Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink

Key Takeaway

Practice extreme ownership today: when a project, conversation, or result goes wrong, write down the part you could have controlled before naming anyone else’s mistake. Then turn that ownership into one concrete correction—a clearer plan, better briefing, earlier check-in, or additional support. Willink argues that leaders who own failures create teams that solve problems; leaders who blame others trigger defensiveness and leave the underlying issue untouched.

Episode Overview

Joe Rogan speaks with former Navy SEAL officer Jocko Willink about combat leadership in Iraq, the Battle of Ramadi, military training, discipline, and the transition of battlefield leadership lessons into business. Willink explains the philosophy behind his book, Extreme Ownership, and connects leadership, humility, realistic training, creativity, and lifelong learning to everyday civilian work.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink from Joe Rogan Experience. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

all right ladies and gentlemen we are here and uh I'm here with Joo willink of extreme ownership how US Navy Seals lead and win I'm really excited to read this because I really enjoyed your podcast with Tim Ferris and I've seen you around the UFC a bunch of times but uh I I didn't know much about you um but you're one of those dudes you know where I look at this guy I'm like that guy probably knows some [ __ ] does something about you like when I see you you know you're hanging around with I saw you uh a few times at the UFC I'm like that guy probably knows some [ __ ] or he's seen some [ __ ] and then I saw or listen to the Tim Ferris podcast I go okay well that makes a lot of sense now uh if you haven't heard that podcast it is excellent and uh you're the one the first guy ever to come with your own notepad and your own pen too I just want to point that out just trying to be prepared well that's your whole thing man I'm a big fan of your uh social media post too because uh I like feeling like a lazy [ __ ] whenever I look at your social media post you have a picture of your watch 4:45 in the morning dude's out there working out I like it yeah it's interesting because uh you know I obviously had zero social media presence like three months ago or whatever the case may be and Tim Ferris was you know basically said hey you need to get on this Social Media stuff and I said okay can you kind of show me what to do and he says yeah sign up so then I signed up and then he dropped that podcast that gets listened to by a bunch of people and all of a sudden I was engulfed in the social media world and I found Twitter to be the one that uh was the easiest to use and you don't have to write a lot so you know I don't like people that talk a whole bunch without saying anything so I figured that one's pretty cool yeah that was the the thing that I was thinking when he was encouraging you to use social media I was like a guy like you you're not a peac coocker you know and there's something about social media that as a person who's an avid social media user there's some peacocking to it you know and I try to do it with humor and I try to because it's it's an important aspect of promoting comedy shows and podcasts and things along those lines but uh you were much more of a keep it to yourself one of the things that I loved about the ferris podcast you were talking about um how you would have uh commanders would come to uh various leaders and ask them what do you need uh and guys would have all these requests and all these things we need Wi-Fi we need this and you were like we're good sir and the idea behind that is when you did need something if you really did need something someone would come to you you would get it quickly absolutely when I when I needed something and I spoke up and said hey hey boss this is what I need and this is why I need it they would instantly give it to me because they knew that I was telling the truth and it wasn't some you know half-ass request that wasn't real it was something that we legit needed and they'd give it to me well this is the value you of someone who keeps their words short and means what they say and says what they mean and doesn't have a lot of [ __ ] involved in their vocabulary or and this coming from a professional bullshitter I mean this is what I do I I [ __ ] I talk you know feel a lot of hours of just shooting this [ __ ] about nonsense yeah and I mean I I have to you know look in the mirror myself I mean I just wrote with my with my partner lave Babin who I served with you know we just wrote a 300 page book about uh you know for all practical purposes now of course it's about our team and it's about what we learned and what we experienced but there's no doubt that there's some level of you know self-promotion when you're writing a book that's got your name on the cover of it and and now I'm sitting here talking to you and I guess that puts me in the same uh League maybe not the same league but at least I'm playing the same sport yeah we're definitely playing the same sport but that but there's benefit to that because I think what you have to say and especially what you had to say in the Tim Ferris podcast is is very important it's um it's not just important it's Unique and because your perspective is of one who was involved in the most intense activity a human being can participate in in today's world you were involved in combat in Iraq during the worst time of the war and you came through it with some pretty intense lessons and you can I think anybody listening to that podcast can get a lot out of it there's in inspiration to be gotten from that podcast for sure but there's also uh an understanding that can only be I don't think anybody else can relay what you experienced but you you know you can have all these guys that write these you know movies and they could write screenplays and television shows about it or guys can write books about it embedded journalists can write about it it's not the same I got a sense from just you talking about it on Tim Ferris podcast literally a shift in my perspective of what it's like to be there yeah it is you know for me it was my and I know this might sound weird but it was my lifelong dream to be in combat and to be in a leadership position in combat ever since I could remember wanting to do anything of any substance with my life I wanted to be some kind of a Commando and so I I really felt and and the battle ratti was you know like you said it was 2006 it was rat Iraq it was the worst place in the world at the time and I knew that and I felt like my whole life had sort of been preparing me to be there in that position taking care of those guys to the best of my ability and going out and and sending them out to go and kill the enemy and supporting the conventional forces that were there that were unbelievably Brave and humble and just miraculously patriotic and we formed a Brotherhood that you know to this day I I I don't think it'll ever be replaced and you can see why you know these stories of War stand the test of time and mean we talk about the Peloponnesian Wars we talk about war for all time because there's there's something there and I think it's what you began with because it is the ultimate human test you know it's the ultimate it is other people are trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them and that's just the ultimate test and not that it's a great test or a test that everyone should want to have happen because it's it's awful and horrible and wretched in many ways but at the same time it's there and it's present and there is no avoiding it war is part of the world it's part of human nature I know Dana White you know says fighting is in our DNA well you don't have to go but one or two degrees further from fist fighting to where you know tribes of human beings are trying to kill each other yeah it's one of the subjects that I've talked about with my friend Duncan we were we were going over this and we we essentially came to the conclusion that the history of the human race is a a history of military Warfare I mean when you talk about the human race you talk about the Civil War you talk about you know World War I World War II Korea Vietnam you talk about wars and in between those Wars people preparing for more war or trying to avoid war the Cold War in between Wars you know you talk about the the various conflicts throughout history whether it's genas Khan or whether it's Napoleon or whether you're talking about War I mean almost all of our history has been trying to keep people from [ __ ] with us and trying to take things that we think will help our people that's essentially the history of the human race yeah and I think what really strikes people and why there's a an almost sick fascination with it in some ways is because there it's you know we say that uh combat is like life but Amplified and intensified so it's similar to regular life except for the consequences are obviously everything you know you you can die that can be the end of you and so when you're in that moment and when you read about that and when people read these books or watch these movies they get some sense of what that must be like and I think that's why there is like I said some uh attraction to it I mean that's why War there's hundreds and hundreds of war movies and hundreds and hundreds of war books because people try and understand what that emotional content really means well there's no higher Stakes so when anytime you're you're involved in an activity that literally there are no higher Stakes other than the loss of your loved ones and the grief that you would suffer because of that the loss of your own life is about the highest stake possible and when I talk to people like you or many of the other guys that I've talked to that have served and been involved in combat one of the craziest aspects of it is many want to be back there many experiened that life tuned up to 11 and they they recall it like it's the best time of their life there's no doubt about it best time of my life no doubt about crazy no doubt about it feeling that pressure um knowing what was at stake and again for me in a leadership position you know everyone feels a little bit different from me in a leadership position you're not worried about yourself getting hurt or killed you're worried about your guys getting hurt or killed and that's the most important thing and the thing that's keeping you awake at night and the thing that's driving you and so so there's an intensity there but having so much pressure and so much at stake when it goes away it's definitely leaves a hollow empty space inside there's no doubt about it well you see it with Fighters with uh boxers MMA fighters when they retire they have a real hard time finding regular life to be fulfilling and I could only imagine it would be way more intense because of War because the thing about fighting is it's such a solitary sport you know you have your team behind you you have coaches you have guys that you prepare with that you train with but once you're locked up inside that cage or you step inside that ring it's really all just about you the experience is yours when you're at War your experience is protecting all those around you as well as staying alive and losing friends and thinking that you could have done something differently and maybe someone would still be here that's that's a completely different kind of thing to leave and to come back to regular civilization and then to watch all the [ __ ] that you did in Iraq go to pieces now you watch just [ __ ] chaos over there now every day in the news the the whether it's the the civil war between the Sunni and the Shia or whether it's what's going on with Isis and it just seems like whatever gains that you guys made there are slowly being eroded every day does that also like pull at you oh yeah absolutely so you know like I said we fought and when I say we I'm talking about a giant group of 5,000 or 6,000 Americans or the 11 ad just a huge group of awesome guys soldiers and Marines and we were a part of them and so they they we all fought very hard for the city of ratti I mean this is It's a city it's a city like a city in America it's a you know it's got roads and it's got houses and it's got building and it's got a government center it's got a soccer stadium it's a city like what we have in America and we went in there and fought to take this city back from these Savages that owned it at the time and why do I call them Savages it's because they tortured people they skinned people alive they beheaded people they raped little girls and little boys it was just disgusting and so we went in there and fought against them and beat them and what we did in doing that is the people that actually lived there again this is a city with human beings in it and I always have to tell this story or at least relate to people that you'd be running down the street there' be guns firing around and you'd kick open the the door to a compound to somebody's house and you'd get in there and there'd be you know a guy a dad working on a car and there'd be two kids kicking a soccer ball and there'd be a mom cooking lunch and so there's people there and those people wanted us to be there and wanted us to defeat the insurgents that were terrorizing them and we did and they were joyous about that and so when you talk about about what do I think now when I see Isis the black flag of Isis I mean is there any other more dramatic image than I could tell you than that the black flag of Isis now flies at the government center of MTI it's it's it's horrible and it's sickening and they went around and anybody that had had anything to do with the Coalition there they went around with a list of names and they murdered all of them and all their families and you know we we at a country we kind of left them hanging and it's it's horrible to see that we left them hanging and we instigated a lot of crazy [ __ ] when we took Saddam Hussein out of power which was probably ultimately a good thing to get rid of that guy it was no question that he was a psychopath and his sons were evil [ __ ] but in creating that vacuum like when the leadership is gone you you kind of have a responsibility to manage that area now as crazy as that sounds like people want to say we're not in the building we're not in the uh the business of nation building we're not we're not in the building process or the um the uh the business of organizing or structuring a nation building a democracy out of one which did not have one ever but you kind of have to well look what we did in Germany and Japan yeah we're still in both both those countries yeah we stayed there and guess what the two you know what are the two economic superpowers behind America you know I know those two are both in the top five Germany's definitely the head of Europe you know besides China but Japan those are economic superpowers they're very successful countries and we formulated their new structure now there's a lot of resistance in this country there always was a lot of resistance to going to Iraq in the first place cuz people didn't understand the connection between 9/11 and Iraq and it seems like it was manufactured it seemed like to people on this side that you know we're looking at it we look at Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and these chicken hawks that wanted us to go over there and why but once you're there you you kind of have to have a different approach don't you well there's no doubt you have to have a different approach you have to believe in what you're doing and again when you're number one and and every every Soldier or marine or service member will tell you that when they're in combat they're not thinking about you know the Strategic Mission of the United States of America they're thinking about the guy that's next to them and what they're going to do to keep that keep their buddies alive and that's that's all there is to and that's true and anyone will tell you that but that being said when you come back from that operation and you have time to think about what you're doing there then you've got to believe in what you're doing and if you don't believe in what you're doing then you're going to have some serious issues and so for me you know it it was pretty obvious that what we were doing was was absolutely the right thing I mean you've got insurgents there that were foreign Fighters that want to kill everyone in America they hate us they want to destroy us they want to do 911 over and over again in this country they want to kill us all and so for us to be there fighting them I am totally on board and was on board and remain that way today now these insurgents that came into these places like rat and were taking over the city and killing all these people and torturing all these people why were they doing that to them it's the same thing that Isis did when they went back I mean they want to have a chunk of land at the time they they' said that raditi was going to be the the seat of their caliphate it's going to be the the capital city of their caliphate that's what they were trying to do so in a sense like once War started over there it became a holy war yes and it's a holy war but it's interesting because the people Iraq there's people in Iraq most people in Iraq when you talk to them they're normal people that want to have a job you know build a new addition on their house fix the roof uh get some good food for dinner that night raise their kids so that they can take over the family business or whatever that's what they want they they're not a bunch of people running around doing what Isis is doing but who is the powerful force in you know in Iraq right now now everyone's scared of Isis and and one thing about this is there you know because Iraq is they don't have this kind of patriotic feeling that we have in America which I know I know it may be dying in many cases but there's a lot of Americans that still believe America is the greatest country on Earth and that and even if you don't believe it's the greatest country on Earth and even if you see it for all the all its faults that it has you appreciate the fact that in this country you have freedom and so you can kind of fight for that no matter what you're thinking about you're you're fighting for Freedom you're fighting to protect your family well in Iraq they're like okay um I'll I'll fight for whoever or support whoever is just going to allow me to live they don't have the same attitude that's why when Isis came into radi and the the Iraqi troops kind of ran away they're like well we don't know what's going to happen we don't really they don't have that core belief that they're fighting for and so I think that's where some of the challenges come in and as they grow that they will they will perform better but it's definitely going to take you know quite a bit of time I think patriotism in America was at its all-time high around September 11th right right after that happened you you never saw more Flags I mean I remember driving on the street and every car had a flag hanging from it no doubt about it I mean it was uh a buddy of mine Jay London sold Flags that's what he used to do sell car flags flags you put on cars had a good business going for a while but like a lot of things people got accustomed to it they got they settled in and everything got back down to its normal level it's so so there's this big buzz of patriotism well there's a big buzz of patriotism when you feel threatened and we never feel threatened in America everyone is driving around in a nice big SUV that gets 8 miles to the gallon with big air conditioned blasting they're looking at their iPhone texting people socially interacting through the through the WiFi and they're not concerned about their safety and so when you're not concerned about your safety what is there left to be patriotic when you don't understand what it means to live in fear so yeah September 11th comes and you get attacked and you feel that fear guess what you rally around this this thing America that's protected you and your family but you didn't even think about it before but now you're thinking about it and you go you know what I'm going to put a flag up on my vehicle this vehicle that I drive around and completely luxury which is what America's like America is unbelievably luxurious compared to the rest of the world there's also unquestionable evil involved in flying planes into buildings and killing civilians just randomly haphazardly suicide bombing essentially with a plane right into a building like all that was so evil that everybody just there was no gray area in that it was pretty clear it was about as clear as any event ever in human history agree now when and you found out I mean you were already involved in the military when all this was going on yeah you you signed up like long before like you if there's anybody that I've ever met that I've ever heard talk about that was this I mean this is how you feel you're born for this this is this is your your your goal your post in life yes what P what pulled you into them you you grew up in New England I did what part uh Connecticut in Maine okay yep so in the sticks on a dirt road you know just kind of a general American so what what was it that Drew you to it like where did you develop this sense of patriotism well I would say prior to the the feeling of patriotism uh you know I I like I said I always want to be some kind of a Commando and I would say that you when you join the military I'd say people that are somewhat patriotic join the military but when you travel around the world and you're in the military that kind of confirms your patriotism more than anything else because you see what the rest of the world is like and how unbelievably Amazing America is and again does America have faults yeah America's got all kinds of faults there's all kinds of things that we could do better and there's things that we've done in the past that we shouldn't have done and there's things that we'll do in the future that we shouldn't have done but when you compare that with the rest of the world and how the rest of the world lives and what it means to be in an oppressed Society you know you you're extremely thankful to be in America this is once you've already been in the military and already started travel so this is just you just had this draw towards it almost like your destiny to be in the military yeah yes that's a it's strange that it just came out of nowhere like there was no like event in your life it just seem like this was just something that it was always you were always attracted to I mean running around the woods as a little kid with BB guns shooting each other and that seemed like a good job and it's funny you know in SEAL Teams you don't you don't grow up you know you don't you continue with your childhood uh you know play time for your whole adult life and it's awesome you know that's the best thing about the SEAL Teams is you you get to do what you always wanted to do and they pay you money and you get unlimited ammunition unbelievable types of weapons bombs explosives you know grenades and they just give it all to you and they say get after well they get excited when they find a guy like you we got a here we got a smart guy who was born to do this who's really looking forward to it like it's perfect I guess so I'm sure the recruiter was pretty fired up when he met me I would be if I was a recruit let sign the we got one check check the boxes and um but it's it's kind of it's even more intense because it's not just you get to play but only the strong strong get to play the weak all get weed weeded out and what's left is people of similar character that's the what I found most fascinating I think that's one of the the things that's so romantic in uh the Public's eye about the idea of the seals or Green Berets or Rangers people that it's very difficult to get in there and only a select few have the intestinal fortitude the willpower and the ability to lock on to a task and a goal and get through it yeah and then when you're in the SEAL Teams none of that means anything and like all the training and all that selection process it just doesn't mean anything because you all that's just the Baseline of where everyone's at and so when people talk about this intense training when you're in the SEAL Teams you don't talk about that training that you go through to get in that's just the Baseline for everybody and so it's just to make sure that you're not a [ __ ] just exactly exactly and here you are 44 years old you're still getting up at 4:00 in the morning doing deadlifts like it never left you it did not leave me it's not going to is it it is not going to so you you get through once you get through uh the intensity of buds and you you get through you know all the people that are going to quit and you get through all the training what is life like from there on out like how structured is like training and um physical activity and things like that from there on out you know again being in the SEAL Teams is is awesome it's such a fun job that I I literally didn't consider it a job except for maybe 13 months out of my career 13 months I worked for uh the directly for the Admiral that was in charge of all the seals and he's a great guy and I learned a ton from him and from having that job but it wasn't a fun job and even he would tell you it's not a fun job you know you've got to uh you know you're wearing a uniform every day and in the regular SEAL Teams you're you know you're wearing a pair of shorts and you're barely wearing a shirt cuz you're out there in the in the field or you know getting ready to go in the field so it's a it's a great life and you're constantly training you're hanging out with a bunch of guys that are pretty much have the same attitude as you for the most part there's a couple guys that don't cut it and there's some guys that are super studs and you're you're doing your best to emulate them but you're hanging out with a bunch of great guys and you know when I was a young seal we'd get to Friday and we'd you know go out have a beer we'd get done Saturday we'd still go to work Sunday we'd still go to work we'd go work out we'd hang out we'd work on our gear we'd get ready and there was even not even a war going on we were just into it you know we were just fired up for the SEAL Teams and that was so it's a it's a great life and then once the war started the intensity definitely picked up because you know everybody knew that we were going into combat and everyone pushed that much harder that being said back in the 90s we used to train really really hard because there was an unknown element you know there was an unknown element where you didn't know what was really GNA you didn't know what combat was really like so you trained as hard as you possibly could figure out how to train we trained and then once combat started and we were like okay well we kind of know what we're dealing with now it'd be like a fighter going to a camp if he's never fought in the UFC before he's going to train super hard to make his debut well maybe after he wins really easily his first couple fights maybe he backs off on that training camp a little bit not that we did that but it definitely mentally was there uh to to push hard even before combat so you're just essentially saying that even before you were going to war you were going to be ready you you were you were going to make sure that you had all your boxes checked and you had all your ducks in a row 100% how much physical training is there once you're actually deployed it it depends on where you are and what you're doing you know it depends on what type of missions you're going on but you know being in the SEAL Teams is a very physical job and again you know what it is it's a baseline everyone expects that you're going to be able to put on your ruck sack and your gear and go out and move and shoot and communicate that's the Baseline everyone's expected to do it whatever you have to do to to make that happen is is kind of on you although we do do you know team what we call PT physical training but we do team PT but a lot of it is on you as an individual or your smaller element you know group of guys and that's how you you got to stay in shape you do not want to be the guy that you know can't carry his wait that's just you'll you'll get you'll get kicked out so it's but it's not structured it's not organized like say if you're deployed in Iraq what I was getting at was I always wondered like I I would imagine the type of workouts that you do they're exhausting right you know you're deadlifting you're doing cleans and presses and all this crazy [ __ ] and chinups and running up hills if you had to go to war right after a hard workout like that it's going to take something out of you yeah you've got to use You' got to use common sense right so how do you know like when to stay in shape or to do yeah you're you're you're not going to do like a massive squat workout while you're on deployment that's going to put you in The Hurt Locker for three or four days it's just not smart you know you're going to it's like uh pavl you know the pavl T yeah you know he kind of I heard that from him years and years ago you know because he was training some SWAT guys up in LA and I talked to some of those guys and they said you know well don't you don't need to go to exhaustion to get stronger okay cool let's try that and so you know You' got to be ready to operate that's your primary Mission you got to be ready to go out on the battlefield and get after it so you're not going to crush yourself so hard that you're incapacitated yeah he's not a guy that believes in going to failure right he's got some interesting he doesn't failure and I'm not like some uh some follower from just one of those things I heard along the way yeah I mean look there's a lot of different philosophies when it comes to training um but when you so so when you're deployed it's essentially all entirely on you other than the the the the group organized PT trainings just about yeah just about so do you guys get together you say hey we're going to go running or we're going to lift today or we're going to let's go do some pull-ups what about um martial arts training how much martial arts training is involved again that depends on you know what the situation is and who you're working with you know if if you were a junior officer that was working for me then you were going to be training Jiu-Jitsu all the time you know if they're working for you so depends on who they're working for yeah uh you know I needed training partners and so right I got them so when you did that um would you take guys and teach him some basic stuff and then just choke the [ __ ] out of him is that the the move pretty much pretty much do talk him through it while you're doing it like defend get your arm here look out yeah but you know I actually I would actually improve you know I'd go on deployment and come back and you know some guy that maybe I was having good battles with before I left I'd come back and be better because all of a sudden you go and work on really good offense against a bunch of strong you know psycho seals that don't want to tap and you got you gotta make it work so you know I'd come back and and be better I wouldn't I wouldn't get worse on deployment that's for sure that's Eddie Bravo's theory he believes that the the real way to get better is not to train with people better than you but to train with people that aren't as good as you and just constantly drill finishes over and over and over again sharpen them up like a samurai sword and then when you do spar with people that are your level or better you'll be much better just because you're constantly used to finishing yeah and I think there's you know combination of both you got to train with people that are better than you and you got to train with people that are worse than you and you know we do that in Seal training too where cuz the Seal training that I ran before I got out was not like the Seal training you see with the guys with the the the logs carrying those around or boats on the head that like I said that's the basic training and and no one really cares too much about that once you get in the SEAL Teams because it's just over it's just to smash you in the beginning just to smash you make sure like you said make sure that you you're not a [ __ ] exactly have the intestinal fortitude to bring it but once you get in the SEAL Teams then you go through something called a workup and that's when you've got seal platoon that are trying to work together and we do crazy simulated Combat on these guys that is awesome I mean it's it's devastating and what we would have uh paintball um again this is like little kid stuff right you get you get awesome paintball guns unlimited paintball rounds we had this this uh like the Best laser tag system that anyone could ever imagine this crazy expensive laser tag system where you could go out and fight each other with laser tag and when you were getting shot at if the rounds weren't theoretically hitting you then there was a little speaker on your shoulder that would make noises as if rounds were going over your head so that you would know to get down and there'd be explosions going off on these little speakers and then when you'd get back from these training operations all the they have little embedded GPS's in them so you'd put it out on Google Earth and you could watch the whole battle unfold and watch what people did right and wrong and my point in this is that sometimes many times especially in the beginning when the seals weren't quite up to speed yet they didn't know how to work together that well three or four or five opposing four seals so these are guys that are pretending to be bad guys they would kill them all they would just go out there and murder them all and as these guys got better and started to work together and the leadership started to step up and take command and and do a better job of leading then all of a sudden they the seals would start to beat the the opposing force and annihilate them what an incredible tool to learn how to organize and to to stay together and work together as a team that what did they used to do in the past well that's that's a very interesting topic because it's very similar to you know what the UFC did to martial arts because you know as you know in 1991 you know you and I could sit here and talk and you could be a Kung Fu guy and I could be an iido guy and could be like no my martial Art's better and you could be saying the same thing and we we could theoretically debate it all day long but we'd never actually do it and it's different so in combat obviously you can't you know we can't say okay let's find out which one's better and we're on the same team we're just going to kill each other to find out you can't do that so the first thing that happened was simunition and that's you know they basically started paintball but it's high-speed paintball that you know fits in your real gun it fits in a real gun so you take your you you put a new Barrel on your your your standard you know issue weapon and now you're shooting paintballs out of your real gun you have 30 rounds you change magazines like very very similar to real Combat and all of a sudden just like a punching bag you know when people say the punching bag doesn't punch back well when you go into a into a house and you shoot a bunch of paper targets they don't move they don't shoot back so it's you know guess what you win every single time and you can get pretty confident with your tactics but your tactics aren't getting tested and so when when these great Technologies come came out simunition paintball and these laser type systems it was a complete change and we definitely changed our tactics our tactics evolved just like fight tactics evolved with the with the Advent of the UFC and people said oh this doesn't work the way we thought it did and you know this idea of oh we're just going to go running into a room and no one's going to stop no matter what no actually if there's a machine gun just laying paint into you as you go in you're stupid if you go run into that room so we made these simple adjustments but it was an interesting progression and it definitely imprinted the fact that you have to make your training as realistic as possible and it also it also shows you how people humans have a tendency to believe in what they're doing just because it's kind of what they believe in and you know again I think those those traditional martial arts that were so popular you know back in the day people truly believed that like no I will actually stop you with you know with my chi my chi will stop you and they they really thought that I had one of my Jiu-Jitsu buddies was you know you know had some Chi guy in 1995 like you cannot take me down and he said well what do you mean and he said no once I settle my chi you cannot take me down and he said well okay settle your do you want to try it and the guy's like sure you can try all you want so the guy you know stands there and settles his Chi out and my buddy goes are you ready and his guy says yeah and he just like double legs him slammed him on the ground but it but the guy believed it that's what's crazy and that's what that's what people get get lured into you know our OS low into a lot of stuff that we need to watch out for well the the belief is based on you know being taught it by people who also believe it too and it's it's so confusing because no one's experienced it in in real life which was why what the initial question was when they used to prepare like back in Vietnam or you know during the uh the first well when was this stuff invented like during did they have it during the first Gulf War barely barely very small groups had it you know not not as many as should they had the laser setup and everything uh no we didn't get the good no they had the they had a worse laser system you know they've been trying to do it for years but what did they used to do like during the Vietnam era go off the experience of guys that had been in World War II in Korea and try and pass that on and luckily and honestly you know being in combat the basic principles of combat are not these super crazy complex things you you know the most basic principle that that we talk about is cover and move which is if you and I are going to go assault a building over there I'm going to take cover I'm going to engage that building so that the enemy can't put their heads up and while I'm shooting at the building shooting where we think the enemy are you're going to get up and maneuver into a better position once you get into a better position and you get some cover you're going to start shooting at the enemy and that's going to allow me to move once I get to a better position I'll start shooting again and we'll continue to do that supporting each other as we move to Target and then once we get there we'll kill the bad guys and it'll be it'll be done that's the most basic principle but there's times where before you know in between Vietnam which is where we had major combat and people learned that cover and move and guys that were in Vietnam were the people that taught me cover and move in between that time and the time when we started using simunition and the and the lasers the better products we actually forgot some of those lessons as crazy as that might seem we actually forgot some of these very simple basic lessons of of gunfighting and so it was great to have it back and it was you know when we when we went to combat finally we were more prepared for it yeah I would imagine that kind of simulation you're calling it simunition that's uh that's an actual name brand and okay it's a name brand that's the paint yep so simunition is the paint then the the laser what is the name brand of that stuff the one that we used was called dits and it was made by Saab and I don't know uh I I don't even know if they still make it or if that contract's still going but it was awesome yeah I like your analogy to martial arts like testing it in in in an actual competition because it's it would seem that that would be the only way that anybody would ever actually learn what mistakes not to make and how they could easily be replicated in combat and then the repeated actions of doing those over and over again and ingraining them in your mind is probably the only thing that could really you could draw upon when you're in those tense situations of an actual firefight yeah and there's another good comparison I don't know if you've ever heard somebody kind of say this but you know they say like let's say I train some Kung Fu stuff where I'm like an eye attacker and I rip your throat out and all that stuff and you train you know Jiu-Jitsu Muay Thai wrestling and boxing right so people will say that you're not ready for the fact that I'm going to poke your eyes eyes out or you're not ready for the fact that I'm going to try and grab your throat or whatever and therefore I have an advantage and and that you have some kind of a training scar because you aren't used to doing that you see what I'm saying so if like I said if all I do is train to grab your eyes and poke your throat or whatever pressure point type attack then that means that I'm better prepared for a street conflict and as you and I both know like a guy that does that versus a guy that trains in mixed martial arts boxing wrestling Muay tide J Jitsu that guy's going to destroy this other person in a street fight and the guy will grab for his eyes and then he's going to get his arm broken off and he's going to get punched in N 47 times but my point in telling that that is that this we had the same type of people in inside the SEAL Teams that said oh if you get used to training with paintball then you're going to develop training scars from it so you're not going to be used to your regular weapon you're not going to be used to The Recoil of a real gun and you're going to have more courage because it's only going against paint and while that while there's some small piece of Truth to that just like there's some small piece of Truth to the fact that if if you never think about what it's like to be punched while you're doing Jiu-Jitsu well then it's going to be a surprise for you the first time you you are in guard with someone and they crack you in the face there's some small truth to it but it's not a reason to throw out you know that type of training it just doesn't make sense and the other thing that's good about it is you know in Jiu-Jitsu in Muay Thai in boxing and wrestling you're going live against another human being that's maneuvering on you and trying to defeat you and when you have paintball or laser you're going against another human being that's trying to maneuver on you and defeat you so therefore It's very effective in in teaching you what real combat's going to be like what was it like the first time you were deployed and when was that uh the first time I was deployed in 2003 and deployed to Baghdad Iraq and it was great that's not what most people would think of they wouldn't never think of that that word it's very it what was interesting about my first deployment to Iraq was that again I was so happy to be you know in a position where I was a platoon commander and we were doing real missions and I was excited and and happy about that and you know that doesn't means I was running around with a smile on my face we had a legit job and we had to get it done it was also a time where the the insurgence there wasn't an insurgence yet we hadn't even really heard that word in 2003 and so the operations that we did were relatively simple and our tactical advantage over the enemy was good enough that we just annihilated them you know it was like an unfair fight which is how you want it to be you want to have an unfair fight in combat so we go in you know 2:00 in the morning we'd find out where a bad guy was in some house or some office or some building and we'd load up our vehicles and go in the middle of the night blast their door open with big explosive breaching charge clear their house in about 30 seconds grab them grab their buddies bring them all back interrogate them find out where their friends are and go out and do it again and it was awesome and it was like a rockstar deployment we'd come home at 3 o'clock in the morning and be done and debrief the operation and get ready to do it the next day we probably were in I don't know four or five firefights during that whole deployment a couple ambushes and I had one guy get get wounded not very bad so it was it was it was fun it was good and we were ready for it um and the contrast comes when you go to my next deployment the next deployment to ratti which was completely different so and on that deployment everything bad that can happen to a guy in a leadership position or an element happened to us everything bad that could happen happened and so it was it was radically different than my first deployment so your first deployment was uh in a sense a lot like what people expected the war to go like after we had experienced Desert Storm Desert Storm which was just just overwhelming success just the only casualties were when that one scud missile had hit uh barracks and it was just that was what America thought war was like well this is how good we are at it right now we just go over there and we kill everybody and we lose a couple people and we're real sad about that but we wrapped it up tight so your second deployment what was that like and how did it begin well it began with our deployment orders changing so we were literally two weeks from going on deployment so now my first deployment to Iraq I was what's called a platoon Commander I had 15 or 20 guys underneath me depending on what time during the deployment it was and we were an assault Force we were like we we jokingly called ourselves Baghdad SWAT because that's what we did I just kind of describe what those missions were like my second deployment now I was what's called a task unit commander and I had two of those seal PL platoons with 15 to 20 guys that were underneath me and then we had another 70 60 or 70 support Personnel so these are people that do Intel people that man the radios people that clean and repair our weapons and people that keep the camp running and all that so it's it's it's about a 100 guys but there's only 35 or 40 seals and we found out about two weeks before we went on deployment our deployment changed instead of going to Baghdad and really doing more Baghdad SWAT operations we went we were told we were going to ratti and I was again and people always say you know I I can't believe you thought that and I can't believe how twisted you are and I can't believe what a sick individual you are and etc etc etc but yes I was extremely happy and motivated that we were going to ratti because it was the worst place in Iraq and that is exactly where I wanted to be my whole life so yes I was fired up to go there it's just so crazy that I mean it's so counterintuitive to the way most people think I guess so and I hung around with a bunch of guys that thought the same damn thing as me let's go get these guys let's get after it well that's why you are who you are I mean that's that's why it's important to have people like you in the world like like there's a spectrum of human beings there is a spectrum of human beings and you're you're on this extreme edge of exactly what you want when you have an army if you put together a military force you want a guy like you that has that attitude you don't want a guy who's going to the worst place in the world saying why me what the [ __ ] why didn't I become a baker like my dad I could be making cupcakes right now instead I'm shooting people yeah yeah no you uh and and and the SEAL Teams and the Rangers and the Special Forces does a very good job of of attracting the type of people that you're talking about the type of people that are fired up to do that job and not encouraging it and and growing it like you like the the it seems like the amount of uh camaraderie and the intensity of of the friendships and the bond the Brotherhood that you develop with those people just intensifies it all yeah it's a big gang it's a big awesome gang that you're a part of that's badass and you're part of this fraternity this Brotherhood so yeah they definitely fuel the fire and and I should say shouldn't say they fuel the fire we fuel the fire we're we are the fire you know the guys that are there the that I worked with they're they're the fired up guys that are completely ready to do this job so you get over there you're in raditi totally different situation than Baghdad and immediately you realize this immediately immediately we were going I mean I think I think we went to the first memorial service for an American within you know 24 hours of being on the ground there we my my my Camp got attacked the I don't know maybe the third or fourth night that we were there every guy was on the roof of our building shooting back at bad guys that were shooting at us it was and then and then we started conducting operations almost immediately and the operations were just just radically different I mean the enemy owned the the downtown area of ratti they they were the dominant Force down there so where as before you'd be going through kind of semi- permissive environment in Baghdad meaning that you know it's a it's a bunch of civilians and they just wanted to get out of your way and then you'd go and find this bad guy well in raditi the bad guys were going to find you and it was different and they were everywhere who would train them you know some of them were former regime elements so some of them were you know ramadi was a was a Iraqi military city as well so there were some of them left over actually a bunch of them left over and then you had syrians coming in foreign Fighters uh people coming in from all over Saudi Arabia Jordan I mean they'd come in from all over the place to to come and engage and get their Jihad on and were they motivated because America was now occupying Iraq is that what was was driving them I think more than the fact that that America was occupying Iraq is that they wanted to take that land I mean America was no longer occupying Iraq when they went in took ratti this time we were gone we'd been gone for four years so the occupation of Iraq was not the driving force behind this so once you get there and once you realize right away it's different you're experiencing casualties at a level that was unheard of in Baghdad and you are engaging with an enemy that's very prepared and overwhelming they're everywhere and they did they were similar to us meaning they did like like first world country type stuff they had Med medical evacuation plans where one of their guys would get wounded you'd see him get evacuated you know you could watch on on the uh screens you could watch what was happening a vehicle would come in and gather them up and take wounded guys away they'd bring in reinforcements they had Communications they did fire and maneuver they did you know the same basic tactics that I was talking about they did those tactics as well and so it was a real well trained and well-coordinated and determined was this expected well we we knew what ratti was like um but I would say it was expected but it's hard to mentally picture what that's going to be like when you when you're going to go up against guys that are that prepared so this was tactically and as far as like the the strategy that was involved to try to take a city like that this was a fairly new experience for the United States military right we we' never what other I mean other than what Somalia like what other Urban War had uh the United States engaged in like this where you're in a city well I mean obviously World War II had all kinds of urban conflict and in Vietnam there was portions you know the Battle of way way city was a huge urban conflict Somalia was definitely Urban combat but you're right in the fact that we weren't going in there to try and stay and that was one of the biggest differences or changes in strategies that the US military had that turned the war around and that was as the as the insurgence grew and this 2004 2005 the Insurgent started getting more and more unified and better and more well- Tred and more organized and America what we did was kind of go back to our strong bases so there's bases you got to understand this in Iraq 2005 2006 if you went to a base in let's say Baghdad International Airport there's a huge US military base There Was You Know Subway the sandwich shop Subway Starbucks these places had become little little outcroppings of America and so what we did when the Insurgency got worse and worse and worse and also the public opinion of the war went down and down and down and all of a sudden we're saying we we're not going to we're going to minimize casualties as much as possible so what does that mean you do you go back to your base and we we did that as a country we kind of said okay we're not going to take huge risks anymore we're going to pull back to our bases we're going to try and support the Iraqis as much as we can and let them go out and try and accomplish missions and we still did do missions but we definitely had strong move back to these big bases well there was a guy uh there were several people one of them was General Petraeus he wrote this you know the counterinsurgency manual because now now what you had was you went from this idea of we were fighting kind of terrorists and and all of a sudden we were fighting an organized Insurgency and that was a huge Strat strategic shift and so now instead of going out and bad grabbing a bad guy and then coming back the the the new strategy and it was implemented in ratti by a guy named Colonel Shawn McFarland was seiz clear hold and build which means you're going to go to these enemy controlled neighborhoods you're going to take buildings you're going to hold those buildings you're going to build them into your own Forts and you're going to have American and Iraqi soldiers live in those enemy controlled territories until the enemy was gone had that ever been implemented before it had been implemented in tfar in Northern Iraq by a guy named H HC McMaster who's another kind of legendary uh military army colonel at the time all these guys are generals now because they're awesome guys he had implemented it up there he had actually turned that plan over to General McFarland and general McFarland came down to ratti and implemented the plan there but what was what was hard to understand is no one really knew about this no one understood it all they all they said was oh my God wait a second you're saying we're going to go into these enemy controlled neighborhoods where where there haven't been American or Coalition forces for a year year and a half two years you're saying we're going to go in there right before we arrived in rad there was a a road that the Marine Corp tried to penetrate down they hit 13 iids in 500 M so 13 500 F so essentially what what is 500 meters is like it's every 50 meters or so little less than 50 meters what is that in football fields how five football fields that's insane it is wow so so this new strategy to go in there and push in there was considered to be by many people was considered to be too risky too dangerous and and really in some cases crazy like this is a crazy strategy we haven't been able to get down there and now you're saying we're going to go down there and live there so it was uh it was a very Dynamic change so this is a a gigantic gritty boots on the ground approach to taking over a city like one step at a time one building at a time that's it wow that that had it be insane yeah yeah is there any documentary footage of this were there any embedded journalists like there were there embedded journalists you know you can go on YouTube and Just Google ratti 2006 and you'll you'll see some good stuff there's a documentary that came out I think it was on the History Channel it's called a chance in hell the battle for ratti and that what's good about that one is it interviews a lot of the guys that we worked with while we were there and what I was just trying to convey to you about the fact fact that a lot of people were saying this was a suicidal operation you can hear of these guys that were officers in charge of battalions and companies they're saying the same thing they they were getting told by their peers like this is a crazy idea and you guys are all going to die if you go in there wow now what is morale like when something like that gets brought down when these are the orders and this is what you have to do and everyone's telling you it's a suicide mission well that's that's where ship comes into play because you know one of the toughest things that I ever had to convey to my guys was this fact that we were going to be working alongside Iraqi soldiers conventional Iraqi soldiers so you picture this we that that first deployment I talked about we were we were only working with seals I mean we were with seals the guy to your left was a seal the guy to your right was a seal the guy behind you was a seal the guy in you knew you could trust them you knew them they were they were your brothers so now we get to rat and the mission changed coming down from the Special Operations forces that were in charge of of all Special Operations in Iraq and the new the new mission was to it the new Mission I'm trying to think of the exact uh was to train and fight company and platoon sized elements of Iraqi soldiers train and fight company and between siiz elements of Iraqi soldiers when they say fight that means like that's a verb saying we're going to fight with them so all of a sudden I'm telling my guys hey you know how you're used to working with a bunch of seals you're going to now when you go out the majority of the guys you're going to be with are Iraqi soldiers that's the majority of guys now Iraqi soldiers are they're they're they're they're barely even military I mean people they're just unmotivated poorly trained in fact in many cases their loyalty is questionable I mean these are guys that would shoot Americans in the back so now I'm telling my guys okay you're going to go out there and do this and obviously the first reaction I got was uh this is this is this is crap this is garbage why would we ever do that this is the worst Battlefield seals have fought on since Vietnam and you want us to go out there with a bunch of Iraqi soldiers watching our back that's crazy and and when I heard it I thought it was crazy too so what do you do then what what do you do then you're going to send your guys into Harm's Way in a much more vulnerable way and you got to get them to do it so first of all I had to understand what we were doing in my own mind I had to understand why I understand why would somebody be telling us to do this because it seems freaking crazy to me so as I sat there and thought about it I realized you know okay why is why is the president making us do this why is the general the why is the Pentagon making us do this why are the generals and Colonels on the battlefield here in Iraq why in God's name would they be making us go out with Iraqi soldiers it's crazy and then I thought to myself okay why let's answer that question oh news flash if we don't do it if we don't get the Iraqi soldiers trained up and ready to maintain the security in their own country then who's going to do it who's going to train them and furthermore who's going to hold the security in their country and the answer was nobody and the answer was us the answer was we would be here forever because these Iraqis need to be able to get up and stand on their own two feet and so when I explain that to my guys like hey I know you don't want to work with Iraqi soldiers I understand I understand there's more risk here's why we're doing it because if we don't do it if we don't get these guys up to speed if we don't teach them how to defend themselves and how to defeat this this enemy they're never going to be able to do it and we'll be ired in this conflict forever and once once they understood that strategic picture they were able to get their head around it and then slowly accept what we were doing how common were their complications dealing with the Iraqi soldiers and did you guys have to take steps in order to to watch over them to make sure I mean you're talking about guys shooting guys in the back shooting Americans in the back did you have uh plans in place place to make sure that someone was watching them at all times like yeah yeah so you didn't you couldn't treat them like did did someone did they speak English uh no we had interpreters and oh yeah it's a nightmare um and and we would have some of the Iraqi soldiers some of the leadership of the Iraqi soldiers would be very good some of the grunts would be very good and some of them would be just disastrous and did we have to change yeah they didn't we had to change our tactics so that we didn't use the terms left and right because like they didn't understand left and right or or no numbers a lot of them couldn't count I mean it was they couldn't count yeah yeah so they're totally uneducated totally uneducated wow can't count holy [ __ ] y go four doors down something you could tell a 5-year-old yes whoa yeah so so that was that was definitely challenging I think you're allowed to call him Savages when they can't count is that is that the rule if you can't count to four I reserve I reserve the term Savage for somebody that commits you know atrocities against human beings you know somebody that rapes an 8-year old girl like they're doing wholesale doing that and Isis is doing that right now that's part of their gig uh yeah I I I reserve the term savages for them so what steps did you guys have to take to ensure that the seals and the other American soldiers were protected in working with these people I mean you just had to keep your eye on them I mean and and honestly at this point point the you saw this this uh happen a lot more in Afghanistan which was the what do they call it uh I forget what that they have a term for it but when the when the friendly allegedly friendly Afghan Soldier turns and shoots everyone in the back that happened more later in Afghanistan and when we were in Iraq it was pretty seldom that it happened but we just had to be aware of it we had to you know you always had a guy that was like standing off the firing line and making sure that no one was you know pulling their weapon out and aiming at Americans so that was a job yeah we just you got to keep an eye on these guys you absolutely had to keep an eye on these guys what a crazy added element and the other I mean and just again because there's dichotomy and everything at the same time you'd have some guy that was you know some Iraqi soldier that was willing to take a bullet for your buddy and so it's that's what makes War so complex and confusing is it's not cut and dry and it never is so how did it start panning out once you started this se's SE clear hold and build it was a tough fight basically with every one of these combat outposts that's what we ended up uh what they ended up calling these combat outposts every one of them was a pretty a pretty tough fight fight they're buildings calling them combat output combat out and what kind are they 10 stories like how many stories are these buildings most of them were two or three stories and so you set up a perimeter around the building keep people stationed in in them y guns at the windows looking out constantly and it would be we take the building down and then they would do a massive construction project in the middle of a combat zone so these Army Engineers God bless them all would roll down there with their bulldozers and they they'd put these big concrete barriers up and they'd put sandbags in all the windows and they'd build machine gun nests on top and again they're doing this in the middle of like Mayhem wow and then you'd have this secure combat Outpost and while they were doing that this is sort of was our our addition to this type of operation was while they were doing this big construction proog project obviously the situation was very vulnerable for the American forces and so what we would do is I would push our seals out into perimeter buildings that were maybe 200 or 300 yards away and so when the enemy would come to attack we'd kill him what a crazy scene that must have been to be taking these buildings and then re enforcing them and then turning them into military bases and then one after another you doing this too yeah yeah it was it was an awesome effort and I think a good number we put in one combat Outpost and there was they the uh Army Engineers put in 30,000 sandbags in one combat Outpost wow like three buildings just all good things a lot of sand out there yeah no doubt about it wow and so how many buildings did you guys wind up taking overall uh probably a probably a total of like 10 combat outposts each one having two three or four buildings and again let me clarify when I say we I'm talking about this massive effort of the 11 ad which is the the first brigade first Armored Division and all the battalions that were underneath them including one uh Marine Corps Battalion and the reason I'm I'm pointing that out Joe is um those guys were just unbelievable Heroes they really were they were awesome you choked up yeah these guys were awesome they really were yeah I can only imagine the uh emotional attachment that you have to that yeah and you know they you know you can look you can Google Navy Seals and find you know 20 million news stories about him um and that's great but these guys you know to to have seen them uh kids you know cuz you know you're talking about earlier how the seals you know guys like me this is what we want to do well these guys didn't all necessarily have that attitude and as a matter of fact the guys that were in ratti with us when we first got there they were reserve unit out of Pennsylvania the 228 wa iron soldiers they were reservice these guys were teachers like like what you see when they talk about these reservice these guys were teachers and professors and you know Bakers and they had real jobs in the real world and wanted to get home to their family and yet they were there grinding it out against a hardened enemy and so uh yeah it's it's it's a it's a it's a crazy thing to see and it's it's very humbling uh to be around people like that it really is how long did this battle go on on the battle for ratti well we got there you know the like I said the 228 had been there for 14 months 14 months on the ground lost around a 100 guys I think 94 um and then the 11 ad came in in May and implemented Seas clear holding build and by the time uh I left October 21st 2006 and by the by January of 2007 the battle was for most for the most part over and these enemy attacks that had been uh when we were there 30 to 50 a day went down to like one a day and then one a week and then one a month and and and you know I have pictures of probably about 6 to 9 months after we left we got pictures that guys sent back to us of they were running road races down the worst what were the worst areas ofat they were playing soccer games there was people out in the streets there was guys SEALS or not not seals but Soldiers with no body armor on just walking around meeting people it was a miraculous turnaround and the people of rat that we had fought to support and help were were joyous and were had a stable city to live in and we you know ready to carry on with their lives see I think stories like this get left out of the mainstream Narrative of course they do they most people me included just don't know about it aren't aware of it have a very insulated idea of what this war was about what happened over there and what are the pros and cons of this war what are the pros and cons of taking a city like this and turning it into a relatively safe place it relatively it was definitely a safe place there was less murders there than there is in Detroit wow I mean it was it was a complete turnaround and again you do you can do that because the people there wanted to be stable they wanted that they wanted peace and they wanted freedom and they wanted the insurgents out they absolutely wanted the insurgents out do you think that most people in America have a distorted perception of of the military in general and of the Iraq War in particular I I I think it's hard for me to give a perspective of what civilians think you know it's it's very difficult because you know it's really easy to slip into like just a straight John J Rambo you know there are no friendly civilians you know it's really easy to get there uh but definitely when I hear various you know people talking and you go this person has no idea they it's weird because they'll Clump the people of Iraq they'll Clump those people together as a group and it's the wrong they have the wrong impression what those people are like you know and and guys that have been to Iraq and have gone into houses and talked to the the local populace there and broke bread with them and drank their tea you're like oh that these people these people definitely wanted us there like when I hear this thing about you know that they didn't want us there and we were occupying it's like oh no there was there was times where they we'd kill an insurgent and they would cheer like thank you thank you for killing that person he was a terrorist and he was you know trying to trying to rape my daughter they were happy we were there what is ratti like now it's been overrun by ISIS they're they keep saying now that there's a going to be an effort by the Iraqi military to take it back and go God bless him and good luck they would have to do the exact same thing they're gonna have to do the exact same thing it's going to be tough it's going to be very tough and without the United States military force backing them up and leading something like that do you think that's even possible it's going to be difficult it is possible but is absolutely going to be difficult it's going to be very difficult that's one of the things that again you know and Leadership um leadership is such an important thing it's such an important thing because it really does change it changes every variable in a situation and so when you have good leaders you you can win and I don't know who in particular is in charge of this Iraqi Force that's going in there the Iraqis have some very strong leadership and if they've got the right person in position they they will be able to take it back now America H absolutely has incredible military leaders some incredible military leaders and when you when you have to step up and lead a an assault like that on a city I mean American leadership would be would absolutely make a a change and would be extremely positive for the situation on the ground do you think that America should go back into Iraq well first of all we're already back in Iraq we're on the ground we got 3,500 troops there this is a and I hate to answer your blunt question with a philosophical answer but war is very difficult and very tragic and very evil in its own right and so you should be very very cautious about pulling that trigger and initiating a war because horrible things are going to happen enemy are going to be killed friendly are going to be killed Americans are going to be killed civilians are going to be killed this idea that we're going to go into a a war in an urban environment and we're not going to kill any civilians no civilians are going to die and you have to understand that and I I talk about this when people ask me this question there is two types of will that you have to have if you're going to go to war two types of will one is the will to kill people and like I said it's going to be enemy and you're going to focus as much as you can on killing the enemy and some civilians are going to die there that is what is going to happen and you have to understand that that is part of what you are getting into so you have to have the will to kill and you also have to have the will to die because Americans are going to die and young men are going to come home in coffins and that's a horrible thing and so if you're going to go to war you should be going to war with a Clear Vision to win to win and I think if we have the will and we have a plan on on winning then we should we should execute that plan but if we're hesitant and if we don't have the will then we should stand by until we develop that will and we can sit outside and we can shape and we can we can try and shape events which we should we should have a leadership role in the world we should be looking out for American interests I know that sounds like taboo language in this day and age but we're America and we should look out for American interests around the world that's what we should be doing and there's nothing wrong WR with that that's what other countries are doing they're looking out for their interests and when when we're all looking out for our own interests there's a balance and things can move forward so do you think right now with the the the limited amount of troops that are in Iraq it's uh you said 3500 now yeah at what what was it at the height I don't know over 100,000 I mean at the height it was probably even close to 200,000 what would it take to develop that will that you talk of do you think that the United States needs to see some other Paris likee event I mean we already had September 11th they killed 3,000 of our people on our home soil um but that was 14 years ago and for a lot of people that might as well be another world true true um I I I got asked the other day about the warning signs you know do are we paying enough attention to the warning signs or are there enough warning signs and I you know I just I kind of shake my head I mean what more warning signs do you need than go watch YouTube videos and they're like we are coming to kill you we are going to destroy you all that like that's the warning right there the warning has been issued stand by for people like me that are completely on the outside of the military it seems like Isis came out of nowhere it seems like once Arab Spring started happening we start pulling out of Iraq all of a sudden you started hearing about the ISL or isil or Isis they used they used the term uh isi which was which was I uh Islamic State Iraq they used that in I think 2007 was the first time they Ed that as they started to take uh area over in Syria they threw the L on the end of it you know which is Levant which is the historical name for that that region and the other one is Syria the S is so it's the same people that were there and will continue to be there until we route them out what what I was getting at was that it wasn't something that anybody here had heard about as an organized thing we had we had heard about insurgents in Iraq but we had never heard of it in in a like with a name like like Isis like now that it's a name it's like an identifiable enemy and when you're in a war against terrorism one of the things that I think kind of freaks Americans out especially those that don't have a connection with the military is this idea of a war against terrorism is is this open-ended proposition there's no enemy you know like the or there's no there's no definitive end to this like when Japan surrendered World War II was over people were kissing in the streets that iconic image of the the sailor kissing his girlfriend in the street that we didn't that none of that happened for us in this country there was no definitive ending and when we've pulled out of Iraq and we're planning on pulling out of Afghanistan and then we see Isis build up and get bigger and stronger and scarier and we see what happened in Paris and we see what happened in Lebanon and in Nigeria and we see these terrorist attacks and we're like well when is is this is there ever going to be a point where we have an a soldier and his girlfriend kissing in the street is there going to be an end is there going to be a confetti blowing in the the Main Street and a parade doesn't seem like it I would say that that's an accurate assessment that it doesn't seem like it yeah we we got a long fight you know and you asked you know where did ISIS how do we start hearing about them well the same thing we were talking about earlier social media yeah they've got social media they're aiming it at you know uh disenchanted people all around the world that can cling on to something that will give them some sort of uh identity yeah that's one of the most bizarre things about this when you see people like these young girls from the UK joining Isis and you know they're escaping their country and and going over there and joining Isis like what what is happening here like how how disenchanted do you have to be where that looks attractive to you yeah and the the two girls I'm sure you saw this and these the two poster girls for Isis uh one of them died three to six months ago and then they just got the latest report on the other one that was trying to escape Isis and they beat her to death yeah the I mean unquestionably it seems to be a growing force and a more dangerous Force every day I got a again I think it was on Twitter someone hit me the other day on Twitter um you know this is an idea and you can't bomb ideas was the was the statement to me and you know I try and avoid like getting into these massive sort of political debates or whatever um especially with 140 characters yeah and that being said um Nazism was an idea that was defeated through military force slavery in America was an idea that was defeated by military force Imperial Japan was an idea and a religion that was defeated by military force and none of those ideas would have stopped without military force and this is an idea that can be defeated with bombs and this is also an idea that unfortunately in this country gets connect connected to all Muslims the idea behind what these people are do are doing gets connected to all Muslims when in reality most of the Muslims in the world they they don't want something like Isis to be in control they don't want to be in a Perpetual state of War they don't want to have to worry about these quote unquote Savages and what they're doing yeah I mean the the Isis has killed hundreds of thousands of well I don't know what the number is but we know that Isis has killed thousands and thousands and thousands of Muslims you know they went into radi and killed hundreds and hundreds of Muslims that had worked in some way with the Coalition forces so that they could have a peaceful City they murdered them all so let's say Donald Trump becomes president and uh he listens to your podcast with Tim Ferris and he reads your book and he goes Joo I'm coming to you for advice what do I do I don't know why I said Donald Trump for president I'm hoping that's that's our own Isis let's whatever fill in the blank new president person becomes uh notice I said person I didn't even go with woman or man uh what what would you do if you were in a leadership position if you were in a position to make a decision or to uh to start a process what would you do we would destroy them you would just go right back in we would destroy them and you think that that's what America should do right now yes yes it is a cancer that is growing it is malignant and it needs to be destroyed so what steps would you take like what what would you do if you were in a position of power right now you know it's interesting people get this idea that this is some crazy complex situation and it's going to be all hard and all this I could pull together like two first lieutenants from the Marine Corps which is like the Junior officer in the Marine Corps and say come up with a plan to defeat Isis you got two hours and they'd do it and it'd be a good plan this is not a complex situation how many people are you dealing with when you're talking about Isis I don't know 20,000 10,000 4,000 100,000 it's tough to tell it yeah it's tough to tell it doesn't matter you assess it you make you you bring what you need to the table and you defeat him so what do you think is holding back from us doing something like that I have no idea is it frustrating to you yes because if you got kids and you see the again a malignant cancer on Humanity that is growing unchecked when we have we're we're like the master surgeons that have the ability to go in and eradicate this disease and instead of doing that we're just we're just not doing anything so do you blame this the current ad Administration do you blame the the climate of the American public right now the the political climate where people just don't want to be involved in another war or enter into another prolonged interaction I think people are always looking for the easiest way out and going in is a hard decision to make it's a very hard decision to make and it's be very unpopular decision and it would be the short-term pain that everyone 's afraid of that's what one of the things that's so disconcerting to me about drones cuz it seems to me that what drones are is a way that we can avoid American casualties so people don't complain about it as much so we send this robot in there to fly in and then launch missiles and the good thing is it doesn't create American casualties but the bad thing is it doesn't seem to be nearly as effective it's like sort of a wishy-washy attempt in some ways at War it seems almost like it would be something that would you would use in a a supplement as as well as a military attack like they would be a part of it instead of being the only thing that you use to try to combat these people does that make sense I don't know if we have enough drones to get the job done and they're effective but I mean a drone is going to take out I don't know 20 20 bad guys so that'd be a lot of drones in action I don't know if we have that kind of capability yet but but we will someday yeah well someday we'll have a robot army and we'll be dealing with some Terminator type situation right yes but right now it's it's almost like uh we need to get smacked like something needs to happen before we hit back and I can't I cannot in good conscience agree with you because I don't even want to say those words yeah you know it's just a horrible thought you don't want to put it out there it's a horrible thought yeah it's a horrible thought especially when you start talking about a dirty bomb yeah you know and like oh here's a sector of America that no one can live in anymore because it's been contaminated it's radioactive now I mean that's real and again for some reason the warning signs which can be seen you know anywhere you look we're ignoring them I think people I me speaking for myself and speaking for the people that I come in contact with I think people are becoming more and more concerned about Isis on a pretty much daily basis I think one thing that Paris did do is it woke a lot of people up as to possibilities that something like this can happen and that this isn't the end and this is this is ramping up and that if they have the kind of resources to pull off something like the Paris attacks who knows where this is going totally agree with you it is a very uh scary time what what do you think is going to happen if you had a guess what do I think is going to happen in terms of a terrorist attack in America no no no in terms of our approach to dealing with something like Isis yeah I think it's very difficult to predict the future not not to be just a big cop out over here I'm not trying to do that to you but there's so many different ways that this could go and you know now you've thrown Russia into the mix because they took down the Russian airline you got a guy like Putin who is a gangster you know and I say that in both contexts of of negative and positive I mean the guy is NE in a negative way he's a gangster that's that's like scary with his thought process and at the same time like props the guy's a gangster and he's going to smash some people you've got now turkey in the mix I mean it's just a very it's a complex situation that's getting more complex all the time and the scariest part about it is that America is not in a leadership position we are not influencing the world the way we want did we are not people are not looking to us as the as the leaders they're we're in the back seat and that's scary we should be in a leadership position there's nothing wrong with that it is not bad to have a a benevolent country and and I know people are going to go crazy but a a generally benevolent country that's sitting here you know given billions of dollars of Aid around the world never taken any soil and kept it I mean we've you know I guess in modern times we've never taken any soil and kept it we've given Germany back to Germany we gave Japan back to Japan you know we've we've we we're a fairly benevolent country again I know we've got faults I know we've done things wrong in the past I'm sure we'll do things wrong in the future but to have us not in a leadership position is a very disturbing time now when you say that we're not in a leadership position what do you think the shift is and where do you think it happened I think it's been happening and I think you know I think the current Administration is definitely not um as experienced as you would hope and I think there's a lot of naive attitudes about what the rest of the world is like so this Administration you think was the beginning of the shift away from America being in a leadership position yes what do you what kind of a president do you think would change that somebody that has a better understanding of the nature of the world like a John McCain type guy yeah maybe like a like like and you know again I'm not to sit here and try and think of who the best presidential candidate would be I mean we have a hard time figuring that out in America as a whole but again you look at a guy like Putin and you look at a guy like Obama um you know Putin's whole existence has been geared towards this you know I mean a KGB guy I mean he's been a player on the world stage and a part of it for his whole life and he's got an acute understanding of it and he's a black belt you know he's a legit black belt and you just see these other um uh you see the the the naive of of this Administration and it's it's it's really hard to it's it's hard to understand there was one thing that Obama said uh it was yesterday or today that just drove me crazy he was talking about the attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and he said things like this don't happen in other countries it's like how the [ __ ] do you say that just days after what happened in Paris I I was reading that just today before we started the podcast I was reading it I was like that is one of the craziest things that someone could say after hundreds of people were killed in Paris cuz he's talking about it in terms of gun violence from a religious perspective that what the [ __ ] happened in Paris what because it's not about babies it's different like yeah and he I mean he said something the other day too was uh I'm not interested in some notion of America leading and winning what what does that mean exactly that's yeah it's very uh it's just it's an it's it's a very disturbing what does that mean that's a what did anybody ask him to qualify that or no it's one of you know he was kind of speaking and yeah that's a weird statement for the guy who's the commander-in-chief of the greatest army the world's ever known not interested in staying number one not good I think the the the concept of a benevolent leader the of of a benevolent Nation you know that if you if you do concede that the world will always be in chaos and there will always be at least in terms of like the foreseeable future you know the next hundred years or whatever we're we're until something crazy happens I mean it would have to be something monumental life changing that stops conflict all around the world you'd have to if you were a rational pragmatic person you're looking at the future you'd have to say well we're going to have conflict especially if you look at places like you know the Congo or you know parts of the Middle East where people don't count and there's there's places where like you would have to educate them to the point where the future would look radically different than the present right so if that's the case if the if conflict will be something that we're we're going to have to mitigate no matter what wouldn't you want to be the one that gets to decide wouldn't you want to be the person in the position of power yes you would be it's like the is a much smaller scale but this is what I've always tried to tell people when they say why would you want to learn martial arts and what I always say is you don't want to learn martial arts because you want to go beat somebody up you want to wearn martial arts for two things one because you want to learn how to overcome incredibly difficult things and in martial arts you're going to encounter times where you want to quit you're going to get your ass kicked it's going to be difficult and it's extremely difficult to get good at it but two if you do get into a situation you want to be the one who gets to choose whether or not someone gets hurt you don't want to be helpless cuz being helpless is a terrible place to be but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to go out and [ __ ] people up and that's sort of the same idea and a macro scale that you would look at the concept of America being a benevolent entity or benevolent superpower yeah absolutely 100% right you know I mean you know it's it goes with everything that we do and when I say we I'm talking about you you know you train you work out you try and be strong you know you keep yourself aware of what's happening it's not because you want to go around kicking people's asses it's because you don't want to have to kick anyone's ass you know people are not looking at Joe Rogan be like I'm going to beat him up right now no they're going now that guy I know he trains all the time and if someone gets in your face they're going to know that immediately you know that when you can tell by the some the way someone carries themselves what you know what they have and what they know what they understand you know I got asked the other day if you were president you know you asked me if I was God advice they said if you were president what would you do with Isis and I said If I Was President Isis would not exist president Joo make it happen they would not exist because we would have a presence in the world that would prevent the growth of this kind of ideology but what kind of a reaction do you think you would have from the American public from the insulated American public I mean we're this is probably one of the most sensitive times ever in terms of they throw around the term islamophobia if you even criticize anyone that just happens to be Muslim I mean we're we're in a strange time when it comes to incredibly sensitive maybe hyper sensitive people that maybe don't have a good grip on reality well what would you do take them over there in buses yeah that'd be one thing be the way to go it's interesting because I I've already talked about this islamophobia I mean I fought alongside these Muslims I fought alongside them to help them my friends did and America did we fought a alongside these people to try and help them and we did so how that gets twisted in some world to where you know we're not we're evil is completely Beyond me well I think because there is legit islamophobia out there in the world just like there's there's a legit hatred of Christians there's legit hatred of Mormons I mean there's you're going to find groups of people that are hated and there's also people that aren't willing to look deep deeper into some some Global issue if you have a global issue that there these people that call themselves Isis or isil or whatever they call themselves and you know they call themselves the Islamic State you oh Islam oh Islam's bad Muslims are evil I was watching some thing there was a uh Sam Harris had posted up on Twitter uh there was this guy who was prop I believe it was in Virginia he was uh at a like County one of those uh meetings where you're talking about building something in the town and uh he was he was talking about putting up uh a mosque and these people were screaming at them that Muslims are evil and your evil cult is not going to come into our town and you're trying to invade our town and get out of here with your evil cult like okay that's islamophobia that's right there I mean you're talking about a peaceful guy who just wants to be able to worship His you know his ideas his religion in peace in this place he wants to build a mosque and people want to you know they're furious at this guy that's real islamophobia right but there's a big difference between something like that and what's going on in other parts of the world with Isis a giant giant difference and I think that when people want to throw around that term islamophobia I think a lot of times what they're doing is they're just trying to be correct they're trying to be politically correct socially correct they're trying to be sensitive and they're trying to let everybody know that they're not racist that they're not xenophobic that they're not islamophobic or whatever that they're open-minded and Progressive so they're throwing around these terms and it kind of clouds the water okay I mean yeah uh these are the these people are uh running around calling you know islamophobia I don't know no one's ever called me that um not yet I'm sure they will get ready today on Twitter yeah I don't see happen right now yeah I I don't see how they could do that you know again uh we we fought alongside Muslim people we ate with them we put our lives in their hands and they put their hand their lives in our hands and you know America and my friends were killed trying to help them so how I'm a a person that could be called called an islamophobic is is kind of a stretch I think yeah well rationally but you're talking about people that aren't necessarily rational well you know people paint their own layers onto things and make them into what they're not well I think it's symptomatic of what's going on with with our culture too is that this these hyp sensitive overs simplistic ideas and and people that that would say these things like this don't have a real grip like you have of what it's like over there and I don't think anybody does other than people like you that have been over there and have been in combat I don't think it's possible I think that's one of the problems that we have we we're behaving like children in a lot of ways because we really have never had to live on our own yeah and it's it's it's actually very similar to what we were talking about earlier with the traditional martial arts where you can sit there in your fantasy world and think that your Chi is going to protect you and that as long as you spread love you're going to be protected because your Chi is strong and until you've been in a fist fight you're going to believe that and so that that's kind of like what you're saying do we need to get spanked do we need to get into a fist fight before America realizes like oh no there's real problems in the world that need to be handled we this is one of the weirdest times ever but I have a bit in my ACT about um this is the first time ever where someone broke into the White House I if you know that in 2014 was the first time anybody gained access and there was a woman guarding the front door unarmed woman guarding the front door and a woman who's in charge of secret service because diversity and one of my favorite Parts was there was an article written about when the guy uh knocked the chick over ran inside and they said uh it was reviewed and gender wasn't an issue well okay yeah that makes a lot of sense like you mean if Brock Lesnar was guarding the door the same thing would have happened the guy would have knocked him over and every and he would have no one would have ever caught the guy he just would have ran by and that's [ __ ] ridiculous but it's that same kind of crazy thinking politically correct asinine thinking you should have a [ __ ] team if you're going to make the president sleep in a house that's in the park you should probably have a team of [ __ ] assassins surrounding that building at all times and you should keep a lookout for dudes that are sprinting across the lawn knocking over chicks that are guarding the front door there's no doubt about it but it's the same thing it's like we're so soft and we're so used to being in this insulated world that we have here this nice sweet bubble where we drive our 8 m per hour or 8 mile per gallon SUVs and I don't know how you would ever really illuminate all these problems that you're bringing up I don't I don't know how you could get these into the head of like in World War II like you and me if we were 13 years old we weren't old enough to ser we still knew that there was a war going on cuz we couldn't eat steak we couldn't use any metal we were gardening at night we were shutting off the lights like we were impacted all of America was impacted at the height of the battle of radi the height of it at the height of the war of Iraq at the height of the war in Afghanistan America Americans at the mall were not impacted at all at all at all not only that they weren't even allowed to show photographs of coffins it's like the first time ever in the history of the United States The History of the United States taking pictures during wartime where they made it illegal to show photos of coffins which is just absolutely insane like how how are you going to let people understand what's happening if you don't even allow journalists to show photographs of coffins it's the it's the bubble you're talking about insation what made you decide to leave the military well a bunch of things I mean it wasn't like one day I woke up and said all right I'm done uh you know obviously if if you haven't caught this up to this point I I loved I loved the SEAL Teams I loved being in the military um at the 20e Mark I had a bunch of different things that kind of weighed in you know I had a family that I hadn't seen or didn't know uh pretty much so you start thinking well you know maybe I should pay attention to them a little bit I had completed sort of my last real uh job operational job in the SEAL Teams and it was going to be a long time before I was in command again of a Seal Team or of something that was important from a war fighting perspective so that was kind of kind of another thing that I looked at that was tough and and yeah I just I guess I that's it that's it really so what was your transition how long ago did you begin to get out I got out in 2010 wow so it's this is five years ago years five years yep and what was your transition we uh started this company where we go and work with civilian companies doing leadership and management and you know my my buddy Le that I was talking about earlier who was one of the platoon commanders that was with me in Rat and you know he he had run into a company I'd run into a company and they asked us to do some stuff and the next thing you know you know I gave one one kind of leadership training to a company and then they said come back and train all of our divisions and then the parent company of that company watched me and said hey can you come to our CEO Summit and then went to the CEO Summit and then a bunch of those CEOs said hey can you come and and the next thing you know I'm doing this so what what is the process like when you're when you're doing these uh these speeches or you're setting things up how do you organize them and like you you obviously your lifetime was in the military right so what was it about you and about what you brought to the table that was so attractive to them I think it's because the principles of leadership and that's what we do that's what we talk about and that's what we teach is leadership the principles of leadership do not change whether your whether your mission is to capture kill bad guys or whether your mission is to manufacture something or sell something or produce something you're trying to you got a group of people group of individuals and they're going to be diverse they're going to be different they're going to have different intelligence levels they're going to have different personalities they're going to have different goals they're going to have different motivations and you got to take all those people and unify them and try and get them to accomplish a mission in the most effective and efficient manner and that's leadership and it doesn't like I said that those principles that we used in combat don't change regardless of what the mission is and but what's good you know and I said this earlier life is like combat but Amplified and intensified combat is like sorry combat is like life but Amplified and intensified and and that means when when we tell a story like a leadership story about combat it it it's so obvious what the the what the principle was whereas in the business World it might take 6 months or a year or maybe you barely even notice what the failure was you know and when we we when we make those Stark examples from combat people go oh oh I see how we're failing in this too and that's that's why I think people really took hold of of what we did and how we put it across so this was something that you were approach to do this wasn't like an idea that you had had and you thought about like this would be my new thing yeah and I mean regardless of like all this uh garbage that I talk in my life and I've always telling people to like plan and be prepared yeah I I almost completely fell into this with the fact that you know someone said hey can you come and talk to my people about leadership and I said well yeah I've been talking about leadership for you know the last several years in the SEAL Teams and I've been in a leadership position in some pretty tough situations and you know that just that just happened now do you teach a course or is this uh is this like a one time seminar type of a thing we do both well so sometimes we go in you know we'll do like a keynote speech uh and those are good those are great you know we get a lot of positive feedback about those but then sometimes we'll go in with company and we've done like two-year contracts with companies where we've trained everybody that they have and we get all their leadership aligned on the same page and and we'll we'll go in you know for maybe a couple an assessment we'll look and see we'll learn about what business they're in we'll learn about what they're doing how they're doing it we'll see what areas they can improve on we'll formulate a plan around that then we'll come back and we'll train leadership that's fascinating so you you have to kind of construct a course yes yes I mean the the basic like I said the basic principles are always the same but some organizations have different problems than other organizations they all they all have the same you know five seven problems you know whatever that number is some of them are really bad at this or really good at this or they're failing here but they're winning here so we got go in check them out see what see what the issue is and then we get it uh turned around is this rewarding for you do do you enjoy doing this yeah absolutely I mean I I well number one I can talk about combat all day long and I can talk about and even more than that I can talk about leadership all day long because it's it's it's the it's the most challenging thing about being in combat in a leadership position is not you know trying to figure out what the enem is going to do and trying to trying to organize a good plan the most challenging thing is dealing with all these human beings that that's the challenging thing is getting these guys and girls to do what they need to do what you need them to do to get them to believe in it that's what's challenging and we definitely learned lessons positive and negative you know that's one thing about our book that people have got a lot of feedback is this book isn't like hey look what we did look how awesome we are no this book is a lot of those chapters in that book are hey this is what we screwed up here's the failure that happened this was horrible situation and it was my fault that's where we learn the lessons and I think that's what's made people relate to it more because we're not just saying hey we're the greatest thing in the world no we were uh we were humbled by combat we were we were humbled by the enemy we were humbled by our own guys that did amazing things when we were around so I think that's a little bit different as well and again I think that's one of the things that makes PE that appeals to the people is they look at this and they go oh I can relate to that I can understand it I failed too I made a mistake oh how did they handle it oh they did this okay got it when you're talking about combat you're talking about people organizing and staying together and figuring out how to lead you're talking about these extreme consequences the most extreme ever and when you have these extreme consequences obviously when there's a lot on the line people are going to focus and some people are going to fall apart and some people are going to pull together but you're going to get people that understand the gravity of the situation it would seem to me that it would be much harder to impart that into people in the business World Amplified and intensified so in combat lives are at stake absolutely in business world have you ever had to fire anyone before no it sucks have you ever had people lose their job and couldn't pay their mortgage and feed their kids because you screwed up as a boss no that's pressure that is massive have you ever lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of capital because you made a bad decision no but you know why it's cuz I'm not a leader see so there's good things in not being a leader the the benefits of non-leadership so so you know we we when people ask me that question because they ask that question all the time I'm like hey it's not about lives but it's about livelihoods and you've got people that are relying on you to succeed and win and again sure you get killed in combat that's obviously the worst thing that can happen but if you lose your job or you you know your your people lose their jobs I mean people kill themselves all the time when they make Bad Business decisions it's that much pressure for sure and so that's why it does translate because business people relate to that amount of pressure and they understand how it feels to to have that bearing down on them it just seems to me for a guy like you that maybe you would be even more attract Ed to going into business than you would be to teaching people how to lead their businesses better yeah and we I mean it is a business we do have a business so and it is definitely what we're doing um and that being said for me to now go into business I'd have to learn some new business well I why not just take the skills that I do have which is you know we know about leadership so let's just help other people and that is rewarding it's it's very rewarding to talk to someone and have them go we I did what you told me to do and this is the result this is the outcome that's very rewarding and and another piece of it is you know everything always ties to me back to America the the the businesses in this country are the economic power of this nation and our economic power is the backbone of our Authority in the world and so to help businesses grow and Achieve is is very rewarding because I know that it's uh it's a very patriotic thing to do capitalism is is is a very patriotic piece of America that's an interesting perspective that's an interesting way to look at the big picture and I agree with you I'm going to say something that people hate me saying but I'm GNA say it because I I need to say it to you you should have a podcast people always get mad at me because I say this all the time to interesting guests but this is not something that's difficult to do and you'd be [ __ ] great at it and I think that your perspective on the military and your perspective on our our our situation overseas I think would be very unusual very unusual and very educated and I just think there's there's no one out there that's doing that like like you could do it well we definitely I've I've you're not the first person to say that to me as a matter of fact when Tim Ferris like we got done with the podcast and he pressed stop on the thing and he just looked up at me and said you need to do your own podcast good for him uh talked to public I've talked to some of my uh some my some of my buddies about it and uh we're we're working this is all you have to do man get a [ __ ] phone you have a phone press record you know sit down with people it's not hard to do it's easy trust me no it's it's interesting too and I'm I'm getting over the fact of uh like I told you earlier like I like I said on the Tim Ferris program you know people that just talk for no reason and it's hard for me to get used to like the the fact that somebody wants to hear what I have to say that's not you know a seal or you know a direct business person but uh I'm definitely you know I'll probably end up doing something with it well I think you know great military leaders whether it's uh Z what suu the Art of War whether it's mamoto busi from the book of five rings great Warriors from the past have written books that civilians have gotten a lot out of and I think that someone like you instead of writing a book and your book I'm sure is great and I'm sure there's a lot of lessons in that but on a daily basis to be able to do something like this anytime you want just fire up your podcast anytime something like Paris like the Paris attack happens you could give your perspective instantaneously upload it onto the internet and there's just never been a time like that it's wonderful that we could sit down and read what mamoto Musashi wrote hundreds of years ago I mean it's it's amazing it's interesting to to try to peer into the mind of one of the the greatest Swordsmen that ever lived and see his philosophies on life but but I think that today with the Advent of the internet and with with the ability to Broadcast Yourself virtually instantaneously I think you could you could make a gigantic impact in sharing that perspective and taking those experiences that you have so deserved and so earned and and giving people this Insight that there's just they're just not going to get it you know I'm getting it from you like I said I got it from you from that Tim Ferris episode and I'm getting it even more from you now it's a perspective you're just not going to get from someone who wasn't there you're just not going to get it you're going to get these fuzzy uh you know it's it's like two people sit you ever heard two people talk about martial arts don't know [ __ ] about martial arts you know that's what it's like to hear someone like me talk about the military really yeah and it's it's again it's another thing that that is uh I'm I'm sorting out in my own head which is this idea of broadcasting myself uh it's just it's just weird I mean you grew up you were into this you know I think you you've been a comedian for pretty much your whole adult life right 26 years yeah so 26 years you were getting on stage that's what you wanted to do and honestly when I first joined the SEAL Teams that was the most frowned upon thing was to be broadcasting yourself that you were a seal that you were that what you did and it and it took me a long time I mean writing this book was a was a it's it's a really hard thing to do because you sit there and you you know you you're you're supposed to be humble right you're a warrior you're supposed to be humble okay well I'm going to write a big book about myself I mean that just that just doesn't work and so it was really hard and and Leif and I that was one of the biggest things that we did as we edited it and edited it we went through it just to just to make sure that we were coming across and saying things in a manner that really reflected that humility which again it's very hard to do because it's a dichotomy because you're saying hey you got to be humble as a leader but I'm gonna write a big book about myself you know mean just it's just crazy and so when you're sitting here like oh you should have a podcast and I'm thinking you know you should broadcast yourself and again the way I was raised cuz I you spent your whole adult life in comedy I spent my whole adult life in the SEAL Teams and I was raised by these old Vietnam guys that were badasses and they were like oh you don't talk about this right and so I'm kind of going against this the way I was raised and and so again I'm getting over it um I'm trying to get over it but at the same time I don't want to get completely over it because that's part of you know that's part of the way I was raised and what I believe in I see their point of view I I totally understand why they would say you don't talk about it but what I think the benefit of talking about it today as opposed to their time is that through the internet you can broadcast in a way that would be like look no one's going to take a Navy SEAL back in the day and give them a gigantic television show where they could say whatever the [ __ ] they wanted and broadcast anytime they wanted but if you have a successful podcast you can reach hundreds of thousands of people with each episode which is just like a successful television show and because of that you have the ability to educate people and give people this perspective that I said that I got from you that I'm just not get I'm not getting from anybody else unless they've been there but I get it from you I get it from Tim Kennedy I get it from Brian Stan I get it from Andy stump I get it from people that have been there and you you get a a different perspective than you're ever going to get from someone who's just pontificating or guessing waxing poetically on the nature of Man and War it's all [ __ ] until you talk to someone who's actually been there you don't really understand what they're saying I think that I it would be gigantic I really think you should do it I really I really think it would help a lot of people I think um it would help a lot of people understand from the perspective of someone who actually knows what they're talking about and there's not a lot of that in the world I think this is also what you're talking about when you're talking about the leadership in this country it's I don't I don't know if you should be someone who has served in the military in order to qualify for being the president but I don't think it's a bad idea to throw it out there to to say that at the very least you should spend some time living in these environments where we're involved in massive Conflict at the very least you should visit them spend a lot of time with the people who have lived and served and fought in these countries so you understand clearly with no fuzziness at all what the [ __ ] is going on in the world well there's no doubt that I think military service I mean I it was so good for me and would it be good for everybody what what about Jamie over there look at him know I don't know either see he just said I don't know I'm not 100% sure Jamie I guarantee Jamie would get a a lot out of it I'm sure he would I guarantee you would but he might wind up like that dude in Full Metal Jacket with the rifle in the bathroom private pile get some uh yeah um I I did you know the military the the military was great for me and and but again you you were born for this I mean this is like something you were drawn to like a magnet to metal filings yeah yeah no I was I was drawn to it but I was still like when I joined my dad my dad said to me uh you're going to hate it because you hate Authority that's what my dad said to me I was like okay uh and you know that but that's that gives you an indication as to what kind of kid I was I was like completely out of control and didn't listen to anybody and I was probably similar to what you were like I'm guessing um you know I was just an out- ofc control kid that just did whatever and so joining the military it it put it put the structure around me and all of a sudden I could take all this energy that I had and and what's really nice about is you get this Clean Slate where they're like okay if you do this you'll be successful here's what you to do check these boxes and I was like okay I'm ready to do those things and you just do them and you develop the discipline you know the discipline and I talk about that all the time you know the the fact that discipline equals freedom and the more discipline you have as a human the more freedom you're going to have which is completely counterintuitive you know people think oh you're living this disciplined lifestyle so that means you you you don't have any freedom and it's actually the exact opposite I have freedom because I have discipline I have I have you know Financial Freedom because I have Financial discipline I have more time because I have the discipline to get up in the you know before most normal people get up those are the kind of disciplines that you put in place and those definitely get instilled through the military well I think the one thing the discipline definitely does help you with is it helps you get things done and when you get things done when you you you actually do things you you you you have more success if you have more success and sometimes a big part of success is just not being [ __ ] lazy and just doing it just get that's like 90% of it is just showing up get there and start working like you're not going to feel perfect every day if I felt if I only worked out when I felt good I'd be a fat [ __ ] because there's a lot of days I don't want to do it I it's pretty much the same with everybody that that actually gets good at something that you you got there's got to be those days you push through and they're they're probably going to be more numerous than the days you don't and so the benefit of discipline in my eyes has always been that through discipline I get things done I always tell I always say that like the most lazy disciplined person I know because I don't want to do it yeah but I always do and I'd be interesting to get your perspective on this this statement so I also think that discipline is a is a pathway to creativity and I'll tell you when I talk about creativity there's another misconception about the military when you're on the battlefield is an absolute exercise in creativity okay I already talked about how you going to lead these people what are you going to do how you going to influence them how you going to talk to them how you going to say the right things that's creativity now you throw on top of that what am I going to do to the enemy how are we going to attack them how are we going to disorganize them how are we going to get in their heads that's all just massive creativity and when I look at people that are artists like yourself because you're a standup comedian you I I would imagine that the more disciplined you are the you know you got to get up and right you got to write stuff down you got to read and find out about what's going on in the world you have more things that you can jab at and and make fun of you got to increase your vocabulary so that you are quicker and sharper so that when people are saying things you have more words to battle back at them all those things all that freedom that you get on stage comes from the discipline that you you study you learn you read you write you talk you go through things is that an accurate statement absolutely accurate there's a great book on it Steven pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art and pressfield was essentially like a narell till he was like 40 years old he was kind of a [ __ ] up and then figured it out somewhere along the line figured it out I used to keep a stack of them in my old studio and I'd hand them out to guests if I thought they needed it like just take this just trust me read this because a lot of artists and Comics um I I I bet musicians as well but writers for sure one of the big problems is sitting down and doing the work and you you got to and press field talks about that in in the most concise and beautiful way and he labels it like an enemy he calls it resistance you know and that you have to sit down you have to overcome resistance and that the pro goes to work and it doesn't matter if you're sick doesn't matter if you have kids it doesn't matter what you you're a pro and you go to work and that and that just it puts it in your head that this is what I do this is what and you have pride in that and then when you are in front of that keyboard and you're you're you got you look down the count it says I got [ __ ] a th words today I put a th000 words in you you and you you you're doing the work and out of that work gems blossom little things you might have a day where you just write nothing but dog [ __ ] so what show up again tomorrow and tomorrow out of that dog [ __ ] a flower will emerge you never know and that's the only way to develop real like to to Really develop your potential 100% in anything whether it's as an author or even as a martial artist there's a lot of creativity martial arts to be a great Striker you have to be creative because you have to develop patterns or execute patterns that are aren't going to be perceived like if a guy has a real simple one two one2 you're going to time that [ __ ] you're we were talking before the this this podcast about Holly holm's victory over Ronda Rousey and one of the things we were talking about was that Ronda had this very linear straightforward attack you knew she was coming and Holly is a Master at at countering so all she had to do was wait and move and Ronda was coming in One Direction there was no there was there was no variation there was no creativity it was a mad Bulldog Rush that had worked on everybody else before but she found one person who was a virtuoso at movement and she needed creativity and it wasn't there and she needed that experience that came with having Face someone who knew that position and knew knew had a deep understanding of that movement and she didn't have that in her repertoire and so that's the result that we saw like a striker like Anderson Silva is extremely creative if you watch he's got a fight versus Tony freckin um in cage Warriors cage Warriors what the [ __ ] was it called in England Small organization in England it called cage Warriors yeah where he practiced this step in uppercut elbow like a sideways elbow and his coach was going you're [ __ ] crazy stop practicing that and he would make his wife hold the pillow because his his coach didn't want him to practiceing anymore because he thought he was wasting his time so he practiced stepping his wife would hold a pillow for him and he'd step in and throw this uppercut elbow that's what he knocked out frin with yeah and he obviously frin was outclass in that fight but he wanted to make a point and like the front kick that he landed the face of vtor belr vtor never saw that [ __ ] coming cuz nobody had done that to him before cuz nobody had done that history of the UFC nobody had ever knocked anybody out with the first kick you learn in martial arts but the creativity to try something like that he would throw punches to your thigh from standing he would throw a jab to your thigh he would throw a crescent kick an inside Crescent kick to your face like what the [ __ ] it was it was part of what made him such an effective Striker is that he threw these things that you just didn't expect him to do MH there's a lot of creativity in Jiu-Jitsu you know that yeah well I got you you know Dean liser and Jeff Glover are my my guys Jeff Glover is one of the most creative guys in Jiu-Jitsu today he's one of my favorite he does this thing for folks who don't understand Jiu-Jitsu who don't know what we're talking about he does this thing called a donkey guard he's so [ __ ] crazy this guy he gets on literally he faces you with his butt to you and he launches himself backwards like a donkey kicking and wraps you up and it looks so Preposterous while he's doing it that so many guys is especially when he first started executing it just had no idea what the [ __ ] to do yeah yeah there he is right there like how crazy he is he's out of his mind he's so uh he's so comfortable in every like you know he trains you know we're the same gym and he trains every day with whoever and he puts himself in the most ridiculously horrible positions I'm talking like okay he'll let people get a rear naked choke on him I mean he I'll watch him I'll be like what why did God name how is he going to and he will escape he'll just put himself in horrible positions all the time just to work on his defense and just to be in in a bad way how does he avoid getting hurt cuz he's not a big guy uh he's super super super flexible um like crazy flexible and you know he gets dinged up but he just is very flexible and he knows where to put his body you know he's just a he's a kind of a freak cuz I knew that he trained with you I was going to ask you like the idea of you and him training together together for folks listening to this was the majority of our podcast is audio probably like 90% you're about what 240 or something like that yeah 235 yeah and Jeff's like what 150 yeah yeah yeah what the [ __ ] that's that's a big I don't want to tr I weigh 200 lbs I don't want to train with anybody who's 210 the fact that he's 150 lbs and he's training with gorillas I don't know how the [ __ ] he does it I don't know how he does it he's uh he's just super relaxed and he just moves and moves really well it's amazing it's amazing no back problems he's he's all right no neck problems he is 100% at all times yeah that's amazing yeah Dean's getting a little more dinged up yeah Dean looks like he ate a Dean I saw him the other day I'm like what are you with 300 [ __ ] pounds and I don't mean it in a fat way either he's huge yeah he looks gigantic he's he's pretty big yeah has he just been powerlifting or something like what is he doing uh I think he just eats a lot yeah but he's he's definitely lifting too cuz like food doesn't go right to your neck his neck starts top gen he's a genetic mutant another guy he's a genetic mutant um and yeah he's I mean both those guys are are mutants they're actual grappling mutants where if you and I were to like concoct some weird you know like potion and create beings you know you'd make like a Jeff Glover because he's weird flexible wiry and he would be really good and then You' make a Dean lster who's just a big mutant who you you when you when you catch Dean you have to like do everything perfect because he's his defense is really good and he just doesn't it's really hard to tap him with stuff you know like like he'll just give people you know his foot and be like yeah go for it and it takes me like three days I'll have to soften his foot up with like nine foot locks and just crank it crank it crank it and then you know on the third day I'll get a deep one and and it'll already be like hurt so so you know so you have to soften him up over days like tenderizing meat well that was why it was so shocking when Josh Barnett tapped him cuz Josh Barnett tapped him in like an old school side like headlock choke which is uh very rare you know it's very rare that you see like a highlevel guy that executes that choke like the way Josh did but Josh's got that old school catch wrestling knowledge too which is just such a a different approach and you get used to a certain approaches and Josh has a very different approach and he's a very physically strong guy as well yeah and I mean you know Dean is just uh Dean is a mutant and he is a gifted incredibly gifted Grappler um but his you know his training methodology and lifestyle is not really conducive to uh competing like that you know unfortunately that's a nice way of saying he's kind of lazy ye yeah let's just make those noises and not say anything hey you know he he he he could definitely train harder and uh you know I've I've trained with all kinds of guys in the world uh world class guys all over the place and Dean is absolutely you know one of those guys that is up there with like you know uh Hixon who I've trained with I haven't trained with Marcelo but he's like that crazy good really wow uh well no he was one of the first real leglock m really understood like and and um uh who brought him in to um into where someone brought him into um ADCC pride no I know he uh [ __ ] why am I blanking Alan Belcher God damn Alan Belcher brought him in when he fought uh husar paarz who's the best leg Locker in MMA and in that fight Allan just stopped everything Paul Harris threw at him literally every every single movement that I saw I was like oh that that's this that's this you know like I knew exactly what Dean had showed him and exactly what those movements were that's amazing what is Dean doing these days is he gonna still compete or uh he's you know he's teaching Jiu-Jitsu and you know hanging out um getting after it you know uh I would love to see him just like get completely refocused and make a make a run at win an 0cc or whatever uh one more time before he before he hangs it up but when you say he's dinged up like what kind of [ __ ] oh just normal old you know Jiu-Jitsu type guy you know's his neck will be sore his shoulder will be hurt uh just that kind of stuff you know but but you know he is a mutant that could you know if I think uh he he in ADCC his last I think it was in China his match against bua when bcha is just a complete beast and you know they went at it and that was a very close match and again if you watch training videos of bua getting ready for ADCC he's training like a complete Savage I mean he's bringing wrestlers in he's cleaning jerk he's flipping tires he's doing everything that one does to prepare for a situation like that and and Dean does not do those types of things you know he'll come in and train a little bit and go on his natural ability as a mutant human being to get it done it's always frustrating when you see a guy who is so naturally gifted who kind of like lays back but that's it seems to be that's a lot of what happens is the people that are naturally gifted don't have to work as hard so they don't work as hard it's it's also part of you know when I talk about Jeff and Dean both those guys they're both and you know you could throw Eddie and you could throw all kinds of people into this category who are who are uh kind of game changers you know what I mean well you know I don't know Eddie that well I've hung out a couple times but I definitely know Jeff and Dean and they're they got some some weird stuff about him right I mean they got some weird personality stuff and in from my perspective that is you know no if you didn't have that weird personality thing then how are you going to be you know a 15-year-old Jeff Glover and be like oh you know what I'm going to do all day I'm just going to train Jiu-Jitsu all day every day I'm going to sit there I'm going to watch YouTube videos I'm just going to get good at this I'm going to train every day I'm going to compete all over the country I'm just that's what I'm going to do that's you know if you're not some if you don't have some if you're normal you're not going to do that a normal person's like oh cool I'm going to get a job at Walmart and then I'm going to do you know I'll train it I'll train for an hour and a half night these guys are like oh no no I'm just going to train all day every day and I'm going to live in you know on the mat and Dean same way like H if he didn't have that weird like spark that made him that makes him I mean he's got some weird like knowledge what's weird about him is if you ask Eddie Bravo about you know the rubber guard he knows all this details about it but if you ask him about a foot lock or what something that he doesn't know that well he'd be like oh yeah a little bit you'll ask Dean about something that he knows nothing like you've never seen him do before and he'll know all these detailed of the moves I don't know if he I seriously don't know if he goes and watches it on YouTube or if he like studies or writes it down but he's got this weird little almost Rainman um you know idiot savant type weird thing in his head he was one of those guys that had a really hard time transitioning into MMA absolutely his striking just never seemed fluid like and he you know I know he worked hard at it he just uh for whatever his body is designed to choke things yeah and you see that with everybody because everyone's got strength and weaknesses and everyone's going to be good at something and bad at something else uh you know you and I know all these examples of people that are like this every fighter you know has got some weak area and then you get occasionally you get a guy that GSP that's just like well-rounded right um but you know everyone even even things physical things physical attributes you know some people are just super mutant strong and some people are just super crazy flexible and some people have unbelievable natural cardio and some people don't and so it's the people then there's some people that are really good at grappling there's some people are really good at striking there's some people that are good at putting all those things together which I always thought Fedor was very natural at combining his striking with his grappling and kind of making it all fit together better than most people could yeah um yeah I agree with you on that I think that was one of the things that really stood out about him was that he didn't fall into that trap that a lot of people do where if you're a really good wrestler but you have knockout power you just knock everybody out Fedor he would be you would be stunned and he would see your arm and he would dive in a Kimura yeah you know he would he would always take the opportunity that presented itself whether it was a grappling situation or whether it was a striking situation and his well-roundedness was one of the things that made him special on top of his knockout power and his aggression he he was so well-rounded he was his ability to flow with whatever was happening and he also had that humility and he had that calm like you like you saw Holly had the other day and I actually I actually again talking about social media I posted I I haven't posted much on Face the Facebook before but there's a video of Holly uh talking about she got beat by Sophia mattius in kickboxing right it was a vicious fight watch it later kickboxing or boxing kickboxing it's it's it's it's insane I mean she gets destroyed Holly Gets completely destroyed hanging on the ropes getting punched in the head it's awful then you watch the postf fight interview with her and it it it's unbelievable because everything she says she takes complete own ship of the loss she's like I had a TR great training camp I my coaches were telling me to do the right things but I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do I wasn't fighting the way I was supposed to fight the reason I lost tonight is my fault I did this and I will have to change things if I'm going to beat her and that hearing someone and the other part that was cool about it was she was getting emotional like you could see like she want to cry I mean she was crushed but she she kept control of her emotions and what another you when I saw that video I'm like man this girl is is going to do well on this fight I mean I I I had a pretty good feeling about it well she's she is incredibly solid that's for sure and that is so admirable when someone does take ownership of their mistakes yeah it's so important that's like we wrote the book the book is called Extreme ownership that that's that's literally the ladies and gentlemen right there but but that's that is like the key the reason it's called that is because when we made mistakes we owned up to them and furthermore when both Le and I ended up in positions where we were teaching leadership Leif was teaching the junior officers that were coming out of the Seal training putting them through the the junior officer training course and I was teaching like I said the advanced guys and so you'd get two seal officers and like I said we put these guys through horrible training scenarios where everyone was getting killed and blown up and they'd be B buddy carrying people through the desert and just it's just awful and you come back from these situations and you talk to one of the let's say one of the good leaders and you'd say hey what went wrong and the guy' say well number one I didn't give a clear enough plan no one really understood what my vision was they didn't execute because I obviously didn't give them a good enough briefing and you'd be like okay fair enough and that guy would go and fix that problem then you'd get a guy that was would not take ownership of stuff that would come in and say uh you say what what went wrong that training you know that that was you guys did a terrible job what happened he said well you know my my assault Force Commander didn't wait for my command before he left and he screwed up and my platoon Chief wasn't heads up about where our casualties were being taken and my lpo and they they'd make all these excuses and it really was the difference between like who would be successful and who wouldn't be because the guy that takes ownership of the problems what do you think the rest of his team does just just I if if that person takes ownership of the problems everybody on that team does the same thing they don't say yeah you're right boss it is your fault no they go hey boss you know what I actually could have done a better job and and that spreads through everybody whereas when someone says it wasn't my fault it was Joe's fault what does Joe do Joe goes no it wasn't yeah exactly we blame each other and guess what the problem never get solved exactly so to hear Holly talking about that after the fight and taking complete ownership of the loss was very impressive to me and she went on to beat her like 6 months later I believe yeah yeah that it's one of the most important things in getting good at anything is recognizing when you're not good recognizing when you make mistakes it seems so simple right but you know why because ego oh ego is a monster everybody's ego it's like even even me because I sit here and I I like teach people about you know you got to keep your ego there's a chapter in there like like you got to keep your ego in check when when when some I'll even ask somebody I'll be like hey is there anything I could have done better in that in that speech or in that class and they'll be like well you know one thing that you could do and like immediately I'm like bristling up I'm like bristling like my ego and I'm like God I'm such a loser I I'm I'm sitting here telling them about to put their ego in check and I an idiot so everybody does that everybody does it all the time no one can take criticism and you know part of that biggest step of moving forward is uh is is learning how to take ownership of stuff when it goes sideways and it definitely will well you need some form some amount of pride and some amount of ego to get good at things in the first place cuz it's it's such a count counterintuitive notion because you have to have a belief in yourself you have to be able like when you when you first when you start out a Jiu-Jitsu you're a white belt like I remember being a white belt and being like Oh my God I am [ __ ] never going to get good at this I'm going to suck forever but to to to to look at people who are better than you and know they had to have sucked at one point in time okay there's got to be there's somewhere along the end of this tunnel there's got to be a light I just got to keep going yeah and takes ego and ego yeah I was going to say I mean ego drives you know you to be successful me to be successful ego is what's driving you the problem is when you let ego go too far yeah and you know everything takes balance there's a dichotomy and everything every part of you has a dichotomy you know you can get so into the physical aspect specs of things that you end up like doing a bunch of steroids and going crazy and ruining your health right that's that's not good right the other end of the spectrum you know you can sit around and play video games and turn into a yeah yeah well there there's yeah bodybuilding is the best example of that right because yeah it's it's kind of dying out though isn't it kind of Bon build like full on it full on out there still well to you and I it is but I think there's a giant culture of people out there that want to look like huge mutants still it's I think I mean I'm not in that world but when I mean it bodybuilding is a great example of that because when you start lifting weights you're like ah I'd like to be stronger and you start getting a little bit bigger you're like oh look at that I got a muscle woo this is cool and then you keep going but some guys get so [ __ ] crazy they won't stop until they have 22-inch arms and they want to have thighs that are so big they have to walk like they're they've got a barrel in between their legs and you know and they they just can't help it they just take it to some completely unhealthy Place yeah that's uh it's rough yeah well it's it's just the nature of trying to get good at something you got to recognize what's good and what is just [ __ ] insane yeah and it happens in training camps with Fighters all the time too over overtrained so bad big big part of problem of the problem with uh with mixed martial arts it's so obvious too when you're overtraining somebody because all of a sudden like one night they'll just fall apart and they just won't be able to do anything right and I'm always like all right go eat two stakes and take two days off you know because they will get to a point you just feel them you'll just feel them fall apart yeah well you have to monitor your heart rate that's a big thing that a lot of Fighters don't do monitor your resting heart rate in the morning and if it goes up more than five beats in a day or two most likely you're overtrained or you're sick or you're struggling with something that that would make sense Steve Maxwell taught me that trick he's like every fighter should do that none of them do they should monitor their heart rate and every morning his heart rate is like seven yeah Steve Maxwell can [ __ ] he can deal with anything yeah he's just one of those dudes but he's just he's another guy you want to talk about a guy who's got a lifetime of wisdom when it comes to strength and conditioning and what he calls physical culture the culture of you know taking care of your body guys 62 or 63 years old fit as a fiddle travels all around the world training people that's all he does doesn't have a house yeah doesn't he has a a a a bag that he brings with him when he he travels around all of his stuff's in that bag yeah I ran into him in San Diego because he's been downsizing like and when I the first time I ran him into him in San Diego he was down to living in like an an RV like a small RV that's when I first met him too and then I I hear him on a podcast whatever you know a year later or two years later and he's no I have all my worldly possessions in a backpack yeah he sold his RV and he's like [ __ ] it I don't even know if he has a bank account I mean he's a strange cat man yeah he really is a strange cat but a very at peace guy for sure yeah I mean it's very interesting I wouldn't want to live like that I don't like living like that but he's also been the guy that's lived the other way he's had the house and he's had the family and his son Zach is a very successful Jiu-Jitsu competitor and you know got divorced and gave up the gym he had all the all the trappings he had everything he's like I like it better like this like backpack life and maybe the key word there was trappings you know maybe he somehow built all these things around him that felt ended up making him feel traps yeah for him it's just he what he he figured out what he enjoys he enjoys training still doing Jiu-Jitsu to this day and he teaches a course uh Jiu-Jitsu for Lifetime and it's all about maintaining your health while you train and you know he's written articles on training smart to avoid injuries as you get older and you know how to pick the right training partners and make sure you know nobody's trying to hurt you but that you could keep a an active martial arts lifestyle deep in your 60s like he is yeah you got to be thankful that you started Jiu-Jitsu a little bit younger because you got to get and even today if you start Jiu-Jitsu as an older we have all kinds of older guys coming to the gym um and it's that first like year yeah where they just don't know where to put their body yet and they don't know to say no to that 21-year-old Juiced up Marine that's like in there to get after it and like they smack hands to roll and this guy's going to tear him apart and that's that's how guys get hurt if they're if they're older and you know they you need to ease into it a little bit pick your training Partners carefully you got to pick your training Partners carefully this there's always going to be the guy that hurts people there used to be this giant German dude that used to roll at our gym used to always get everybody in leg locks and blow their knees out and he's just I you know never rolled with that guy I'm like I've uh I've been leg locked by Dean I don't even know how many times like I mean we might be talking thousands of times uh heel hooked knee locked but you know I've never been hurt you know and I've I've gotten him you know not thousands times but plenty of times and we've never hurt each other you know because we we know what we're doing yeah I'd way rather roll with a black belt than some [ __ ] psycho blue belt it's it's just too dangerous sometimes they just they spazz out and they headbutt you accidentally and weird [ __ ] happens it's um um one of the things uh that I think is amazing is uh that Anthony Bourdain has gotten crazy into jiujitsu over the last I think two years now he just earned his blue belt he's 59 yeah that's awesome which it's amazing he lifetime of smoking cigarettes doing heroin like never never was fit never exercise at all when I first met him uh like he would laugh about Fitness he just wanted to drink beer and you know he the first time he did my podcast we got so high I don't even know how we talked and then uh I just did his TV show like a couple weeks ago we were in Montana all he wanted to talk about was Jiu-Jitsu yeah he's obsessed I'm showing them some techniques we're talking about different guys that like to do different things at different approaches and ghee versus no ghee and John Doner and you know Gary tonin and Eddie cumins and all these different I'm like this is amazing I can't believe like you what a transformation this guy has overtaken jiujitsu definitely I mean people can get into all kinds of weird stuff right people get into surfing people get into skiing people get into rock climbing there's definitely something um more in jiujitsu that gets into people's heads and it definitely happened to me I mean I was completely and I still am I mean I still cannot like stop a YouTube video of a cool move I mean I just I just have to watch it yeah and I think it's because there's such a cerebral part of it there's something about it and I see this you know we teach kids and you'll see the the the knucklehead kids the kind of knuckle Dragon kids are kind of big they don't really get it but then you get this kid like some smart kid that you can tell they're smart and those are the kids that get really into Jiu-Jitsu because they realize like oh if I learn this I can beat that big kid yeah and that's where it starts but yeah Jiu-Jitsu can definitely be addictive well Jiu-Jitsu is the only martial art where it really works like in the Bruce Lee movie where the little guy really can beat the big guy because the reality is is like if you watch the old K1 days where Bob sap was fighting when Bob sap was 375 PBS with abs like you've never seen anything like it he was he on steroids he was steroids there was nothing human left and he beat Ernesto host twice who is arguably one of the top two or three greatest kickboxers ever and Bob just bum rushed him and Donkey Kong him just beat him down with clubbing punches cuz he was so much bigger than him he was more than 150 pounds bigger than him probably I think who at his biggest is probably like 230 maybe something and to your point I was in Japan I was with Dean as a matter of fact when noira submitted sap that was insane that was a perfect example per example boy it had to be noara though because sap sap dropped him on his head pile drived him on his head I saw him the next day noira like after the fight and he was hurt I mean he was beat up bad oh my God he took some AB his neck was [ __ ] up apparently forever after that like he he his neck essentially never recovered after that fight you know that was one of the fights that Fedor passed on Fedor wouldn't fight Bob sa it's like n you take your [ __ ] clown show take your circus act and no is like okay yeah Fedor was like no thanks on the freak Show I'm GNA fight but then again went and fought hongman Choy who's a giant guy too but giant actually gigantism giant not giant like juice to the gills giant but look Bob sap I mean all power to him they didn't have a law against it and he went in there and they were paying him and that's how he made a ton of money doing that but the point is that in Jiu-Jitsu like maybe in MMA it's a little bit different CU you know obviously Bob sap dropped noera on his head and most people would have been done then but noera was legendarily tough but a small man can tap out a much larger stronger man on a regular basis I watched Rico Rodriguez in Abu Dhabi go against Marcelo Garcia I was there were you there yeah in La yeah amazing and when Rico threw him on his back when Marcelo took Rico's back so Rico threw himself backwards and slammed on top of like like Marcel's like a backpack on Rico's back Rico's like 240 something maybe even heavier threw himself backwards and landed all his weight on Marcelo Marcelo shook it off and leg locked him yeah incredible incredible I mean Marcelo was like 160 lbs maybe 170 maybe yeah but just so skilled and so dangerous with his Jiu-Jitsu that he was the favorite in that yeah which is incredible and that's that's where I think that addiction comes in because I think it's just a cerebral thing where people realize that it's like you said it's this real Force when I one of my uh my kid asked me you know that movie The The Incredibles yes there K these people have superpowers and my uh my son asked me hey Dad is there really such a thing as superpowers and I'm like jiujitsu it's definitely a superpower it's a superpower you know if you remember the days before anybody knew it if you knew a little tiny bit man you were just get you no one could stop you it was awesome well it's also amazing to see the progression of Jiu-Jitsu in comparison to 1993 because the Jiu-Jitsu of 1993 was so primtive in comparison to what you have today like the guys who are winning with jiu-jitsu God the the setups were so obvious you could see the arm bars a mile away there was nothing crazy or weird about it and you look at that in comparison to today like a Jacare like when Jacare gets arm bars it's like a work of art I mean you you watch his setups you go good Lord like he tapped Chris CI with an arm bar and I watched the transition the way he controlled them on the ground and the scramble to arm I probably watched it 40 times in a row I just played it back and forth and went [ __ ] one more time [ __ ] I need like perfect placement of the shin and the knee the pressure the hips everything's in place the control of the arm it was a done deal from the moment he started his movements yeah you know that to me is like that's just as beautiful as any painting that anybody's ever made 100% there's an art to that no doubt about it what year did you start uh uh 92 or 93 damn you got in early I got in early luckily I I had a pre-ufc yep we we knew when when we watched that first UFC we all knew well there there was three or four of us that knew that ho that Royce Gracie was going to win that's amazing man wow we had this old uh this old seal Master Chief old Vietnam era seal Master Chief named Steve Bailey and he was he was like a highlevel white belt and he had trained with B and Gracie up in the garage you know up in Torrance and so he knew you know he knew Jiu-Jitsu the garage the infamous garage just like the epicenter Jitsu no kidding it's crazy and but this guy Steve Bailey had trained there and you know one day we were over on deployment over in Guam and he said hey who who here wants to learn how to fight and I'm like hey I want to learn how to fight and he just took us all and just choked us all out you know I mean like okay you you attack me and just choked us all on I'm like okay I'll listen to whatever this guy's saying so so he taught us you know the basic you know like the rear naked choke and I the arm lock and like the Americana or something like you know we're talking like four or five different moves and with those moves like I never I i' every scrap I'd get into you know i' just force someone into the rear naked choke or force him but they had no idea what was happening so it was actually amazing but uh but again I thought at that time that that that that was Jiu-Jitsu like there was this finite thing a lot of people did yeah and then you real realize you know that it's completely unending and it changes every day John jaac Machado had a guy that moved to black belt and uh he was a very good martial artist he was very physically strong this guy he was a big like bulky dude like a naturally Big Bone strong guy that gave people a lot of problems and then decided and like like didn't just decide this but said it publicly I've learned all I could learn about jiu-jitsu and now I'm going to learn all I can learn about Muay Thai and everybody just went oh dude we're done with you like it was so ridiculed in the Jiu-Jitsu community and in the people in John jock school that everybody like I was like a blue bell at the time and I was like what the [ __ ] is this guy on like you learned everything how can you learn every there's no end Jiu-Jitsu doesn't end goes on forever like you can't get you can always get better it's not it's not something until you achieve the speed of light and another another great thing about jiujitsu is because it like combat it reflects life and if the day you start saying that you're good to go like in leadership position or whatever task you're working on the day you say I've learned everything there is to learn about this is the day you start to lose and I I know that humility um is something that you you have to keep yourself in check because again I gotta asked the other day you know when were you at you know when was your high point of leadership and I'm like I never had a high point of leadership I was always trying to learn I was always trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and what mistakes I was making because if you don't do that that's Pro that's something I learned from Jiu-Jitsu you know if you don't do that then that you're going to get passed by and other people are going to figure some new way of doing it and you're going to be left in the dark yeah as much as I like to use like the term that was perfect there really is nothing perfect in human beings there's always room for improvement there's always a shorter path there's always a quicker Victory there's always a there's there's there's always new things to learn and as soon as you start thinking that you've mastered something to the point of of of an end like you've you kind of missed out what it's all about in the first place it's all about you're constantly uncomfortable you're supposed to be constantly uncomfortable and then in these little victories that you get the good thing about when people tap you get a oh I get a little nice feeling right here I get and they're like let's go again and they're like ah [ __ ] back to being uncomfortable and there's no getting around and then he Taps you and you're like ah [ __ ] I should have quit while was ahead no no because you're missing the point the point is that it's it's a long path long arduous path and I think anything that's worth doing is probably like that there's no doubt about it and that's another another piece again another place where jiujitsu is like life is you think at some point you think you know like you think you're good you think you're doing pretty good and then you just get smacked you know you get smacked with something and like now like when you were 25 you were like I'm pretty I'm pretty good to go you know I'm I pretty much know what's up and then when you're 30 you're like I didn't know anything when I was 25 yeah I was an idiot yeah and and it's true like even and so I think one of the things that provides some small portion of like maturity as a human being and as a man is when you get to the point where you actually realize that you don't know everything and you're like looking at yourself like I'm 44 and I'm like yeah I'm going to learn so much in the next 3 years 5 years I'm going to look at myself at 44 and go yeah you see how stupid you were then and when you come to that realization I think that's a a pretty positive thing because it takes a while to figure out that hey you don't have everything figured out you're you're pretty stupid right now even though you don't think so another thing that things like Jiu-Jitsu teach you and I say Jiu-Jitsu but it's really an all martial arts thing the problem with the other martial arts other than Jiu-Jitsu is at a certain point in time you can't really practice them 100% like striking you you really can't practice striking 100% for very long or your brain starts to give out just the fact and Jiu-Jitsu you can do it deep deep into your 50s I mean there's like or Anthony Bourdain he's pushing 60 he's still doing it and you know it's not that he's going to be a world beater but he can get the most out of it the most that he can get out of it it's it's that stays the same like what you get out of it stays the same regardless of your regardless of the success like what you're getting out of it even if you're getting tapped what you're getting out of it is doing your best and overcoming and improving upon what your best is every day and doing so in a a situation where there's extreme consequences you're going to get strangled you know you're going to get your arm broken if you don't tap you're going to get your leg [ __ ] up if you don't tap there it's not as Extreme as combat obviously but it is as extreme you can get in a a sport that you're participating in and an activity that you're participating in voluntarily in America at 5:30 on a Tuesday where you're going to get 30 people that are going to show up slap hands together and then hug it out after it's over and uh go you going to be here tomorrow yeah all right I'll see you man and then you know back again tomorrow same thing that's another um kind of Primal piece that makes jiujitsu so intense is if you and me roll like and I get you or you get me and I tap in in my like heart I know that if you and I were fighting for survival I just lost and you would have killed me and I see this with little kids when little kids compete you tell them Hey listen just go out there have fun it's going to be fun you know just go out there and do your best I don't care if you win or lose just go out and have a good time you tell them that if they get tapped they they start crying it's so emotional and why is that because a part of them inside their head that they don't even know exists knows that that person had they been in a mortal struggle they got beat yeah they got their ass kicked yeah it's not like someone this is what I always say like somebody dunks a basketball on you that sucks but it doesn't mean anything unless you decide it means something well well what does basketball escalate into what do all sports all sports escalate into fights so if you let's get rid of the bat the ball whatever else let's just fight let's just that's why it's you know that's why the I think the UFC has been so highly successful because it is it's what it's it's the ultimate you know in combat sport again you know barring combat itself yeah well it's also why the dorks and pencil necks hate it so much because they think it's a regression back to the the Primal days of caveman combat like what are we supporting some Fatu wrote an article for like the New Yorker or New York Post or something like that about the Ronda Rousey loss about how barbaric and disgusting it was and what a what what [ __ ] that we were fed and that you know we were made out that she was this unconquerable and to watch her beaten unconscious was disgusting and you don't get it man like you don't get it like what you're doing with your fat face like shoving cheeseburgers down your mug is way worse than anything that she did inside that octagon it's it's interesting because that kind of attitude can can cross borders into other things and you know I I I end up talking to people you know through through our company people that are smart you mean every like I'll be in a room with everyone's went to an IV League college and been super successful and they're worth millions and millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars and I I was given one of these talks the other day and we you know of course they ended up asking me about Isis and and all that and as I'm sitting there looking and and I'm thinking to myself like these people are all looking at me and thinking I'm just a Savage right I'm just like hey I'm a knuckle dragger we just need to go kill everyone and so I tried to explain to them I'm like listen I almost I almost feel ashamed to say this to everyone here because everyone here is an intellectual and is very very smart but there are some problem s in the world that there is not an academic solution to and sometimes violence is the solution and again there can be a million arguments against that but the reality of it is in the world it's like you were talking about earlier in the world there are evil people that do evil things and the only way to stop them is to confront them and Destroy them and unfortunately it we we are so disconnected from that that it makes people look at UFC and go oh my God how could that happen and it makes people look at you know a military attack and say oh my God how could that happen it can happen because we're human beings and we're imperfect and there are there are evil people in the world well the people that think there's no ever there's no excuse for a violent solution take those people bring him to rat right now right yeah I mean how do you deal with evil when it exists how do you deal with it do you do you hug them do you knock on their door with flowers what do you do I mean what is the solution yeah you just they don't have an answer they have an an the only reason why they even have that attitude is because they live here in this sheltered environment in our beautiful bubble we call the United States of America that many brave men and women have provided and will continue to provide regardless of what is said about them and uh God bless those folks out there on the wire yes sir and with that extreme ownership that was 3 hours man we just banged out three hours damn crazy right here jao willink and leaf leaf leaf Le B Leaf Babin uh extreme ownership how US Navy Seals lead and win and uh Joo is on Twitter Joo willink on Twitter is that what it is Joo willink and uh what is it on um do you have anything else website uh well yeah we have we have a Facebook for extreme ownership we have an extreme ownership Twitter um yeah we're out there in the social media World broadcasting ourselves and and soon a podcast right and I will I will do a podcast he's gonna see I knew it I will do a podcast it's gonna happen Echo Charles be ready to record a podcast brother thank you very much sir this was awesome I really really appreciate it and uh I will put up a link on Amazon after the podcast so go out and buy this book folks thank you very much Joo appreciate it brother thanks for having me on woo