Essentials: How to Become Resilient, Forge Your Identity & Lead Others | Jocko Willink
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Overview
Andrew Huberman speaks with former Navy SEAL officer, author, and leadership consultant Jocko Willink about discipline, autonomy, exercise, resilience, leadership, motivation, conflict, emotional regulation, and deliberate discomfort. Willink’s central argument is that people should not depend on temporary feelings such as motivation. Consistent action, disciplined routines, and the ability to detach from immediate emotions create energy, perspective, resilience, and greater control over one’s future.
Willink describes himself as a “generator”: someone who acts on the world, sees the consequences, and is energized by that feedback. He says military service gave him a blank slate and showed him that strong performance brought recognition, responsibility, and freedom. For him, autonomy—control over how one spends one’s time—is a fundamental form of compensation and a major reason people pursue money or achievement.
Key ideas
- Willink usually does not wake up feeling exceptionally energized or enthusiastic. When his alarm sounds, he avoids debating or negotiating with himself and begins what he has decided to do almost automatically.
- Exercise generally creates energy rather than merely consuming it. Both Willink and Huberman report feeling better after training, even when they did not initially want to exercise. Extremely demanding days—such as lifting, running, surfing, and doing jiu-jitsu—can produce genuine fatigue, but an ordinary workout usually improves Willink’s readiness and mood.
- Willink finds that a short, high-intensity anaerobic effort at the end of training gives him a particularly strong mental boost. Examples include roughly 10–15 minutes of hard work on a bicycle or rowing machine, or vigorous kettlebell swings.
- Eating slows Willink down, so he generally avoids large meals before physical or cognitively demanding work. He often waits until around six or seven in the evening, after his physical work is finished, to eat a large meal. He similarly avoids eating before consulting sessions for his leadership company, Echelon Front, before podcast recordings, or before military missions because he feels mentally clearer with less food in his stomach.
- During military operations, he typically ate after returning, even if that was at three or four in the morning. He would first complete a short debrief and clean his weapons, then eat and sleep.
- Huberman qualifies that meal timing should be judged by whether a regular schedule supports sleep, activity, and concentration. He does not present Willink’s late-eating pattern as universally optimal.
- Willink argues that Navy SEAL selection filters partly for the ability to recover from failure. Highly accomplished collegiate athletes can still quit Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training because the program deliberately discovers and exploits their weaknesses. People accustomed to winning may struggle when they cannot win consistently and do not know how to recover from defeat.
- Leadership requires regulating the emotional momentum of a group. Willink compares team morale to a mob: emotions spread, and the group can drift toward arrogance after success or despair after failure. Leaders must mentally detach from that emotional current so they can recognize and correct it.
- After a successful operation, a leader should acknowledge the win while identifying improvements, insisting on a debrief, and maintaining equipment and standards. Unchecked success can become complacency or arrogance.
- After a failed operation or casualties, a leader should acknowledge the pain, identify lessons, accept personal responsibility for improvements, and help the group return to purposeful action. Willink’s response to losing teammates was to celebrate their lives, mourn them, prepare equipment, and return to the work that remained.
- Action is Willink’s preferred response to adversity. Dwelling on a missed job, promotion, or other disappointment gives the problem more control inside one’s mind. A brief analysis followed by a concrete step—such as obtaining a missing qualification—turns the setback into forward movement. He calls action a cure for many problems, although the action need not be dramatic.
- A leader, parent, spouse, or friend should act as an emotional counterweight. After a child wins a wrestling tournament, for example, the parent can celebrate without allowing the victory to justify complete excess. After a loss, the parent should not respond with cruelty or humiliation. The goal is balance, not suppressing celebration or denying disappointment.
- Willink warns that never celebrating success can also be unhealthy and may contribute to burnout. A win deserves acknowledgment and a moment of satisfaction, followed by a return to work. His phrase “all glory is fleeting” captures the need to appreciate success without becoming attached to it.
- People often decline when everyone around them reinforces their impulses. A good friend can enjoy a celebration while also reminding someone of upcoming responsibilities. Sustainable relationships provide both support and corrective balance.
- Willink credits hardcore music and its do-it-yourself culture with shaping his independence, loyalty, willingness to stand apart, and readiness to question authority. He names Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Black Flag, especially the second side of *My War*, as major influences.
- That rebellious influence did not teach him to be needlessly confrontational. In the military, it helped him respectfully question plans that seemed unsound by asking a superior whether another approach might work better.
- Motivation is an emotion and therefore unreliable. Like happiness or sadness, it can disappear within minutes. Willink’s daily behavior comes from discipline: whether he feels like acting is irrelevant once the action has been decided.
- Positive action includes moving toward things one fears or needs to address. Problems are not resolved by permanently running from them, but moving toward a problem does not always mean confronting it head-on.
- Willink supports the military concept of the “indirect approach” in interpersonal conflict. Directly confronting someone with one’s version of the truth can create combat-like opposition and “casualties.” Discussing an adjacent issue, building the relationship, and allowing mutual understanding to emerge can produce a more constructive solution.
- Willink does not practice formal meditation and says he has never deliberately meditated. However, he continually practices detachment: stepping back from events and emotions, widening his perspective, and observing himself and the group more objectively.
- He calls detachment a “superpower” because it makes more options, risks, perspectives, and potential actions visible. A person can remain a committed member of a team while still stepping outside its collective emotional state long enough to judge what the team actually needs.
- Emotional distress can create a metaphorical storm in which a person sees darkness in every direction, even when an outside observer can see education, health, supportive people, or other advantages. Willink cites Tim Ferriss’s advice to “get out of your head” and into the body: physical movement and action can help create distance from repetitive thought.
- Detachment does not mean that a problem is trivial or that a distressed person can instantly choose a different perspective. Willink emphasizes how frightening and helpless it can feel when someone cannot see beyond depression, rejection, or disappointment.
- The solution is often not visible from inside the problem. A person may need enough distance to assess how to solve it—or whether it actually requires solving. Rejection from a relationship, school, or job can otherwise become so mentally consuming that alternative paths disappear from view.
- Willink discovered the practical value of detachment during a Navy SEAL training exercise on an oil rig in the 1990s. His entire platoon stood in a skirmish line looking through weapon sights, each with a field of view of roughly 20 degrees. After about 30 seconds without a decision, Willink—the most junior member—stepped back, saw the whole formation, and issued the basic tactical instruction “hold left, clear right.”
- The platoon followed the call, completed the exercise, and the platoon chief later praised it. Willink concluded that he saw the needed action not because he had more experience, but because physically stepping back broadened his vision, allowed him to breathe, and improved his thinking.
- He subsequently practiced the same skill in land warfare, urban-combat training, and ordinary conversations. When he noticed a superior becoming angry, for example, he could stop pressing his point and create time to reconsider the plan instead of escalating the disagreement.
- Detachment is easier in a team because others can remain narrowly focused on immediate tasks while one person surveys the wider situation. It is harder when a person must handle the immediate threat alone.
- Willink believes detachment can be trained. Some people may begin with greater natural ability, but he has watched both SEALs and business leaders improve it through repetition.
- Deliberate discomfort similarly trains resilience. Just as squats develop the legs and pull-ups develop the back, repeated experiences that require toughness can strengthen the capacity to tolerate hardship and impose discipline on oneself.
Practical takeaways
- When a planned routine begins, minimize internal negotiation. Treat temporary reluctance as information about a feeling, not as a command.
- Use ordinary exercise to generate energy. If appropriate for one’s abilities and training plan, a brief, intense effort at the end of a workout may provide an additional sense of mental readiness.
- Arrange meals according to individual performance and sleep needs. Willink prefers not to eat before demanding work, but Huberman’s broader principle is consistency and support for sleep, focus, and activity.
- After a setback, conduct a short, honest analysis and identify the smallest useful next action. Examples include learning why a promotion was missed, obtaining the required qualification, preparing equipment, or beginning the next manageable task.
- After success, celebrate briefly and sincerely, then review what could improve and return to normal standards. Avoid both uncontrolled indulgence and the refusal to acknowledge any accomplishment.
- When leading or supporting someone, observe the direction of their emotions and provide balance. Counter arrogance with perspective and despair with grounded hope and constructive action.
- In conflict, consider whether a direct confrontation will solve the issue or merely make the other person defensive. An adjacent conversation and stronger relationship may open a better route to agreement.
- To detach during a tense meeting, argument, or public confrontation:
- Physically step back or push the chair away from the table. - Take a slow breath before speaking. - Broaden the visual field instead of staring narrowly at one person or object. - Lift the chin and lower the hands rather than adopting a defensive fighting posture. - Stop talking and listen; Willink says detachment is difficult while one is continuously speaking. - Observe rising anger, fear, or defensiveness as a process rather than immediately acting from it. - Ask what the other person actually needs. A partner who is venting, for example, may want to be heard rather than given an immediate solution.
- Practice detachment in ordinary, low-stakes situations so it becomes available under pressure. The aim is not passivity but enough space to make a better decision.
- Include manageable forms of chosen discomfort in life to practice discipline and resilience, while treating toughness as something built through repetition rather than an inborn identity.
Caveats and limits
- The discussion is primarily based on Willink’s personal experience in military training, combat leadership, consulting, exercise, and relationships. It does not present named clinical trials or controlled studies validating every recommendation.
- Willink’s eating schedule and preference for training without a large meal are personal practices, not universal nutritional guidance. Huberman explicitly qualifies that the best schedule is one that is regular and permits good sleep, activity, and focus.
- Exercise can increase energy, but exceptionally high total workloads can create fatigue. Willink distinguishes an ordinary workout from unusually demanding combinations of lifting, running, surfing, and jiu-jitsu.
- Moving toward a problem does not require reckless direct confrontation. Willink often favors an indirect approach, especially when blunt confrontation would escalate interpersonal conflict.
- Emotional counterbalancing should not become dismissal. Celebration should not be crushed, and grief, loss, or disappointment should not be answered with contempt.
- Detachment is not emotional indifference, denial, or abandonment of responsibility. It is temporary psychological and sometimes physical distance used to perceive more clearly before acting.
- The storm-cloud metaphor acknowledges that people experiencing depression or intense distress may genuinely be unable to see options apparent to outsiders. The conversation does not claim that exercise, discipline, or perspective-taking alone resolves clinical depression or every serious mental-health problem.
- Deliberate discomfort should be understood as resilience practice, not as a mandate for dangerous, extreme, or medically inappropriate hardship.
中文翻译
概述
Andrew Huberman 与前海豹突击队军官、作家及领导力顾问 Jocko Willink 讨论了纪律、自主权、锻炼、韧性、领导力、动力、冲突、情绪调节和刻意承受不适。Willink 的核心观点是，人不应依赖动力等暂时性的感受。持续行动、纪律严明的日常安排，以及从即时情绪中抽离的能力，能够带来能量、视角、韧性，并让人更好地掌控自己的未来。
Willink 将自己描述为一名“生成者”：即对世界采取行动、看到行动后果，并从这种反馈中获得能量的人。他说，服兵役给了他一块白板，让他看到出色表现会带来认可、责任和自由。对他而言，自主权——掌控如何支配自己的时间——是一种根本性的回报形式，也是人们追求金钱或成就的一大原因。
核心观点
- Willink 通常不会在醒来时感到格外精力充沛或热情高涨。闹钟响起后，他不会与自己争辩或讨价还价，而是近乎自动地开始做自己已经决定要做的事。
- 锻炼通常会产生能量，而不只是消耗能量。Willink 和 Huberman 都表示，即使一开始并不想锻炼，训练后也会感觉更好。极其高强度的一天——例如同时进行举重、跑步、冲浪和巴西柔术训练——确实会造成疲劳，但普通的锻炼通常会改善 Willink 的准备状态和情绪。
- Willink 发现，在训练结束时进行一段短时间、高强度的无氧运动，会给他带来格外强烈的精神提振。例如在自行车或划船机上进行大约 10–15 分钟的高强度运动，或用壶铃进行剧烈摆动。
- 进食会让 Willink 的状态变慢，因此他通常避免在需要体力或高强度认知投入的工作之前吃大餐。他经常等到傍晚六七点左右，在体力活动结束后，才吃一顿大餐。同样，在为自己的领导力公司 Echelon Front 进行咨询、录制播客或执行军事任务前，他也会避免进食，因为胃里食物较少时，他感觉头脑更加清晰。
- 在军事行动期间，即使返回时已经是凌晨三四点，他通常也会等回来后再吃东西。他会先做一次简短的任务复盘并清洁武器，然后再进食和睡觉。
- Huberman 补充说明，判断进餐时间是否合适，应看规律的时间安排能否支持睡眠、活动和专注。他并未把 Willink 的晚间进食模式描述为普遍适用于所有人的最佳方案。
- Willink 认为，海豹突击队选拔在一定程度上筛选的是从失败中恢复的能力。即便是成绩卓著的大学运动员，也可能退出基础水下爆破／海豹突击队训练，因为该项目会刻意发现并利用他们的弱点。习惯于获胜的人可能会在无法持续获胜、又不知道如何从失败中恢复时陷入困境。
- 领导力要求调节群体的情绪动势。Willink 将团队士气比作暴民群体：情绪会传播，而群体可能在成功后走向傲慢，也可能在失败后陷入绝望。领导者必须从这股情绪潮流中在心理上抽离出来，才能识别并纠正它。
- 一次行动成功后，领导者应肯定胜利，同时找出可以改进之处，坚持进行任务复盘，并维护装备和标准。不受约束的成功可能演变成自满或傲慢。
- 一次行动失败或出现伤亡后，领导者应正视痛苦、总结教训、亲自承担改进责任，并帮助团队重新投入有目的的行动。面对队友牺牲时，Willink 的应对方式是颂扬他们的一生、哀悼他们、准备装备，然后重新投入尚未完成的工作。
- 行动是 Willink 应对逆境时偏好的方式。反复沉浸在错失工作、晋升机会或其他失望中，会让问题在人的内心获得更大的控制力。简短分析之后采取一个具体步骤——例如取得缺少的资质——可以把挫折转化为前进的动力。他称行动是许多问题的解药，不过这种行动不必十分重大。
- 领导者、父母、配偶或朋友应当充当情绪上的平衡力量。例如，孩子赢得摔跤比赛后，父母可以庆祝，但不能让胜利成为彻底放纵的理由。孩子失败后，父母也不应以残酷或羞辱的方式回应。目标是保持平衡，而不是压制庆祝或否认失望。
- Willink 警告说，从不庆祝成功也可能不健康，并可能导致倦怠。胜利值得被肯定，也值得拥有片刻的满足，之后再回到工作中。他所说的“一切荣耀都是短暂的”，表达了既要珍惜成功、又不要执著于成功的必要性。
- 当周围所有人都在强化一个人的冲动时，这个人往往会开始走下坡路。好朋友可以共同享受庆祝，也可以提醒对方即将承担的责任。可持续的关系既提供支持，也提供纠偏和平衡。
- Willink 认为，硬核音乐及其自己动手的文化塑造了他的独立、忠诚、甘愿与众不同以及质疑权威的意愿。他提到 Cro-Mags、Agnostic Front、Bad Brains、Minor Threat 和 Black Flag，尤其是《My War》的第二面，对他产生了重大影响。
- 这种反叛影响并未教他进行毫无必要的对抗。在军队中，当某个方案看起来并不可靠时，它帮助他通过询问上级另一种方法是否可能更好，以尊重的方式对方案提出质疑。
- 动力是一种情绪，因此并不可靠。它和快乐或悲伤一样，可能在几分钟内消失。Willink 的日常行为源自纪律：一旦决定采取行动，自己是否想做就不再重要。
- 积极行动包括主动接近自己害怕或需要处理的事情。永久逃避并不能解决问题，但接近问题也并不总意味着正面对抗。
- Willink 认同军事上的“间接途径”概念，并将其用于人际冲突。直接用自己认定的真相与他人对质，可能制造出类似战斗的对立和“伤亡”。讨论一个相邻的问题、建立关系，并让彼此的理解逐渐形成，可能带来更具建设性的解决方案。
- Willink 不进行正式冥想，并称自己从未刻意冥想过。不过，他一直在练习抽离：从事件和情绪中后退一步，拓宽视角，更客观地观察自己和群体。
- 他称抽离是一种“超能力”，因为它能让人看到更多选择、风险、视角和可能采取的行动。一个人可以继续作为团队中尽责的一员，同时暂时走出团队的集体情绪状态，以便判断团队真正需要什么。
- 情绪痛苦可能制造出一场比喻意义上的风暴，使人无论朝哪个方向看都只能看到黑暗，即使外部观察者能够看到教育条件、健康状况、提供支持的人或其他优势。Willink 引用了 Tim Ferriss 的建议：要“走出自己的头脑”，进入身体；身体活动和实际行动可以帮助人与反复出现的思绪拉开距离。
- 抽离并不意味着问题微不足道，也不意味着身处痛苦中的人可以立即选择另一种视角。Willink 强调，当一个人无法看到抑郁、被拒绝或失望之外的事物时，那种感受可能非常可怕且令人无助。
- 解决方案往往无法从问题内部被看见。一个人可能需要拉开足够的距离，才能评估如何解决问题——或者判断它实际上是否需要解决。否则，在感情、学校或工作中遭到拒绝，可能占据一个人太多心理空间，以至于其他道路都从视野中消失。
- Willink 在 20 世纪 90 年代一次位于石油钻井平台上的海豹突击队训练演习中，发现了抽离的实际价值。他所在的整个排以散兵线队形站立，每个人都透过武器瞄准具观察，各自的视野约为 20 度。大约 30 秒仍未作出决定后，作为资历最浅成员的 Willink 向后退了一步，看到了整个队形，并下达了基本的战术指令：“控制左侧，清理右侧。”
- 全排服从了这一指令并完成演习，排长后来还对此表示赞扬。Willink 得出结论：他之所以看到了需要采取的行动，并不是因为他更有经验，而是因为身体上的后退拓宽了他的视野，让他能够呼吸，并改善了他的思考。
- 此后，他在陆地作战、城市战训练和日常对话中练习同样的能力。例如，当他注意到上级开始生气时，他可以不再坚持自己的观点，并留出时间重新考虑方案，而不是使分歧进一步升级。
- 在团队中，抽离更容易做到，因为其他人可以继续专注于眼前的具体任务，而由一个人审视更广泛的局势。当一个人必须独自应对眼前威胁时，抽离会更困难。
- Willink 相信抽离能力可以通过训练获得。有些人起初可能天生更擅长，但他亲眼看到海豹突击队员和商业领导者通过反复练习提高了这种能力。
- 刻意承受不适同样可以训练韧性。正如下蹲可以锻炼腿部、引体向上可以锻炼背部，反复经历需要坚韧的处境，也能增强忍受困难和对自己施加纪律约束的能力。
实用要点
- 当计划好的日常安排开始时，尽量减少内心的讨价还价。把暂时的不情愿视为关于一种感受的信息，而不是一道命令。
- 利用普通锻炼产生能量。如果适合个人能力和训练计划，在锻炼结束时进行一段短暂的高强度运动，可能会进一步增强精神上的准备感。
- 根据个人表现和睡眠需求安排进餐。Willink 倾向于不在高强度工作前进食，但 Huberman 提出的更广泛原则是保持规律，并确保安排有助于睡眠、专注和活动。
- 遭遇挫折后，进行简短而诚实的分析，并找出下一步最小但有用的行动。例如，弄清楚为什么没有获得晋升、取得所需资质、准备装备，或开始下一项可以应付的任务。
- 成功后，短暂而真诚地庆祝，然后回顾哪些方面可以改进，并恢复正常标准。既要避免不受控制的放纵，也要避免拒绝承认任何成就。
- 在领导或支持他人时，观察其情绪发展的方向并提供平衡。用更全面的视角制衡傲慢，用脚踏实地的希望和建设性行动制衡绝望。
- 面对冲突时，考虑直接对质究竟会解决问题，还是只会让对方产生防御心理。围绕相邻问题展开对话并建立更牢固的关系，可能会开辟一条更好的共识路径。
- 要在紧张的会议、争论或公开冲突中实现抽离：
- 身体向后退一步，或把椅子从桌旁向后推。 - 开口前缓慢地呼吸一次。 - 拓宽视野，而不是狭窄地盯着某个人或物体。 - 抬起下巴并放低双手，而不是采取防御性的搏斗姿势。 - 停止说话并倾听；Willink 表示，一个人持续说话时很难实现抽离。 - 把不断上升的愤怒、恐惧或防御心理作为一个过程来观察，而不是立即受其驱使采取行动。 - 询问对方真正需要什么。例如，正在倾诉的伴侣可能只是希望有人倾听，而不是立刻得到解决方案。
- 在普通、风险较低的情境中练习抽离，使这种能力在压力下也能发挥作用。目标不是消极被动，而是创造足够的空间，以作出更好的决定。
- 在生活中加入可承受的、自主选择的不适形式，以练习纪律和韧性；同时应把坚韧视为通过反复练习培养出来的能力，而不是一种与生俱来的身份。
注意事项与局限
- 讨论主要基于 Willink 在军事训练、战斗领导、咨询、锻炼和人际关系方面的个人经验。讨论并未列举临床试验或对照研究来验证每一项建议。
- Willink 的进食时间安排以及不在训练前吃大餐的偏好属于个人做法，并非普遍适用的营养指导。Huberman 明确补充说明，最佳时间安排应当规律，并能够保障良好的睡眠、活动和专注。
- 锻炼可以增加能量，但总体运动量极高时也会造成疲劳。Willink 区分了普通锻炼与将举重、跑步、冲浪和巴西柔术结合在一起的异常高强度训练。
- 接近问题并不要求鲁莽地直接对抗。Willink 经常倾向于采取间接途径，尤其是在直率对质会使人际冲突升级时。
- 情绪上的平衡不应变成否定。庆祝不应受到压制，面对悲痛、失去或失望时，也不应以轻蔑回应。
- 抽离并不是情感冷漠、否认或放弃责任。它是为了在行动前看得更加清楚，而暂时在心理上、有时也在身体上拉开距离。
- 风暴乌云的比喻承认，正在经历抑郁或强烈痛苦的人，可能确实无法看到在外人看来显而易见的选择。这场对话并未声称，仅凭锻炼、纪律或转换视角就能解决临床抑郁症或所有严重的心理健康问题。
- 刻意承受不适应被理解为韧性练习，而不是要求人们承受危险、极端或医学上不适宜的困苦。
Full transcript
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now for my discussion with Jocko Willink. Jocko Willink, welcome. Thanks for having me, man. In my view, and I think in the view of a lot of people, you embody discipline. So today I definitely want to talk about routines, but also mindsets, but also things that you do and ways that you approach things that might not contradict, but not be so obvious to people, might be a little bit counterintuitive.
There are generators and projectors, and generators are people that are just from a very young age, they realize they can impact other people, they want to create things in the world. And then there are these projectors that like to just kind of reflect on what they see. And it's not the generators are good and projectors are bad. The world needs both, that they really work in a kind of symbiotic way. But your story captures the essence of what it is to be a generator, which is that by doing certain things, you can have an impact and it feeds back to you.
And it's likely that they receive something from it as well. Yeah. And where this all came to fruition, as I now piece together as you're talking through stuff. Look, when I joined the military, you join the military and you get a blank slate. No one cares what you got on the SATs and no one cares about anything. You're a blank slate. And then with that blank slate, it is, hey, if you do this thing, if you perform this task and you perform it well, you will get recognition. You will hopefully get more control over your own destiny, which is the ultimate in compensation for human beings to have more control over your own destiny. You can have all the money in the world, but if you don't control what you're doing every day, or at least you don't control most of what you're doing, then it's not worth it. The reason people try and make money is so they can have more autonomy in their life. And so in the military it became very clear to me very quickly that if I performed well, I actually got a lot more freedom with what I did. That's when I started to realize, oh, what I'm doing right now is going to impact not only what's going to happen to me in the next hour, but in the next two years, three years, five years, the more I focused on doing things that are going to positively impact my future, the better my life became. And I think that's a very huge lesson to learn that I know I didn't figure out for quite some time. I get the impression and I think everyone gets the impression that you're somebody with a lot of energy and I wonder whether or not you wake up with a lot of energy and you feel like you have to burn it off with this physical activity and work and other demands in your life, where do you find that you wake up and your energy is kind of neutral and exercise and physical activity gives you energy? I would say it's both, right? There's no way I could sit here and say, oh yeah, every day that alarm clock goes off and I'm like, oh yeah, let's rock and roll." Certainly that's not the case. It's also certainly not the case that every day I'm like, oh god, not again. No. I'd say most of the time the alarm clock goes off and I don't think a bunch. Like when my alarm clock goes off, I don't debate with myself. I'm not negotiating.
I just, the thing goes off and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. It's sort of robotic. Now, this much I can say. When you go and work out, you're going to feel better. You will get energy from working out. You go break a sweat, you're going to feel better. You're going to get more more energy from it. And look, you got to go really, really hard to where now you feel more tired when you're done. And even that, I mean, you got to go psycho. I'll do that occasionally, but I don't do that on a daily basis. You know, at the end of a day, if I wake up, lift, run surf, and then I do jujitsu in the afternoon, like at the end of that day I'm tired and I feel tired.
But normal day, working out just makes you feel better. It definitely gives you, it definitely gives me energy. The idea that movement and exercise gives us energy, I think is an important idea. And it's something that I was, frankly, I was hoping your answer would be that, as opposed to that, you know, you wake up every day and you just want to just attack the world because you have so much energy getting out of bed because frankly, I never feel that way. But I always feel better after I train. Do you nourish after you train? or do you find that eating slows you down?
I find that eating slows me down. So no, I don't eat a big meal until I'm kind of done with the physical stuff for the day, which is usually at night, six, seven o'clock at night, which I guess there's some bad things about that. I eat too late. Well, the data say, you know, if you're having a regular meal schedule that allows you to sleep well at night, whatever that means for you, and that allows you to be active and focused when you need to be active and focused, that's the ideal schedule. When I'm working with clients, So I have a leadership consulting company, Echelon Front.
When I'm going to work with a client, I'm not eating. Because they're going to be asking me questions. We're going to be diving into what's happening inside their business. Like, there's a lot of stuff going on. It's a lot of cognitive work. Podcast, I'm not eating before a podcast. Before I'm recording a podcast, I'm not eating. Because I don't want to have a bunch of food in my stomach. I want to, you get a certain level of mental clarity when you haven't eaten a bunch of food. So going out on missions, I never would eat before I go out on a mission.
I would eat when I come home. You know, you get home 4 o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning from doing operation. Cool, then I'll eat. Cause then I'm going to do a debrief for 15 minutes, clean weapons, and then eat a big meal, go to sleep. Cool. Yeah, I don't want to have food in my stomach when I've got to perform or execute anything. So much of what you embody and what you do, I think centers around this idea of discipline, of course, but also energy. It's the intuitive sense I get about why people are so drawn to your messaging and what you do and how you do it.
Are there certain forms of exercise, like weightlifting versus cardio that you find give you an especially big boost in what we're calling energy. And here, this could be cognitive energy, it could be physical energy, but a readiness for the next thing. I would have to say like the high intensity sort of anaerobic blast, you know, whether it's on the bike or on the rower or, you know, swinging a kettlebell hard, something like that, that last 10, 15 minutes, that's a really good way to, you know, peak my mentality for the day. When you were in the teams, what was your observation about how winning and losing would impact people in the short and long term?
From the perspective of leadership and maybe more importantly from the perspective of yourself, how do you work with that? How do you calibrate wins and losses? How do you transmute losses into energy? Because wins we know convert to energy, but losses oftentimes can sap our energy way, way down. To start with, I think that the selection process to get into the SEAL teams is going to weed out a bunch of people that can't recover very quickly from something bad. The kid that was the star of the football team, the star of the basketball team, the captain of this, the captain of that, he's been winning his whole life, he goes to Buds and he quits.
Because in Buds, you're not gonna win. You're certainly not gonna win everything. They're gonna find what you're not good at and they're gonna exploit that and you're gonna lose. a lot of guys that may lose and it disrupts their motivation, they're probably just going to quit. And so that's why you get this massive attrition rate with guys that are studs. Division one athlete, division one wrestlers, division one football players, division one runners and swimmers, they all come to butts. They all quit, not all of them quit, but there's plenty of examples of the highest level of collegiate athlete in sports that translate very well to what you're doing in basic SEAL training and they quit.
And sometimes it's because they don't know how to lose, they don't know how to recover from a loss. So I think already, and once you get to a SEAL team, you've got people that are generally speaking going to be pretty resilient when it comes to dealing with a loss. Now once you're in the teams and what you're talking about is now you start taking much more significant loss. You're not losing a race. one of your friends and this is what from a leadership perspective you have to you have to pay attention to so when you're a leader in any organization you're basically in charge of a mob when it comes to what their morale is and they feed off of each other just like a mob riding in the streets going oh we can break this window let's break all the windows and they move this mob mentality and that happens with morale inside of a team and you as a leader can't get caught up with the mob. You have to detach yourself from the mob mentally so that you don't get caught up in their emotions and their morale because if you get caught up in their emotions and you get caught up in their morale, you can't correct it. So we go out on a mission. The mission goes great. We get into a gunfight, kill a couple bad guys, everyone's okay, high fives, everyone's feeling great. You come back to base, hey we don't need to debrief, that was perfect hey we don't need to get our gear you know uh maintain we can just go to bed we're awesome that's when the leader has to say oh we've got the mob and the mob is becoming slightly arrogant hey guys real quick that was a good op but there's some things we could improve on you got to bring that mob back and bring them back to center line same thing in the other direction you go out on an operation it doesn't go well you go out an operation you take casualties Now you come back to base, you see guys moping around, you see the spirit starting to break, and same thing. If you're part of that mob, you'll be with them, your morale will be breaking, your spirit will be breaking. You got to look and say, oh, I see what's happening. Hey guys, listen up. That was tough. Didn't go the way we wanted it to go. We need to learn some lessons.
Here are some things I can do better. What can we do better to make sure that that never happens again. So as a leader when it comes to winning and losing, you're generally going to be the person countering what the mob mentality is because when the mob starts winning, they want to keep winning and they might get arrogant. When the mob is losing, they might start to lose more because their attitude goes down the drain. So that's what you have to pay attention to from a leadership perspective for me personally I think I know what I did when when I lost guys was focus on all right we need to we need to celebrate the life we need to move the lot mourn the loss and then we need to go to work we need to get our gear back on we need to lock and load our weapons we need to get back out there. I know that that's what we need to do. You know, so often the best way to contend with problems, with issues, with adversity is action, is by taking action.
The more you sit and the more you wait and the more time you spend with that adversity with the upper hand inside your head, the worse it's gonna get. So So for me, always taking action, making something happen, it doesn't have to be huge. It doesn't have to be some mammoth triumph that you're going to go and pursue. But if you say, hey, listen, this is what happened, didn't go the way we wanted it to, we're going to get our gear back on, we're going to go back out, we're going to do this other mission. And it's in your personal life too.
You know, if something doesn't go the way you wanted it to go, you didn't get the job you wanted, you didn't get the hire, you didn't get the promotion, you can go home and sit there and dwell on it. That's not getting you any progress. Or you say, okay, you know what? Let me do a quick analysis. Why didn't I get that promotion? Oh, it's because I didn't get this qualification or I hadn't jumped through this gate. Okay, cool. What do I need? Let me look into how do I get to jump through that gate? So next time I will get the promotion and you start taking action.
Action for me is a cure for a lot of problems that we have in life. I think that in the context of moderating these systems, it's so key. I mean, it's key to have a long arc in a career path, military science or otherwise as a father in particular, how do you apply these same sorts of ideas when your kid is kind of down because it's hard to be a 14-year-old or because it was a bad day or when they're up? Well, clearly, it's a very similar thing to what I just talked about. If your kid is doing well and wins the wrestling tournament and is like, yeah, I won the wrestling tournament.
And what do they want to do? They want to eat a triple cheese pizza, right? right? I mean, they want to go crazy. And you as a leader, and as a, and as a parent, and as a friend need to say, Hey, man, I mean, you did good. That was awesome. You had a great day. But let's start thinking a little bit about next week to how about we just have a few slices of pizza, right as a reward. And this goes with yourself as well. You know, you do something, you have a success and you say, Oh, that that's great. But all glory is fleeting. And I need to get back to work? And look, and do people go too far with that sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Sometimes people, they, they don't stop and celebrate at all.
And those are the kinds of people I think they get burned out eventually because they never say, Hey, that was awesome. We had a big win. Cool. High five. So I think, you know, as a leader, as a friend, as a parent, as a spouse, you want to be able to modulate that, help modulate that. Don't shut it down. You know, your kid walks off the wrestling mat with, for a high five. And you say, you could have won by more. No, I'm not talking about that. Or your kid walks off the mat after losing. You say, you got what you deserve.
No, you've got to be the counter, the counterweight to the emotions that other people have. When you're doing a good job as a leader, as a friend, as a spouse, or whatever, you're doing a good job as a counterweight. I think that's a good way to look at it. You want to provide some balance for people to make sure that they don't get out of control. And you notice when people have a downfall, It's normally because they've surrounded themselves with people that there's no counter too. There's no counter balance. If you were my best friend and I went out drinking last night and had a great time and partied all night and met a girl and you're like, heck yeah, let's do it again tonight.
Eventually, where are we gonna be? We're gonna be in the gutter somewhere. But if you say, hey, dude, that was awesome, but remember, we got school on Monday, right? And you kind of pull me back. We gotta find balance in life and ourselves and then we gotta, as much as we can, provide balance for other people because people are emotional and they get caught up in what they're doing and you wanna keep people balanced. You seem to have a very strong sense of context and self. Was there something in your upbringing, your parents, or was it just kind of how you always imagined yourself as like, yeah, this is who I am?
Because I actually think that many people do not have a very firm sense of self or their sense of self is so rigid that they can only operate in this like narrow trench of one domain of life and they end up very, very isolated. As far as kind of where I became me, I just actually have to kind of give a lot of credit to the music that I grew up listening to and the attitude that we had back then. Listening to hardcore music, being able to stand up against what other people were saying which is what you're doing when you're in that scene.
And the whole DIY nature of it, hey, we can just do this ourselves. We can just make this happen for ourselves. We don't need anybody else, we can do this. And that hardcore attitude and sticking by your friends and standing up and getting in fights and like, that's what you're gonna do, that's kind of my attitude. That music is the soundtrack to my life. And so I always would have that music running in my head. But to your question, I had something in me that when I heard that music for the first time, I was like, okay, here it is, you know, here it is.
This is, you know, I hear the Beatles, I hear the Grateful Dead, I hear the Rolling Stones, I hear the Whoever. And you go, okay, that's fine. But when I heard hardcore music for the first time, when I heard the Chromacs, when I heard Agnostic Front, when I heard the Bad Brains, I thought that was just like, it was part of me already. I'm like a kid living in the woods in Connecticut. I'm just kind of hearing what I'm hearing. He listened to the lyrics, listened to the lyrics of minor threat, listened to the lyrics and you go, okay, this stuff, I agree with this stuff.
And I just think that that kind of set a datum in my head of being okay with being outside, being okay with saying no, being okay with being a rebel, being okay with not going along with what everyone else is doing. That became very important when I was in the military And I looked at what leadership might be telling me to do and might think to myself, hey, that doesn't seem like a good idea. And having the wherewithal to say, hey boss, I'm not sure this is a good idea, not to be a jerk about it, but just to say, there might be a better way to get this done.
What do you think of this? Or, hey boss, can I ask you a question about that? So I think if I had to trace it back, having black flag my war side two on my record player for like a year and a half straight, that's gonna leave a mark, man. And I think it left a mark on me. What are your sources of motivation? Well, you probably heard me say that motivation isn't something that I am going to count on because it's just an emotion that's gonna come and go. Just like feeling happy. You feel happy right now. Maybe you won't feel happy in 15 minutes.
You feel sad now. Maybe you won't feel sad in 15 minutes. You feel motivated right now. You might not feel motivated in 15 minutes. Therefore, I can't rely on it. So I'm not gonna put any money on just being motivated because it doesn't really matter to me. So the daily actions that I take aren't from motivation. They're just from discipline. Like I said earlier, I'm not gonna get up and go through some big debate about, well, do I really feel like doing this? No, I don't feel like doing this, but it doesn't matter. So I'm just gonna go do it.
You, in particular, have said several times today, rather than looking for sources of things outside you, like a job or a relationship, which are all great, but as sources of energy or motivation or inspiration to use action as a positive action as a source of energy. Yeah, and positive action is when you have to contend with something, when there's something that you're afraid of, right? Step into it, move towards it. You don't solve problems by running away from them. You solve them by moving towards them and figuring out what's going on. Then we can go down the whole path of talking about the indirect approach, which is a theory of combat, which I completely believe in, but it also applies to interacting with other people.
If you have a problem with some other person to think to myself, well, I got a problem with Andrew, I'm gonna go confront him on it. And that might not be the best solution. In fact, it's probably not the best solution for me to go confront you with a problem because now we're gonna have a confrontation. It might be better for me to take an indirect approach and not confront you, but instead engage in a conversation with you about something that's maybe adjacent to the problem that I have. And then eventually that builds our relationship to a point where you start to recognize, oh, I bet Jocko feels something about this thing and we can move towards a solution instead of me trying to punch you in the face with some truth that I believe versus the truth that you believe.
And now we're engaged in combat and that's bad. There's gonna be casualties. I'd rather take an indirect approach and build a relationship where we can solve problems in a more positive way. I also heard you say something earlier that's still flagging in my mind, which is not thinking too much. And you've talked about third-personing of the self. I'd love to talk a little bit more about this, even though it's a topic you've delved into before. And in particular, the topic of meditation. Do you meditate? And if you don't do a kind of standard meditation, are there times throughout your day and your routine and your week where, as I'm describing this, it maps to something that kind of feels like open monitoring or focused meditation?
Yeah, so no, I don't meditate. I haven't ever, I don't think I've ever actually meditated for one second in my life and I've never tried to do it. That being said, if the goal is to take a step back and detach from what's going on, I do that all day, every day. So, that is something that I've talked about. It's something that I tried to teach. I tried to teach the young SEAL leaders not to get caught up in what's happening right in front of them, but to take a step back, detach from the situation, detach from their emotions. On the battlefield, I want people to be able to see more angles, more maneuvers, more opportunities, more of what the enemy might do, more perspective.
And it goes to what I was saying earlier about the mob. Being able to be part of a team, part of the mob, part of the gang, but still have the ability to take a step back, detach from that, and assess what is the best way for this team to move forward. to me is the true superpower of life. And you know, this goes back to when you'd start talking about people that are having, going through struggles in life, right? And I've described this before as, you know, if I'm looking at you and you're in a bad state, right? You're depressed, you're sad, you're moping around, you're not getting anything done.
And I'm looking at you from the outside and I'm thinking for me, I see this storm cloud around your head. All you see, no matter what direction you look, is storm. All you see is darkness. I'm outside and I'm looking, hey man, this guy's got a great education, he's healthy, he's got a good team around him, like he's got all these things going for him. But you, in that state, you literally cannot see anything but the darkness of the storm. And that's what's so scary about when people enter that mode, is you can look, I can look at it from the outside and be like, Andrew, you just got to move like four feet forward and you're going to be through this thing.
And yet you're, you might hear me say that and you go, no, Jocko, I'm looking ahead. There's nothing but darkness. So helping people move forward, take action and be able to get that perspective, detach and get outside themselves, get outside their own heads. You know, Tim Ferriss said, get out of your head, get into your body. That's one way to do it. Take action, go do things. it's very scary and I'm sure you've had this experience where you're talking to someone that you know and you're looking at them going hey man no it's gonna be okay like you can clearly see that whatever there whatever is bothering them and dragging them now you can clearly see you know a lot of times it's a relationship right the the girl the guy they got they got dumped and you go hey man that person was a disaster anyways you're better off without them and they cannot compute that they are stuck there or maybe it's the school that they didn't get into or the job that they they didn't get, and they get so wrapped up in that they can't get out of that storm.
It's such a helpless feeling, and that's why trying to engage with people and trying to give people that superpower of detachment where they can take a step back and say, you know what, you're right, man, that girl, she wasn't who I really thought she was, I should move on, yes. The solution to your problem is not gonna be found in the problem. It's not gonna be found in there. You have to get out of the problem so that you can look at it, make an assessment, and you can assess how to solve the problem or whether you need to solve the problem or not.
So detachment is a superpower, man. What is your process for engaging detachment or for disengaging? I recognized like in a moment what detachment was and how helpful it was on an oil rig, doing a training mission. My whole platoon is in a skirmish line looking at a large area of the oil rig that we're supposed to be clearing. Again, this is not combat. This is in the 90s, there's nothing going on. We're just doing training. And I'm standing in this skirmish line. And by the way, I'm the youngest and most junior guy in my platoon. And I'm standing there looking down the site of my weapon, and I'm waiting for someone to make a call and tell us what to do.
And I wait for five seconds, and I wait for 10 seconds, and I wait for 20 seconds, and no one's saying anything. And we're waiting for a leader in my platoon to make a call, to tell us what to do, to tell me what to do. And finally, after like 30 seconds, which seems like an eternity, I can't take it anymore. I take a step off the skirmish line. I look to my left, I look to my right, and what I see is every other guy in my platoon is staring down their weapon, which means their field of view is tiny.
It's like a 20-degree field of view. You're looking down the scope of your weapon or the sight of your weapon, and that's how big their field of view is. I'm looking, I'm thinking, oh, there's my platoon commander. He's looking down the scope, the sight of his weapon. There's my platoon chief. He's looking down the sight of his weapon. There's my leading petty officer. He's looking down the sight of his weapon. There's my assistant platoon commander. So everyone in the platoon is looking down the side of their weapon, which means they all have a very narrow field of vision. Well, when I take a step back and look to my left and look to my right, guess what kind of field of vision I got? I got a massive one.
I can see the whole scene and I can see exactly what it is we need to do. Look, as a new guy, you need to keep your mouth shut. You don't say anything. And I'm thinking, well, but no one else is saying anything. So I muster up all the courage I can. And I open my mouth and I say hold left clear right, which is a basic tactical call This is not a patent level genius maneuver. It's just a normal call to make in a situation that we were in I say hold left clear right and I'm expecting to get kind of slapped told shut up new guy But instead everyone just repeats the call hold left clear right hold left clear right We get to the the top of the oil rig which means we cleared the whole thing We're on the helo deck at the top and we go into a debrief and now I'm expecting okay now I'm going to get told, hey, what were you doing?
You need to keep your mouth shut. And instead, the platoon chief goes, hey, Jocko, good call on the cellar deck down there. And I was kind of like, yeah, that's right. But then I thought to myself, hold on a second. If I'm the youngest most junior guy in this platoon, why was I able to see what we needed to do and make that call? Why did that just happen? And then I realized it was because I took a step back. I broadened my field of view, which allowed me to think more clearly. Because instead of being hyper-focused and narrowly focused, I broadened my range of vision.
I took a breath before I made my call, right? I had to take a nice breath to speak clearly, and I realized that taking a step back and detaching, I got to see infinitely more than even the most experienced guys in my platoon. And I started doing it all the time, and I started doing it in land warfare. I started doing it in urban combat. I started doing it in all these tactical training scenarios. These are just training, this is the 90s. Started doing these training scenarios, and it always allowed me to see what we needed to do. Then I started doing it, like when I was having conversations with people, and having a conversation with my platoon chief, and I can see that he's starting to turn a little red in the face, and we're about to argue about something.
I said, oh, wait a second, I'm taking a step back, look and vote. He's getting mad right now, and he's the platoon chief. And I'd say, hey, you know what, chief, that sounds good, let me go re-look at the plan or whatever. And so I started to do this kinda with my normal life, was to not get wrapped up in my own emotions, not get wrapped up in the gun fight that was happening right in front of my face, not to get wrapped up in the details of what was going on, but instead take a step back, detach, look around, and then you can make a much, much better decision.
Now listen, if you are the only person in a gun fight, it's gonna be harder for you to do that because you've got to be focused on whatever you're shooting at. But when you have 16 guys or 20 guys, they're all looking in the same direction. It's very easy to be the guy that goes on to take a step back, look around, make a call. When I teach this to people now, the mechanics of it, take a step back, literally, you know, you and I are at a meeting, there's a bunch of people that starts to get heated argument. I will literally push my chair back away from the table, change my perspective, open, widen my field of view.
The other thing like in the SEAL teams, you don't want to sound panicked on the radio for a couple reasons. Number one, because when you panic on the radio, it's gonna cause other people to panic. Number two, if you panic on the radio and you sound panicked, everyone's gonna make fun of you. So what would I do before I would key up my radio? Take a breath. And so here I'm manually slowing down my breath. I'm broadening my field of view. So if you're in a meeting or you're at the supermarket parking lot and someone starts to yell at you, take a step back.
Take a breath, broaden your field of view, detach from those emotions that you're having and make some space. And I'll tell you, here's another like weird little nuance thing. Lift your chin up and put your hands down. When I get defensive, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna raise my hands up and put my chin down. That's like a fighting mode. So if you and I are having a discussion and I'm starting to get heated and I'm starting to like, oh, he's not listening to me. Instead of me putting my chin down and put my hands like up to where I can put him in your face a little bit.
No, I'm actually gonna take a step back. I'm gonna say, put my chin up. It changes my perspective a little bit more. It changes my visual perspective just by changing the angle of my head. Take a step back, put my hands down. I'm not being at a defensive mood. I actually wanna hear what you have to say. And if I start listening to what you have to say and not talking, it's very hard to be detached when you're talking. It's another key component. You wanna detach? Shut your mouth. I'm in a meeting in my companies. I'm not the one that's doing all the talking.
In fact, I'm doing mostly listening, and that way I'm detached. I'm listening to what they have to say. I'm more capable of seeing what holes there are in their plans by not moving my mouth, not talking. I'm listening. So those are some of the methodologies that I use and that I advise people to use in order to effectively start down the pathway of being able to detach in various scenarios. It applies to everything that we do. if you're having a conversation with your significant other and you start to see that they're getting frustrated about something. Now look, if you're in the conversation, 100%, you're gonna get frustrated too.
You're gonna get frustrated, they're frustrated. Next thing you know, you've got an emotional argument going on, whereas if you take a mental step back and say, wait a minute, why are they frustrated right now? Oh, because I'm trying to solve their problem when really what they're looking to do is vent. Okay, got it. Let them vent. Okay, cool. Oh, that sounds horrible. You know, what do you think you're gonna do? Instead of saying, well, if that's the problem, here's what you should do, because people are always looking for that. So yeah, this thing, this ability is, and it's something that can absolutely be trained.
And that's what's cool about it. It can absolutely be trained. It's not a natural gift. It's, some people will be better at it than others, but it's something that you can train. And I used to see guys develop it, and I see people develop it now in the business world. Do you think there's value to doing things each day that suck a little bit or from time to time doing something that puts one into a state of deliberate discomfort? 100%, I mean, even in order to improve yourself, you gotta impose some discipline on yourself, right? Just like you would develop your legs by doing squats and you would develop your back by doing pull-ups, I think you would develop your resiliency by doing repetitions of things that require you to be tougher.
I just want to extend an enormous thank you. You know, as a civilian, thank you for the work you did in the military, but also teaching people about the military. I think a lot of people don't realize what it's about at any level and learning about your experience there and what you've observed, bringing other people's experiences from the military more broadly is super important. And sharing this and being able to entertain some of my scientific riffs. So thank you, thank you, thank you. There's plenty of people that have done way more than I've ever done and sacrificed infinitely more than I ever sacrificed.
So I'm thankful for being here. I know that you put all kinds of information and I the same back at you. I have greatly benefited from the information that you put out. And so I thank you as well and appreciate coming on here and appreciate you spreading the word about how people can be better yourself. So thanks for having me. I appreciate it, man. Let's do it again.