521: Obey Your Own Orders. Discipline vs. the War in Your Head

Summary

Jocko Podcast 521: "Obey Your Own Orders. Discipline vs. the War in Your Head"

Date: December 31, 2025
Hosts: Jocko Willink & Echo Charles

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jocko Willink and Echo Charles dive deep into the critical concept of discipline—how it wins wars, transforms lives, and forms the backbone of both individual growth and effective teams. They discuss discipline through the lens of military history, personal anecdotes, and the daily, silent "wars" in our minds. Jocko emphasizes the necessity of self-enforced discipline, not just external rules, exploring why obeying our own orders is so difficult—and so essential.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Duality of Discipline: War and Everyday Life

• Discipline as Victory:
  • "Discipline wins wars. And not just the wars, the actual wars that are fought on the battlefield, but also the wars that are fought in your head every day." (Jocko, 00:14)
  • Discipline is the foundation of freedom and achievement—yet, it's notoriously difficult to sustain, especially when self-imposed.

2. Imposing Discipline on Others vs. Yourself

• It's easier to hold others accountable than ourselves.
• "It's harder for us to impose discipline on ourselves than it is for us to impose discipline on other people." (Jocko, 01:29)
• The role of community and accountability: We rarely miss commitments when others are counting on us, but often let ourselves down.

3. The Power of Collective Mindset

• Jocko references WWII's "Army Talks" pamphlet (April 1944), illustrating the importance of aligning collective mindset before D-Day.
• "The collective mind is a powerful thing. When the collective mind is moving in a unified direction, it's a powerful thing." (Jocko, 02:42)
• Analogies to sports: Momentum and group cohesion can drive massive outcomes—positive and negative.

4. Consequences of Small Decisions

• Seemingly minor daily choices can accumulate into significant consequences, both individually and within a team.
• "Every decision that you make is going to have consequences. Good consequences, possibly, or bad consequences, possibly." (Jocko, 09:01)

5. Discipline as Teamwork and Individual Sacrifice

• Referencing General Eisenhower and military discipline: Every person’s effort counts. How you do anything is how you do everything.
• "You train so that you obey orders. How often...do human beings not obey the orders that they were given to by themselves? We fail to obey the orders that we know we should do." (Jocko, 14:47)
• Discipline is subordinating individual comfort for the team's or your future self’s benefit.

6. Self-Discipline: Blind Obedience to Yourself

• The challenge: actually following through on the orders you give yourself.
• "We have to actually train ourselves to achieve blind obedience to ourselves. That's a difficult task." (Jocko, 15:08)

7. Enduring Suffering and Conditioning

• Discussion on how upbringing (e.g., growing up in cold New England) may foster the ability to endure discomfort—a necessary ingredient for discipline.
• "One of the ingredients and a significant one is the ability to endure some suffering." (Echo, 20:02)
• Discipline often means short-term pain for long-term gain.

8. The Role of Habits and the Seduction of Immediate Gratification

• Habits—good or bad—are powerful and hard to break.
• Technology exploits our lack of discipline ("variable reward" systems such as infinite scroll, notifications).
• "The phones are the apex of human hacking, right? It's hacking the human mind to just freaking get them in there." (Jocko, 24:41)
• The need for tools and obstacles (like app blockers) reflect self-discipline challenges.

9. Training Obedience to Self—The "Internal Chain of Command"

• Jocko likens internal discipline to a military chain of command: You are both the general and the soldier in your own life.
• "You are the leader. In your world, you're it. And you need instant obedience and instant response to the leader, which is you. And you are also the soldier." (Jocko, 49:57)

10. Voluntary vs. Involuntary Discipline

• There’s a difference between discipline imposed by necessity/survival and that which is entirely voluntary.
• Choosing hard things (like working out when no one is watching) requires a higher level of internal commitment.

11. The Value of Preparation and Habituation

• The importance of training and forming the habit of pushing through discomfort.
• "You can get the habit of just doing things that you don't feel like doing at that moment." (Jocko, 59:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Donut Example:
  "And there's not one person that's like, I need to go and eat a dozen donuts today or even one donut. No one has that as a goal. And somehow the order does not get executed." (Jocko, 14:50)
• On Endurance and Upbringing:
  "Surfing in Maine when you're a little kid and it's cold...My lips would turn blue, like it is a borderline hypothermic scenario." (Jocko, 17:08)
• On Technology Addiction:
  "People go out and buy another piece of technology to prevent them from using the technology that they know is bad." (Jocko, 24:25)
• On Teamwork and Sacrifice:
  "You have to subordinate your comfort—that is going to make you feel good right now...you’ve got to sacrifice that for the long, long term for your own personal goals as well." (Jocko, 36:19)
• On Voluntary Discipline:
  "There’s a difference between what you're willing to do voluntarily and just what you can get through because you have to." (Jocko, 57:11)
• On Leadership:
  "In your personal life, you have to train as well. You have to get yourself in the habit of obeying your own freaking orders." (Jocko, 59:56)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:14 – Discipline wins wars (and inner wars)
• 01:29 – Why it's harder to impose discipline on oneself
• 02:42–05:30 – Collective mindset, momentum, and Army Talks WWII
• 07:48–09:06 – The cumulative effect of small choices (donuts, Frito scoops)
• 14:47–16:29 – Discipline as obedience to self; self-sabotage
• 17:08–18:47 – Enduring suffering as discipline foundation
• 24:25–26:01 – Technology addiction, variable rewards, and self-control
• 36:19–38:34 – Sacrificing immediate comfort for long-term or team good
• 49:57–52:31 – Instant obedience, self-leadership, SEAL training anecdotes
• 56:36–58:18 – Voluntary vs. involuntary suffering; the difference it makes
• 59:56–61:43 – Habituation and pushing yourself through “micro” discipline battles
• 65:29–66:56 – Discipline in training vs. relying solely on willpower

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Closing Insights

• Discipline is foundational—not only to winning in battle or competition but to winning the war that takes place daily within each of us.
• Obeying your own orders is the real test of character and leadership; it’s not glamorous and often goes unseen by others.
• To be free and autonomous in life, you must be disciplined. Otherwise, you become beholden to circumstance, to others, or to your own bad habits.
• Discipline is a habit you can build. It’s not just about big moments, but the thousand small choices you make every day.
• "The power to control what you do in your life and the success that you have in your life—the power lies in discipline. Discipline equals freedom." (Jocko, 79:50)

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Actionable Takeaway

Join the "Def Reset" Challenge (announced at 68:55): A structured way to train discipline for 2026. Focus on daily exercise, hydration, clean eating, reading, and writing to shape both your body and mind.

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Tone & Style

The episode is direct, gritty, humorous at times (donut and Fritos stories), but always grounded in practical wisdom and military analogies. Jocko’s style is motivational yet uncompromising, while Echo brings relatable reflections and insightful questions.

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If you’re looking to understand why discipline is so hard—and so worth it—this episode delivers a deep, actionable conversation for any leader, athlete, or anyone fighting the daily war in their head.

Transcript

[A]

This is Jocko, podcast number 521 with Echo, Charles, and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

[B]

Good evening.

[A]

Discipline wins wars. Are you aware of this?

[B]

I could. I could connect those dots for sure.

[A]

I think we've been talking about it for about 10 years here. I understand. Discipline wins wars. And not just the wars, the actual wars that are fat, fought on the battlefield, but also the wars that are fought in your head every day. Discipline is required in order to achieve victory. Discipline is required in order to achieve freedom. And there's nothing new, by the way this has been around. This is as old as history. We know that discipline is what we need. And yet, even with that, even even though everybody knows discipline is what we need, it can still be difficult for people to process, and it certainly can be difficult for people to implement it in their own lives. You know that saying, do what I say, not what I do? That's. That's a thing where it's like, it's easy for me to impose discipline on you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Be like, echo, you need to get up early. Echo, you need to work out. Echo, you need to not eat donuts. Yeah, it's. But I actually have a saying.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is, do what I say, not what I do, because I'm over here sleeping and not lifting and eating donuts.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so they have a saying to. To remedy that or try and put some pressure on individuals, because it's harder for us to impose discipline on ourselves than it is for us to impose discipline on other people. In fact, people kind of enjoy imposing discipline on other people. That's like a little. A little power trip. Right.

[B]

Y.

[A]

That's. But it's kind of embarrassing as well that we can't discipline ourselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Part of it, too, is a weird thing. There's a weird dynamic that you. You know when you used to lift with a lifting buddy.

[B]

Yeah. Hell, yeah.

[A]

How often would you just not show up for that lifting butter buddy?

[B]

I don't know that that's ever happened.

[A]

You see what I'm saying?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, how often were you planning to work out tomorrow just alone? And it didn't go down A few.

[B]

More times for sure.

[A]

So we would rather we have no problem. Individual human beings. We as human beings, have no problem just letting ourselves down. But generally speaking, we don't want to let down our friends, our team, our community. Right. We don't want to be known as the person that didn't show up, that did. That. Did. That didn't make the sacrifice for the team. So we don't want to be that way, but it's. It's known. It's just known that the disciplined life will make your life better. I want to take you back to April 1944, volume two, issue number 15 of a little pamphlet called Army Talks. And Army Talks was a classified official publication of the United States army in the European theater of operations. And they want to get soldiers aligned in their minds. They wanted their minds to be aligned. As they looked on the horizon, they saw on the horizon D Day, right? D Day was imminent. You're looking at this war, hey, we got to go. At some point, we got to go. We got to go to France, we got to go to Germany. We got to beat the Nazis. That's what we got to do. And they all know that. And they're looking at, you know, the. The damn Fortress Europe and going, I don't know when it's gonna happen, but in a couple months, two months, five months, six months, one month, we're gonna get into boats and airplanes, and we're gonna fly over there, and we're gonna go into attack mode. So they wanted. The army obviously wants the mindset to be correct, because, man, you get the collective. The collective mind is a powerful thing. When the collective mind is moving in. In a unified direction, it's a powerful thing. If it's the right direction, if the collective mind is moving in the wrong direction, that's also a powerful thing. And it'll stop you in your tracks. It'll stop your team in its track. It's weird when you watch a. A game, a sports game, and you can watch that momentum shift, and you can feel it. Oh, yeah, you can feel the momentum, or you can feel the momentum pick up. And we all know that when someone's confidence increases, they get a little bit more relaxed. There's less on the line. So now they're, you know, in basketball, they get. They get hot streaks. They start just throwing up. Steph Curry just all over the court, just throwing up threes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No factor, just hitting them. People get into that confident mindset. The momentum's with them. The mob mentality, the pressure's off a little bit. That's a huge thing. That's why you get blowouts. There's a word for it. Blowouts. Just the momentum is there. But we've talked about on this podcast where World War I, a runner whose job it is to run back messages from the front line to the rear echelon would start to run back, and other people would see him running back and be like, oh, we're, I'm out of here. They would have panic and collapse based on me just seeing someone else run away. Yeah. So the mob mentality is very important. What they're trying to do here with this Army Talks pamphlet is get people aligned, making sure that they understand because collectively, this is what's important collectively in a unit. Every little, every little moment, every little decision, every little movement, it all makes a difference. And you've heard that story before where they told my task unit, like, we got done with a run at cqc, close quarters combat, got done with the house run. And the, the master chief's like the instructor cadre, the master chief in charge of the circle cadre, he's like, you guys are freaking kicking ass, you guys. The best task unit we've ever seen come through here. And the very next run, collectively, the 36 members of Task unit Bruiser all took their foot off the gas a little bit. All just, you know, just a little hesitation, a little bit lackadaisical, a little bit of this bit. Let that slide a little bit. Won't be aggressive there. Let someone else do it. And the next run completely sucked. And I told the master, feels like, hey, don't ever tell my guys that, that again. And he's like, yeah, check. But it's a collective, like relaxation. It's a collective slack. And if one person takes one less bit of initiative, a half a second of. Of initiative, a half a second of hesitation, maybe I'll let someone else go. I'm not really sure what to do. And you just multiply that times. How many decisions get made in a kill house? There's a thousand decisions that get made in a kill house, probably more than that. But each one of those decisions is an extra half a second. Or it's not as aggressive as it could be, or it's not as sharp, or it's not as poignant or accurate as it should be, or the person's not front side focused when they're shooting their shots, now they're missing. Like there's all kinds of little tiny things go wrong, and now we have a problem. Well, it's the same thing with us as individuals too, because these little decisions that we're making, little tiny decisions, just little ones, but. And we, we don't notice them today. You know, if you have, if you have, let's say, contraband in the house, right. I. E. Frito Lay, scoop sized Fritos. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So, like let's say my wife is having some kind of a. Like, friends over something. And so she's, you know, they're gonna live it up, right? She's gonna get some of these scooper things, scoop size. Now, these things are in my cabinet. So look, I have a couple of those things. I've. So I. I like, I want something salty. Boom, There we go. These scoops.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now look, is that gonna ruin my life in a day? No, it's not gonna. Not gonna ruin my life. I could literally, and you're the testament to this, you ate what, you eat 12 donuts in one sitting?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think it was more something like that.

[A]

So you ate 12 to 12 to 16.

[B]

We'll say it was many. Yeah.

[A]

Did you feel sick when you got done?

[B]

I did. You know, I'm remembering. The short answer is no, but I didn't feel like a champ.

[A]

No, wait, you literally ate 16 donuts.

[B]

Yeah. I forget.

[A]

In one sitting.

[B]

Eight or 12. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. Put some chocolate. Some hot chocolate milk on there.

[A]

But you put a hot chocolate milk on them.

[B]

No, no, like in. Just in the whole scenario. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And clearly, look, now we. We know that's bad, blah, blah, blah. But it didn't ruin your life. You probably worked out the next day, no factor. You might have taken a little bit of a freaking food coma nap that afternoon.

[B]

It was that kind of afternoon. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. But it didn't ruin your life. No, that one decision, no big deal. But collectively, now, if you take that attitude, you make that decision for a month. I was going to say for a year, but it's not even. Like in a month, you'd be jacked up. You'd be. You would. You'd know it. You would not be as capable as you should be. So these little decisions that add up over time, whether it's collectively as a group or it's individually as a human, every decision that you make is going to have consequences. Good consequences, possibly, or bad consequences, possibly. And so we have to keep that in mind. And what the Army's trying to do in April of 1944, they're trying to get everyone to understand that when you're in the field and you've got a task to get that wire strung or to get that. That vehicle fueled or to get that ammo loaded, like all these little things. I mean, imagine you're going to the front line and everyone that's supposed to be loading ammo, everyone loads a little bit less. And all of a sudden, instead of having Six hours worth of ammunition. You got three, maybe you got four, maybe you even got five, but you didn't have six. And it was the sixth hour of ammunition that was going to allow you to win this gunfight. So this. Everyone has got to be giving everything they've got. Every decision makes and they want people to understand. They want the soldiers to understand what you're doing. Whether you're loading ammunition or you're assaulting a bunker, what you are doing is going to have an impact. And then we need to think about that in our individual lives, too. What we are doing, the decisions that we are making are going to. Is going to have an impact in our life. And we can't set that aside. We cannot forget that. So let's get into this issue of Army Talks. It starts off, we are preparing to take part in the biggest tug of war the world has ever seen. If any should let go of the rope, then we lose the match. And that's exactly what I was just saying. It's interesting that they'd use tug of war. The reason I'm thinking they're using tug of war, because if you've ever read anything about D Day, most of the people that were participating in D Day did not have combat experience. So they could. They didn't even use a combat example. They're using tug of war. Because every one of these kids has played tug of war. And what everybody knows is if you're playing tug of war and you get, you don't give full effort, you lose. So we have. Every single person is on the rope, and you gotta be pulling on that rope as hard as you can, otherwise we lose. Talks a little bit about General Montgomery from the Brits. And then Eisenhower and goes to General Eisenhower and says, General Eisenhower thought it important to issue a letter on February 25 to every American serving under my command calling for cooperation with the British. We must earn and keep their respect as a great military machine dedicated to the single task of doing our duty in the winning of this war. He called for teamwork. Every single task. Every single task. This guy that's in charge of the European theater before they go into D Day, he talks about earning respect in every single task that you are going to do. So how often do we think that something that we're doing is not that big of a deal? It is a big deal. What's that expression? How you do little things is how you do everything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or how you do anything is how you do everything. That's what it is. How you do Anything is how you do everything. That's what he's saying. If you're loading ammunition, your job is important. You're hanging a wire for communications, your job is extremely important. All of you have extremely important jobs. Every task matters. It goes on to say, what these two generals were talking about can be summed up in one word, discipline. Now, discipline is one of those. Is one of those troublesome words in our English language like bow or lead or row, which have more than one meaning. Unfortunately, the meaning often associated with discipline is punishment. But that is only one meaning in the of the word. The dictionary tells us that discipline also means teaching or instruction, that discipline means training, which molds, strengthens, or perfects. And finally, the thing we're talking about in the army, discipline means controlled, gained as a habit by through. Gained as a habit through training, by enforcing obedience or by carrying out orders. That is orderly conduct. That's discipline. Now, what's interesting about this is you think, oh, Jocko, I thought you were Mr. Decentralized Command over here. Now you want me to obey orders? Yes, yes, and Yes. I am Mr. Decentralized Command. And if the orders aren't good orders, then you shouldn't obey them. But also you should. You should understand what the mission is and go execute the mission, regardless of how you got to get it done. But what's better or what's more applicable to right now for us as individuals is you train so that you obey orders. How often, Echo Charles, do human beings not obey the orders that they were given to by themselves? We fail to obey the orders that we know we.

[B]

We should do to give ourselves.

[A]

Yeah, how are we eating donuts? How's that happening? And there's not one person that's like, I need to go and eat a dozen donuts today or even one donut. There's not a person that wakes up in the morning, goes, I'm going to go. I. I need to make sure I eat donuts today. Not one person is saying that. No one's saying that. No one is saying, hey, I need to make sure I scroll through a bunch of social media today. That's what my goal is. No one has that as a goal. No one says, hey, you know what? Tomorrow I want to make sure I procrastinate the tasks that are that are on the table for me. No one's saying that. What they're saying is, I need to make sure I get this thing done tomorrow, I need to make sure I get task one, two, and three done tomorrow. They give themselves that Order. And somehow. Somehow the order does not get executed. So what we have to do is actually train ourselves to achieve blind obedience to ourselves. That's a difficult task. You ever heard me talking something like, oh, you know, what do you think about when, you know, what do you tell yourself when you got to do something hard? I'm like, I don't tell myself anything. I'm not saying anything to myself. Look, and I'm not. I'm not against people having little ditties. We've talked about that, too. Like, having something to say.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I'm not. There's no negotiation happening. It's not like. It's just like a soldier in the field gets told, charge, I'm charging. I'm not like, well, how far. How far do you want me to charge? And when exactly you want me to charge? And can you give me the outcome that you're looking for? No, no, I'm not saying any of that. Charge. That's what we're doing.

[B]

Let me ask you this.

[A]

Go.

[B]

On a personal level. Was there any single or collective incident or, you know, atmosphere, environment for you, like, growing up that was basically made. You made your endurance for suffering, like, kind of high? Because I feel like that's like an element that is very useful and beneficial in discipline because you can be like, okay, yeah, I'm like, suffering, but the suffering is. Isn't enough for me to get, you know, off track for my. My goal.

[A]

You know, I'm from New England.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's cold surfing in Maine when you're a little kid and it's cold.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But just. Just FYI, my lips would turn blue like, it is. It is a hyper. It is a borderline hypothermic scenario. Yeah. It was pretty common to have blue lips when you got out of the water from cold, so maybe that's something. Yeah, But I don't have any, like, that I can think of off the top of my head.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I do wonder that, because. And I. I'm with you. You know, it was cold and. Hell, yeah. You know, but a lot of places are cold. A lot of people grew up in New England. Like, they don't. You know, that's not necessarily to say that everyone from New England is as disciplined as you are. Close.

[A]

You know, but we have talked about this before, that people from New England do have a slightly higher chance of making it through basic seal training.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. So there is something there. Yeah, yeah. That's like a little ingredient.

[A]

It's A little ingredient.

[B]

Yeah. Remember how we kind of talked about a little like in Hawaii where it's like different. It's the opposite, you know.

[A]

Hawaii is awesome, dude.

[B]

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like the lifestyle is so laid back because it can be, you know, you don't have to endure suffering of the cold and the blue lips.

[A]

You don't technically even have to build shelter for yourself as a human being.

[B]

Exactly right.

[A]

Because there's not no bugs out there. The temperature is kind of perfect.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's going to rain for like 15 minutes and it won't be cold. It's very refreshing and warm. Whereas in New England, if you don't plan. Yeah. Like you are going to die. There's no doubt about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You need to figure some out and you need to get up early and you need to build some stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You need to go and cut down trees and pile up rocks and put firewood in stacks to get ready for something called the winter. So there's got, there's, you know, that's, there's got to be something to that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. And that, and that's like, that's just like the exercising of your mind of thinking ahead and sticking with it, you know, kind of a thing which is this literally what discipline is. That's all it is really. When you really condense it down, it's like you have a, you have a longer term goal and the ability to stay on track for that goal and not to get detracted. That's essentially it.

[A]

And usually there's the short term for in order to achieve the long term goal, the short term requires a slightly or more, just any. A more difficult decision then not staying on the line. Because sometimes it's a very small decision.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like sometimes a very. The difference between being disciplined and not being disciplined isn't that big of a deal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I mean really, you know, really like, oh, I'm not, I, I said no to the freaking morning Cheetos. Like, is that really a huge. It's not really. But you know, it can't be a.

[B]

Big thing if you were to measure the whole thing mathematically. It is a determination detraction from the goal. Not a significant one, but still is. You see what I'm saying? So yeah, you can still achieve the goal without level 10 discipline. You do, level 9 discipline still achieve the goal. Of course. But as far as what discipline is. That's what it is, man. Let's face it. But and my whole point was with that kind of capability, that discipline capability in there, one of the ingredients and a significant one is the ability to endure some suffering. Because even, like the deprivation of even, like, I don't know, like the simplest thing. What's this like, like dietary discipline. Right. I want to make weight, I want to lose weight or whatever. You got to say no to stuff. And you'll be hungry sometimes. Like you. And then the ability to be like, no, I'm not going to get. Because hungry you get. The hungrier you get, the more delicious everything seems.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, that's pretty obvious.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The ability to have that not affect you because you can endure that. And it's a. It's a version of suffering, let's face it, for. I mean, it must be because so many people can't stick with it. You see what I'm saying? But the ability to. To endure that suffering and other types of suffering is going to be like, super. That's going to be a strong weapon, you know?

[A]

Yeah. And I guess the more you want that end goal as well. Yeah, that plays into it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because if you don't really want that end goal, you know, what's br.

[B]

That and the end goal, too. Here, here's the thing that I realized too, where it's almost like your brain can't. Unless you've really had that end goal, it's really rare that your brain can really comprehend the value of the end goal. Seems. Yeah, like if.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like getting in shape, for example, that's almost guaranteed if you just follow the simple rules. It's pretty much more guaranteed than most things in life, to be honest with you. And yet people don't do it. See what I'm saying? But oddly enough, if someone, like, knows the. Really knows and lives the value of being in shape, them slipping out of it. I mean, there's circumstances, but them slipping out of is way less likely.

[A]

Yeah, definitely less likely. However.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it happens for sure.

[A]

It's a big way.

[B]

But sometimes I feel like, hey, if people were just. If someone was just really experience the fruits of whatever the goal is. Right. Let's say, let's say being in shape.

[A]

Yeah, like. Like imagine if you worked out in the morning and then you were in badass shape for the rest of that day.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's like you get the, like, like.

[A]

If you worked out hard, you would be jacked for that day and strong and capable and flexible and all the good things. But if you didn't work out in the morning, Then you were like a slob.

[B]

It's way different.

[A]

Everyone will work out in the morning, right? Yeah, but it doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

[B]

But it's almost. Almost like they don't. It's almost like you don't believe it. You know, I don't believe that I'll be in great shape, you know, because I. Nothing. It has never been proven to me, you know, kind of a thing. But even though it's, like, pretty. Like I said, it's very. It's a very reliable system. Yeah, but it's almost like. Yeah, it's like it's. It's like they don't. We don't believe it or something.

[A]

Yeah. Or they don't really want it that bad, you know, which again is like. It's weird how addicted people can get to whatever habits, whether it's food habits, whether it's social media habits, whether it's, you know, lounging around, whatever. Those habits are. Like, those things are really, really powerful. You know, they're. So there's like a thing you can get for your phone, and it's like a small. It's called a brick, and it's like an application. And you can. You. You need to have this thing. It locks up this, like, whatever apps you tell it to lock up on your phone, it locks them up, and you can't unlock them unless you go through some protocol with this exterior piece of equipment. So it's. It just. It. It creates a. An obstacle. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Big obstacle.

[A]

Yeah. And so it's crazy. It's like that. But people go out and buy another piece of technology to prevent them from using the technology that they know is bad enough that they're going and buying another piece of technology to keep them from doing, because they literally can't keep themselves from doing it themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So there's some strong poles out there, some strong pulls, and let. Look, the. The phones are the. The apex of human hacking, right. It's hacking the human mind to just freaking get them in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's what it is. Infinite scroll, bright colors. You know, the dopamine rewards of the. What you. You always bring up that one. Different levels of reward. What is it you get different.

[B]

The variable.

[A]

Variable rewards. You know, like, they won't even give you everything you want every time they want to give you some other things so that when you get the thing that you really want, it feels even better. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is wild, bro. I saw that happen with my dog. My dog. I got, like, the tastiest treats from my dog, and he loved them and, like, first would do anything for them, but I didn't do variable reward. And so after 50 of them or 40 of them, he was just like, oh, it's one of those things again. It's like, whatever. So you got to do variable word a reward with your dog, and the technology companies know that they got to do variable reward with. With us. So they'll give you like an okay meme, an okay thing, a blah, blah, blah. But then you get the one you really want. You know, you get the thing you really want to see a sick jiu jitsu move. Oh, they feed it to you.

[B]

There you go. You know, I'll tell you, though, the powerful one they get you with, after a while, it gets kind of weak, but is the notifications. That's. That's how they get you. So if you have a notification, that's why they put them in red. And like, oh, one or two.

[A]

Where do they come up? Where does the notification come up? Where do you see a notification when.

[B]

When you open the thing. Let's say Instagram, for example. When you open Instagram on the top or whatever, it'll have like a number or whatever with red of how many messages you got, whether it be a comment on your thing or whatever, whatever. And I. I don't know that you can turn them off, but I. Yeah, of course. I think so.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

But you. So you don't know what it is? It's like a little surprise. See what I'm saying?

[A]

Are you talking about that little red heart with a circle by it?

[B]

Yeah. Okay, wait, let me show it to me.

[A]

You talking about that little thing right there?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, wait, yours is kind of like turned off or something.

[A]

I don't know. Yeah, it seems weird to me. Also on my emails. Currently, I have 64,000 unopened emails. No factor. I'm not paying attention to it.

[B]

And this is why. Because the email people.

[A]

1100 unopened text messages. Yes. So those notifications, they mean nothing to me.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And I was going to say, once you get an. An overabundance of them, they mean way.

[A]

And way less when they hear us talking about this, they're going to zero everyone out. And then, like, you know, they'll only notify you on today's messages because you'll be like, oh, I got a new message today.

[B]

You're right. I think. I think that that's already a strategy or it might be. I don't know. That's my Theory. But yeah, I feel like they're going to balance it out a little bit, because that's real. Because let's face it, email, for example, at first, when you first got an email back in the day and you got an E, a new mail, you have mail. You have mail, right? And you're like, oh, who's the mail from? And all this stuff. Yeah, once you start getting spam, like freaking 10,000 email, right? You're like, I don't care about any of these. Actually.

[A]

They, they, they totally turn me off to all emails. I don't care if I get an email from freaking Santa Claus himself.

[B]

Don't care.

[A]

Don't care. It's like, whatever. Oh, what's he trying to. What's Santa trying to tell me?

[B]

And then, but. And the email people doesn't seem like they're really bent on, on making you addicted to email. You know, there's no, you know, that's not really the motives, not the game they're playing, but social media, that is the game they're playing. So it's kind of like that's why they'll give you, like, after, you know, you have like a bunch of. You put it this way, with all the followers or whatever that you have, you have the, the potential to get too many of those, too many notifications for you to care anymore. Right. Email scenario. So now they're gonna.

[A]

I always feel bad. I'll meet someone. Be like, I sent you a dm. And I'm like, yeah, just that one time. I, A guy said he sent me a dm and I like, I took out my phone. I was like, where are they? And he opened it up and he's like, oh, my God, I'm sorry. You apologized back to me.

[B]

Oh, yeah. To the point where they had to now separate. When you have, you know, as many, they separate your followers or the people you follow with general. And then there's another one. There's like, there's three. Yeah, there's like three categories of dms, and it's like, it's like a spam folder, essentially. So if you don't follow. But yeah, I think I feel like they'll. They'll even that out. They'll. They'll start sending you only notifications that they believe that you might actually be interested in. See, I'm saying, I feel like that's like a thing.

[A]

It's coming. So that's why we need to be on guard. That's why we have to train ourselves to just obey orders from you. I did a whole damn thing. You are the general. You are the soldier. It's a rare case. It's real easy for me. Like, Echo Charles, you better be out here at 4 o' clock in the morning getting your gear ready. That's real easy to say that, but when I got to say jocko willink by yourself, no one's around to watch you. No one's going to enforce anything. You got to get up and get your gear ready at 4 o' clock in the morning. That's. It's easier to let myself down than it is to let Echo Charles down. So we have to be, we have to use unmitigated daily discipline with ourselves to power through these moments of weakness, which are everywhere. They're everywhere.

[B]

Another question for you.

[A]

Send it.

[B]

So, and this is again back. We got to rewind and is there an incident? Because it feels like you have a thing that you take pleasure in certain, like hardcore, like suffering, like stuff almost. It's like, I can't put my finger on it, but it's kind of like if it's extreme, it's kind of like you, you'll take pleasure in it. Kind of a thing where most people will just say, generally speaking, I don't, you know, like the fact that, I.

[A]

Don'T know, you're more about that cruising.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I'll actually say this in honesty. Like I've found ways to since I was a little kid to find the immediate payoff in hard stuff or stuff that I know I'm supposed to do. So I always feel like, hey, what, how can I look? Like, what about this scenario right here? No matter if it's boring, suffering a workout I don't want to do or, or whatever, what about this scenario? Do I have to look forward to in it?

[A]

You know, I just had this experience with my daughter Rana and so she was cutting weight for a jiu jitsu match and she was like, she's like, oh yeah. She goes, I got this thing staged. Like she had some of her favorite foods staged for after weigh ins, not foods that were going to be like hyper beneficial for post weigh in. She had those. Well, we had some hydrate, we had some molten. Like we had her ready to get back on the critical nutritional path after cutting weight. But she also had whatever her little personal things were. And I could, when I was talking to her, like she was excited. She was like, oh, this is going to taste so good. Like, oh, I'm going to have this. And I remembered that when I was go, this Is a weird thing for me to remember. I remember that I was going to hell week prior to hell week. I was saying to myself, dude, it's going to feel so good to go to sleep after I've been awake for five days. I can't wait for how good that's going to feel. It's almost like the. The looking forward to the suffering so that I could get the relief of the suffering at the end. So there's got to be some of that as well.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect example. Because that's the kind of stuff I'll do too, where. Because, okay, so there's certain times where I'll. If I don't work out or if I don't work out hard enough. That's a good one. And let's say I slept kind of late or whatever. I won't sleep that good that night. So I remember many times where I'll be like, shoot. I'm like, kind of like not really into this workout, but I'm like, oh, wait, but if I really push it here, I'll sleep good tonight. Way better. I'll actually have that thing. So now every rep, every set I do is now I'm thinking of the payoff later. Seems so it's directly affected. Yeah, that's kind of like a mental thing. So that, that is a version of giving yourself something to look forward to in the moment, in that suffering. You see, I'm saying. Yeah, a big one that I, you know, they say, which, the more I think about it, the more I feel like, hey, this is more real than I think in regards to, like, you know, some things that are just cliches, you know, you're like, you know, but the gratitude thing. And if you. But if you can specify. Okay, so I always. And we talked about this back, like, from a long time ago, like, my dream was to have my own home gym with all the equipment that I wanted.

[A]

Right.

[B]

All my essentials, you know, like, how would it look?

[A]

So finally, 120.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. 30s.

[B]

No, 120.

[A]

Kind of capped it out.

[B]

Yeah. You know, so. But I've, you know, in now that on the days that I don't feel like working out, we'll say, I'll be like, wait a second. This is literally what I asked for. Like, not only asked for, dreamed, fantasized about. And I'm like, smack dab in the middle of it. So. So I put my mind back in there, you know, in that, like, I rewind my life mentally and put my mindset back to where it was back then. And it's kind of like, oh, I'm freaking here, you know, See what I'm saying? A little time travel, a little gratitude and then boom, freaking work out.

[A]

Then we're getting it on.

[B]

Getting it on. Exactly, Jack.

[A]

We need to train ourselves to be obedient to ourselves. Going on a little bit, a little bit more fast forward. Discipline makes a team. In your soldier's handbook and other writings on army discipline, the point is invariably made that discipline is just another word for teamwork. For the training and spirit that make a football player or a bomber pilot or a machine gunner subordinate his own individualisms to the best interest of the whole group, which he is a part. So again, it's cool that they're putting this in the team perspective and calling it teamwork, but what we're talking about is subordinating your own individualism and as individuals, subordinating our own comfort so that we can reach our long term individual goals. Of course, look, when you're part of a team, you got to subordinate your individual needs to the greater needs of the team. But on an individual discipline level, you have to subordinate your comfort. Your comfort that is going to make you feel good right now in the immediate gratification. You got to sacrifice that for the long, long term for your own personal goals as well. Continue on. More than that, it is what makes him responsive to the command of his leader automatically and makes him carry on as he thinks his leader would want him to do if the leader is not there, that's decentralized command. So being able to make sacrifices in the current time for the good of the team or the good of your long term goals, that's what discipline is carrying on. Fast forward a little bit. Selfishness costs life. Every soldier has enough intelligence to understand why discipline is essential in a football game. Why when the signal is given, each One of the 11 men must carry out his assignment or the play will fail and the game may be lost. And every soldier understands why teamwork is even more vitally essential in the army. Why the latrine orderly must subordinate his own distaste over the job to the comfort and health of his comrades. Why the machine gunner must carry out his assignment, subordinating his own safety to the interests of his squad without even thinking about it. His failure may cost his life and the lives of his buddies and it may lose the battle. So again, that immediate discipline that we need to have as part of the team to sacrifice our own well being right now for the good of the team, that's also the sacrifice that we have to make as individuals so we can achieve our long term goals. Which by the way is for us. Fast forward a little bit. There is discipline in civilian life too. Discipline is no new thing to the American soldier. In civilian life he was subjected to discipline. He ran an errand to the grocery store for his mother. When he preferred to play baseball, he ran his lathe at the factory or kept his books at the bank according to the rules laid down by his boss. Again subordinating his own interests to those of his company. But the nature of an army calls for a subordination more rigid and unquestioned than any civilian institution. So we have to subordinate our own interests. And for us talking about self discipline, you have to subordinate the immediate gratification that is presented to you in every donut, in every Netflix movie, in every comfortable pillow, in every snooze button on the alarm clock. You have to subordinate those temptations to your long term goals. That's what we're doing. Fast forward. Cooperation is also vital to make an invasion force such as ours will be Americans and British, along with fighting men from the Nazi occupied European countries, all under General Eisenhower's command and effective fighting team. That is what lay behind the supreme Allied commanders, quote, assurance that our success in battle and our chances to return home safely and speedily are directly affected by, by our success in establishing here in Britain a reputation as a first class disciplined fighting organization. The general stated that, quote, only a self disciplined army can win battles. And he asked all American forces to be especially careful concerning improper use of motor transportation, drinking in public places, excessive drinking, loud, profane or indecent language, especially in public, slovenliness in appearance and any discourtesy to civilians, including driving courtesy on the road. So he kind of goes off on this little tangent. You're like, oh, hold on a second. These guys are getting ready to go to war. What are we talking about? And then they address it. He says, kid stuff. Did someone in the last row say.

[B]

That.

[A]

To that attitude? Colonel Elliot C. Cutler, chief consultant in the, in surgery in the eto, that's European theater of operations, gave a good answer in a recent radio talk when he said army discipline often upsets the civilian largely because he doesn't understand it, but also because it was partly to escape from authority that caused the ancestors of many of us to go to America. This distaste of discipline and regimentation is an inherited characteristic of our people. So he's saying, look, if you're American, you don't want to be told what you want. No discipline. We freaking rebelled against England. I myself yield to no 1 in independence of thought and action. This is what this guy's saying. I yield to no one. That's freaking legit statement. I yield to no one. Then he goes on to say, but I am as a profound a believer in discipline in the army as the most regular of regular officers. I have watched one son go through West Point and another Annapolis and have studied discipline in the services from its first impact on men and with all its mistakes, which sometimes lead to individual unfairness. It is the soul and very breath of a good army. It is what makes for the cohesiveness and unity, what gives force to a mob and victory to the group who submit to it and live for it. Submit to discipline and live for it. We salute our superiors as a mark of our desire to serve well in our group. We dress neatly in order to prove that we can be subservient to the will of authority, knowing that the authority with proven ability to guide and command obedience can impose this on the enemy who would destroy us. Oh, damn. We got to think about that. We are up against an enemy that, if given the opportunity, will impose its discipline on us. That's why we have to be more disciplined than them. Otherwise, you're going to get what you're going to get. You know, it's an old schoolyard thing. Look, we don't want to be. We don't want to be. I don't want to fight. I don't have to fight. I want everyone to be happy out here on the schoolyard, right? Everyone be happy. I don't need to lift. I don't need to be strong. I don't need to train Jiu Jitsu. I don't need to train Muay Thai wrestling box. I don't need to train any of that. We're gonna play hopscotch over here, right? Well, guess what? When you just trip playing hopscotch and. And. And jacks and handball, right? Remember, Jax, it's old school, right? Old school. That's what we did in recess back in the 30s. But. But that's what. That's what.

[B]

Hey, let's do that.

[A]

And that's great, but at some point, a big, strong bully is going to come and you're not going to be able to do what you want anymore. You're going to have to obey them. And you know what it is in life? What is that big, strong bully in life. It's getting out of shape. It's Getting sick, it's getting unhealthy, it's losing your mobility, it's not having the ability to get up in the morning. Like it's all of these things. That's the bully that's going to come and bully your ass into destruction. So we have to be more disciplined than the enemy. That's what we're doing.

[B]

Yeah, it's like a. You're always working for this. I guess at the end of the day is like this autonomy really. This independence and autonomy really. Cuz like the less capable, less disciplined, less, you know, or in these things, the more you're depending on someone else to provide it for you. And it's proud. I was talking to Joel at the muster, our boy, and we're, you know, we're just going back and forth brainstorming on kind of nonsense stuff. Non muster stuff, we'll say that. But it's kind of like, hey, shocker.

[A]

Lack of discipline.

[B]

And anyway, kind of touched on the idea where it's like the more, the healthier you are, you know, the idea of the more healthier you are, the, the less you have to depend on the system. The medical system.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Even though the medical system is like one of the biggest industries like in.

[A]

The world, really, they want you in there.

[B]

Yeah. So like that's just like, that's like a very in your face, simple example of the more disciplined you are with your health and capability and like all this stuff mobile, like the whole thing, thing. The less you're gonna. The less you're gonna depend on that. And yeah, that's the enemy. The enemy is like, no, no, I don't want you to be healthy, strong or whatever. I want you to need. I want you in my ecosystem, you know, it's so I can use, you know, you. So it's kind of, it's, it's that same thing and it goes for kind of everything, you know, so it's like the more incapable you are, we'll say the more you need some.

[A]

Yeah. And same thing, like financially. The more, the more you're financially put up against a wall, the more you rely on financial aid, the more you rely on credit cards and more rely on all these things. And you're. By the way, you're going backwards, you're paying interest. Like all these things are terrible.

[B]

Oh they. And it's, it's funny too because they can market to you way easier when you're like, yeah, so it's like, you know, even just as simple as the, the grocery store. Hey, we got this sale going on. If you're like kind of strapped for money, you're like, oh, oh, I'm taking action on that sale. But if you're not, you're like, I don't care, I'm freaking busy today. Freaking what? You know, playing jacks or hopscotches seems like. But you see, these are all teeny tiny examples sprinkled into one big kind of idea that yeah, the more independent, the more capable you are, the less you're going to depend on all this other stuff.

[A]

That's what we're doing, man.

[B]

You're not going to be beholden to this.

[A]

But you have to sacrifice now. You have to sacrifice now. You have to drive a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan for 13 years. You have to, you have to, you have to, you have to. You can't just be getting a new vehicle just because you want one. And like, if you can avoid it, try not to get a vehicle that you can't afford. Like, you know, you have 5,000, you have, you have, you have $9,000 saved up for a down payment on a freaking Mercedes, right? And now you're going to have an eleven hundred dollar a month payment on a Mercedes. Look, is a Mercedes a nice car? Sure. But now you could have taken that $9,000 and bought a cheap car that's four years old, six years old. Actually cars are pretty expensive right now. But something that's reliable runs. Get one of those for 10 grand and do that and then start saving that money again. Like that is the, that is the sacrifice you have to make right now. And then you're going to look up in 10 years, 15 years when you buy. Now when you buy, you can buy a Mercedes with cash because you haven't squandered and paid a bunch of interest over time.

[B]

So here's another one that sometimes you might overlook. It's like being on the Internet. You know there's Internet scams. If you don't have much experience on the Internet or you don't really know, you don't pay attention, you don't have that capability to exist on the Internet. Probably going to get scammed a lot. So you know how like, oh, emails, right? Like if you got an email saying, oh hey, there's like $39 million in an account and it's freaking, whatever your name came up, it's yours, you just gotta basically claim it and all this stuff, you would know that it's a scam. Yeah, right. Because of all your knowledge and training. We'll Say it's incidental training, but training. So it's one of those things where if you don't have that training, you will be beholden to. To that enemy on the Internet. And they're getting advanced.

[A]

So you're saying spend more time on the Internet.

[B]

The more capability you have on the Internet, this, the more independent you can be, more safe you're going to be.

[A]

The cool thing is I'll give you a real good technique if you Google something and put scam after it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you'll figure it out.

[B]

Even you knowing that. See how like that you're like kind of trained. You see what I'm saying? And you're kind of. But yeah, yeah, that's a good tip.

[A]

This next headline seems to ring true to me. It says personal discipline pays. Discipline is imposed upon an army to make it a team, because only a team can win. Soldiers have had to fight as a team ever since wars began. The cavalry of Genghis Khan had to charge as a team. The Roman legions had to hurl their spears as a team. The English archers to launch their arrows as a team. And we get into this idea of discipline being sacrifice, which is something that I really hadn't occurred to me in this direct of a way. Cooperation is. Is more important than ever. If teamwork was so essential in earlier wars when the weapons were mostly. Were only such as one man could use by himself, how much more vital is cooperation? This war with its tanks, planes, infantry, weapons and artillery, which a group of men must operate as a coordinated unit, it is vital not only for what that small proportion of the army does the actual fighting, but equally vital for that larger proportion of the army concerned with the army's survival and movement. And it is essential in an allied command such as the one under which we fight. So is it is a violation of team spirit and team operation that is the real crime underlying any infraction of discipline, such as those about which General Eisenhower asked special care. So again, to me, this is a. They're trying to connect this for the soldier of saying, look, you're not just letting yourself down. You're not just letting yourself down when you don't behave proper properly. You're letting your team down. And that's what you're doing in life too, because it's easy to let yourself down. But imagine if you had to address your wife each time you wanted to, like, do make a bad decision. You're like, hey, I'm just gonna go ahead and let you down right now. You got to get your kids, line them up. You know, stand before your wife and your children and say, hey, I'm about to make a decision that's going to negatively impact my, my health, my well being, the capability that I have to provide for the family. I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm just gonna throw all that away right now. You guys okay with that? You know when someone cuts you in line and they're like, oh, oh, were you here? And you go, oh, just check with everyone behind me. Yeah, yeah, it's like that thing. And most people go, no, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, it's like that thing. Do you really want to make this decision right now? So I don't think you do. Continue on. For example, the disciplined soldier will not go out for a joyride in a jeep or make a spectacle of himself in a pub. The undisciplined soldier may. The real crime is that he lets the team down. That's the real crime. The real crime is that you let the team down. Disciplinary training is a two way street. It does not merely lead to military proficiency to the Army's own ends, and it also leads to self discipline to the individual soldier's private benefit, wholly apart from its benefit to the Army. If you learn, for example, to take care of your clothes and equipment to save money and to act in concert with others, and many other lessons the army teaches you improve yourself not only as a soldier, but as a man, you become more a more efficient fighting man, which is essential, and you become a more substantial citizen. The man who has learned self discipline has become an asset to any organization under any conditions. He will be in demand. Factual. Factual. Look at the World War II guys when they came home from World War II. What they do. Freaking greatest generation built America. That's what we're doing. Training pays in battle. Fast forward a little bit is such. It is such discipline, General Stewart continues, which we must have to win battles. Discipline which carries with it instant obedience, instant response to the will of the leader. And again, I'm going to reinforce this point. You're the leader. You are the leader. In your world, you're it. And you need instant obedience and instant response to the leader, which is you. And you are also the soldier. There is no time for thought. There's no time to weigh conclusions. The order is given. It flashes to the brain of the soldier. Brain and muscle act instantly without thought of consequences. Get in the ice bath, lift up the weight, get out of bed, put down the donut. How are we to cultivate this discipline, this spirit that responds unhesitatingly to command when shells are bursting overhead, when bullets are whistling about our ears, when your bunky crumples up beside you, and when you know that the next moment may bring your death. How? The answer is by training. What kind of training? Disciplinary training. That's why these little things that you do, even each and every day, that's why they're so important. Because you're either learning to push through, which I, you asked me, like where this develop. I'll tell you. When you're going through basic SEAL training, one thing you're definitely going to learn is like, oh, I'm about to do something that I don't want to do. Cool. And you just turn off your brain. You go freaking do it. Because there's no getting around it. You're going to have to get wet, you're going to have to get sandy, you're going to have to do the four mile time run. You're going to have to do the two mile ocean swim or the five and a half nautical mile ocean swim. Like you're going to get in the water, you're going to to swim for freaking four, five, six hours. That's what's happening.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

14 mile rock, 20 mile, like that's what you're doing. Okay, cool. There's nothing you can do to stop it. You're gonna freaking do it. And you learn just to shut off your brain. You learn just to obey the internal order that you're giving yourself. Because you know, interestingly, in basic SEAL training, if you don't want to do the run, you don't have to, you know, you don't want to do the run, you don't have to do the run. You don't want to do this swim, you don't have to do this swim.

[B]

Oh, wait, but don't you get kicked out of it.

[A]

We could go ring that bell, it all ends.

[B]

Yeah, okay.

[A]

You see what I'm saying?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's true though. It's a voluntary organization. You don't have to do it. You don't have to do any of it. And by the way, most people say, I don't want to do it. 80% of the people that want to be SEALs, 80% of them that show up at that training go, yeah, you know, I actually don't want to do that run. I actually don't want to get back in the water. I actually want to get some sleep right now. I want to go to bed. I don't want to do eight Count bodybuilders right now for the rest of the morning, and that's okay.

[B]

So how much of that did you already have, do you think? I'm trying to remember.

[A]

I. I think. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I could measure that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I know thinking back, it's like you just go, oh, well, this is what we're doing.

[B]

Yeah, I. Yeah. And I understand. And, yeah, to me, that's, like, kind of dope when you individualize that element of it where it's like, bro, you're getting trained in. Into having that, like, bro, that's some powerful stuff right there.

[A]

I don't know. And there's a lot of debate whether you get trained into that or whether you had it and they just got rid of the people that couldn't.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or maybe everybody has it, but just who really wants to tap into it.

[B]

Yeah, you. Because that's what I was gonna kind of say. I was, like, thinking. I'm sure in a group environment like that, it kind of makes it easier to be honest.

[A]

For sure.

[B]

Like. Because you're like, I don't want. Because there's all these external things. Like, I want to bring the bell in front of everyone. Like, there's all this stuff. But when you're by yourself, bro, you don't have that. Any of that.

[A]

People get on that bell.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

80% of them get on that bell.

[B]

I understand that. But the people who don't, you know, if. But the people who don't ring the bell, they still have that group environment, those little. That. That little bit of. I don't know, I guess you'd call it a version of support. Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because, like, hey, there's no. There's way more consequences, what I'm saying. And they're psychological at the end of the day. Check beyond psychological. But you don't have those consequences if you're not in that environment. You see, I'm saying, like, I tell you my little story about my squat day that one time I had. And it really went deep into it. Like, I warmed up. I was warmed up, ready to go for my first set, the hardest set, by the way, actually. They're all hard, but hard. But that first, I'm sitting there looking at him, looking at my wife kind of through the window, you know, kind of far away, and she's just doing her thing or whatever. You know, it's in the afternoon or right before sunset, and I'm thinking, if I don't do These squats today, no one's gonna care, Literally. Jocko himself will not care.

[A]

I won't.

[B]

Whether I tell him or not. I know. I could tell you. You tease me for a little bit, and you'd literally forget about it. It'd be gone.

[A]

I wouldn't think you're a bad person.

[B]

No.

[A]

No. Much.

[B]

Well, yeah. I mean, for a second you are, but you would literally forget about it. He has no bearing on anything at all. Not even a little bit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I could tell my wife, the person I care about. I could tell my kids, tell my. You know, my family members. They'd be like, we don't care at all. I could not literally.

[A]

I wouldn't want to tell my family members. That would get hostile real quick.

[B]

Yeah, I understand. I understand. But I could literally not find one single person in the whole world that would care, literally, if I just skipped them. Oh. Provide myself with this really relief of this freaking daunting thing. I get under this thing. It's a high rep day, too. And so, yeah, you're faced with that. So there's no guardrails, there's no support. There's no thing. You know, it's like literally no consequence if you don't do it. Like ringing the bell. You ring the bell, Everyone heard, and then you. Like how you always say, you got to go home, you got to tell the people that you told you're going to be this and that, and now you're not. You ring. You know, there's none of that. I could just carry on living my life, probably.

[A]

Let's face it.

[B]

I mean, even my strength probably wouldn't even have went down. See what I'm saying? But that's not what it's really about at the end of the day. So I did it, but it really affected me. I just concluded that, hey, this is kind of my fight, you know? This is my thing to deal with, you know? It's not like, who cares if my wife doesn't care? That's not her battle. You see what I'm saying? At all. Yeah, exactly. It's not even Jocko's beef, so you kind of got to do it yourself. But I'm just saying that's a way harder thing to do in the. In the big scheme of things, you know?

[A]

So I. There's also a. There's an idea of something, because I kind of just kind of mentioned the word voluntary.

[B]

Yeah, Right.

[A]

There's a difference between what you're willing to do voluntarily and just what you can get through. Because you have to. You ever heard me say that? When Alex Honnold climbed El Cap, I, I made a statement a few times and I still believe it. But I have to put a caveat on it. I think that Alex Honnold climbing El Cap free solo is the greatest physical feat that a human being has ever done voluntarily. Because there's people that have done way more incredible things, but they weren't voluntary. Baton death march, right. Like just crazy situations that people get put into and they're survival scenarios and they survive, survive against all odds for years in some cases. So fit. And they are fit. That's a physical feat of survival. And you know, they lose a hundred pounds, they come out, you know, 68 pounds. Like it's just brutal, but it's involuntary. So it's, it's a little bit of a different category. And so what you're talking about and what I just said is like SEAL training. You don't have to do it. You can quit if you want to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that squat rack that day, you didn't have to do it. You know, you can quit if you want to, but you know, if you had to do those squats to like get your kid away from a fire, you would, it wouldn't be a, a second thought. Yeah, but when you got a voluntarily, there's like a level of a step up you have to do because it's involved. It's voluntary involuntary things, you know, sometimes you got to do them, you know, but we got to be careful because sometimes think, well, you'll rise to the occasion. Well no you won't actually. You don't rise to the occasion. Like you might rise the occasion a little bit, but physically you gotta freaking train. Like you go to a rope climb in SEAL training and sometimes people cannot do it anymore or like you're gonna like. It doesn't matter how bad you want to try and climb the rope, if you don't have, if you haven't trained for it, you ain't gonna be able to do it. So you gotta train and you got to be ready. And that takes discipline. That's what we're talking about fast forward here. Rules have a purpose and that is what the army imposes. There are many forms of training. Among them are care of clothing and equipment, inspections of various kinds, saluting close order drill and other routine of army life with which every soldier is familiar. It is not at all the practice of performing the specific movement of column right to the rear march and other drill movements. It is practice instead in teamwork infusing an individual into a group so that he maintains a keen alertness and responds automatically and almost without thinking about it, to the word of command and acquires the habit of doing so. See, I think you can get the habit. Matter of fact, I kind of know you can. You can get the habit of like, oh, you don't want to do this, this squats, or you don't want to get up and you don't want to get up. You can get the habit of just doing things that you don't feel like doing at that moment. And in the military, you got to train people for that. But in. In your personal life, you have to train as well. You have to get yourself in the habit of obeying your own freaking orders.

[B]

That idea that you mentioned a long time ago. What that how you're going to feel when you're done. And it was mostly about workouts, but it. It has to do with most things, like how are you focus on how you're going to feel when you're done? And so I started doing that. I was like, man, once you start doing it, you, you. You kind of discover little mental things that happen to you. Yeah, like, exactly right. Like a little maze that you're like, you know, aware of. Yeah, well, sometimes. But if you get in that habit of like, hey, how many? How many? This is what I discovered. This way of thinking based on that was that, let's say your workout taking one hour, that one hour is coming. 100. And Jeremy Truskin told me this about his mindset in. In Buds, where it's like, hey, the end of this, buds is coming. Hundred percent. It's up to you whether or not you want to be there when it comes, but it's coming regardless kind of a thing. So it's kind of the same thing with the workout, where it's like, yeah, that the hour is going to be gone. Like, this next hour is coming. That hour mark is coming. So you want to be. Have you. Do you want to have done this or you want to have not done this kind of a thing? It's like, all right, let me just push through and just focus on that one hour that's coming. You see what I'm saying? And it's weird how it just kind of your body just does it, you know?

[A]

Yep, yep. Continuing on here, the same end is served by group calisthenics and by such ceremonies as Retreat Disciple. Okay, so there you go. That's why we're doing calisthenics. We're just Getting in the mode of like this is what we're doing. Next sections. Discipline wins wars. When there is a breach of discipline and the officer punishes the soldier, the good officer will always punish the offense rather than the offender. The punishment will not be aimed at the in, aimed at the soldier as an individual. The punishment will be impartial, administered in such a way that that the soldier will feel that any offender, whomever he might be, would have been similarly dealt with. Too often minor offenses against discipline are overlooked. Is we got to watch out for minor offenses in discipline are overlooked. Every infraction must be promptly dealt with or disciplinary action taken against the officer who tolerates the offense. By the way, that's you. That's you with you. D Day stiffens rules. With a football team, we may expect a coach to become stricter, the discipline more rigid as the day of the big game draws near. So also with an army. Baron von Steuben, the German military genius who drilled the continental army and made a winning team out of a mob of individualistic citizens, commented of Americans, the genius of this people is that one must first explain and then give the order. The soldier who does his duty will find and ponder the explanation and carry out the orders all to one end. So that's again, this is why decentralized command is so important. Like we gotta explain. Hey, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. Here's go. Execute. There's a summary here. Discipline can snatch victory from defeat in battle. Drill, saluting and inspections are measures for disciplinary training. Officers as well as enlisted men are subjected to it. Discipline is inculcated so that soldiers fight as a team. Fast forward a little bit. Courage alone is not enough. A mob be a mob may be made up individually of brave men, but it cannot do the work of an army because it lacks discipline, teamwork. The record clearly proves that green men suffer much heavier casualties in battle than well disciplined troops. You know, this, this courage thing, this reminded me when, when you see fighters, MMA fighters and there's fighters that are freaking like undeniable, undeniable warriors in the cage, like they will not tap out. They will get beat, like just brutally beaten. They'll get caught in an arm like they'll get punched in the head. They will not. The ref has to stop the fight. You know, after just total bloodbath and bludgeoning of someone's head, they clearly are warriors in the cage. But sometimes they're not really warriors. Like on the day to day basis of the discipline of Training, Right. And it's very interesting to think about that because the champions have both. The champions are going to train every single day. And when they get in that cage, they're. They'll. They will do whatever it takes to win, and they will not stop until they've achieved victory. And luckily, they have the discipline. So they got the technique, they got the skills, they got the cardio, they got the conditioning, got the strength, they got the flexibility to make it happen.

[B]

But.

[A]

But that came from their discipline leading up to the fight. Now you get somebody that's a total warrior in the cage, and sometimes they kind of lean on that. It's a way to not have to train, you know, It's a way to not have to freaking get up early. It's a way to not have to do your freaking road work, son. So don't be that guy. And look, we love those guys. We love them. It's great to watch them fight. They're not going to give up. But sometimes they win just on sheer will. Yeah, just on sheer will. But you don't want. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to have to rely on a will to win. You want to rely on your skill, technique, and use your will in the preparation. This section right here I'm talking about is called preparation. That's why I thought of it. So be disciplined during training camp. Be disciplined. Like, if you're that person that would have to run to save your kid from a fire, hey, you could really, really, really want to do that. But there's a chance your legs just can't handle that kind of strenuous activity. And that's it. That's what. That's what you get, man. So you got to really be careful about that. And I'll close out with this little section from this pamphlet. It says soldiers need good discipline off as well as on the battlefield. Every man wearing an immunic American uniform in foreign service, whether he realizes it or not, is serving as a personal representative of the United States. General Eisenhower expressed his desires on this subject in his letter to the Americans of his command on February 25, 1944. It is vital that we work with the people of Great Britain, both in fighting services and in civil life, on the basis of mutual respect, consideration, and cooperation. This means that we must earn and keep their respect as a great military machine dedicated to the single task of doing our duty and winning this war. The average Englishman is likely to form his opinions about America and Americans on the impression we make as individuals, we owe it to our country, our allies and ourselves to make that impression. A good win, a good one. Self discipline, like battle discipline pays dividends. So there you go. That's the army talks document from April of 1944. And as stated, we owe it to our country, we owe it to our allies, we owe it to our families, we owe it to our friends, we over owe it to our teams and we owe it to ourselves to impose discipline on our lives. That's what we have to do. So there you go, some different perspectives on that very familiar topic. We've got a good opportunity for discipline in our lives. We're doing The Deaf Reset January 1st today, Matter of fact, because it's. Or it starts tomorrow if you listen to this podcast when it comes out December 31st. Well, on January 1st, we're doing the Deaf Reset. Just come and do it. It's a way to train yourself to have discipline. It's a way to learn the lessons that we talked about today, personally, individually, before the enemy. Working out, prioritize and execute. Hydration, clean fuel, getting rid of the sugar coated lies, Reading, writing every single day, remembering every single day. Those are the things that we're doing. And we're going to do them every day. We're going to do them every day. So check out the def.reset.com. we got a bunch of cool little assets. You heard that term? Yeah, industry term.

[B]

I know. Assets. Assets.

[A]

Hell yeah, we got a bunch of cool assets. What do we got? We got like a. We got the app, which was designed.

[B]

By my brother Jay Charles.

[A]

Jay Charles made the app, the Deaf Reset app. So you can check that out. You can go in there and use that for your social media. Use that for your social media because it's not distracting.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's a good diet.

[A]

It's a good diet. Yes. Do that instead. Get away from the immediate gratification of dopamine that just floors your entire brain when you go on to the regular social media applications.

[B]

You heard the expression brain rotation?

[A]

Oh yeah, for sure. I got freaking four kids, bro. Of course I know a brain rot.

[B]

But now it's like an actual thing.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Like. Oh yeah. No, this is a brain.

[A]

Brain rot.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That's how, like there's no shame in it anymore or what? Or something. It's like a, like a, what do you call a genre?

[A]

And I slop. Same thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No. What do you mean yeah? You don't go to me.

[B]

Yeah, no, you're right.

[A]

Slop is right in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Slap is I guess a sub genre of. Of brain rock.

[B]

It feels like a slop. Has a negative stigma for sure.

[A]

Like it's irritating, bro.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's like this is just dumb AI, like boom, boom. But brain rot from these kids now that I see, they're like, no, no, this is a brain rot channel. It's cool. Like, it's funny, you know, it's fun. Like. Like what do you call mindless entertainment almost in a fun way, you know. That's like what it is, bro. I'm telling you, a diet full of. It's like. What do you call indulgent food? Right? They call it indulgent food, but it's another word for junk food.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say just junk food, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. But they call it indulgent food to make that positive spin on it. But brain rot doesn't even sound positive. It just got freaking co opt. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

This is 100 rain rot.

[B]

Oh, yeah. So we're talking about how like what you consume is another version of diet. Like your dietary consumption of media, you know, is. Is something, you know, it is like, whatever. What are the dynamics of. Of that?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you jump on this app, you have a strong diet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Media consumption.

[A]

Yeah. Get your death reset. We got the habit tracker that's on the death reset app. It's also. We got a printable version. It's all kinds of good stuff. And we got the. The weekly challenges going down. We're giving away much process. So that's the debt free set. Come and check that out. We got stuff coming from Echelon front. We got origin stuff, Yeti, Sorenex, Roka, Goruk, Goru, bunch of cool stuff. And someone is going to get a ticket to the muster, all expenses paid, San Diego and come to the new victory, which is the. It's. It's the old but new. What's a good way to describe the old but new?

[B]

I don't know what to call it anymore. The reinvented. The revitalized.

[A]

Revitalized. We'll go with the revitalized victory mma. So. And do a little workout. We'll do some, some jiu jitsu or whatever. We'll hang out and maybe get a steak or something like that. That's what we're doing. Deaf reset. You're gonna need some fuel. Check out Jocko fuel. You're on what you say, 10 to 15 grams of creatine right now, Per day.

[B]

Yep, per day.

[A]

I am on a solid 20. I'm just up to 20. I'm keeping it there. I do 10 in the morning and 10 at night.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I'm dry scooping it. Dry scoop water, swish it around the mouth. It just like melts in your mouth and swallow it. No factor.

[B]

See, that's kind of, I mean, hey, look, I dig it, man. You do what works for John.

[A]

What do you do?

[B]

No, no, no greens, but hydrate. Hydrate water. Two scoops. Creatine. Yeah, but it's their heaping. They call them heaping scoops, so you get the extra because they're each five anyway. Yeah, we call that the mega mix. No big deal.

[A]

What flavor hydrate are you going with?

[B]

Lemon lime? Yeah, I have all of them. No, but lemon lime is my go to.

[A]

Yeah, sure. Joc, fuel dot com. Get everything that you need. Get protein. Have you tried the fruity cereal?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, frick. Yeah, bro. My son freaking evangelizes it. I, I last night I say, hey, can you grab me a mo from the back fridge? And then chocolate banana back there? He's like, he's like, no, he's like, I'm gonna hook you up with something good. He grabs the, the fruity cereal from the front fridge.

[A]

Tastes good.

[B]

Oh yeah, he'll. Yeah. Evangelist. That's a good one. That's a really good one.

[A]

Joint warfare, time war. People overlook that, man. Don't I like make sure that my kids do super krill joint warfare and time war.

[B]

Cuz.

[A]

Freaking good. Like, you know, cuz all my kids are very active. I say they're very active. They're training, they're getting arms are getting bent up, shoulders are getting bent up, elbows surfing. There's like all kinds of stuff going on. There's lifting, there's constant lifting, like just going on. There's jiu jitsu happening. So I'm like, you know, this is what you got to do. This is the protocol.

[B]

Yeah. I caught that video by the way of Rana's pre fight light thing. That was a good fun.

[A]

What you like about that one?

[B]

Just the whole vibe. The whole thing? Yeah, just going through it. It's kind of like you're there kind of with you guys and stuff. And you know, Rana's personality is very sprightly, you know, so it was a fun watch that.

[A]

Yeah, she's, she really like just loves it. Yeah, she did another interview after a different like super fight type match. And she was saying, you know, when I was little I just wanted to like sing and be on stage and like perform and this is what I'm doing. Now it's like, this is my. This is. This is what I'm. This is my talent. This is what I'm doing. Yeah. I get to perform with my art.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and that's pretty cool.

[B]

Yeah. She still brings that sunshine, though.

[A]

Oh, yeah, no, for sure.

[B]

She don't have that. Like, some people, they bring that in intense darkness. Yeah, yeah. Which I dig, man. It's part of the. Part of the whole thing. But hers is just.

[A]

Yeah, but she's just having so much fun.

[B]

Yeah, bro.

[A]

You watch her when she's submitting people. Like, she's got the biggest smile on her face.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's like joy. Pure joy. Pure joy. Did you hear Freya got her blue belchy?

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She.

[A]

She's got her blue belt, so, you know, that's good, because my wife's been a blue belt since, like, the 90s.

[B]

Sure. Oh, yeah.

[A]

So, yeah. Yeah. Congratulations is in order for the Willink fam. Girls. So we need fuel. Check out jockofuel.com get. And there's a bunch of stores. You can get the stuff of that as well. So check that out. We got Origin usa. You're gonna need a GI to train, or you're gonna need a rash guard to train, or you're gonna need a pair of jeans, a pair of boots, whatever. You need some stuff. So check out the new boots as well. The welted, fully Goodyear welted boots. We've gone, like, to that model that. That type, and they're just.

[B]

It's.

[A]

You'll see, like, the sewing goes all the way around the entire sole, and they're just super comfortable. There's like this. This bed of cork.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, the cork, bro.

[A]

They're so comfortable. Yeah. So Origin usa. And by the way, the. I would love to tell you that this is the most important thing, and it kind of is. Look what's important. Comfort, feel, fit. All that stuff is incredibly important. And we deliver at Origin usa, we deliver the goods properly, the highest quality, but it's also 100 made in America, which means you don't have any communist germs soaking through your blood. Right. Communist microplastics, like micro communism sneaking into your brain because you don't want that. You want freedom. You don't want to pay for some people kid. Some poor kid getting abused. You don't want to pay for that.

[B]

No.

[A]

You want to pay for American workers that are. That are doing a great job. That's what we're doing@origin USA. So check that out. OriginUSA.com get some.

[B]

Yeah, Those pants, by the way, are. So I use those to travel.

[A]

Which ones?

[B]

Factory jeans.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

My son, last night, again we're together last night, he said, why do you always wear those on the plane? Even, like, if I go to Kawaii, you don't wear pants on Quiet really very much. He's like, why do you wear those? I said, bro, that's the uniform. That's uniform. 100%. No compromises, as it were. Speaking of no compromises. Jocko store. So we have. We have some new stuff on Jocastore.com. yeah, we're coming out with.

[A]

I haven't gotten my package of the new stuff yet in the mail.

[B]

Well, you know, it's all one big process, you know. Wait, no, no, you did right. You got the good.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I like those good shirts. Yeah, those came out. The lack of a better way of saying it. They came out good.

[B]

Pretty good. The discipline was freedom.

[A]

I'm surprised it took you so long to come up with that design.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm also surprised it's not a more prominent design kind of overall in life, the handwritten OCR alpha with a LE with a level like between 1 to 10. Like a level 9. No level 8 aggressiveness in the writing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good. Good assessment. Yeah. You know, I like how it came. Came out too. So, yeah, maybe we'll implement that in more stuff. Discipline equals freedom. 5.0 is already out. This is all within the last few months. Get after it. 2.0. That's the one that's coming up. New Rash guard. Discipline equals freedom. Rash Yards coming out as well. So be on the lookout for that if you care. If you want to be. You want to get the jump on this new stuff.

[A]

The new new that.

[B]

Nunu. Yeah. And it is advisable because, you know, sometimes you just never know. You know, it'll land. People love it. And then, boom, sold out. I didn't get enough, which usually I run. I don't run into that problem. But it does happen from time to time. With those polos, it happened.

[A]

Don't let it happen to you.

[B]

Don't let it happen to you. You want to get the jump, get that email. That's when they go on set. Boom. You can get yours, I'm saying. So anyway, sign up bottom of Jocko store dot com. In the bottom, you put your email and you'll get notified for the new stuff.

[A]

Jack.

[B]

And then when I say get after it, that's. That's gonna be a good one. Get after. The nude. Get after.

[A]

Oh, you made a new get after.

[B]

It's a new one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But anyway. Yes, it's all in Jacob store. Also the shirt lockers. A membership. The membership scenario. That's. Oh, we're going. We're rolling with that one. So check out that one. It's called the shirt locker. You can click on there and see what it's all about. It's a membership. You get a new design every month. Is it.

[A]

How's shirt spelled?

[B]

S H U R T. Okay. It's a little play on words.

[A]

Look at you.

[B]

Hurt Locker. Yeah, look at us.

[A]

Also get some books. Dave Burke wrote a book called need to Lead. Rob Jones wrote a book called Put yout Legs On. Ryan Manion wrote a book called Things My Brother Used To Say. So we got all kinds of books. And then I've written a bunch of books as well. Check out Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field manual. Learn how to lead. Just be able to refer to that manual whenever you need it. We also have a leadership consultancy. It's called Echelon front. Go to echelonfront.com if you need help with your leadership to check out Extreme ownership dot com. If you want to do some online leadership training, we've got it for you. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org up in Montana with Micah Fink. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, Beyond the Brotherhood. And if you want to connect with us, check out jocko.com we're also on social media. You can go there. Just be careful. Make sure you bring discipline when you show up there. I'm at Jocko Willink Echoes at Echo Charles. And of course, thanks to all of our military personnel, those currently serving and those who have served in the past. We live free because of you and we are grateful. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret service, as well as all other first responders. We are safe at home because of you and we are grateful for that and everyone else out there. Sun Tzu said, quote, the consummate leader cultivates the moral law and strictly adheres to methods and discipline. Thus it is in his power to control success. End quote. So the power to control what you do in your life and the success that you have in your life. The power lies in discipline. Discipline equals freedom. Let's impose discipline and bring power and control into our lives. In 20. 20. 26. Stand by to get some. That's all we've got for tonight. Until next time. The Zeko and Jocko out.