example that I use with people is, you know, for all these years, they've tried to figure out who's going to make it through SEAL training, right? That's a huge thing. And they've done psychological screening and physical screening and all these things. And the only thing that actually works to figure out who's going to make it through SEAL training is to put people through some kind of like SEAL training. So that's the only thing that actually works. And if you can, oh, we'll take you and we'll put you through four days of being wet, cold, miserable and physical strain. And if you can get through that, then the chances are you'll be able to do at least a better chance that you'll make it through the longer training. But if I sit there and say, oh, do you mind being cold? Of course, what does everyone say? Oh, yeah, I don't mind being cold. It's no problem. Oh, do you need to sleep? No, I don't need to sleep. I'm a tough guy. Okay, cool. So you can answer all those questions, but it doesn't matter. It's the same thing in the business environment. Like, oh, how do you interact or how do you act during stress? Oh, I'm very, I handle stress really well. I played college basketball, whatever. Like everyone's got a good answer, but you need to put them in the environment that they are going. As close as you can put them in the environment that they're going to be operating in. Capacity, meaning I'll just define this as this idea of working, let's say a growth capacity, working at really the highest level without pushing over into burnout. A lot of people that I see, you know, I still see patients and we talk, we talk about a lot of things. They are successful, but they're not, they're not like pushing themselves in the way that will continue to have them grow. They're just not challenging themselves. And I would imagine even for you, it's probably hard to put yourself in because you've already accomplished so much. I mean, truly so in order for you to feel like you're pushing yourself, maybe not talking about physically, but you know, you have another movie coming out to really begin to stretch yourself. I would ask how, how do you identify if enough is enough or if you need to put more on the table? Yeah, I don't, I don't really think I ever have, I don't think this is something I really think about. Like I don't even have thoughts like this. I don't have a thought about like, am I doing enough or can I do more of those? I'm getting up and I'm going to go do something. That's what I'm doing. And so yeah, I don't really have a lot of thoughts about, hey, is enough enough? Because I think inside some sort of intrinsic part of me is like, there's just no, there's just not enough. There's always, always more to do. And I think that's pretty, a pretty natural place for my, for my mind. What about the team around you? As someone who runs a business, I think, you know, are these, you know, are these individuals really living up to their potential? Well, so I think I see where you're getting with this. And, and this is, I think, a thing that people need to recognize. The reason I stumbled upon this idea was I had a guy ask me, I was at an event, and a guy said, you know, I'm doing this, I've, you know, I'm married, I got a nice house, my job is awesome, I'm making good money, my kids are, you know, he's in a really good spot. And he says, you know, but I just have trouble getting up in the morning to work out. And I, and I said, well, there's a decent chance that you're just lying to yourself. There's a decent chance that you're lying to yourself. In other words, you're either lying to yourself saying, Hey, I want to do more when actually you're pretty stoked for where you're at. And that's perfectly fine. Like, there, you, you get a house, you get kids, you get a wife or a husband, and you've got a good job. That's awesome. Like, good job. That's great. You're contributing member to society, or whatever it is that you wanted to do is you made it, you got there. And so I don't think it's a prerequisite for life to say, Oh, no, well, you better get a bigger house and a better job. And, you know, get your kids into more sports or whatever the thing is. It's perfectly fine to say, Oh, yeah, this is my life. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna enjoy time with my kids. I'm gonna go to every single game. You know, I missed, man, my, my daughter, Rana, made it to state in California. She was the first kid from her school to make it to state and wrestling in 35 years. And she made it to state. And I, I, I missed one of, I could only go to like one of her matches because I was working. And that was absolutely terrible. Were you, you mean when you were active duty or were you? No, I was, I had an event for echelon front, I was going to speak with a company. And, you know, there's, that's just the way it is. No one thought Rana was going to be able to make it to state. We didn't have it on the calendar, you know, because it was an impossibility. And sure enough, it wasn't impossible for her. So I think that people, there's a lie that they tell themselves, which is, I want to do more. They don't really want to do more. So that could be the lie, which again, I, I, there's nothing wrong with it. Like that is perfectly awesome to get to a point in life where you can actually enjoy your, your family and your kids and your time and whatever. And so that's fine. So don't lie to yourself and put this undue pressure on yourself to go and do other stuff when you don't really want to just admit to yourself, Hey, this is a good spot. I'm going to enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that's part of it. Or you may be lying to yourself that what, that you really want these things when you don't really want them. So I think, I think that's fine. And I think as a person that's in charge of people, you need to accept that. There's like, Oh yeah, like someone says, I got someone at my company that, that, you know, when the bell rings at five o'clock, they leave immediately. And I'm like, well, do they show up at eight o'clock when things kick off? And like, yeah, every day. Yeah. And they do their work job. Yeah. I'm super stoked to have that person. That's awesome. And does that person want to get promoted? Maybe not. But do I abandon them? No, I'll, Hey, you know, how's it going? Are you thinking about moving up? You know, I'm pretty happy right now. I'm like, Okay, cool. And I'll check back with you once every six months to see if you've changed or there's something else going on in your life. And maybe you want to maybe now do want to get married and you recognize you're going to need a house. And so you want to move up in the, in the, in the world of your financial capabilities, which is cool. But a lot of people, they're like totally stoked just to be there. And, and that's fine. I mean, you have all kinds of guys in the SEAL teams like this, everyone thinks every SEAL is like, you know, just this ultra apex achiever. No, those guys are like, Oh, I'm out of here. You know, like I'm going home. And that's the way it is. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like that's will be the vast majority of a SEAL platoon is guys that are there, they're going to do a good job. They're going to do a solid job. And then they're going to go do, you know, normal stuff. And then you are going to have some guys at the high end that are very proactive in making all kinds of stuff happen. And then you're going to have some slugs. And the slugs get kind of dragged along. And, you know, just like anywhere else. I mean, if they have a, if they start to have an actual negative impact, they'll be gone. But if they're doing their bare minimum, they're still going to be there. And they're going to kind of mosey through the ranks for their 20 year career. And that'll be that. 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You can get 15% off the premium starter kit at branch basics.com with the code Dr. Again, that's 15% off branch basics.com with the code Dr. What about the people that want to get better? Maybe just don't know how. And I know that that might seem weird, but I do think that people plan to excel when the big moments happen. But there's just lots of these little moments, just day to day life. And I don't, I don't know if there's, there's to be ways to practice to be able to become better. Just don't wait for the storms. Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. No, you can't let, you know, again, I hate to keep bringing up seal training, but people say it's 90% mental or something like that. And I don't really believe that because for instance, rope climb, they will make you do rope climbs. And at a certain point, it doesn't matter how much you want to climb up that rope, you will not be able to anymore. And it's literally 100% physical that you cannot achieve this. But where you can kind of agree with the 90% mental thing is if you wake up every day and you work on your pups and you're working to rope climbs, you're going to be able to do a lot more when that moment arrives. So yeah, every day you need to prepare as much as you can for whatever is going to come your way. And I think that, I mean, this is stuff that you talk about all the time, right? You want to get ready for whatever's going to come your way. Well, cool. Wake up early, work out, eat good, clean food, get rest when you need it. Like that's just the way you need to operate for sure. And there's this delta between those that can do it and those that don't. And what I'm hearing you say is you kind of allow people to just be where they're at. And I also think that some people have lost their way. And it requires an absolute devastation for them to change their life. I'd love to not have people get there. I mean, again, as a physician, my job is to take care for them. And the way that the landscape is going, people are very distracted. I don't know when you were getting ready to train for the teams, you know, to go into the teams or in the teams, were you ever distracted before? You know, I mean, there's all kinds of things happening, make peas, I don't know. I was always really into, you know, being in the SEAL teams. There was no distraction. Yeah. And, and, you know, part of being in the SEAL teams was McPhee's, you know, back in the day. But I just, when you talk about people that, like, they're not reaching their potential, and you're in a leadership position and you want them to reach their potential. And because again, like, there is a bucket of people, like I mentioned, that they're kind of where they want to be, which is fine. But now you're talking, start talking about people that have more potential, that should do more. And, and for me, again, it goes back to one thing, and that is telling people the truth about where they are, what they're going to do, and where they're going to end up. And it's really difficult with kids. This is, this is why kids do dumb things. Kids do dumb things most of the time, because they don't connect what they're doing right now with how it's going to impact their future. Is that why you've written so much for children? Yes. Yeah, that's one of the reasons. And it's the same thing with adults, but it's more profound with kids. You know, I had a buddy whose kid was not doing well in school, and this guy was a SEAL, and he's, and he's a really good SEAL with really good one-liners. And he was talking to his son, and he says, you know, you're doing, you know, terrible in school, you got to get your grades up. And the kid's kind of like, why? And he says, well, I don't need to get my grades up, because I don't really know what I want to do. And he said, exactly. You don't know what you want to do, and you're going to, you're closing so many doors by not performing in school, not doing, not doing well in school. So you, if you're not focused on those kind of things, then they're not going to, they're not going to turn out for you. But it's the idea of, it's the idea of strategic thinking versus tactical thinking, meaning long-term versus short-term. That's what all this boils down to. And if you work for me, and I say, hey, where do you, where do you want to be? And you say, oh, I want to go out on Friday night, you know, that's where, that's where your long-term thinking is, is that you want to make enough money this week that you're going to be able to do that. And you say, well, I'd love to have my own condo downtown. Okay, let's talk about that. You're never going to be able to afford that. Yep. And I say, if it's on Coronado. Exactly. But now we can talk through, we can talk through how do you make that happen. And so strategic thinking, long-term thinking, it's the same thing like the donut. A donut is going to taste great right now. The tactical value of a donut is huge. It tastes delicious, makes me feel good, dopamine hit. But we know that's a long-term strategic loser. And kids are the same way. They have a harder time connecting. I mean, it's hard for a 23-year-old to make those connections, right? That's why SEALs and companies are so important. And they would come and they'd go buy a brand new F-350 Super Duty because that's what they wanted in that moment. Whereas they could have hung on a little bit longer, saved a little bit of money and bought a house to sit. And they just wouldn't make those moves. So, you know, they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. And they could have made those moves. So, we want our employees. We want our kids to be thinking strategic long term where you want to be. And going back to like anybody that I'm interacting with, my goal is to get them to think long term. The same thing for you. You're a physician. You're telling people, hey, don't think about what you're going to be today. Where do you want to be in three years, in five years, in 10 years? Where do you want to be? want to be? Do you want to be incapable of going surfing or doing jiu-jitsu or hiking, whatever the thing that they're into, or do you want to have that capability for longer? So it's just getting people onto the path of strategic thinking that's so important. Which makes me think about failure, right? There's successes and failures. Are there things that failure teach you that success won't? Oh yeah, you got to get back up again. You're gonna get knocked down. You got to get back up again. And that's it. In seal training, one of the stereotypical guys that goes through seal training and doesn't make it is a guy that was like the best football player on the quarterback. And he basically had been winning his whole life. And then all of a sudden you get to buds and you're gonna lose. Like there's gonna be some stuff you're not gonna be able to do. Were you prepared to lose when you got into buds? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I was not like a star in anything. I wasn't the smartest kid. I wasn't the strongest kid. I wasn't the fastest kid. So for me it was just, you know, I'm prepared to kind of lose it whatever. But I'll keep going. Did you think it was fun? Were you just like this is awesome? Yes, it was awesome. Shane said the same thing. He didn't think he was, you know, he was totally prepared to lose but he was like wet and sandy. This sucks but it's so awesome. Yeah, yeah. You know, I never, people say everyone thinks about quitting. I never thought about quitting for a millisecond. For him. That's what he would say. Yeah, I just was having a good time and it was fun. But I failed. I failed a little bit of everything, you know. And when I failed, I was like, okay, gotta try harder. You didn't think, oh my gosh, I'm an idiot and now what? No, I go harder. Yeah, yeah. Guy needed to push harder because that's all it was. You know, I failed a run. I paced myself on a run, which was the first run I paced myself on, meaning like, oh, I'll hold back a little bit because I think I'll make the time. No. And I realized, no, every run from here on out, you're gonna need to go as hard as you possibly can. And that was what I learned. Same thing. I failed a swim. Same thing. Like, okay, there's no pacing yourself. You gotta go as hard as you possibly can. Do you think they're dangerous in avoiding failure? Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, it's a real common jujitsu thing. You know, as you change jujitsu and you get better and you become a blue belt or a purple belt or a brown belt or a black belt, it's all of a sudden you gotta protect your ego. And so I don't want to roll with that person because I think they might be really good. They might tap me out. Whereas when you're a lower belt, you're just like, oh, I don't care. Get tapped out by whoever. It's no big deal. And then you progress quicker. So when you start looking out for your ego, that's when you don't progress as quickly. Thanks to one of the sponsors of the show, AMP, because I can walk two doors down and get a great workout. And if you've ever walked into a workout and thought, am I lifting too heavy? Am I not lifting enough? Where is the weights? I can't find anything. And is this even working? You are not alone. Seriously. The uncertainty is one of the biggest reasons why people do not see results and they stop. Strength training is an essential daily routine. And AMP was founded to introduce it into everyone's life, home and ambition. That's exactly why I've been using AMP. What makes it different is it removes the mental noise. AMP AI uses your resistance to adjust sets and reps in real time. So you are always training at the level that your body needs. No second guessing. No wasted time. And by the way, it has everything that you need. Your body responds to progressive stimulus. And you need to do that correctly. You don't want just random workouts that you find out online or you find online. It mounts to your wall, takes up almost no space and gives me access to hundreds of movements from strength training to high intensity work. I am telling you, I love this technology. It is beautiful. It is on my wall. And it is a system that meets me where I'm at, regardless of the day. If I need some recovery, it's there. If your goal is to build muscle, get stronger, no more guesswork and be consistent. Go to amp.ai. Check it out. That's amp.ai. Training should be effective and it doesn't have to be complicated. So I experienced you as very selfless, which might be a weird statement to make. But I feel like a lot of what you do is it's for people. And was there a decision to do all of that? To write these books, to speak? Yeah, it's just unusual that someone in your position, it's not about them. And Char and our mutual friends would say he's it's not an ego based perspective. Yeah, I think at some juncture in my Navy career, I certainly recognized that it was a way more gratifying to help other people than it was to like, you know, and there's examples in the SEAL teams, you know, guys that are looking out for themselves is not a good is not a good take in the SEAL teams. And it's real obvious. Everyone can see it. And it doesn't go over well. And I'm not saying that some of those people climb through the ranks and they go really far in the SEAL teams, but it's like, they're going really far in the SEAL teams. They're not really, they're not really the guys that people want to work with. And so for me, you know, when I was helping people out, it always seemed the best thing for the teams. And that's kind of what I've always just kind of done. And then did it transition from the teams to humanity? Well, I don't know about our humanity, but Well, at least we need it. Yeah, yeah. If there's leadership in the teams and these elite groups, there has to be some translation over to the And I didn't really know that that was going to take place. As much as I think about, you know, to have talked about strategic thinking and strategic planning, I didn't, when I, when I retired from the SEAL teams, my plan was I was, you know, have a gym in San Diego and I love Jiu Jitsu and I love to surf and love hang out with my kids. And so I was going to train Jiu Jitsu, surf and hang out with my kids. And that was my plan. And I ended up going and talking to a friend of mine who wanted me to go to talk to his company about leadership. And I went and did that. And it just, as soon as I was, it was when I started getting asked questions about leadership, I realized that the leadership principles that I had learned were directly translated to everything, everything. And yeah, so then it was, okay, well, if I can help them learn these principles, it will help them do better in life. And so that's kind of where it started. And do you read a lot now? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I have a podcast where a lot of what I do on the podcast is I either cover old books, military books and history books, or people come and I read like when you came on my podcast, read your book. And so I'm almost always reading books. Yes. Have you always been that scholarly? No. So I didn't, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't look like academics. I was more of a physical type guy. And I didn't do great in high school. And it wasn't until I joined the Navy. And they said, okay, you need to know these things. And that's when I learned how to study. And then then they, the Navy sent me to college. I went with the Navy sent me to college. It for me, it was a competition, because I was 28 years old. And, you know, I was a 28 year old SEAL officer at the time. And I'm in college. And I just got competitive to and I was competing with the teachers, like I didn't want the teachers to be able to ask me a question on a test that I didn't know the answer to. And that was too much, a little extreme. I studied way too much. Is there any way too much studying? I definitely would did did too much studying. I should have chilled a little bit. But it is what it is. Look, here you are now. Do you get inspiration for have you started thinking about what your next book is after the way the Warrior Kid movie comes out? Have you begun to think about what the next iteration next iteration of kids books or next iteration adult books? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're already they're being written right now. You want to share any of them? So obviously, I'm working on another leadership book. And I think it's going to help people. I it's almost like the negative space in leadership that people don't see that I think my next book is is going to help people. And if you think about the negative space of things that you don't really see, right? When you have an interaction with someone and you go, that wasn't right. Or you go, Oh, that person seemed cool. Like there's but you can't really identify what it was. And you go, Hmm, what was that? I kind of know what that is. And it's the little negative space that that takes place. And so I think that's what I know. That's the book that I'm writing right now on the leadership front. And then on the warrior kid front, my daughter, Rana is working on a book right now. Yeah, because, you know, girls and boys all read the warrior kid book. But there's a lot of girls that would like a warrior kid with a girl as a warrior kid. And so Rana's got a beautiful story that she's put together. And so we're working on that. I can't wait to come on the podcast when that's ready to come out. Can't wait. Um, I know that we're closing in on time and I want to touch on the physicality. Unfortunately, death is coming for all of us. And it's, I think it's harder for those that have really been in their body and training as we all get older. You know, I did my I don't know if you noticed I did my fellowship in geriatrics, where it was end of life care. And that was it's I mean, it's it's tough. So as you think about like that's kind of a battle that nobody wins. How do you think about training that? Do you think about it? You know, I know I wake up in my shoulder hurts and my knee hurts and yeah, it's the straight up classic rage, you know, rage against the diagonal of light for sure. And I've been saying that, of course, you do as much as you can all the time. I will also say that this is like there is an arc to the story. And there's a beginning and there's a middle and there's an end. And there's a reason for that. And if you are so horrified of the end, then you're probably going to waste a lot of time being focused on that instead of being focused on like the middle. So yeah, I think I'm going to keep going as doing as much as I can. I think the strategic vision of knowing that you can lose movements, you know, like there's movements that you can lose. Like I had a I was in a situation, a living situation where I couldn't do muscle ups for like, it was over a year. I mean, I could do occasionally up another place, but like if they weren't like a consistent part of the program. And when I went when I got back, I was okay, I can start muscle up skin. I had to re earn the muscle ups. I had an elbow injury and I couldn't overhead squat. And when I when I finally my elbow healed up to where I could overhead squat, it was like cool PVC pipe, you know, like no weight, because I just didn't have that movement anymore. So that those those couple things made me realize if you're not doing it, it'll go away. But it also made me realize what you can re engage and you can get it back. It's just going to take work. So and I think so, you've got to keep doing the things you got to keep moving. You got to keep your mobility and range of motion as much as you can. And and like I was a terrible stretcher. And and but if you don't stretch, you're going to lose that component of your life. So you got to just pay attention and and think strategically and keep getting after it every day, it'll go away. You know, when I was a when I was a kid, I would show up, you know, eat, eat three pizzas over the weekend, drink, you know, eat total trash food and just physical disaster. And you just be able to come in and take a PT test and crush it. And then by the time you're like 35 or 40, you're like, I better, I better tamper what I'm doing a little bit. And so yeah, you just got to pay more attention to it. Do you think that physical strength and being very physically active as a prerequisite to good leadership? Yes, I do. I do. I think that it's not it's not a black and white prerequisite, because there's people that are in, you know, positions where maybe they don't have the physical capability for whatever reason. I mean, Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. You know, I was actually thinking about those I was thinking about Stephen Hawkins and people that are really mentally tough in many ways, but not physically. Yeah. So that's why I say it's not like a it's not like a cut and fast rule. But it certainly I mean, I did a study. Let me just say this from my perspective. If when I was in the SEAL teams, if you had a guy, if we had a SEAL that was not in good shape, he did not have respect. And if he was in good shape, it doesn't matter if he might have been, you know, big, small, but he was in good shape. It was like, okay, cool. And that was sort of the bare minimum. So you don't really think too much about that. But occasionally you'd have a guy that was out of shape. And when you see a guy that's out of shape, it just be like, well, he could reprove himself, but he's got to dig himself out of a hole. Right. And so don't put yourself in that deficit. Just just being in good shape. Yeah, I mean, I agree that. Do you think that those that were in the command or in the higher positions, those that were in shape were more respected? Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, no doubt about it. And you know, I just think even in this landscape, if you're a physician, if you're in a leadership position, it's your responsibility. I feel like when I say this, but it's kind of 70, more than 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. I mean, Yeah, it's definitely very strange if you go to see a doctor and they're not in physical, in at least some respectable physical shape, it would seem to me that that would be a bit of a priority. But I mean, I think with anything, because there is a level of discipline, there's a level of commitment, there's a level of execution that if someone can't manage that physically, then you know, the mental aspect is really important. Being able to train that. And look, I think it's just what we both are saying is it's don't put yourself in that deficit. Yeah, I like that. Where when I meet you, I've got to prove to you that I have discipline. I've got to prove to you that I will get the job done. And you have to kind of overlook the fact that I don't really care about getting the job done for myself, but I'll still take care of you. That's just I wouldn't create that deficit. You know, you'd mention that when someone goes to the CO teams, no one knows who's going to make it, right? Because I was thinking very, you know, over 10 years ago, I've been taking care of operators and their families for 10 years. I had a large practice in New York City. It was expensive and part of the cost that we would take from the patients that were coming in, we'd used to treat the team guys coming out in their families. And I helped a few of the guys through buds. And I would take their blood work and I thought, OK, well, I'm going to be able to identify just based on just, you know, years of looking at this, who is going to be able to make it, right? Whose cortisol is too high? Whose testosterone is too low? Who and I, you know, when you're a young physician, you think you have figured out and I couldn't. I just had no idea. This guy's blood work, who looked terrible, had the testosterone levels of a girl was he just crushed it. And it just makes me think about those leaders that if you meet leaders, because obviously you've been teaching people now, how long have you been? How long has echelon front been? I think we're coming up on 15 years right now. 15 years. That's a lot of leaders that you are in the face with. Can you tell? Is there almost like a pattern? Can you tell if someone is going to be able to make it as a leader or not? Again, it really pays to put them in that position where and that's generally speaking, what happens in organizations is we put you in a personality. So like I meet you, you asked me a couple of questions. I can give you some answers. Is it like humility? Is it openness? Are there attributes? Yeah, I mean, humility is definitely the most important attribute as a leader. This is something that we have been teaching for 15 years. And the reason that I the reason that I identified that so clearly is number one, the best leaders that I work for were the homeless people. And number two, when we would fire people from the SEAL teams, we would fire people because they lack humility in the leadership. And look, a shooter, an operator, he might get fired because he, you know, he's unsafe with his weapon or he's just can't make decisions quick enough. But generally the leaders, they would get fired because they lack humility and wouldn't listen to anybody else. It was their way to the highway. And so that that is always the biggest problem. Now, again, this doesn't mean that you don't have to have enough of an ego to have confidence as a leader. You know, if I'm if I'm scared to make a decision, because I don't know if I'm going to be right or not, like that's if I can be too humble, right? Too humble where I'm like, I'm not really sure what we should do. And that's not going to be a good situation either. But generally speaking, people over index and they become arrogant and they don't listen to anybody else. And that's the biggest problem with leaders. So all this is a balance, you know, humble, but confident, right? Not totally risk averse, but not hyper aggressive where you're making mistakes. Like every, you know, can communicate effectively, but doesn't over communicate. And now I'm talking and trying to give everyone detailed instructions on a little thing, you could go down the entire list. Everything is we're looking for a balanced person when we're when we're talking about leaders and the most important quality still definitely is humility. If you don't have that, you're not going to improve. You're not going to be better. You're not going to listen to anybody else. You're not going to respect your competition and you're going to have problems. You think that something can be trained? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. How does one train humility? Well, if you are going through my training and I saw that you were a little arrogant, I would say, cool. And I would put you in charge of an operation that would be slightly outside your level of capability. And it would be a disaster. And you would come back to me and say, I really need some, some work. Don't I? And I'd say, yes, you do. Assuming that that individual would say, have recognized that they screwed up. Yep. And occasionally they come back and say, well, that wasn't realistic training. And your guys got the jump on me and they make a bunch of excuses. And so then, okay, cool. Let's eliminate those excuses and let's do it again. And we would do that iteration three or four times. And by the fourth or fifth time, it's like, oh, guess what? The problem is not all of us. The problem is not all the new guys are your platoon. The problem is not your platoon chief. The problem is not the leading pediostra. The problem is not the trade at Cadre. Who's the sleeve? Oh, yeah. That's right. It's you. So yes, you can, you can humble people. Most people, some people they don't, they will never, they will never show an ounce of humility. It's not in their blood and it hurts them. I have one final question. Yes. If someone listening to this wants to be better tomorrow, whether it's leadership, whether it's parenthood, whether it's physical, what is one piece? Yeah, wake up early and work out. And how early are we talking? I think you wake up early enough that you get to do some kind of physical activity before your day starts. Well, hey, whether you go up and you do 10 minutes of burpees and that's what you're going to do. Cool. If that's all you can get, get it. But waking up early and getting some kind of physical activity before your day gets started, I think that is probably the single best habit you can have to improve the rest of your life. When you exercise, everything in your life is going to be better. You're going to be better in meetings. You're going to be better interacting with other people. You're going to be sharper. You're going to make better decisions. Everything is going to be better. So wake up early, half an hour early, 20 minutes early, an hour early and get physical activity before the day starts. And to be clear, even if you go to bed late that night, something happens. Stay consistent, even if it's a 1 a.m. 2 a.m. You know, if I try and get at least five hours of sleep. And so if I start getting like I'll travel and let's say the plane was delayed or whatever and I get home and now it's one o'clock in the morning, because I didn't normally get up around 4 30 in the morning. And so now I'm going to be looking at three and a half hours of sleep. That I'll probably, I'll probably just won't wake up until I probably going to put my alarm to whatever six or seven. So I get six or seven hours of sleep. But consistency and waking up as I mean, how often do you get dragged to where you're going to stay up until one o'clock in the morning? It shouldn't be that often. So my four year old, six year old still. Yeah, we'll get some. Yeah. Every night. Yeah. Choco, thank you so much for taking the time. Right on. I'm really looking forward to the Warrior Kid movie. When is that out? November 20th. Yes. The premiere is in. Well, it's Apple TV. It's going to be a worldwide global premiere on November 20th. I'm there. Yes, we all are. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. Tired of wellness advice that doesn't stick. I'm Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and every Tuesday I sit down with world class experts to give you one thing. A body and mind that actually gets stronger with age, not weaker. No fluff, just what works. Spotify premium listeners get the full video completely ad free. Hit follow. New episodes drop Tuesdays and 9am central.