Special Forces Commander: The Weird Trick For Overcoming Fear, Anxiety & Self-Doubt!

this is what I learned from 20 years of being in the Navy Seals discipline Drive how to make decisions Under Pressure leadership strategy and tactics that you can apply a business and you can apply to your life as well so let's go Jo O willink is a former Navy Seals officer who uses his Decades of military training to help people become masters of discipline and master their lives your excuses will destroy you your default mode should be to take ownership because if these problems are because of me then I'm capable of fixing these problems so

what's step one first of all small steps can be painful even something as simple as going to the gym if you're completely out of shape sometimes that can be enough to make you say I'm not doing it anymore you need to Envision the path of where this can lead you to number two most human instinct is to hesitate but you see that problem over there you got to go solve that problem it's not going to go away so if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go start walking and worst case scenario

you figure out that you walk the wrong direction okay now you can walk in the other direction but standing there not doing anything is just waiting to starve to death and the next challenge detach from your emotions good leaders have control of our emotions if I have to yell at you to get my point across I've made like 47 other mistakes my goal is I don't have to say a word and you already know what to do is there anything else that you'd add to that list absolutely in fact people don't really talk about this

and this could apply to just about anything so if you're the type of person that doesn't you're going to struggle joer was there a hardest day while you were in the Navy Seals yeah that that was the lowest point of my life congratulations Dario gang we've made some progress 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe which is down from 69% our goal is 50% so if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it

helps this channel more than you know and the bigger the channel gets as you've seen the bigger the guests get thank you enjoy this [Music] episode Joo surprisingly I couldn't find an awful lot in your childhood that would indicate to me how you became the man that you are today and I say that because there's a bit of a stereotype that someone like you who becomes a Navy SEAL must have some kind of traumatic early event that shaped them to become some Ultra resilient human being when you look back on your childhood what are the

sort of dominoes that fell in that early chapter of your life that made you the man you are today I wish I could positively identify the thing the moment the closest I've come is that I a little kid I was a little kid I wanted to be some kind of soldier I wanted to be some kind of Commando and that's I so I collected little little soldiers little plastic soldiers and one of the I had different military unit UNS like historical military units from around the world and one of the historical military units that I

had was the British Commandos and so I had these tiny figurines and they had machine guns and they had kayaks and they had uh little boats little inflatable boats and I thought to myself that's what I want to do I I want to do that I I wish I could do that and then when I was probably around 12 13 I realized you actually could do that you could actually get the job of being a Commando and then it was just a matter of figuring out which one of the American branches had the closest thing

to what I thought was a British Commando and the closest thing that I found was being in the being in the Navy and being in the SEAL Teams and at 19 years old you applied to be a Navy SEAL mhm okay so I have to ask a very dumb question here which is what is a Navy SEAL so there's Special Operations which I guess you know from England this is the the the SAS and the SBS so those are the two sort of units that we get compared to the most and uh so a Navy

SEAL is a part of the Navy but you're the Special Operations component of the Navy and the the term seal is actually an acronym which stands for sea air and land because even though we're in the Navy we are trained to operate in the sea in the air so in the sea meaning we dive in the air meaning we parachute and repel and then on the land meaning we conduct land Warfare operations and you take all those things combine them together and that's what our job consists of I was under the assumption that to become

a Navy SEAL or to be in the SAS you had to have 10 20 years in of military service you had to have like an established military service and then you get some like popup on your computer and it says like come to this this building over here and so to hear that you applied at 19 years old I was like oh I didn't know teenagers could apply yeah no I I was 18 years old when I joined the Navy and I joined on a contract that got me sent to Seal training and it took

a year to get through so I was 19 when I finished that up but there is there's always debates about well don't you want someone that's more experienced and I actually loved the fact that I was basically raised in the SEAL Teams it what it was just awesome it was an awesome way to grow it was an awesome way to spend those those years of your life learning the trade that you wanted to learn and so I thought it was awesome and I think it worked out pretty well there is a usually the the the

percentage of people that make it through SEAL training is about 20% people that are under the age of 20 it goes down to about 5% so yeah I was one of those like small percentage of people that are very young but still make it through and what is the characteristic that they're ultimately testing with the design of that training what are they testing for will you keep going in the face of whatever well they they call the uh one of the weeks hell week don't they MH so they try and simulate Hell by the sounds

of it yeah they try and simulate hell it's it's they actually were trying to simulate combat initially when they created that week they wanted to take as much combat simulation from World War II at the time and put it into a very compressed schedule so they could create these frog men to go overseas and conduct operations CU World War II was going on and so they needed to compress the training cycle so they compressed a bunch of that combat simulation into it's about five and a half days no sleep lots of physical activity lots of

stress lots of pain and lots of people quit how many people quit in that particular week Mo I would say most of the people that quit probably of of it's probably 80% of the quitters quit in that week it's been long discussed I think there's a book um called grit where they discuss what it takes in terms of character traits to get through these kinds of endurance tasks and people often think it's those that have the biggest muscles or that do the most I don't know cardiovascular exercise but from what you've observed and this is

maybe a broader point about adversity in life is there any similarities in the people that are able to get themselves through adversity it it's there's there's some internal drive that you either have or you don't have and if you have it you won't quit and if you don't have it you're going to quit and it breaks people the other thing is you might be an exceptional swimmer and you might be exceptional upper body strength but you're not that fast of run they're going to find that out or you might be a fast runner but a

bat they're going to find out what your weakness is you might not like the cold they're going to see it you might not like the boat on your head they're going to see it they might see that you have a bad temper they're going to find that and they're going to pick at that thing to either make you come out the other side or make you quit it's a pretty it's a pretty amazing thing it's a it's a pretty amazing thing it's a pretty Prof thing to look at from the outside and and and see

it cuz when I was going through it it was just sort of I was young I didn't care I was going to do it there was nothing that they were going to tell me that was going to make me quit I never thought about quitting if they told me to get back in the water again let's go they told me to put that log on on my shoulder let's go put the boat on my head let's go I I I didn't care can you teach that that let's go let's we're going to jump back in

the water let's go I think that I think that's one of one of the few things that you learn in basic SEAL training is to shrug your shoulders and go forward like one of the things they do is they'll they'll line you up on the ocean and this is in California and sometimes people think that California is nice warm water but it's not it's 55 degrees and I don't know what that translates to in centigrade but it's cold and one of the things they do is they'll they'll line you up and they say interlock arms

and you get arm in arm with the guy next to you and they say forward March and you march in the water and they say take seats and you sit down and they leave you in there and it's called surf torture and you just sit there and they'll after a while they'll pull you up out of the water they'll line you up and the doctor will come down and see if anyone has hypothermia and if no one has hypothermia or signs of hypothermia yet get back in the water and they just keep doing that so

yeah it's uh what you learn to do is okay I'm going to go forward there's no I can't get out of this I'm going to go forward not going to quit so I'm going to go forward bring it on and I think if there's anything that you learn it's to to keep pushing through things that suck and I would love to say like oh some keep pushing through adversity but this isn't adversity this is just things that suck it's one level below adversity adversity is when you're having a challenge this is just something that's going

to suck and you're going to have to push through it cuz I'm asking myself if this is something I could teach you know or I could be court because I I look at someone like you who's you know done all the things that you've done through your life and I go did did you have some kind of innate advantage or can we all become Joo if I had to guess I would say no I I would say you can't teach it I would say that you can grow it if you've got the seed of some

sort of fire you could probably grow and you can get better at it [Music] but same thing you go back to like prison if you ever met anyone that was a prisoner of war or people that went through like the Baton Death March there's some people that had a will that they were not going to die they I'm not going to die I'm going to keep going and and the people that died they they did not have the will to live and think about how bad things have to be before you say you know what

I'm just going to lay here and die that and that can get to that point I had a guy on my podcast that was he was shot down in Vietnam and he was shot down in South Vietnam captured and so he had to do a seven-month Trek Through the Jungle with his captors and at one point he's in a twot tall bamboo cage in the jungle and he's trying to fall asleep but he can't sleep because the the rats are gnawing at the wounds on his legs and he Shackled and he was with guys that

did not have the the intrinsic will to carry on and if you didn't have that will to carry on you die you talked about the role that having a y plays and I was thinking about you know if I just if I just lost my girlfriend or someone I'd gone through some severe rejection or someone in my life had died and their my parting promise to them was I was going to do this the role that having some kind of reason to carry on plays in how we handle adversity or things that suck did you

see have you seen any patterns in that is it important because there's books behind me that literally say start with your why and those kinds of things yeah and you know that's a anything from oh my girlfriend dumped me and I'm going to prove her wrong to something that much more significant which is my girlfriend died and I told her I was going to do this and I'm going to do it for her both those things depending on the human being can be a strong enough I a strong enough why to get through and I've

I've I have friends that were I have one friend that was in the Vietnam he was in Vietnam and when he showed up seal train and he didn't know what it was he thought he was volunteering to be like a diver a diver that would do constru instruction under under boats he thought that that that what it was and so he showed up and they're like this is SEAL training he's like what's a seal and they kind of explain it to him and then he went and made it through all that torture all that Mayhem

and why cuz that was what they were telling him to do and he was okay that's what we're doing let's go so again I would love to be able to you know give you this profound anchor that people need to have but it's like oh do do you want to do this or not which is what I think a lot of it boils down to do you actually want to do this or not do you actually want to do this or not because if you actually want to do it what's going to stop you nothing

and if you don't really want to do it what's going to stop you just about anything that comes up just about any obstacle that gets in your way becomes an excuse it becomes a reason it comes a rationale for not proceeding down that path and and and this is interesting too you when you talk to people that went to Seal training that didn't make make it most of the time it's some reason there's a medical reason there's a family problem there's very few people that look at you and say oh I quit because it sucked

which is what by the way which is what happens to the vast majority of people the vast majority of people that don't make it through SEAL training and by this I mean 80 90% of the people that don't make it through SEAL training they didn't make it through because they quit then there's a small percentage that had a medical problem then there's a small percentage that got performance dropped meaning they couldn't perform the runs the swims the the the technical aspects of the job and they failed and they get dropped but the vast majority of

people they quit but they don't usually say that and even in their mind they probably don't believe it they probably believe well you know it it's my leg and once my leg was hurting I knew I was going to have a hard time on the runs and I wasn't going to be able to make the runs I just that's why I quit but it wasn't really quitting it was cuz my leg so it's it's it's like I said it's a very it's a very strange and and and really kind of a a mystical thing excuses

you're talking there about people making excuses yeah what have you come to learn about the nature excuses and if they are our friends our enemies if they're ever useful your excuses will destroy you and take everything that you ever wanted from you if you let them doesn't sound like a friend no it's definitely not a friend it's definitely not a friend it it can seem like a friend just like your friend that uh keeps feeding you drinks at the bar can seem like a friend but are they really helping you in any way shape or

form no they're not they're not so when you when your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on then they can make you feel better but they're not helping you they're not helping you at all is that what you when you think about extreme ownership which is the title of um this book here in front of me is our excuses the opposite excuses and blame is that the opposite of extreme ownership that is the opposite of extreme ownership extreme extreme ownership is

this went wrong this failed didn't accomplish this and it's not the fault of my boss it's not the fault of my girlfriend it's not the fault of my parents it's not the fault of the weather it's my fault and I'm going to take ownership of it and I'm going to fix it that's what extreme ownership is and this is a very difficult thing to do because it hurts because when you look around at your life and you look around at your job and your financial situation and your relationship and your physical health and when you

look at all those things and all the problems that you may have with those things and you say the reason I have all those problems is because of me that can hurt that can sting and a lot of times our ego rejects that and makes excuses and lies and then we don't have to change anything and then nothing changes if someone was on the extreme end of that disease of excuse and blame and all of those things is there anything that you could do or you would advise them to do to kind of walk back

from there to get over the other side because I think we can all think of people in our lives and maybe even ourselves at times who have gotten into a chronic pattern of using excuses and blame as a form of self-defense because we don't want to tell turn that mirror back at us and have to confront reality like I think sometimes if I think about my some of my closest friends those that have the lowest self-esteem will use ex excuses and blame the most because it's you know personal responsibility might not in the short term

at least do anything for my already low self-esteem so I'm going to blame the world as self-defense what's step one to get out of that well unfortunately what happens a lot and you you may or may not have seen this but I I would assume you've seen this at some point in your life people and this is a term there's a term it's rock bottom right this is a term that we hear for someone that's addicted someone that's an alcoholic someone that's physically let themselves go someone that's put themselves into a situation with their finances

or their work or whatever where they reach rock bottom but when it when it when the excuses all go away and people can actually confront the fact that this is all because of me and this is it hurts but is also unbelievably empowering because if these problems are because of me then I'm capable of fixing these problems so even though extreme ownership hurts and is painful it's also liberating because now you have control over your fate and over your destiny and that is a glorious thing is that to you how you start to build confidence

confidence seems to be this really illusive thing confidence ultimately is a belief you have and these beliefs are like instruction manuals for our life you must have seen in your you know in your all your years some people really build their confidence and I guess you've seen other people destroy their confidence so what is the nature of how we build our own confidence yep you're right I have seen it and I've had to do it to people I had to take people and build their confidence and so how do you do that you know if

you're a young officer in the SEAL Teams and you you feel like maybe you kind of got here you got lucky you barely made it through training and all of a sudden I'm saying hey you're in charge of this squad right here and you don't feel like you have the confidence to do it and so it comes time to make a decision and you're sort of looking around and the guys are looking at you like hey you going to make a call or what and finally someone just steps on you and says hey I got

it hey everyone move over this building and now your confidence goes down even lower which is a problem so how am I going to build your confidence well what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you and put you into a situation that I know you can handle I'm gonna put I'm going to give you a task that I know you can do it's look it's not going to be a total softball it's not going to be a joke of a task but I'm going to give you something that I know you can

handle and I'm going to let you do that and I might let you do that two three four five times I might say hey on this next operation Stephen I want you to uh you're going to you're going to you're going to hold the left flank with your with your squad the everyone else is assaulting buildings they're setting up external SC you're just hey just you just hold this you just set your team up on this BM over here and and watch to the north and look this is a pretty easy job all right and

so you go out there you take your team you get on the BM you look to the north you do a good job confidence goes up a little bit now look there was no pressure you didn't have to make any decisions but you did what you were supposed to do and might have you do that two or three times and then the next time I say hey you know what hey good job out there I'm going to build up your confidence a little bit and then I'm going to say hey I need you to handle

security to the north and to the West all right so you're gonna have two squads now so I'm just going to give you small tasks that I know you can handle to build up your confidence and over time you will become more and more confident and you're going to hit some challenges and you'll overcome those challenges and if you do great your confidence if you fail in a challenge I might have to reset you a little bit but this this sounds like a big long process but it's actually usually not that long it's actually people

kind of nod their head oh yeah I can do this contrarily sometimes I get a a guy who's overconfident and you know I got Stephen walking here like H you're downright I should be in charge and what do I do with you because now you got an ego you're not listening to people now I'm like Hey Stephen you know since you're doing so awesome why don't you run this whole assault team tonight and you go yeah no problem and then you get out there and you're not ready to lead a whole assault team you're not

ready for that chaos and that confusion and that Mayhem and so about halfway through the assault when there's you've completely lost control I might walk in and say Hey Stephen I'm sending Chief down there to straighten you out and you go Roger thank you and you get humbled so if someone's trying to build confidence from a work perspective we do the same thing whether it's a a business a company give that person a task a project that they can handle and help them build their confidence now as far as you as an individual human being

it's a very similar process train study work practice train study work practice train study work practice and eventually you will increase your confidence so I in your book you were talking about the fact that you didn't like speaking you didn't like public speaking so what did you do did you sign up to go talk in front of a thousand people you know tomorrow afternoon no you started small and you built a little bit of confidence and then you went a little bit bigger of an audience and the confidence grows a little bit more little bit

bigger audience confidence grows and you get to a point where there's no audience that's going to stumble you in any way so that's the same process it's it's basically exposure therapy right it's it's basic basically exposure therapy where you expose yourself to a little bit and this is you know you're talking about Jordan Peterson exposure therapy I give you a little bit I don't overwhelm you with it because if I overwhelm you with it you're going to be scared of it I mean if you lack confidence and I put you in charge of something that

you can't handle your confidence is going to go back even further so I need to give you enough exposure that you do well increase your confidence and you're going to do fine whenever we're swimming I don't know a couple of centimeters just outside of our depth in any regard we have that thing that some people have dubbed impostor syndrome what we start the story We Tell ourselves about this depth is that we're a fraud we shouldn't be out this far um we're going to get found out and that can sometimes I think if we tell

ourselves that story about whatever you know depth we're swimming at that lowers our performance sometimes it can make us our confidence decrease what is your take on this term imposter syndrome do you think it's a real thing yeah I think it's a real thing and I don't think it's bad I don't think it's bad because if once again if you're coming to work for me and you're like I'm glad you hired me I'm ready to take over this department look out I'd be a little bit questioning the fact that you are so overconfident that you're

going to go in and do things that you might not really understand now if you had a little impostor syndrome and you said hey Joo I really appreciate you hiring me um you know I haven't really done this type of of work before can I ask you a couple questions I'd be thinking to myself okay he's humble he's wanting to do a good job he doesn't think he knows everything I'd feel more comfortable with someone like that so I don't think imposter syndrome is a bad thing I think if you feel it it's actually a

good indication that you're humble and you have an open mind and you're going to listen to what people have to say so that's number one and number two if you feel like you have impostor syndrome if you're going to a meeting and you're going to get assigned a project or you be discussing a project that you're really wait should I even be here should I be put in charge of this project what you do is you go into the meeting and you say hey everyone I really appreciate everyone coming to the kickoff of this meeting

hey just so everyone knows this is my first time running a project like this I'm definitely going to have some questions for some of you that done this before so if you see me going off track on something and you see a mistake that I'm making please let me know because what I want is for the team to win okay there it is it's on the table I don't know everything I've not that experience in this particular thing but I'm humble and willing to listen and I want the team to do well no more impostor

syndrome is that the same in the Navy Seals because one would assume that you you know as a leader you've got to tell people what to do that is wrong in the Navy Seals and that is not a good assumption in the SEAL Teams you the good leaders in the SEAL Teams absolutely have an open mind want want to hear other people's opinions on how to execute an operation want to hear what shortfalls there are when a plan is presented that hey what about this and what about that and a good leader is not going

to impose plan as in fact my standard operating procedure was to have my subordinate leadership come up with plans instead of me trying to come up with the plans in fact that's the best way to operate that means you ask them for the plan 100% why there's a multitude of reasons number one I want you to have ownership of the plan right so if I'm imposing a plan on you then that's not really your plan I want you to I want you to come up with the plan and I want you to go to your

team and I want you to collectively come up with a plan that you all Embrace and understand and buy into so it's going to be a better plan from your perspective if you come up with it also if I come up with a plan I'm in the plan so when I'm in the plan I can't see the plan as well I want to be outside the plan looking at it from the outside from a different perspective where then I can see the holes in the plan and I can ask you some questions about the plan

that you came up with and finally if I'm coming up with a plan if I'm staring down at the map coming up with a plan well who's looking up and out who's looking at the followon operations who's looking at where our our other units are out in the battlefield who's checking on the intelligence that we're Gathering about the enemy if if I'm looking down and in I'm not looking up and out if I'm coming up with a plan myself I'm looking down and in if I'm letting you come up with a plan I can look

up and out you can look down and in and we can have a lot more awareness of the battlefield often leaders and managers we get I think caught up in in the proverbial trenches we get a little bit too close to the painting so we can't see the picture how important do you think it is to be the leader that's able to take a step back that is the job of a leader that is the job of a leader to take a step back detach from the situation and see the entire picture of what is

unfolding or what is being planned or what is happening if you are in the problem you won't see the solution to the problem it you we will very rarely so you have to be able to detach and that's one of the the main things that I tried to teach young leaders when I was in the SEAL Teams it's the same thing that I try and teach leaders now is to take a step back detach from the chaos detach from the Mayhem detach from your emotions detach from your ego and be able to assess the best

way to execute and give you know the book the book is called Extreme ownership that you referenced that doesn't mean that I do everything myself in fact what I want to do is I want you to take ownership and how do I get you to take ownership I give it to you hey Stephen how do you want to run this project and and listen what if you come up with a terrible plan oh no le let's say let's say you come up with a let's say I come up with like I in my mind I've

got something that's going to be a 95% solution and I say well you know I'm going to delegate so Stephen how do you want to do this and you come up with like an 80% solution now what should I do I'll tell you I I'll still let I'll still run with your plan I'll be like okay Stephen sounds good if you come to me with a 70% plan I might say Hey Stephen what about this and you go oh yeah I'm going to make adjustment there and all of a sudden we got it to a

78% plan and we're still good if you come to me with a 20% plan now I can ask you three or four questions before you say Hey Jo let me I I'll be back in a couple hours I'm going to go reformulate this thing and by the way all that's training you right all those questions are training you you coming up with a plan is training for you because if if if I'm got people that work for me and they can't come up with a plan by themselves I'm complete failure as a leader so I'm

going to train you so that you can come up with plans and I can look up and out takes a lot of patience doesn't it because you know you know in those many of those situations that you're not going to get from A to B as fast as you possibly could have it's a investment in a long-term efficiency because even though I might have to invest a little bit more time right now and I spent 10 minutes explaining to you why this tactic would be better than that tactic even though it's going to cost me

10 minutes right now or maybe a half an hour we look up in six months and you're actually coming up with better plans than me you know I read throughout your books you went from being that young teenager who passed training to really like leading the Navy Seals in many respects well leading an element of seals yeah that's um when you look back on that accomplishment have you figured out what it is about you in particular that allowed you enabled you to do that is there something is there is there a muscle you grew I

was I'm a hard worker I you know I I was never great at anything like as a kid I wasn't the fastest I wasn't the strongest I wasn't the smart artist but I did I did know that I could work hard I had to work hard and I listened to people I didn't think I knew everything I even sometimes I'll joke about yeah you know when you're young and arrogant even when I was young and arrogant like we all are when we're 23 years old or 22 years old and you're young you think you know

everything even then I always had that little like you don't know everything and I think that humility play played a big role in me being able to be successful because I was never afraid to say hey I'm not 100% sure what to do right now what do you guys think or hey I feel like I've reached the limitations of my thought process I need some help and so I think that's one of the main reasons that I was able to to to do a good job to do to do a good job when I meet

someone like you I I I go this guy must have seen so many things so many things that the average human being will absolutely never see you know and I CU you you were sent all around the world on some absolutely incredible unimaginable missions for for 20 20 years for for the average person who has no idea what your eyes have seen can you paint me a picture of some of those extremes well it's War so it's it's War it's people being wounded people being killed in Iraq with the insurgents that we were fighting it's

them torturing people mutilating their bodies raping beheading people horor but you know it's interesting when when I talk to other people when I meet people I always think to myself what you're saying that you think when you see me I always think that when I see other people because other people we don't know what they've been through you don't know what kind of childhood they've had you don't know what kind of Horrors they've seen you don't know what kind of abuse they've suffered you don't what to kind of you don't know what kind of trials

and tribulations other people have faced so I I don't I I look at everyone and and and also the trials and tribulation that someone face someone faces that that's profoundly difficult for them regardless of what it was regard of if they were a a person that you know got injured really bad they're when they were in high school they're 15 years old and they broke their leg and they they they couldn't play their sport anymore and now they're 17 but that was a traumatic thing for them and yeah so when I when I look at

other people when I talk to other people I always think everyone everyone every human faces challenges and you don't know what they've been through and they they might have been through things that are worse than what I've been through and I usually my assumption is people have been through a lot of challenges and they they persevered through it and here they are so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt but humans aren't supposed to be exposed to those kinds of images and I think if you spoke to I know trauma psychologist they

would they would Class A lot of those things that you've seen as what they call like tall tea traumas like really really traumatic events how how does someone like you go about processing those things to ensure that that trauma doesn't show up in later life you know we talk about soldiers coming back from war suffering with PTSD and things like that what have you done to sort of insulate yourself or at least help you understand some of some of the things you saw there's evil in the world when there's evil people in the world and

evil people are going to do heinous and ious things and that's a reality and that's always been the reality and the best thing that I can do is well when I was in the military do my best to to stop that kind of atrocious behavior and when I'm out of the military try not to try and help people move move away from those thoughts I mean when you're talking about like your my my family like my family didn't they my wife wasn't tracking what was going on when I was overseas she didn't know what was

happening most of the time you know when my guys got wounded or my guys got killed she knew she went to their she went to the hospital to visit them she went to their funerals but I wasn't dragging her down the the the to the depths of human nature I took that and same with my kids I didn't share with them that these things happen so and and that's so so I think from my perspective you know it's like the reality of the world is yeah there's evil people in the world I accept that reality

I understand that reality there's also good people in the world and there's people that do amazing things there's people that sacrific their lives for their friends and that's part of humanity so I like to focus on that part of humanity rather than the Dark Side of humanity but if you really want to appreciate the the light and the good then you have to recognize that there's darkness and there's evil was there a hardest day while you were in the Navy Seals is there a day you look back on and say that was the the most

sort of emotionally testing day yeah losing guys in combat and that stays with you oh yeah always I just can't imagine you know I just can't I've never lost a friend I've got two older brothers I've never lost my brothers I just can't imagine I can't imagine how difficult it is to like go forward when you've lost you know you refer to these people as your brothers okay and I'm not unique and the guys we were over in the Battle of ratti when we were over there the the Army and the Marine Corps they were

losing guys every day this is not unique I'm not unique there's guys that were in charge of units that lost 10 12 15 guys and it's not unique for human beings either because even though you haven't haven't lost any friends you haven't lost any of your brothers you will this is part of life and so this is part of life people have you know everyone's died and in combat people have died and people carried on and I know that my friends that died they would not want me to sit around and mourn and and and

break down and drink and and pop pills they wouldn't want me to do that at all they'd want me to live that's what they would want they would want me to live they would want me to go out and make things happen and and drive on and enjoy and Surf and play guitar and do jiujitsu that's what they'd want me to do 100% 100% in fact they would be disgusted if what I did with the gift that they gave me was piss it away they'd be disgusted and I won't do that not not a chance

going to live like they would want me to in those moments that's certainly what logic tells you but those moments it's hard to be logical in those moments right yeah I ended up with some pattern recognition on this whole scenario unfortunately because when you lose friends over and over and over again you start to see what happens from an emotional perspective from a spiritual perspective from a physical perspective and what I what I began to recognize as a pattern is and the way that I explain this to people that go through loss like this is

you're going to have you're not going to be in control of your emotion sometimes so and since you're 31 years old you've had control pretty good control over your emotions since you were 7 years old or 8 years old okay you'd break down occasionally you'd lose your temper but you've gotten more and more in control the older you've got gotten so you're not used to not being in control of your OT we as adults are not used to losing control of our emotions so what's going to happen you lose one of your friends you lose

one of your family members you're going to get hit with a wave waves of emotion that you can't control and this sometimes causes people to to really overreact and think that they're in this terrible place because they think oh my gosh I've been able to control my emotions for the last 30 years and now I'm Los now I'm I'm I can't control my emotions there's something wrong with me is what they think and this is what I learned is that those waves of emotion they're going to they're going to roll back and you're going to

you're going to get control again take take a breath and then you're going to get hit with another storm but it's going to go away and you're going to get hit with another storm but it's not going to be as strong and then it's going to go away and you're going to get hit with another storm but it's going to be a longer period of time and it's not going to be as strong and what this is is this is your this is you processing what happened and eventually you do get you regain control of

your emotions and there's still going to be times there's still going to be times where you're going to be three years five years 10 years down the road you're going to hit with a wave of emotion and you're going to be caught off guard it's going to catch you I had a guy on my podcast that was in World War II Korea and Vietnam and so we we we talked about World War II where he was you know a young private Soldier and then he was a little bit more senior when he was in Korea

and then in Vietnam he was a battalion Commander so he's in charge of 700 guys and we we were talking and I I I said something along the lines of I I asked him something about his the casualties that he took in his Battalion and so now this is you know he was in Vietnam and I don't know 1967 or 1968 so it's been 60 years I asked him about casualties that he took and he got choked up got choked up lost control of his emotions for for a second and when I saw that I

felt so relieved felt so relieved because I thought oh it's always going to be like this and that's okay it's okay it's okay it's normal lost your friends lost your brothers is it is it is it wrong that you get choked up when you talk about nothing wrong with that here's a guy that lost his lost lost some of his men 60 years ago and he's getting choked up right now why because he loved them because he he wishes he could have brought him through that conflict and he didn't and he feels it and he

lived a normal life retired from the Army got follow on jobs and had another career but he lost his friends his brothers his men and that hurts and it's not going to go away and that's okay there's nothing wrong with you nothing wrong with me there's nothing wrong with me do I get choked up sometimes sure yeah yeah I lost some of my best friends does that hurt yep do I wallow in that no do I dwell in those emotions nope I don't and they wouldn't want me to and they'd be disappointed if I did

I think it's really important because as men we we don't we get conflicting messages about emotion and how to express it and what that looks like and if there's weakness to certain emotions or if you know but the it's the psychology seems to be pretty clear that the suppression of these emotions the trying to hide them the total comp mentalizing of them doesn't actually make them go go away they just appear somewhere else in a bottle or in some kind of recreational drug or somewhere else so and nor does suppressing them isn't going to help

and nor is letting them run your life so because you're sad now you're going to make a bunch of bad decisions because you're sad no no it doesn't doesn't work like that doesn't work like that you're sad okay you get emotional sometimes okay got it now get control of your emotions and carry on with your life and sometimes you're going to get hit with those waves and that's okay I I think that's a big misconception and sort of relates to what you're saying oh I'm I'm having an emotional moment right now there's something wrong with

me no there's nothing wrong with you there's nothing wrong with you the other extreme is oh I'm letting my emotions run my life and I'm making a bunch of bad decisions and my excuse is well you know I lost some friends or had this traumatic experience happen to me that's why I'm doing that's just an excuse and it's a very easy excuse and in society the last thing I want to say to you is well you can't act like that oh you lost one of your friends y hey that doesn't mean you can make an

excuse you can't use that as excuse no I I go hey man okay it's what I say right I'm a polite person I'm empathetic person you're sad you're making bad decisions you're saying it's cuz you lost your friend you went through this traumatic thing and I go okay I how can I help instead of saying hey man yeah guess what it's time to carry on don't don't dwell on the I I I've told a thousand veterans this remember don't dwell remember remember your friends don't dwell in the past though remember don't dwell that's what we

have to do and the emotions yes Embrace those emotions but don't let those emotions embrace you don't let those emotions run your life there is there is a because people say oh uh suppressing your emotions is bad okay so I'm just going to let all these emotions out and they're going to run my life now no no no at a certain point you say okay my emotions are now leading me down the wrong path I'm in control I'm not going to my emotions to make my decisions they're in the calculus I'm not saying take your

emotions out of the calculus but they have to be one component of your Calculus not the whole equation the equation has to include emotions yes logic yes future yes goals yes family yes work yes finances yes all those things have to be in the calculus emotions has to be a part of that calculus you you can't pull them out of there or they'll bite you but you can't make them the overwhelming denominator of everything that you do or it's going to be problematic I heard you tell a story which I thought was really inspiring actually

I was just listening to it before you came about a friend of yours who was going through hardship in their life and you your advice for them was to start walking yeah yeah it was a guy who was yeah going through hardship with his job with his marriage and the marriage was coming to an end the job was not was going to come to an end as well and he's out there and doesn't know what to do and the analogy that I set up for him is if I'm in the woods which is where you

are right now you're in the woods and you don't know where to go because the wife's not there anymore the job's not there anymore you don't know where to go right now so if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go start walking you got to start walking because the perspective is not going to change you have to start moving forward you have to T start taking steps in order to improve your vision improve your perspective change your perspective make some kind of progress and worst case scenario you figure out that you

walked the wrong direction okay now you can walk in the other direction and that's that's going to be fine but standing there lost and not doing anything is just waiting to die waiting to starve to death don't let that happen it's overthinking it's that anxiety it's that ruminating that I think I've I mean I've done it multiple times in my life when the solution is I can't get to certainty on the problem so I I try and think my way out of the problem which only seems to cause more harm than good yeah there's definitely

a level of risk conditioning that you get inside the military because there's you're not you're just not going to be certain about anything and you have to be able to say yep I'm going to make this decision right now and here's what we're going to go do I'm G to make the smallest decision possible going to take the smallest step possible but but I'm going to take a step because I'm never going to know everything and if I take the time to try and know everything everything will have changed by the time I know it

so I'm going to absolutely take that step and take that action I mean that's a metaphor for life as well cuz there's a lot of people trying to get to 100% certainty whether to leave the job or the marriage or the start the business and they're struggling maybe at 60 70 maybe 80 90% certainty but for some reason we seem to need you know certainty that's why I use the what I what I call the iterative decision-making process I'm only take small steps so am I trying to leave my I don't like my job I'm

miserable there okay does that mean I walk in tomorrow morning and say hey boss I hate it here I quit no it doesn't mean that it means I say okay I'm going to start putting my res together I'm going to start checking out LinkedIn I'm going to start seeing what qualifications I might need that could improve my ability to get a new job once I've done that I'm going to start sending out my resume I'm going to start building some relationships with some people and now I look up and I get another job offer so

I didn't make a crazy short-termed emotional decision I I made a slow Progressive iterative decision-making process that led me from a situation that I didn't like to an opportunity that seems more promising and this could apply to just about anything I see this a lot in businesses I see that the the real cost in business I spent about 10 years working in marketing so I was my job was to work with the CMO and the CEO helping them to try and make certain marketing decisions you know that invest in this platform do this thing whatever

and I came to learn over time that the biggest cost wasn't making a bad decision it was the time you waste the nine months wait waiting for Joanna to get back from annual leave so we can have a meeting with Dave and procurement to get the invoice signed off versus the cosos that I worked with that said let's do it now when the decision was quite clearly low cost relatively low cost or reversible mhm it was always speed that seemed to to pretty much speed that seemed to win out because most decisions are either reversible

or actually more in consequential than you think very few decisions are final very few decisions are final even something like buying a house should I buy this house oh my gosh it seems if you buy a house and you decide it wasn't the house that you wanted you sell the house it's like now look could you get caught in a bad market and could yeah that can absolutely happen so you need to be smart about your decisions that you make but most things are not as final as they seem most things you're going to be

able to to and will you look you paid the realtor so you lost 3% there you paid the other realtor you lost 3% you had to pay the mortgage fees so you're going to lose some money but it's not like you buy a million-- dollar house and then you decide you don't like it you don't lose a million dollars you lose 80 grand or whatever you know and it's okay two years three years you get it back what so people think of decisions as being permanent yeah if you're in marketing and you approach me and

you say Hey listen CEO there's a new marketing opportunity that we'd like to get you into and I go how much did it cost and you say a million dollars and I say well that's a lot of money can is there can I try it for a shorter period of time well yeah but you won't get as much for your for you won't get as much volume and I say okay well still I don't want to invest that much because I'm not sure about it let's test it and see where it goes and you say

okay we'll try that here's 100 Grand and let's see what feedback we get and if it's good it's good if it's not we go somewhere else do you think you're conditioned in some ways to have this sort of um bias towards taking action because if your background in the seals there was often some kind of time urgency there was some Factor that's causing you to have to take a decision is that yeah in business in life there's not there's not like we're going to lose this or someone's going to die or there's going to be

an attack in the business world the consequences are prolonged and usually not as extreme so you can get away with less action even though eventually it will catch up with you and you've got an example that in your book and the the fatherson deal and one of them takes nine months to execute and the other one executes immediately and the one that executes immediately is successful the one that doesn't takes nine months to execute fails so it eventually in action will cost you in and you say interestingly that oh in the SEAL Teams you must

be conditioned to do this I had to condition people to take action even in the SEAL Teams even a young seal leader who you would think would be by Nature aggressive and an action taker you put them in a pressure situation where there's not a ton of information and they need to make a decision they don't want to act either so one of the things that I would teach was that their default mode was to be aggressive their default mode was to take action I would teach that same thing we just discussed I wouldn't say

hey look that means you have to take action but your default setting should be I'm going to do something cuz I'd have a young seal officer and there'd be some training and there' be a problem in a building and there'd be a bunch of paintball flying around in there and he wouldn't want to go solve that problem he'd back away from that problem and I would have to go like push him in the back and say you see that problem over there you got to go solve that problem it's not going to go away you

got to be aggressive that's got to be your default mode is to take action and make things happen because most human instinct is to wait most human instinct is to hesitate most human instinct is to let things go longer and stick with the status quo and that seems to be on the on the front the lowest risk in the situation is to not do anything it usually appears to be the lowest risk but just like the example that you gave in your book it's it definitely seems lower risk oh well he wants money wants investment

new thing I don't know the lowest risk in that situation is to not do anything and that's what many people do whether they're in the SEAL Teams or whether they're in business so to train people to oh I need to take risk some level of risk take action because in the long run I say seven out of 10 seven out of 10 times action is better than in action 70% of the time act there's definitely times where you got to hesitate there's definitely times where you got to hold back there's definitely and that's the other

book you got there is called the dichotomy of leadership because there's times yes absolutely action aggression there's also times the other end of the spectrum was like y now's not the time to make a move so it's it's definitely a dichotomy but the to me 70% of the time you better take that action that's got to be your default mode I asked you what your your hardest day in um the seals were and you said about losing friends what was what was your proudest day is there a proudest day where you go you know what

I I really showed up in a in a way that I to a standard that I held myself to and because I did we accomplished something great together against the odds there's a a multitude of times where I was in Iraq I was in a detached moment in time you know moving down a street sitting in a vehicle maneuvering and I was and I was watching my guys I could see my guys and I could see what they were doing and I could see one of the most beautiful things in the world which was guys

that were exceptional at their job working together as a team maneuvering protecting each other accomplishing the mission and I got to see that many times and that's always it had nothing to do with me had to do with them had to do with being able to see look were we perfect no but were there moments when you see an element cover and move for each other on the battlefield a simple plan with the right priorities with decentralized command where was there times when I got to see all those things yes and that without a doubt

those those were those are the best days says something about you know and I think I've kind of seen this throughout your work is you have a real focus on service serving others as a path to I I guess fulfilling yourself and we often think I think many people think in life that the path to self-fulfillment is to serve yourself but it seems that you've kind of figured out that the path is by serving others yeah I think that's there's there's an underlying core component and belief and and innate DNA in the SEAL Teams and

that is you take care of your you take care of your friends and and that's not in fact if you're the type of person that doesn't take care of your friends you're not going to be a good seal you're not going to be a good seal if if you put yourself before the team look you can be a great shot you can be strong you can be fast all those things but no one's going to really want you in a platoon if you put yourself above them and people don't really talk about that you no

one ever told me that but you feel it and if you're if you're not self-aware you you might slip into where you're looking out for yourself and it's a problem and this happens in life too you know if you're if you it happens in business where I see a guy that that he's taking care of himself and and you know it's a smart guy and he usually thinks he's pretty smart and usually thinks he's a little bit smarter than everybody else and usually thinks that no one else is going to notice that he's taking care

of himself and everybody sees it yeah and they dig themselves a grave they they dig themselves a Graves and they I'm not saying they don't get away with it a little bit usually they get a couple promotions you know they get to a spot but ultimately people don't want to work with that person and so they burn their relationships and they don't do as well as they should and which is the the kind of nice thing is if you take care of other people they'll take care of you if you screw other over other people

you're you're going to get screwed over so yeah I think there's there's there's definitely that underlying theme in the SEAL Teams I've seen it now in business and it is it is it is going to if you if you look out for yourself all the time it's going to catch up with you I think everyone can relate in this if anyone's ever worked in a business and they have colleagues I think everyone will be able to think about the colleague who is always seeking credit is um is always you know being selfish in the way

that they're showing up and then they can also think about the colleague who's the complete opposite of that and it's often it's funny it was making me think as you were speaking that leadership is in fact in many respects it's given it's not taken I the person that's showing up for other people but also delivering on their own work is often kind of elected the leader of the group this is I you know we talk a lot in business I think it was Steve Jobs that said the very very best leaders in my organization were

those that were so good at their job and they were never thinking about like being a leader but that's the reason they ultimately became it yeah when people ask me and I got it I got a book I wrote called leadership strategy and tactics it's like how to get promoted how do you get promoted don't about getting promoted focus on the team focus on the mission focus on doing a good job focus on supporting your teammates if you do those things you're going to get promoted and it it takes you'll have this you know the

dark part of your personality will say yeah but they're not going to notice they need to see me now and you'll raise your hand and say I want credit for that and the minute you do that the minute you raise your hand and say give me credit your credit goes down it's an unfortunate truth the minute you ask for the accolades your accolades are decreased because every you're looking out for yourself and everyone can smell that and they don't like it yeah you're saying that the Miss I'm more important than the mission in some respects

yeah terrible terrible did you have people like that in the in the services when you were you were out there people that were clearly selfish oh yeah in the seals absolutely yep how did you deal with that well if they were my boss then I would make them look good build a good great relationship with them if they were my peer I'd make them look good build a great relationship with them if they worked for me I'd make them look good build a great relationship with them I think that as you you know some people

that have that kind of um you know they've got some kind of is it a defect I think it's probably a little bit of a def effect but they they just they just feel like they need that recognition they feel like they need to take care of themselves and again going back to what I was saying earlier like what did they go through in their life that makes them think that they got to look out for themselves and it'd be kind of nice if I could be a person that they go man this guy's treating

me really good and maybe I could help them transform from someone that doesn't trust that they're going to get the recognition that they need to hey there's good people out there and I'd like to be a part of this team were you ever successful in that transformation I was successful I was also unsuccessful you know some people are some people they have that defect and it's strong and they're going to look out for themselves and there's very little you can do about it and you you know you try try um but it's it's a very

the ego is a very very powerful thing I mean you know the ego is so powerful that there's countless cases of military history where a human being got himself and possibly his troops or his troops killed because of his ego so if you can die because of your ego you can absolutely make some pretty dramatic mistakes in the business world because of your ego and it happens all the time it happens all the time leaving leaving the military I have this quote where you said so I'd say if there's anything that I struggle with now

it's just that does anything else matter and the answer is no the answer is no nothing else matters nothing else is close so I have to deal with that you said that on the Tim Ferris podcast talking about your time um in the services but also more specifically the Battle of radi Radia mhm um as being the highlight of your life how does one go through sort of 20 years of high intensity combat and all that adrenaline and all of the you know gosh it's harder to think of many greater senses of like purpose and

fulfillment and Mission and then real life yeah so number one as I mentioned earlier remember but don't dwell and have you seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite oh that's a bummer there's a character in the movie Napoleon Dynamite his name is Uncle Rico and Uncle Rico played football in high school and now uncle rico uh lives in a van and sells cooking wear so he kind of peaked in high school and he lives in the past he's always talking about state championships and if he would have had that extra point and if coach would have put

him in he's got he's living in the past and so while that quote right there no doubt that you just read from me is accurate I mean there there will not be I don't think anything in my life that will have as much intensity as much Mission Focus as much meaning as much as much opportunity as much loss like that is combat is is like life but Amplified and intensified so every emotion that you have like you have an emotion when you when you formulate a new plan and when you sell a business or buy

a business you have emotions that's like combat but it's Amplified it's intensified and it's it's a lot more so the that quote that you read is true nothing will compare to that it won't but I don't want to be like Uncle Rico living in the past talking about how this is what it used to be like and if only yeah this was my big game I don't want to do that I want to as I said early I want to remember but I don't want to dwell in the past has it ever crossed your mind

to go back in any capacity oh yeah of course yeah every time like a every time a war breaks out somewhere you you you want to get your get your knife out sharpen it up and let's rock and roll of course because yeah well because of that quote right there like this is this is it like that's that's it I'm lucky that I got to do what I got to do you know like that's a blessing it's a it's the it's what I wanted to do since I was a little kid and I got to

do it and so if you asked me if I got the chance to do it again would I yeah I would 100% you could though right you could go be involved in some capacity in the seals yeah there's ways there's things that I could do to you know like be Gunslinger again and all that but there's also it's also not the same so you know if I cuz I retired from the Navy and and so I'm not in the military anymore I still work with the military I still train the military but to go and

be a gunslinger again um now you're now you're doing something different now you are a mercenary now it's a different situation and the that component that you talked about of like Mission Brotherhood is not going to be the same for me and and quite frankly I think that I part of me wants to not sour that memory and and all those memories I don't want to I don't want to you know I don't I don't want to I don't want to sour that memory I I have a beautiful beautiful memory and I don't want to

tarnish it with me chasing around the past you know when Fighters they retire from fighting and then they they just they they want to go back they do it again and it's just not the same Anderson Silva was like that for me he was Superman and then he went back a couple of times and I didn't want to watch him getting beat up it was like yeah I that's how that's that's a I feel like that I feel like that I don't don't think I could rematch my my Anderson Silva the spider Championship run I

don't think I could rematch that discipline is freedom it's the title of your um your book here discipline equals Freedom now that seems like it's untrue because when people think of discipline they think of rigidity and and taking away their freedom having to be disciplined why is why does discipline equal freedom because the more discipline you have in your life the more freedom you will end up with so if you lack the discipline to exercise and eat healthy you will end up being a slave to disease if you lack the discipline to work hard save

your money you will end up a slave to finances if you lack the discipline to manage your time correctly you will end up with no free time if you have self-discipline if you have the discipline to save your money and work hard and invest your money properly if you have the discipline to manage your time correctly and not waste a bunch of time if you have the discipline to exercise and eat healthy you will end up with freedom and it's I know it's a counterintuitive it's contrarian but I've seen this over and over and over

again if you want freedom in your life you have to have discipline there's going to be some kid listening to this now I always think about the personas that are listening and they are you know eating Doritos off their belly spit them out [Laughter] spit them out start now because if you're a kid right now and you're eating Doritos off your belly I know they taste good and there's some immediate gratification and I get that but I'm going to tell you it starts right now throw that bag of Doritos away get rid of it go

do some push-ups go spend $12 at the hardware store and hang up a pull-up bar in your room and start doing pull-ups and if you can't do one pull-up hang on that bar and you're going to start to get a Little Bit Stronger you're going to start to get a little bit healthier you're start to get more focused you're going to start to become more resilient and you're going to start to be able to do a pull-up and you're going to start to eat healthy all the time and you're going to start to understand the

world better and you're going to start to progress in every aspect of your life and you'll see that if you have that kind of discipline right now you're going to end up with freedom and if you don't have that kind of discipline and you keep eating those Doritos and you don't work hard and you don't exercise and you don't apply yourself you're going to end up you're going to end up Shackled you're up Shack tackled by a boss that you don't like doing a job that you don't like to do with sicknesses and diseases that

you don't want relying on people that you can't even count on alone and you don't have to but if you have discipline if you have discipline you will attain freedom and it starts with just spitting the duritos out starts with spitting the Doritos out yes indeed how do you guys manage your stress this month is Stress Awareness Month and it's a topic that I'm super passionate about and we talk about a lot in this podcast I personally manage my stress by prioritizing my health and well-being going to the gym is my number one form of

therapy and I couldn't be without those two things as you guys know whoop is a sponsor of this podcast and I'm an investor in the company as well for those of you that don't know whoop actually created a stress monitor within this device not only does this help me to identify periods of high stress in real time throughout the day but it also provides me with the tools I need to deal with stresses as they come up throughout the day and it's based on scientifically backed breathing exercises and research that's been developed by Leading neuroscientists

it's a feature that has been gamechanging for me and I highly recommend if you're someone that's looking looking to manage your stress levels then head over to join. whoop.com CEO where we'll give you 30 days risk-free and zero commitment to try whoop let me know how you get on one of the things you do which is I mean you're super famous for it is this idea of waking up early now I'm not someone that wakes up early I know you no alarm clock and you're usually up by 11: well like so no meetings before 11

okay so I I stay up quite late y um what's the best case you could give me for changing that and do I need to change that because I what I what I do is you know I flew into La I'm [ __ ] jetlagged I'm flying back in a couple of days I'm going to be jetlagged when I land as well so what I'm trying to do is just protect my sleep at all cost because I've come to learn that it's really the foundation of my performance so if I if I'm unslept and I

show up at work the chance that I'm not going to show up correctly in a variety of ways emotionally creatively whatever is high and that for me is the greatest risk yeah so I just in the last sort of year or two of my life I've just said okay prioritize sleep because then everything else seems to follow but when I heard that you wake up sometimes at 4:45 or 4:30 like pretty much all the time and you I've literally seen you on social media upload your your alarm clock day after day after day I go

[ __ ] maybe I should rethink no I think if you're if you've got a system that's working well for you and then I wouldn't change anything right if you feel like you're performing well you're physically healthy you're getting all the work done that you need to do you're a naturally more of a a late night late morning type person I'd run with it it's if you were telling me yeah sometimes I get up sometimes I don't sometimes I work late sometimes I don't I'm not don't work out every day you know sometimes I feel

groggy if you were telling me that kind of thing I'd say okay pick a time and start waking up at that time every day doesn't have to be 4:40 could be 8:00 could be 7 o'clock it doesn't matter could be 11:00 but try and go to bed around the same time and try and wake up around the same time and that's going to be a great foundation for everything that you're doing and I would say when you wake up in the morning do some kind of exercise because I think that is very helpful in getting

your day started correctly what are your non-negotiables in your life in terms of habits routines disciplines I wake up early and I work out every day that's that's kind of my my that's that's those are the minimum requirements in my life train Jiu-Jitsu I I don't get to chain train Jiu-Jitsu every single day but if I can train Jiu-Jitsu I'm gonna train Jiu-Jitsu I'm gonna work out every day if I can surf I'm going to surf you know um I I obviously have to work every day I I work every day doing something you know

I've got a bunch of different companies I got a write books podcasts so I I work every day are you ever undisciplined oh yeah yeah yeah um uh chocolate chip cookies they're a they're a a discipline lapse for me uh yeah so yeah I'm I'm not a cyborg when people look at someone like you that's you know done all the things you've done you've been in seal and you've you've written all these books and started these companies and actually the drink I'm drinking now is one of your your products which is the what's that in

front of you the yeah it's a it's an energy drink called Go called go um Delicious By the way oh thank you I think my mouth has been connected to my brain during this interview so I think it's working um I understand there's misconceptions that people have of me because they assume it's kind of like the halo effect we assume because someone's done something well they do all things well um but there are so many things that I think would really liberate people and make them inspired if they could see how deficient I was in

so many things in my life you know because they just assume that if you've done one thing well you have a good podcast you have a you must be like you know the perfect picture of what are the big misconceptions generally moving away from this idea of imperfection but just generally about Joo because you've you realize you've become a bit of a character right you know like Navy SEAL that comes with an identity package yeah I think the biggest misconception I think and it's it's it's not just me but it's really the military in general

is the misconception of this kind of authoritarian and even authoritarian dictatorship from a leadership perspective and even when when we were having this conversation I said I'm going to let I'm going to let my subordinates plan and you kind of had a stunned look on your place like what are you talking about why would you let your subordinates plan and so there's an idea and a misconception that the leader is going to stand up and bark all the orders so that's one misconception the another one is I look like a neanderthal and so people are

think I'm going to scream and yell at everybody and I I never yell at anybody you know I I my business partner Leif Babin who's worked with me who's in my task unit at at Seal Team 3 and deployed to raani with me and we now we've written a couple books together we have a business together and he was like my direct subordinate in ratti and dur during a workup and you know like I'm never yelled at him and he likes to point out that he gave me plenty of reasons to yell at him but

never yelled at him cuz what what good is that and by the way if I have to yell at somebody what does that say that means if I have to yell at you to get my point across as a leader I've made like 47 other mistakes my goal is that I don't even have to say anything that's my goal as a leader my goal is I don't have to say a word and you already know what to do and you make it happen and I look at you and give you a thumbs up and say

good job that's my goal so I think the biggest misconception is theide idea of someone in the military or myself being a authoritarian leader being very close-minded like you know I I got asked a question the other day about you know if you were if you were if if China attacked Taiwan and you were taking troops in there what would you be focused on and I said I'd be focused on keeping an open mind because if you have a closed mind about what the mission is about how it's going to happen about what your troops

are going to do about what the enemy going to do if you have a closed mind about those things you're going to get caught off guard you have to have an open mind you have to be accepting of the information that you're receiving you have to be accepting of the other ideas that other people have and if you have a closed mind you're going to fall apart kind of counterintuitive in some ways because the reason people often think they've been made the leader because they have loads of the correct ideas so I think as as

people often climb in life they go well I've been right so much that they've put me here a CEO so now I need to defend my righteousness at all costs even when I'm not you know sure cuz that's a weakness yeah and you quoted Steve Jobs earlier and I I think actually it's from your book which was I don't hire people so I can tell them what to do I hire good people so they can tell me what to do so yes uh in your Le in a leadership position you should be listening more than

you should be talking you were talking a second ago about shouting and aggression it made me as you're saying it I was thinking you know there is a stereotype that a man is aggressive and he shouts and all those things you know there's a bit of a stereotype there I what I was actually thinking is it's never been so unclear what a man is than it than in 2024 in the context of how a man's me to show up are they me to be masculine or feminine or somewhere in between or whatever and for many

men you are a man man you know when we think of Navy SEALs we go men do you know what I mean so I I was wondering because it's it's never been as clear I think what a man should be you know when you're raising a kid that's a man or you when you're being a man yourself um what do you think a man should be and I I want to give a bit more context here there's a lot of men struggling right now there's a lot of men if you know I talk about it

a lot that if you look at the stats around suicidality and UK the thing that's most likely to kill someone between the age of like 18 and 40 is themselves for a man you know there's a so men are clearly struggling in some capacity with purpose or or meaning or something so I almost feel like you know a lot of these sort of toxic influences of what a man should be have now emerged to offer answers but I doubt those toxic influences and I say there's got to be another role model another sort of blueprint

for what it is to show up as a man well I was going to give you a real I guess it would have been a real cheap answer of uh I think it's Marcus aelius say stop discussing what it is to be a man and be one I was going to I was going to walk out of here with that one be like pretty good question avoidance there um which but there's some Merit to that right like and I was almost thinking like do we really not know do we really not know what it is

to be a good man and and I would go so far as to say to be a good human being right because when a few years ago there was the there was these discussions going around about toxic masculinity right and you take these traditional masculine traits and people were saying this is toxic masculinity and they're bad and I wrote a couple articles about it if you take any trait of a human being and you take it to an extreme masculine or feminine or otherwise you take it to an extreme it's it's going to be a

problem it doesn't matter what it is so if you take even a really positive trait like generosity if you're a a super generous person that's wonderful is it possible to be too generous well yes it is now you're getting taken advantage of and now you end up in an abusive relationship like there's all kinds of problems that can happen so when we talk about masculine traits and what's a man well what are some of the traditional masculine traits um to be competitive now is it bad to be hyper competitive where you screw people over and

you hurt your health because you want to win in this particular category is that bad yes it is does that mean we have people that are not competitive at all and they don't care if they win or lose no that's not good either so that's that's one trade what's another good mask aggression aggression is a masculine trait is it good if I'm walking into a restaurant pushing the hostess out of my way of course that's terrible it's terrible is it good if you and I are working together and I say hey shut up and do

what I said is that good no it's not good so can you take aggression too far yes you absolutely can can you get to a point where you're not even asserting yourself at all and you're getting yes you can is that good no that's not good either so there's a bunch of traits that we could run through that are considered traditional masculine traits and if you take any of those traits and you take them to an extreme they're going to be bad stoicism right being stoic being unemotional is it is it good to have no

emotions whatsoever no that's called a sociopath right is that good no is it good like I was talking about earlier to let your emotions run your life and make your decisions based on your emotions no that's not good either what do we want to be as a as a human as a man want to be balanced want to be a want to be balanced you don't want to be extreme in any direction even when you ask me like oh Joo what are you undisciplined on I told you chocolate chip cookies I could have also said

uh yeah sometimes I like to eat uh mint chocolate chip milkshakes sometimes I get lazy in a work out I'm like you know what I freaking warmed up and this sucks and I'm I'm leaving uh sometimes I'm supposed to I was going to write something and now I didn't write anything I supposed to write a thousand words today I didn't write any and guess what I didn't write any tomorrow I I'm a slacker so if I was so disciplined that you know my wife was like hey I'd like to go out for dinner I was

like no I still got to write my thousand words is that good no it's not good so any any characteristic if we take it to extreme it's going to be a problem and so we as people should be balanced and I think what we need to be attuned to is it's it's much easier to be extreme it's it's much easier to be extreme it's it's it's much easier to say oh no emotions cool and turn them off that's easier then or or a total emotion Mayhem that's easier it's harder to find balance it's harder to

find balance in business it's harder to find balance in life it's hard to find balance and what we have to do is we have to be attuned to the the feedback that we're getting we have to be attuned to the feedback that we're getting so if we're talking to our wife and she says you you're not going to be home for dinner again tonight for the ninth night in a row that you're going to stay late at work okay you need to be paying attention enough to say oh yeah guess what I'm a little too

focused on work right now and then the other end of that spectrum is my boss says Hey Joo wait you're leaving early again well you know it's wrestling season my my daughter's got a wrestling match so I'm I'm going to leave okay I need to be attuned enough to say yeah if I focus 100% on my job I'm gonna lose my family if I focus 100% of my family I'm going to lose my job we as humans are supposed to be balanced and by the way there's going to be some things that we don't control

somebody asked me the other day what did I learn about myself from the highs and lows of my life the highest point of my life and the lowest point of my life what did I learn about myself and I said I learned that I don't let the highs and the lows affect me too much because we're going to have wins we're going to have losses we're going to have successes we're going to have failures we're going to have good nights we're going to have bad nights we're going to have good relationships we're going to have

bad relationships we're going to have good ideas and bad ideas we're going to make money we're going to lose money all these things are going to happen and if you oscillate emotionally up and down drastically it's going to be problematic so finding a good stable centered way to be and look at the world and take everything that you see with a little bit of a grain of salt and don't get swayed too drastically in One Direction or the other you're going to be okay and if I was to try and sum up some of this

idea about being a man or being a good human it's like those books I wrote a book called Extreme ownership that number one take responsibility for what you're doing take take ownership of Your World take ownership of your life there's number one number two the second book dichotomy of leadership be balanced be balanced don't be extreme extreme look you have to sometimes get out there in the in the fringes a little bit occasionally you probably had some business situations where you're like all right I got to let go half of my staff right now that's

an extreme move but that's how we're going to do you have to do that sometimes yes you do but don't let that be where you live live in the center live in a stable area and then finally discipline equals Freedom couple of words you use throughout this conversation make me want to add some things to that list of what it takes to be a maybe not a good man but at least a happy and fulfilled man one of the words he used his Brotherhood and I was thinking about all the things you got from your

time in the sales and it's almost a bit of like a microcosm of what I think a lot of men are looking for you know that sense of purpose that Brotherhood and they find it these days in like video games and stuff right which I video games I've got no you know I cost no judgment on people that play video games I've played video games my whole life but there's a it seems like there's a reason we're getting like increasingly addicted to these video games because they're giving us something that we're searching for in real

life and not getting you use the words Brotherhood purpose these are things that the seals clearly have in huge huge amounts is there anything else that you'd add to that list of what it takes to feel fulfilled yeah Jiu-Jitsu it's it almost has become a joke amongst me my friends people that listen to me is you got some kind of a problem in the world you got some kind of problem in your life GO train Jiu-Jitsu there's a reason why I say that because the things that you just mentioned discipline guess what you need to

go train Jiu-Jitsu when you're tired and you don't feel like it discipline guess how you feel when you're done you feel awesome you get a bunch of dopamine guess who you're there with a bunch of dudes that you can relate to and guess what you're going to do together you're going to struggle you're going to go through some some hardship together you're going to sweat you're going to choke you're going to get your arm broke and like these things are going to happen not going to get your arm broken but you may or you're GNA

you're going to be with a little Brotherhood and by the way women train Jiu-Jitsu too my daughters all train jiu-jitsu it's all good it's all good so yeah Jiu-Jitsu is one way now look could you go to the Rock Climbing Gym yes you could could you go to the CrossFit gym yes you could could you go to the to theer yeah the soccer field football field whatever yeah you can do that stuff so yeah go do that stuff go do that stuff that's shared suffering together with a group on a regular basis whether you want

to or not that's some that's those are all little components of being in the military being in the SEAL Teams that's what it is that's what you're doing that's what what does a seal platoon do they train to get ready for go to war how do they do that they go to the desert they carry their guns they run through little choreographed moves they get hot they carry weight it's suffering it's just shared suffering and they're working together and they're learning skills that's what you're doing in a Jiu-Jitsu gym that's what you're doing on the

soccer field so go out and do those things with other human beings and it's going to make it's going to make things better for sure it made me think of business as well business should be that way if you if you're in an organization you're doing the exact same thing right we've got a problem we need to solve it we've got to allocate resources we got to come in late tonight we got to make this thing happen we got an emergency like that's what a business is too that's the way it should be it should

be we're working together to solve problems and when we're successful we get rewarded for that so yes this is called human interaction I'm sorry that it looks like war is the best way to do it it's not I would much rather people start a business and create a product and and and create jobs I would much rather people do that and you can find that same kind of camaraderie in business in fact it's interesting you know I I have a Consulting business and so we work with companies and companies that went through the 208 economic

downfall those they're so bonded cuz they went through this traumatic experience together companies that that kind of did well out of the gate they're you people are leaving and people are com but companies that went through some trauma together they stick together so yeah if you frame things right in your life if you frame things if you frame a business challenge as an opportunity to build a stronger team if you if you frame a personal challenge as an opport to overcome and improve yourself these things that seem so horrible are actually very positive components of

your existence and they're going to make you better as you said that I thought damn I should take all of my teams we should go do like a survival week we have uh we we run a program like that at Eon front where we teach we teach people like some basic tactics and we have these highspeed laser tag guns and we send them out on missions and there's explosions and there's gunfire and there's role players that are screaming and yelling and it's it's Mayhem and those teams that go through that they bond they also learn

how to make decisions Under Pressure they also learn how to detach they also learn the fundamental principles of combat leadership that you can apply not just to the battlefield but you can apply to business and you can apply to your life as well so yes is that helpful it absolutely is struggle sucks depends on how you frame it right depends on how you frame it because I'm thinking about you stood at the beach the you know and they say walk out Joo link hars and walk out you describe that as sucking yeah but what you're

also saying is there's huge value in things that suck on the the other side of something that sucks is something worth cherishing I would say not just huge value but the value it's the value you want to know if you're a you're talking about young men that might not have any direction right now go go do something that's hard go try and accomplish something that's hard you may win you may lose you may succeed you may fail I'll tell you what you'll be better if you avoid those things that are hard if you don't accept

that challenge if you don't step up and step into that cold water and you sit on your couch and eat Doritos I I I can tell you this is not a good move this is not a good move don't do that don't do that just get up move towards that challenge whatever that challenge is move towards that challenge and go attack it and you may be successful and you may not be successful but you will be better and the next challenge you're going to be more prepared for and the next challenge after that you're going

to be even more prepared for and you're going to fail and you're going to fail and you're going to fail and you're going to fail and then you're going to win and that's life life without those challenges it's just existence don't just exist go live you used the word balance a second ago and um from reading through your story it appears that when you were in the sales you didn't have a whole lot of work life balance in whatever way people will Define work life balance I'm talking specifically here about your relationships your family your

wife I'm right in saying that you were out of balance at through that season of life in terms of you know yes I was out of balance I was out of balance I was out of balance but the ship was still moving in the right direction so what does that mean that means that my wife picked up the slack that's what she did so I was out of B she recognized it she recognized that I had a job and that that job was important she recognized that I was going to war I was taking I

was taking guys to war my decisions could mean the lives of these guys the deaths of these guys my wife understood that my wife understood that what I needed to focus on at that time was making sure that my guys and me were prepared for war that has to be the focus that has to be the focus to not focus on that means I might not be coming home means some of those guys not might not be coming home she understood that she knew that she stepped up she I was out of balance she was

in Balance she pulled the family unit into balance and and I was I treated my wife like a princess my I mean I never I never I mean I gave my wife everything except for time I could not always give her the time that she deserved she never complained about it one time that's legit she knew she knew that she understood it it's a team first law of combat leadership's cover and move we work together as a team while I was doing my job while I was serving the country she covered for me where I

couldn't deliver on the home front with three kids and then four kids she covered the finances the water heater that's broken the car tire that needs changing she did all that stuff I can see the emotion in your face when you say that where does that come from what is that emotion that's appreciation it's appreciation it's like I'm gone and she's there she doesn't know what's going to happen to me doesn't know if I'm coming home she got three freaking kids running around like and this is my wife guess what there's hundreds of thousands of

military wives that did the same thing and spouses as well because there's there's guys that are married to females that go unemployment as well that hold the line and and do the job on the home front and you know they they don't they don't get the appreciation the outward appreciation the recognition that the people that are in the military get but they deserve it do you think you could ever express the Gratitude you have for for her in words do you think do you think it's possible for her to know how much you appreciate her

for holding the line and for covering you do I think I could express it in words probably not does she know yes she does joy we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for MH they leave it in this book question that's been left for you if you could bring someone back who's no longer with us and have a conversation with them who would be and what would that conversation entail well I'd bring back Mark Lee Mikey Monsour and

Ryan job and I'd tell him thank you thank you what would you be thanking them for everything okay thank you thank you for I mean the list is quite ex extensive but thank you for putting your life on the line to make the world a better place that's um I think a a level of gratitude and appreciation that we can't really Express um in words to people like you that put your lives on the line and sometimes don't come back from war and put your families through it things that the average person frankly wouldn't be

willing to do um for the sake of an important cause thank you for that thank you on behalf of all of the people that will never be able to say it to you thank you for what you're doing in this chapter of your life because you are maybe whether you know it or not you are saving improving and changing lives with everything you do with your incredible podcast with all the books you've written you've written this you know you're writing children's books as well now to try and help shift the mindset of people at the

very while they're still seeds and they're formative and I think that's also going to change improve lives and thank you for all the inspiration you've given me over the years because you'll never get to see all of the people who hear a line that you say the way that you say it the stories that you tell um and for some of those people it's just the subtle n nudge that they need to take that first step to spit the dirito out and to change their lives you know when I when I think about my Friendship

Circle and I told told some of my friends that I was speaking to you today those are young men and women that can all pinpoint the moment where they encountered you and they can pinpoint how it moved their life forward in some way you'll never meet these millions and millions of people but I just want you to know for sure that they're there and they're watching now and they've been watching and they'll continue to watch so Joo thank you it's been an honor it was an honor to serve and thanks for having me on here

appreciate it [Music] oh [Music]