Jocko Podcast 12 - With Echo Charles | What Made Jocko

2016-03-03T02:25:31Z

Join the conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink, @echocharles 0:00:00 – 0:04:03 – What made Jocko Jocko 0:04:03 – “The Forgotten Highlander” Book review 1:04:50 – Jocko won’t complain about anything ever again. 1:12:06 – Mistakes by Leaders and re-gaining trust. 1:20:04 – Workouts for Special Forces selection. 1:26:56 – Is the Military a “Young Man’s Game”? 1:32:21 – When to cut your losses. When to decide to cut bait. 1:43:40 – Substituting anger for aggression. 2:04:31 – Switching BEAST MODE on and off.

AI summary of episode

I don't even remember there were so many of them that we do and Greg Jackson would bring guys out to to fight to compete and so like we wrestled against these guys you know or we did some fishing grappling and these guys so I kind of knew him from that and then surprisingly one time when the UFC was in San Diego I was at work at the seal teams and someone called and said hey there's a there's a guy from the UFC here do you want to give them a tour of you know he wants a tour the UFC set up a tour of the seal teams they want to show them around like the facility there is facilities you know the whatever some guns you know just the gear so when it doesn't make sense logical sense to go on that's when you got to use your emotion that's when you got to use that anger and frustration that fear to push yourself harder to push yourself to say I don't stop and when your feelings are screaming that you've had enough and when you think you're going to break emotionally you got to override that emotion with the concrete logic and will power that says you know what I don't stop so you fight the weak emotions with the power of logic and you fight the weakness of logic with the power of emotions and in the balance of those two that's where you find the strength and the tenacity and the guts to say yourself I don't stop and you won't and I think that's about it for tonight so thanks to everyone for tuning in and listening to us if you want to continue these conversations you want to join in these conversations you connect with us through the interwebs on Twitter I'm at Jocca Willink and of course echo Charles is at echo Charles thanks for leaving reviews of the podcast on iTunes and of the book on Amazon and most of all everyone that's out there tuning in listening you got your head set on you're getting in the zone thank you for getting after it and so until next time this is Jocco and echo out and those would you do you think I mean total gas but do you think that's because those just happen to be the exceptions or is it because really the formula kind of seems like here's the emotion and then here's all the logic and the skill and the planning implementation of you know game plans and all the all the stuff that you're gonna use in your mind and here's the emotion it's like it's like it's like a little spark plug or something that's what it sounds like no I did that don't perfectly try to do it if I were to go out of my way to leave out that number true you know you wanted to know you wanted to know how much I was doing I knew you were going to say it didn't matter for now you wanted to help anyway doesn't matter nonetheless the first time I failed and I was like but I felt that anger and power playing takes technique that's the thing it's not like it's just you know like I don't know like a even bench has some technique but that left is I mean everything has technique but power clean takes a little bit more technique than other left and I'm watching the fight and Greg Jackson is cornering Carlos content now if you don't know anything about Greg Jackson he's he's pretty zen like a guy and I'm actually going back in the day going way back in the day when Dean and I were competing all the time in the kind of the so-called scene of grappling we would we do every competition there was we're competing all the time grappling And he's like, hey, it's slow, you know, the cat is a big, you know, Bobcat, you know, the Bobcat is not sure. and it's the same thing with Carlos Carlos was absolutely gonna lose that fight if he didn't do something different if he didn't you know it's like it's like hit in the turbo button it's like hitting uh when I hit your socks And as a matter of fact, I actually had a mutiny in, in one of my potuence, where this is a long time ago, it's, you know, all the names are long since forgotten, but we had a, we had a mutiny in our potuence, where we said, you know, pretty much us, us lower and listed guys, we had a, we went to the, we literally went to the commanding officer, and said, we don't work with this guy. but with but with anger you know it can make you go for another you know whatever maybe it's maybe it's two minutes and this is something else have you ever missed like a heavy single like You know how people will like, I don't know, something just as small as like name dropping. right you know well he's been abusing her for 10 years already you know or in your case 27 years or you know whatever the number is And, you know, I wanted to have him on as a, you know, as a, as a, as a, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but I wanted to have guy from his platoon on or from there, platoon on to talk about him. you know there's a great time where you like you know what I'm not gonna let my emotions play into this I heard a heard something about tiger woods and his golf game So, you know, all these ideas that people have of the, you know, military and of, you know, we obey orders and all this stuff. and I think these times you know like I talked about Jeremy you know I had to provoke some anger out of him Mary's not spending the way they train up there at try stories I spent like the week and I was like half a week or whatever with them with for us and um and Rory and it's heat for us as this head you know how guys hold mitts I'm sure they hold mitts and stuff He's like, it doesn't, it can carry a ton of, you know, it was like you, you're like the cat. but so Carlos Condit versus Rory McDonald and Carlos who's the veteran is going up the kids the kid you know Rory McDonald was in kind of an A was an unknown but he was definitely the younger I think he was 20 years old you know just a kid no offense Rory right I mean what we just said I mean we've seen it we know we know for a fact but rules are made to be broken um there are times win emotion can increase performance right they're absolutely are and a zen like guy if you watch him in the corners of his fights he's always like that just very steady and hey this is what you need to do you need to watch out for this or whatever hmm so I'm watching this fight and like I said Carlos Condit versus Rurric Donald Carlos is not winning right but I just snake some really good seats so I had a really good view by the way when I go to UFC thanks day to white and the rest of the crew like I sneak into some awesome seats after I get done cornering people so thank you so I was sitting you know in the second row or something phenomenal seat that I'd snuck into and because they throw you in the cheap seats when you're when you're cornering people you come out to watch the fights

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 12 with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:12] Sometimes people ask me, what made me me? How did I turn out like this where did I come from?
[00:00:28] And I go back and I point at hardcore music grown up and I've been in that scene where it was cool to be hard and strong.
[00:00:39] It was about a crescent and disciplined. Those were like the underlying theme. So I pointed that, you know.
[00:00:47] And I think that's real.
[00:00:49] There was mantras that I remember from those days that stuck with me my whole life from some of those from some of that music.
[00:00:58] And then there's other things that influenced me as a kid, that had even even a younger age.
[00:01:07] And one of the things that I know influenced me at a very young age in a pretty significant way was seeing the movie,
[00:01:18] Bridge on the river choir, which is a classic war movie.
[00:01:26] And that movie pretty much had it all for me.
[00:01:31] And I think I can trace my ideas of being a commando.
[00:01:35] I'm going to use that word. You know, that's kind of a archaic word that people don't use anymore.
[00:01:41] I don't know, man, though, but I think I got it from watching that movie when I was a kid. And if you haven't seen that movie, you should check it out for sure because it's epic.
[00:01:55] And it's the story of prisoners of war and American and British mostly British that are sent to build a bridge in the middle of the jungle in Burma.
[00:02:07] And it's a train line that is to connect bankoc and rain, goon.
[00:02:12] And of course, these are prisoners. So they're badly mistreated. They're beaten, they're poorly fed.
[00:02:19] Eventually, one American escapes. And he leads a commando troop back to the side of the bridge to blow up the bridge.
[00:02:30] And they do it all. The commando is in the movie. They do it all. They perish you in. They swim up the river.
[00:02:35] They lay demolition on the bridge. It's like a dream operation.
[00:02:40] And one part of the plot, though, is that the senior British officer at the camp, the senior prisoner at the camp,
[00:02:48] these name and the movie is the 10-occurnal Nicholson. He takes a true leadership role in building the bridge.
[00:02:57] Now, think about that. He's being tasked by the Japanese to build this bridge. And instead of sabotaging the job,
[00:03:07] because it's going to help the Japanese, he actually gets his men fired up and helps organize and has his engineers redesign it.
[00:03:16] And they relocate it to a better piece of terrain. And he pushes his men to do a good job building it.
[00:03:22] And he actually takes pride in this bridge. And again, this is a bridge that's going to aid in Japanese domination.
[00:03:32] So when the commando's show up to blow it up, the colonel, he, he almost foils the attack.
[00:03:42] But in the end, the bridge gets destroyed. It's an awesome movie.
[00:03:47] And it was, like I said, it was very influential to me as a kid, and people should definitely watch it.
[00:03:56] And then you should know this. It's all alive.
[00:04:02] What's all alive?
[00:04:05] Well, there really was a bridge on the riverkway.
[00:04:08] And it really was built by prisoners of war. But that's about where the similarities end.
[00:04:18] What the prisoners suffered at the hands of the Imperial Japanese guards is beyond anything that they showed in the movie.
[00:04:26] And really beyond anything that even remotely civilized person could imagine.
[00:04:37] I was, I was overseas recently. And you're up and I was in Britain. And a friend of mine gave me a book called The Forgotten Highlander.
[00:04:49] And he told me, you know, oh, it's by one of the soldiers that built the bridge on the riverkway, read it.
[00:04:54] And I thought to myself, okay, you know, great. It's like the movie.
[00:04:59] And he said, it's not like the movie. It's not like the movie at all.
[00:05:04] And it isn't. This is a book that shows the ultimate in human suffering.
[00:05:14] And through that, the ultimate in human will.
[00:05:24] The author, Alistair, your cart was fresh to the British military. He was sent to Singapore. And when Singapore was overrun by the Japanese Imperial Army, he ended up in the jungle, a prisoner and a slave.
[00:05:47] By this time, mental health had become a major issue on the railway. We all suffered from depression. Men were taking their own lives.
[00:05:58] All along the railway, men cut their own throats, put their heads on the railway line, and simply walked into the jungle to die.
[00:06:11] Many developed the A-Tap Stair and just looked intently at the faturew of the hut. Death soon followed.
[00:06:21] Others went mad because of medical conditions caused by vitamin deficiencies. And some just gave up, losing their minds and their self-control.
[00:06:32] They would fight with anyone over nothing at all, throwing punches, biting, kicking. They needed to be controlled physically.
[00:06:43] But just could not become down. It came to a point where something drastic had to be done to prevent innocent men being killed by deranged fellow prisoners.
[00:06:54] Some of whom had revered to animal instincts. The decision was made to build our own lunatic asylum to cage these poor souls.
[00:07:05] With the agreement of the Japanese, the burial party built two six-foot square bamboo cages.
[00:07:12] The mad men could stand or lie down in these just ten feet from my hut, and they had a bench to sit on. They received food and water, but sadly were largely ignored.
[00:07:26] At night it was awful to hear them in the darkness jabbering and screaming, throwing themselves at the cages.
[00:07:34] The men who went in never came out alive. Death would have been welcomed for them. It was a dreadful thing to see our fellow human beings cage like animals.
[00:07:47] But what else could we do?
[00:07:59] As I was preparing for this in a lot of times when I'm putting notes together, thinking about something that I'm going to say, some comparable thing that I can bring back from some of my experiences.
[00:08:19] When I got nothing for you, I got nothing for you. And this book is just like that.
[00:08:32] Back to the book.
[00:08:35] I turned to God several times, often I felt my prayers went unanswered, but I somehow lived through this madness, and I think that someone must have been listening.
[00:08:48] Faith and God could not prevent the beatings on the railway, which were totally routine. The threat of a rifle butt across your head or bamboo cane across your body forever loomed large.
[00:09:01] For no reason at all, wire wips would lash into our backs and draw blood.
[00:09:06] Some guards would creep up on you and strike the open tropical ulcers on your legs with a bamboo stick, causing intense agony.
[00:09:15] Often they delivered these beatings with such brutality and swiftness that you did not see them coming, or even know that they were what they were for.
[00:09:24] Sometimes you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Korean guards took a certain pleasure in the beatings.
[00:09:32] They had expressed permission to kill prisoners without any reference to higher authority, but most of them would be satisfied to stop at the sight of a blood trickling.
[00:09:43] The beatings no matter how frequent, never got easier to take.
[00:09:48] In fact, they got tougher. Each time I took a beating it chipped away, not just at my bones and waning muscles, but at my will to endure them.
[00:09:58] The dilemma was whether to swallow your pride by going down at the first blow, or to retain some of your dignity by taking several blows and standing up to them.
[00:10:09] If you refuse to show that their blows were hurting you, they would fly into rages, and the beating could be severe, even fatal.
[00:10:23] From an early period, the Japanese camp common-dont, whom I called the Black Prince, became ever more inventive with his punishments.
[00:10:34] I could not imagine a more sadistic and evil person on the planet. The more heinous the so-called crime, the sicker the sentence.
[00:10:43] Under his instructions, the guards had free reign. If they felt you deserved something more than a beating, it meant taking you aside and making you pick up a large boulder.
[00:10:56] For the rest of the day you had to hold the rock over your head in the blazing heat. Within minutes you're already weak in malnourished arms would start to twitch and fail you.
[00:11:07] Before long, you would have to drop the rock, usually the size of a rugby ball or football, mindful so that you did so without letting it fall on your own skull.
[00:11:17] When you let go the guards would pounce, fists, rifle butts, and boots, flailing into your body until you picked up the rock again. It would go on all day.
[00:11:29] And if the Japanese officer did not think you had learned your lesson sufficiently, the punishment would be repeated back at camp.
[00:11:39] The black prince was a true bastard. Others called him the can you kid, but I thought my name suited Lieutenant Usuki really well.
[00:11:49] He was darker than the other Japanese soldiers and strut it around like royalty, his beefy gut protruding from beneath the shabby uniform. He despised us totally. We were scum to him.
[00:12:03] His absolute power over us and capacity for pitilessness, for pitiless brutality made him so terrifying to me.
[00:12:13] Long before our decision to incarcerate crazy men, the Japanese had built their own cages. The black holes, as they were known, were a higher form of punishment.
[00:12:25] Those fortunate enough to be locked inside the scent that those unfortunate enough to be locked inside the semi-subterranean cages, proportion so you could not stand, lie down, or even kneel fully.
[00:12:39] Would be kept in for a month typically, corrugated iron and metal covered the bamboo to intensify the heat and deprived victims of air and any cooling breeze. Few who went in came out alive.
[00:12:59] Yeah, it's unbelievable.
[00:13:10] Unbelievable.
[00:13:18] The black prince's right hand man was sergeant, Sachi, known to us brit simply as Dr. Death. Short and squat, he took the roll calls and carried out all of the camp common-downs orders.
[00:13:34] Presumably he was more educated than the other Japanese or Koreans, but he was evil to the marrow. Ruflus in the extreme he loved tormenting us. He especially reveled in a sickening brand of water torture.
[00:13:49] He had guards pinned down his hapless victim before pouring gallons of water down the prisoners throat using a bucket and a hose. The man's stomach would swell up from huge volumes of water.
[00:14:03] He would then jump up and down gleefully on the prisoners stomach. Sometimes the guards tied barbed wire around the poor soul's stomach. Few survived.
[00:14:18] When a prisoner was caught stealing from the Japanese officer's store room, or if a man turned on a guard, they received the next grade on the sliding scale of Japanese torture.
[00:14:38] I called it the Indian rope trick, one favored by Indians in the old cowboy films. The helpless prisoner would be tethered spread eagle to the ground.
[00:14:49] They wrapped wet raton. The same string-like bark used to lash our bamboo huts together, around his ankles and wrists, and tied him to stakes in the ground.
[00:15:01] As the raton dried, the ties would slowly gash into the skin, drawing blood and tearing into the sinu and cartilage as it pulled limbs from their sockets.
[00:15:11] It reduced even the toughest men to agonize screaming, and they would be there all day.
[00:15:19] I would almost be glad to get out of camp in the mornings just to avoid hearing their cries of unbridled pain.
[00:15:28] It was a way of torturing all of us. Often, when we return from a day on the railway, the men would no longer be there.
[00:15:38] Nobody asked where they had vanished to. I certainly did not want to know. After such a horrific ordeal, at the end of a Japanese bayonet, would have been welcomed.
[00:15:53] The men would have been there all day.
[00:15:58] They would have been there all day.
[00:16:03] They would have been there all day.
[00:16:08] So, as time went on, eventually, when they showed up, they had their pants, their shirt, their boots, their socks, and as time went on, they all that stuff just got destroyed,
[00:16:21] and they were going to go to the jungle as they worked and eventually fell apart.
[00:16:26] And one of the worst things to lose is the last thing that Alistar lost was his boots.
[00:16:43] Now, in bare feet, I had a new challenge. My feet were extremely soft from living constantly in wet boots, and the ground was particularly unforgiving.
[00:16:54] The jagged volcanic rocks often hiding just below the surface of top soil.
[00:16:59] I knew that the soils would harden up, but until then, I would have to walk like a cripple.
[00:17:06] When using the spade, I wouldn't be able to use my foot to dig deeper into the soil and would have and would require more upper body strength.
[00:17:15] Having no boots also made the ever frequent trips to the benios, the latrines, even more unsavory.
[00:17:24] They were revolting.
[00:17:26] Vast open pits, later covered in, after weakened prisoners began to collapse into them and drown.
[00:17:34] As you approached the benios, you had to wade through the mud, layered with excrement of those disinterest sufferers who never were quite made it.
[00:17:44] Flies and maggots and flies and maggots swarmed and wriggled over this foul mush.
[00:17:51] It got so bad that we had a bucket of water at the entrance to wash our hut, to wash our feet in.
[00:17:58] It all added to the misery.
[00:18:05] It's amazing what we take for granted, isn't it?
[00:18:11] Yeah, to say the least.
[00:18:15] And he goes on to talk about, and if you, how do you deal with this when you're going through it?
[00:18:23] And he writes, in moments of adversity, I would often think back to my childhood and remember going barefoot during the long hot summers.
[00:18:33] We spent down at the Aberdeen, Aberdeen's your fishing village of Newton Hill, where I was born.
[00:18:42] So there he is, you know, having to go barefoot as feet practically falling off.
[00:18:47] And the best thing he can do is try and think of the good times in his life when he was forced to go barefoot.
[00:18:58] And you'd think you'd think some level of camaraderie would be critical.
[00:19:11] And this is one of those books where again, in almost every military book you, it's to hear about leadership and camaraderie.
[00:19:22] And there's points in this book where that stuff fails.
[00:19:26] Fails.
[00:19:31] And this is where he kind of talks about that back to the book.
[00:19:37] I even cast a gate in myself for getting involved with another prisoner's problems.
[00:19:43] Once you got started with sentimentality and grief, you were a goner.
[00:19:48] It was a selfish tactic, but I was desperate to survive.
[00:19:52] I was refusing to let the Japanese win this.
[00:19:56] Like on the death march, some men found the going easier by teaming up and making a close bond with another prisoner.
[00:20:04] They would fight railway life together, sharing whatever food they had, helping each other, wherever they could, and always having their back.
[00:20:13] They even took beatings together to share the blows and the pain.
[00:20:18] It was not the way for me.
[00:20:20] I watched the hardache of men losing their best pals and suddenly being left alone.
[00:20:26] They never usually lasted very long and soon followed their mates to the grave.
[00:20:33] By now, the cuts on my feet and legs had turned into painful and dangerous tropical ulcers.
[00:20:44] When I suffered scrapes on the railway or had a rush, I could not tend to it until, yes, some time, which is like rest time or ad-ease time.
[00:20:54] On a warrantile I was back at camp, then I wrapped leaves around the cuts at night to keep the flies off, but it was useless, and the ulcers usually spread.
[00:21:04] They routed your flesh, muscle, and tendons.
[00:21:08] People were left with gaping holes as the flesh simply fell away, and also would eat deep into your flesh, so deep you could sometimes see the white of bone.
[00:21:19] Even worse, if you are not careful, they could become gangrenees, and many men lost legs that way, by improvised amputation, without anesthetics or drugs.
[00:21:39] I went to the medical hut for advice. In common with most of the men tropical ulcers had engulfed my feet, ankles, and lower calves.
[00:21:49] I had avoided the medical hut until that point. It was set aside from the sleeping huts and about the same size as ours.
[00:21:57] The officer in charge was Dr. Mathison, a likable character from pastely just outside Glasgow, where he had studied medicine.
[00:22:07] He had come to Singapore about the same time as me, and would later in much different circumstances save my life.
[00:22:15] On this, my first encounter with him, he would at least save my legs.
[00:22:23] Sneaking under the cloud of black flies that circled outside the hut like a swarm of miniature volatures I entered nervously.
[00:22:31] The overpowering stench immediately had me gasping. Stepping across the cadaverous forms of five or six men who appeared to be wrapping a deathstore,
[00:22:43] Dr. Mathison introduced himself. I had not spoken for so many days that when I went to reply, my parched throat failed me.
[00:22:52] Here, he said, handing me a half coconut cup of water. Get this down you.
[00:22:58] I sip the cool water down and thanked him, asking how his patients were.
[00:23:04] Dr. Mathison, it is mid-30s at this point, appeared weary beyond his ears. He was probably on self-imposed half rations just to keep some spare for his patients.
[00:23:16] The men had spoke highly of him, and many of our doctors were revered as saintly figures.
[00:23:22] The doctor took me by the arm and led me down to the far end of the hut, away from the men. In a soft, west coast accent, he said, half of these men will die within days.
[00:23:35] The other half, who knows? If I had access to some proper clinical treatments, drugs or instruments, they might live, but that is not possible as I'm sure you know.
[00:23:47] I could only nod in agreement. The squaller and stench of death inside the hut was appalling.
[00:23:55] What can you do for them? I asked. Quite simply not a lot. I try and give them some hope if nothing else.
[00:24:11] He went on. It's easy for these men to give up, and when they lose hope, the fight just seems to seep right out of them.
[00:24:21] On countless occasions, I've seen two men with the same symptoms and the same physical state, and one will die, and one will make it.
[00:24:30] I can only put that down to sheer willpower.
[00:24:46] We do talk about willpower. I don't think we've ever discussed willpower at this level, and that is when you have two men with the same symptoms in the same physical state, and one dies and one lives, and the doctor's only determination as he thinks it comes down to sheer willpower.
[00:25:11] The will is strong. It is a strong force.
[00:25:18] I considered this for a moment and looked around the hut. You could tell the men who are dying by the look on their faces.
[00:25:29] Their gaze was lost before it reached their eyes, and no amount of positive attitude and care from Dr. Matthewson could change their destiny.
[00:25:38] It certainly was not the medical staff's fault. Their hands were tied.
[00:25:43] No blood was firmly on our cappers' hands. I told myself right then and there that I would not stop fighting.
[00:26:02] What can you do for this? I asked the doctor lifting a foot onto a bamboo chair.
[00:26:09] Tropical ice, tropical alcers, a disease of food, filth, and friction.
[00:26:16] Do you know what maggots look like?
[00:26:19] maggots I asked, frantically inspecting my foot praying that I was subject to some sick joke? Yes, maggots. They'll fix you right up. Go down to the latrines, find yourself a handful of those wee white beasties and set them on your ulcers.
[00:26:36] They will chop through the dead flesh before you know it. You'll be right as rain.
[00:26:41] Almost as an afterthought he added, remember to count how many you put on carefully. You don't want to forget one and leaving it there to eat itself to death.
[00:26:54] I left the medical hut shaking my head still wondering if I were being had.
[00:26:59] Letting maggots eat my skin did not sound particularly appetizing, but I was willing to try anything.
[00:27:06] I knew I had to stop the rot that was devouring my legs.
[00:27:10] But latrines were nothing more than holes in the ground, but now with bamboo slats across them.
[00:27:17] A bunch of jungle leaves usually laid piled near or you took your own foliage or toilet paper if there was no river water collected for the job.
[00:27:27] I did not have to go far to find what I was looking for. I genuinely scooped up a handful of maggots watching them squirm and wriggle.
[00:27:36] Without thinking about it too much I found a quiet spot nearby and sat down placing just two or three out of nasty ulcer on my ankle.
[00:27:46] The maggots which were about a quarter of an inch long instinctively knew what to do.
[00:27:51] They started knowing away at my skin and the most with the most miniscule of bites.
[00:27:56] The sensation was of tingling unearthly yet not altogether unpleasant.
[00:28:02] Until the realization that the maggots were eating your raw flesh came racing back to the forefront of your mind,
[00:28:09] I can still feel that sensation to this day.
[00:28:14] But to Dr. Matthews since credit it certainly worked.
[00:28:18] Within days the wounds started to heal and new skin grew back.
[00:28:23] It was a trick that I persisted with throughout my time on a railway passing on to other men when I thought I could.
[00:28:31] They still use that today by the way. The maggots think.
[00:28:38] Yeah. Why have heard of it?
[00:28:42] That's crazy how he was kind of like, I'll never forget that feeling of the maggots.
[00:28:50] But he talked about it as not being totally unpleasant kind of like that.
[00:28:57] Yeah. But because he knew it was kind of healing them, you know?
[00:29:02] Yeah.
[00:29:04] I don't know.
[00:29:06] That's heavy, brother, to me.
[00:29:08] Yeah.
[00:29:11] So now we get into a guy that had tried to escape and was captured.
[00:29:18] I was unaware that anyone had escaped until one morning a sorry looking chap was dragged before us.
[00:29:25] He had been horrifically beaten, his swollen and bloody features virtually unrecognizable.
[00:29:31] The interpreter told us, this man very bad. He tried to escape. No good.
[00:29:40] Two guards threw him down on the ground in front of us.
[00:29:43] The battered wreck of a human frame and made him kneel.
[00:29:48] He did not plead for mercy or beg for assistance.
[00:29:52] He knew his fate and waited silently, resigned to it.
[00:29:57] The black prince who seemed to have dressed up especially for the occasion,
[00:30:02] strode forward and un-sheathed his long samurai sword.
[00:30:08] He prodded the prisoner in the back, forcing him to straighten up.
[00:30:13] Then the black prince raised his sword, it's stainless steel glinted in the sunshine.
[00:30:20] It was a moment of such horror that I could scarcely believe it was really happening.
[00:30:26] I closed my eyes tightly.
[00:30:28] This was one of the many instances of barbarism on the railway that I would try to shut out of my mind.
[00:30:38] But I could not escape the chilling swish of the blade as it cut through the damp tropical air
[00:30:44] or the sickening thwack of the sword coming down on our comrades neck.
[00:30:49] Followed by the dull thump of his head landing on the ground.
[00:30:53] I kept my eyes firmly shut, but swayed on my feet and felt a collective gasp of impotent anger and revulsion.
[00:31:10] And that line right there is something that when I heard it and when I read it,
[00:31:21] I kind of fought to myself that this is what separates every experience I've had in my life with this.
[00:31:29] And that is this gasp of impotent anger and revulsion.
[00:31:35] So the anger is there, the revulsion is there, but it's impotent.
[00:31:40] And you can't do anything about it because you're a slave and you're at the mercy of another human being.
[00:31:46] Your freedom has been taken away.
[00:31:57] You can't talk about freedom fairly often.
[00:32:07] And I don't think there could be any greater reminder of how precious freedom is
[00:32:17] than reading about someone, about a group of men that have had their freedom completely taken from them.
[00:32:38] Now, at this point in the book, and I wanted to point this out because if you have seen the movie, the bridge on the river choir,
[00:32:48] he makes some, he kind of spells out the differences.
[00:33:01] The building of the bridge on the river choir took a terrible toll on us and the depiction of our sufferings in the film of the same name was a very, very sanitized version of the events.
[00:33:12] Unlike the well-fed extras in the movie, we did not whistle Colonel Bogey to.
[00:33:19] A noted we work alongside Americans, known we have any semblance of a uniform. We were naked, barefoot slaves. And there were certainly no pretty and scannily-clad local girls wandering through the jungle.
[00:33:35] And contrary to the film, our real-life commander Colonel Philip Tuzzi did not collaborate with the Japanese.
[00:33:42] I was not alone in doing as little work as possible without blatantly shirking, which resulted in sadistic beatings.
[00:33:50] Energy every ounce of it had to be conserved for survival.
[00:33:55] To bust a gut on starvation rations was absolute suicide. We had long lost our dignity and working faster certainly would not have brought it back.
[00:34:06] In fact, it would have resulted in us in the opposite, but even more of us dying.
[00:34:13] Instead we made constant attempts to sabotage.
[00:34:17] Man whispered to orders to impair the construction of the bridge wherever possible.
[00:34:21] Some charged with making up concrete mixtures deliberately added too much sand or not enough, which would later have disastrous effects.
[00:34:31] We collected huge numbers of termites and white ants and deposited them into grooves and joints of load bearing trucks.
[00:34:38] Out of sight of guards, I saw it halfway through wooden bolts wherever possible, hoping they would snap whenever any serious weight like a train was placed upon them.
[00:34:51] But the riverquie and its tributaries harbored a killer even more lethal than the Japanese and our starvation diet.
[00:35:00] As an inevitable consequence of the lack of sanitation and the tens of thousands of bodies buried in shallow graves or dumped along in the jungle, the river system was loaded with cholera, bacteria, and the monsoon season became cholera season.
[00:35:19] As the heightened waters of the Kuei of the Kui flushed Vibrio Chloria throughout the land,
[00:35:29] this fearful disease cast a black shadow over the camp.
[00:35:33] cholera arrived unseen and unheard, but soon had us in its grip.
[00:35:38] I was slow to hear about it, but I sent something terrible was in the camp.
[00:35:43] More men were falling ill than usual, and the Japanese kept their distance, leaving us alone.
[00:35:50] They were scared to death of catching cholera themselves.
[00:35:59] So this wretched disease comes into camp.
[00:36:03] And you just don't think things can get worse, and they do.
[00:36:11] And you think that alisters get a avoid cholera?
[00:36:16] But he doesn't.
[00:36:21] Over night, cholera struck me down.
[00:36:24] I woke up with explosive diarrhea and violent projectile vomiting.
[00:36:29] My ears were ringing as I felt dizzy.
[00:36:32] Cramp started in my bowels and soon spread all over my body as it rapidly dehydrated.
[00:36:38] I was drying from the inside out, shriveling like a picked grape left out in the sun.
[00:36:43] The cholera bacteria bird into the walls of my small intestine, producing toxins that sucked my vital salts,
[00:36:50] and every ounce of water out of my body.
[00:36:55] I was unsure what was wrong, but I knew it was serious.
[00:36:59] I did not want to finish up with life drained out of me.
[00:37:04] I had always been extremely careful to drink only boiled water, so at first I was doubtful that it was cholera.
[00:37:11] I did not know much about it, but I knew that the first 24 hours were crucial.
[00:37:17] If you see through a day and a night, you would probably survive.
[00:37:21] Most men who succumbed did so in the first few hours, a horrible death and so quick.
[00:37:28] Men who threw the bodies of cholera victims onto the funeral pires in the morning could easily contract the disease, die,
[00:37:35] and be thrown on the pyre themselves that evening.
[00:37:39] They died in agony like crazed animals, and it was dreadful to see.
[00:37:51] I lay in my bed unable to rise for work party.
[00:37:55] By then I was semi-conscious and I thought it was the end.
[00:37:58] I was hallucinating.
[00:37:59] Vivid Red Flash is stormed by eyelids.
[00:38:02] I knew I had to seek help.
[00:38:04] After siking myself up, I managed to rise and wobble to doctor Matthewson's hut.
[00:38:11] As soon as I walked in he knew that I had cholera.
[00:38:14] It was a death sentence and he was reluctant to tell me.
[00:38:17] Instead he looked at me and simply said, you'll have to be isolated.
[00:38:22] You'll be looked after.
[00:38:24] His order leads led me to a creme colored of tent.
[00:38:28] Like the ones we had used in the scouts.
[00:38:31] As they peeled back the tent's front flap, a deathly stench leaped out.
[00:38:36] Unknown to me, this was the death tent.
[00:38:40] And I was the unlucky 13th occupant of a dimly lit space already full of men.
[00:38:46] When I saw their state, their eyes rolling back, rasping, unintelligible voices,
[00:38:52] their legs raised with knees bent.
[00:38:54] The bizarre telltale side of a cholera sufferer.
[00:38:57] I knew that my number was up.
[00:38:59] The orderlies were putting me here to die.
[00:39:02] The fight was fading from me.
[00:39:05] And I laid down on the canvas floor with a sense of complete and utter desolation.
[00:39:14] But he did survive.
[00:39:16] Out of the 13 men that went to the tent, he was the only survivor.
[00:39:22] Now, at this point in the book, and I want you to remember that this is a book.
[00:39:40] This is another human being, his life.
[00:39:43] And at this point in Alistair's life, he actually got moved to another facility.
[00:39:51] Another prison camp that was four people that weren't really bad, bad shape.
[00:39:59] And he was there.
[00:40:00] He went through some recovery time.
[00:40:04] And that's a very important part of the book.
[00:40:14] And then he begins working on the docks, you know, unloading food stores for the Japanese soldier.
[00:40:20] And loading them.
[00:40:23] And eventually, it comes time for him to be moved.
[00:40:33] And so they moved the prisoners of war by shipping them.
[00:40:39] On 4 September 1944, 900 British POWs were rushed up the gangway of the Kachadoki Maru.
[00:40:49] A 10,000 ton cargo vessel that had been named for that had been named the President Harrison,
[00:40:56] before it was captured from the Americans.
[00:40:59] Using sticks, the Japanese drove us like cattle aboard the ship and down into the holds.
[00:41:06] We could never move fast enough for them.
[00:41:09] The liner had two holds, both quite obviously not made to accommodate human beings.
[00:41:15] Yet they wanted around 450 of us in each.
[00:41:19] The lads below were shouting, begging and pleading for the Japanese not to let in any more men.
[00:41:25] But the louder they shouted, the more frenzy the guards became down and down, we went into the depths of hell.
[00:41:35] Nothing in all of our suffering had prepared me for anything like this.
[00:41:41] And even today, I can scarcely find the words to describe the horrors of the Kachadoki Maru.
[00:41:49] By the time I got down to the hold, I had nowhere to sit.
[00:41:53] It was standing room only, most of us packed in like stardines with no toilet facilities.
[00:42:00] Most had dysentery, malaria, berry berry, and all manners of tropical diseases.
[00:42:07] Once inside, and the hold crammed full, the Japanese batten down the hatches plunging us into a terrifying black pit.
[00:42:18] At that moment, the most fearful clammer went up as claustrophobia and panic gripped the men.
[00:42:26] Many feared they were doomed and began screaming and shouting.
[00:42:31] Yet a strange tranquility came over me.
[00:42:34] I felt resigned and just thought this is it.
[00:42:41] I thought that we would never get out alive and would never see home again.
[00:42:47] You felt resigned to accept this as your last.
[00:42:50] I could only think that they were taking us out to see to sink the ship and drown us all.
[00:42:55] Our captors were capable of it.
[00:42:58] I had seen what they were capable of anything.
[00:43:03] We knew nothing about these ships, which would become infamous in the annals of the second world war history as hellships.
[00:43:11] A fleet of dozens of rusting hoax used to shuttle supplies and prisoners around Japan's far eastern empire.
[00:43:19] Some of the most appalling episodes of the war occurred on these ships, in which men driven crazy by thirst, killed fellow prisoners to drink their blood.
[00:43:31] In some cases, prisoners trying to escape from the seething mass of hysterical captors were shot by Japanese soldiers.
[00:43:41] Some voyages took weeks with only a handful of prisoners surviving.
[00:43:46] Men drank their own urine.
[00:43:48] Sick prisoners were trampled to death or suffocated.
[00:43:52] The sane murdered the insane and wondered when it would be their turn to go mad.
[00:43:58] Cannibalism as well as vampirism was not unknown and even Japanese medics were shocked by what they found when the holes were finally opened.
[00:44:08] In the case of the Oroko Maru, we're in the same prisoners killed fellow man for their blood.
[00:44:16] Only 271 men survived out of 1,619.
[00:44:23] So all those times that you think of horror movies and they don't seem realistic and you don't think it could ever happen.
[00:44:34] It has happened.
[00:44:37] There must have been at least one officer, a worn officer, a sergeant major, somewhere in the hold, but they certainly didn't make themselves known.
[00:44:46] The discipline had gone. Everyone, whatever their rank was in the same situation, all of us just wanted to survive and were prepared to do anything to ensure that happened.
[00:44:57] It would have taken a very brave man to try and take command of the men in the hold of these conditions.
[00:45:03] It would have been suicidal.
[00:45:09] And again, that's one of those points where every book we've talked about no matter how bad things get.
[00:45:18] There's a leader ready to step up.
[00:45:21] Then you wonder if there's a line that you could ever go across where that doesn't happen.
[00:45:27] Well, here it is.
[00:45:32] I thought I never thought anything could ever match the terror of the railway.
[00:45:40] Being in the hold was worse.
[00:45:43] At least, slaving on the railway, you could move and you had fresh air.
[00:45:49] Then another dread thought struck me, submarines.
[00:45:55] The catchy doku maru had no red cross markings painted on it.
[00:46:00] I would later learn that some that none of the hellships bore any indication that POWs were on board as they were required to do by Geneva Convention.
[00:46:10] Red crosses were, however, painted on Japanese ammunition carriers.
[00:46:16] My fears that without markings, we were a target for our own side.
[00:46:24] So he starts thinking, well, we're part of the Japanese fleet now.
[00:46:31] What if we get attacked by our own people?
[00:46:35] What if we get sunk?
[00:46:40] And as you can probably foresee, because this story is just misery upon misery, it happens.
[00:46:53] In the hold of the Kachidoki Maru, the torment went on.
[00:46:57] The noise was constant and deafening, an awful cock-offening of robbing engines,
[00:47:03] moaning, coughing, and occasional panic-stricken screaming, the background music for this latest torture.
[00:47:11] The chilling screams of the mad and insane would stop abruptly.
[00:47:16] I don't know how they were dealt with, but I could imagine.
[00:47:22] I was completely stuck where I was in the hole and could not move.
[00:47:26] No one could. You couldn't sit or lie down. You couldn't even go down to your haunches.
[00:47:31] There was so little room. You didn't really want to lie down anyway.
[00:47:35] It was a sea of human waste and you risk being trampled.
[00:47:39] You had your space and protected it with your life quite literally.
[00:47:43] You stayed strong, protecting your space with elbows and fists.
[00:47:48] By any means necessary. By this stage, it was every man for himself.
[00:47:54] Each person had their own problems to resolve their own life to save.
[00:48:01] Again, we have not seen this yet. Every man for himself.
[00:48:09] The smell inside the hole was indescribable or a pugnant stench,
[00:48:18] an overpowering mixture of excrement, urine, vomit, sweaty bodies, weeping ulcers,
[00:48:25] and rotting flesh clogged the atmosphere.
[00:48:28] There was no way we could get any fresh air.
[00:48:31] Even when the Japanese open the hatches, it really didn't help that much.
[00:48:36] You were still breathing in what was already there.
[00:48:41] First became our biggest problem. People don't understand what real first truly is.
[00:48:48] You start to hallucinate and see morages.
[00:48:51] And that is the most dangerous thing. People died down in the holes from suffocation or heart attacks.
[00:48:57] The men who died were not taken away. Their bodies lay among us.
[00:49:09] So one of the other vessels that they're out with gets hit with a torpedo, American torpedo,
[00:49:18] that's another vessel that's holding prisoners of war. It is the 1,317 were killed,
[00:49:33] or sorry, 1,317 prisoners were on board. None of them were killed by the explosion,
[00:49:47] but 1,159 of them drowned or died of exposure.
[00:49:55] And mind you, these were all guys that had served on the death railway.
[00:50:03] Guys that had already suffered just unimaginable torture.
[00:50:10] And then as he suspected, it became their turn.
[00:50:25] 4 minutes later, we suddenly felt a tremendous blast and an explosion tore through the hold.
[00:50:32] The whole structure shuddered and water flooded in it from above.
[00:50:36] I knew then as the water crashed on top of me that my worst fears had been realized,
[00:50:41] we'd been hit and I knew that the torpedo had struck very close to us.
[00:50:45] It was in fact the first of two torpedoes that would send the hellship to the bottom within 15 minutes.
[00:50:51] The ship tilted, we were going down.
[00:51:00] So the ship sinks. Now the Japanese had immediately tried to get off with lifeboats.
[00:51:07] It left all the prisoners trying to just create rafts with whatever they could.
[00:51:14] Even after the sinking, the killing went on for those of us who survived and got on to rafts.
[00:51:19] Anyone starting to panic was thrown off into the sea.
[00:51:22] When they scrambled to get back, they were kicked away.
[00:51:25] Men pushed under and held the Japanese up. Men pushed under and held under Japanese survivors.
[00:51:32] Fighting broke out as the animal instinct to survive asserted itself,
[00:51:37] making some survivors try to capture more sea-werely vessels and shove others off to their deaths.
[00:51:42] Many gave up already so weak, dangerously dehydrated and ill.
[00:51:48] Many gulp the salt water and quickly went stark-raving mad, drowning themselves to end the torment.
[00:51:54] Horrible as it may sound, as men became mad, they had to be shoved off of the rafts or boats,
[00:52:02] or the remainder might have perished.
[00:52:07] There was a lot of shouting and screaming, cries of get off you bastard,
[00:52:12] or I'll kill you, made me close my eyes and distress.
[00:52:15] Most of the shouts weren't in English.
[00:52:18] There were not many Japanese, the majority of whom had gotten off early in the life-fotes.
[00:52:25] Drowning and dying men called for their wives, their children, or mothers,
[00:52:31] men said things like, Daddy will be home soon, and then disappeared beneath the waves.
[00:52:37] It was harrowing to hear.
[00:52:40] By that stage, most of us were treading a very fine line between sanity and madness.
[00:52:47] It didn't take much to put people over the top.
[00:52:51] I couldn't see where it's coming from, but a group of men started singing.
[00:52:56] First to keep their spirits up, they sang rule Britannia.
[00:53:00] After the Celaranga incident, we had been banned from singing this stirring anthem,
[00:53:06] with its line about Britain's never-ever being slaves.
[00:53:12] So there you start seeing some spirit as they start singing, rule Britannia.
[00:53:23] Celaranga incident was when some prisoners had just just when the Japanese had taken over and sing a poor
[00:53:32] and they, I forget me if I don't remember this correctly.
[00:53:36] But a couple of guys had tried to escape and they got caught.
[00:53:42] And basically it was a standoff between the soldiers and the Japanese prisoners,
[00:53:50] our Japanese prison camp commanders.
[00:53:54] And the soldiers did not back down until they had executed for the four prisoners that had tried to escape.
[00:54:02] And then they kept everyone out locked in this compound for five days.
[00:54:07] And when the guy started to die from starvation and disinteriority and dehydration,
[00:54:13] and they said, okay, well, then they signed a paper that said no one else tried to escape.
[00:54:17] But they held the line as long as they possibly could.
[00:54:23] 244 of my comrades on the Cachadoki Maru died that night. It was tragic beyond belief that having survived the death railway,
[00:54:33] they became prisoners of the deep.
[00:54:37] 1,400 and three Allied servicemen had died as a result of the failure of the Japanese to observe the Geneva Convention
[00:54:45] and apply red crosses to our hellships.
[00:54:50] He ends up getting recaptured by the Japanese.
[00:54:54] After the affords.
[00:54:56] Yes. He does survive. He gets recaptured by the Japanese.
[00:55:00] Eventually he's close to where Nagasaki is,
[00:55:04] but far enough away that he doesn't die from the blast of Nagasaki.
[00:55:08] The war ends. They get picked up.
[00:55:12] And eventually they're obviously brought home by Americans.
[00:55:18] And eventually sent back to England.
[00:55:23] He says that when he left Aberdeen, he'd weighed a healthy 135 pounds.
[00:55:28] But here in Nagasaki on the steel yard scales,
[00:55:32] very accurate contraptions similar to those I had used at the Plumber's Merchants.
[00:55:38] I was reduced to a skeletal 82 pounds.
[00:55:43] I've got some pictures of these guys.
[00:55:48] They literally look like skeletons.
[00:55:52] It's unbelievable that they were even able to survive.
[00:55:59] New arrivals, men from the vast industrial Gulag,
[00:56:05] the Japanese had created in Fukunawa, flooded the quayside,
[00:56:10] and the quayside.
[00:56:14] They're basically cleaning these guys up now getting ready to put them on ships and ship them back to America.
[00:56:18] Sadly, at this final hurdle, some did not make it.
[00:56:22] And died on that quay.
[00:56:24] This distressed the Americans immensely,
[00:56:27] and they were shocked by the matter of fact way
[00:56:30] that the other prisoners accepted the deaths of their mates.
[00:56:35] We had seen so much too much.
[00:56:51] Now, I think quite possibly this is the heaviest book that we've talked to.
[00:57:04] That we've talked about on the podcast.
[00:57:08] Yeah.
[00:57:09] I'll do it with that.
[00:57:11] And it's one of those things where
[00:57:21] it's a question if people are even going to want to listen to this.
[00:57:31] And I understand that.
[00:57:34] I understand that some people did not make it through this reading.
[00:57:41] And some people listen to it.
[00:57:46] Some people are going to buy this book which they should.
[00:57:51] And some people are going to take this as a message.
[00:58:00] From somebody who has seen evil.
[00:58:08] In a way that not too many people can claim to have seen.
[00:58:14] In a person that has had their every freedom taken from them.
[00:58:20] And their lives and their destiny put into the hands of sadistic people.
[00:58:29] Now, if you did make it this far, I will let this end on and incredibly.
[00:58:50] Possitive, note and message from the author.
[00:59:06] And he says this.
[00:59:09] My time as a prisoner of the Japanese helped shape and determine my path in life just as much as my childhood did.
[00:59:17] Like it or not, the horrors did happen to me and to thousands of others.
[00:59:23] Yet some good has come out of it.
[00:59:27] My ordeal has made me a much more patient, caring person.
[00:59:32] Inspired by the devotion of our hard-pressed medics on the death railway,
[00:59:38] I was able to care for my young daughter when she was ill and for my late wife,
[00:59:43] I acquired 24-hour attention in the last stages of her life.
[00:59:48] While in Japan and working with my friend, Dr. Matthewson,
[00:59:52] I vowed to spend the rest of my life helping others.
[00:59:55] And I am so pleased to say that I have done so.
[01:00:00] It is where my satisfaction comes from nowadays.
[01:00:05] I have tried to use my experiences in a positive fashion and have adopted a model from them,
[01:00:12] which I never tire of telling others.
[01:00:15] There is no such word as can't.
[01:00:21] I have not allowed my life to be blighted by bitterness.
[01:00:25] At 90 years of age, I have lived a long life and continue to live it to the fullest.
[01:00:32] I enjoyed a long marriage to my wife and I have been fortunate to have a family
[01:00:38] and to enjoy their success.
[01:00:42] I have amazed my doctors, my friends, my family and myself by remaining fit.
[01:00:51] I am grateful for my present way of life after all the turmoil that life has thrown at me.
[01:00:58] And thankful to have retained my sense of humor.
[01:01:03] Most importantly, I now visit schools to tell pupils of what really happened in the Far East during those terrible war years.
[01:01:11] In my 91st year, I am fortunate enough to spite the best efforts of the Japanese Imperial Army,
[01:01:18] to have the Vim and Viggar required to tell a new generation of how we suffered.
[01:01:24] Scandalously, our sufferings, which have haunted all of us far east prisoners of war throughout our lives,
[01:01:32] were only recognized by the British government in the year 2000,
[01:01:36] when it offered compensation of 10,000 pounds to remaining survivors.
[01:01:41] Unbelievably, the British taxpayer had to pay out that poultry sum,
[01:01:46] and not the culpable Japanese government.
[01:01:50] I hope this book will stand as an indictment of the criminal regime that ran Japan during the war years,
[01:01:57] and the failure of successive Japanese governments to face up to their crimes.
[01:02:03] But I hope too, then it will be inspirational and offer hope to those who suffer adversity in their daily lives,
[01:02:11] especially in these difficult times.
[01:02:16] Life is worth living.
[01:02:20] No matter what it throws at you is important to keep your eyes on the prize of that happiness will come.
[01:02:28] Even when the death railway reduced us to little more than animals, humanity and the shape of our saintly medical officers triumphed over barbarism.
[01:02:40] Remember, while it seems darkest before the dawn, perseverance pays off,
[01:02:48] and the good times will return.
[01:02:52] May health and happiness be yours.
[01:02:58] Alistair, Erkart.
[01:03:03] July 2009.
[01:03:16] Life is worth living.
[01:03:22] Yeah.
[01:03:25] The book is the forgotten highlander.
[01:03:28] It is a phenomenal read. It is a reality check.
[01:03:35] It is incredibly moving.
[01:03:42] And I highly recommend you buy it, you read it,
[01:03:48] and you understand what the world is.
[01:03:53] You get a better understanding of what the world is about.
[01:04:00] And I know I definitely got a better understanding of what the world is about in reading this.
[01:04:04] We're pretty much every detail.
[01:04:07] Every little element that he went through made me think like dang I'd rather, I'd probably rather die in that situation.
[01:04:14] Every little thing that happened.
[01:04:16] Yeah, and there's obviously thousands of thousands and thousands of men that made that choice.
[01:04:22] Yeah.
[01:04:23] And they're will got broken.
[01:04:25] And they lost the will to live.
[01:04:29] So, it's incredible how strong the human will is that you can survive that at E2 pounds,
[01:04:37] this entry starvation, ulcers in your legs, put maggots on your legs.
[01:04:44] I mean, it's just, it's truly incredible what the human can survive.
[01:04:52] And it's also truly incredible what the human can complain about in this day and age.
[01:04:57] Right? I mean, you can complain about just the most ridiculous things.
[01:05:02] Yeah.
[01:05:03] Just the most ridiculous things.
[01:05:06] Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how big that spectrum is.
[01:05:10] Yeah. Just remind me to never complain about anything ever again.
[01:05:15] You know what I mean?
[01:05:16] Don't let me complain about anything ever again.
[01:05:21] I mean, I don't consider myself a big complainer, but come on.
[01:05:25] This is just, we have no reason to complain about anything.
[01:05:29] Yeah.
[01:05:31] Yeah.
[01:05:32] And what's crazy, too, is one of the heavier parts there where I felt it was when he talked about the claustrophobia heart.
[01:05:38] Yeah. I know you have an issue with it.
[01:05:40] Yeah.
[01:05:41] It's there, but it's not, it's not, I'm not super sensitive to it, but it's something.
[01:05:46] I know. I feel that that that's like a tough one to get over, you know?
[01:05:51] Yeah.
[01:05:52] Dang, especially going through all that stuff first and then you got to deal with the cl-
[01:05:55] I don't know, man.
[01:05:57] This might be too heavy for me.
[01:05:59] Well, it was too heavy for a lot of people.
[01:06:04] And yeah, I mean, it's almost like, we almost don't need to have a discussion about this book.
[01:06:12] You know, Meg, just stop talking about it.
[01:06:15] You're gonna go read it.
[01:06:16] I get it, you know?
[01:06:17] And just let's move on, you know?
[01:06:20] Yeah.
[01:06:21] Because like I said, it just makes you realize just what kind of suffering there could be.
[01:06:31] And how good you've got it.
[01:06:34] How good you've got it.
[01:06:35] I'm gonna go to bed tonight and my bed and that's gonna feel good.
[01:06:38] I'm gonna appreciate that.
[01:06:40] I'm gonna appreciate it every night.
[01:06:42] You know, yeah, so...
[01:06:44] Because you think about like some little things you don't even think about,
[01:06:48] but they're like a real luxury.
[01:06:51] It's just things that you really enjoy.
[01:06:56] But you don't even think about it. They're just, they're just like, I want to have it.
[01:06:59] Like for me, I really like a nice, cool, you know, big bottle of water.
[01:07:04] You know, I have a big, just a big bottle of water.
[01:07:07] I completely take it for granted.
[01:07:09] When I go to work out the morning, I drop a couple ice cubes in there, fill it up.
[01:07:12] It's all nice, filter and whatnot.
[01:07:14] No, I don't think anything about that.
[01:07:17] That would be like heaven.
[01:07:20] Heaven.
[01:07:21] And then you get, you know, you go to bed at night.
[01:07:23] You just crawl into the, to the, the 500 thread.
[01:07:28] Sheets or I don't know, there's some kind of sheets that are nice,
[01:07:32] but whatever they are, the kind of cotton sheets that are all nice.
[01:07:36] Yeah.
[01:07:37] You climb into those. You don't think about that.
[01:07:39] You're not thankful for that every night.
[01:07:41] Yeah. Pretty much everything.
[01:07:44] Pretty much everything. Pretty much everything.
[01:07:46] Even like, oh, you know how you're breathing right now?
[01:07:50] Yeah.
[01:07:51] Consider that compared to that.
[01:07:52] What you just read there.
[01:07:53] Just what, just breathing. Let's just start with that.
[01:07:55] Let's just break it down with air.
[01:07:57] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The beginning.
[01:08:00] I remember the cable guy was coming.
[01:08:03] Mm-hmm.
[01:08:04] Which already sound silly. I know.
[01:08:06] And he was late. He was supposed to come.
[01:08:09] It's too was the cut off.
[01:08:11] Right.
[01:08:11] Where he was going to cut.
[01:08:12] He was like, you know, before the struggles real cable guy was late.
[01:08:15] Yeah.
[01:08:16] So he can't, I don't know, to 15 or something.
[01:08:18] And I had to go, I want to see go to work out or something.
[01:08:22] This is getting worse and worse.
[01:08:24] I know this is going to be a good point.
[01:08:26] Yeah.
[01:08:27] For my team, it's like, you know, he's fixing that fixing.
[01:08:31] For, you know, I'm not saying that.
[01:08:32] I'm trying to tell you something about anything.
[01:08:34] Yeah.
[01:08:35] And yeah.
[01:08:37] And that's one of the things I thought of primarily when you said think of all the little luxury.
[01:08:41] So not only, not only am I complaining about something I don't need.
[01:08:48] I'm complaining about something that I'm getting like a supreme luxury.
[01:08:55] I'm complaining about that, you know, because it didn't come 15 minutes of all things before the time that it did.
[01:09:05] Yeah.
[01:09:06] I'm going to check myself.
[01:09:10] To get idea.
[01:09:11] I'm going to check myself too.
[01:09:16] So with that, let's go to some questions from the internet.
[01:09:24] And actually, to start this one off after the last podcast, number 11, when I had lay fund.
[01:09:35] And we talked about Mark.
[01:09:37] We talked about Mark Lee.
[01:09:38] We talked about Ryan Joe.
[01:09:39] We talked about Chris Kyle.
[01:09:41] And, you know, we actually didn't talk about Mikey Montsour.
[01:09:45] So I had a couple of people ask me, hey, why didn't you guys talk about Mikey Montsour?
[01:09:51] Well, the simple reason is it's kind of similar to the reason why I hadn't talked about Mark and Ryan and Chris yet either.
[01:10:02] Until like I lay fund.
[01:10:04] Because lay fund was the Charlie Petune commander.
[01:10:08] Those guys weren't in Charlie Petune.
[01:10:10] And, you know, I wanted to have him on as a, you know, as a, as a, as a,
[01:10:20] I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but I wanted to have guy from his platoon on or from there,
[01:10:27] platoon on to talk about him.
[01:10:30] And I just, that's the way I felt.
[01:10:33] And so that's what I stuck with with Mikey.
[01:10:35] Mikey was in Delta, too.
[01:10:37] And I can promise you, I will be talking about Mikey at some point on this.
[01:10:46] Mikey was just phenomenal and hero and a saint.
[01:10:53] And I will actually absolutely be covering his life.
[01:11:03] And how he died and how we remembered him,
[01:11:07] that how we remember him still.
[01:11:09] But I really just want to get, you know, somebody from his platoon that was, you know,
[01:11:15] right with him, the whole time.
[01:11:20] And that's just, just the way I feel about it.
[01:11:23] So that's what I'm going to do.
[01:11:25] And yeah, that's what I'm going to do with Mikey.
[01:11:30] So it was Mikey.
[01:11:31] Mikey will definitely, we know we'll have a show from Mikey.
[01:11:36] Absolutely.
[01:11:37] Mikey deserves a hell of a show.
[01:11:40] And we'll have it from Mikey.
[01:11:42] So be ready for that. I don't know whom to get.
[01:11:45] A lot of, a lot of guys from Delta, too.
[01:11:47] They're still on active duty.
[01:11:48] The platoon commander still on active duty.
[01:11:51] The, all his good friends are still on active duty.
[01:11:55] So it's going to be tough.
[01:11:57] It's going to be tougher.
[01:11:58] It might take a little bit of time.
[01:12:00] But that's the plan.
[01:12:02] And it'll be worth it.
[01:12:05] So let's go to the next question.
[01:12:09] Jockel, regarding mistakes.
[01:12:13] What are some of your own?
[01:12:15] And some you've seen made by leaders you looked up to.
[01:12:19] And how to recover.
[01:12:21] Can someone ever fully regain trust?
[01:12:24] This is actually pretty easy one because,
[01:12:27] um,
[01:12:29] look, if you make a mistake on it.
[01:12:32] Uh, the worst thing you can do if you make a mistake is
[01:12:37] trying to avoid taking blame for it.
[01:12:40] That's the worst thing you can do.
[01:12:41] And if you think about the bosses that you've had,
[01:12:43] and you had some boss that made a mistake,
[01:12:45] and he's like, no, wasn't my fault.
[01:12:46] You just literally lose respect for him.
[01:12:48] So you can't do that.
[01:12:50] You got to take, you got to take ownership of it.
[01:12:53] Um, because, again, if you think about the bosses that you've had,
[01:12:56] and the times that you had a boss that made excuses,
[01:12:59] you don't have any mercy on them.
[01:13:02] You're just rude for us on them.
[01:13:04] You just pick them apart.
[01:13:06] Hmm.
[01:13:07] So that step number one is, um,
[01:13:11] you know, take ownership if you make a mistake.
[01:13:14] And that's how it's always seemed to me from,
[01:13:17] as I looked up to Chain of Command.
[01:13:19] You know, if I saw a guy that made mistakes,
[01:13:21] and then he took ownership of them,
[01:13:22] like, okay, cool.
[01:13:23] You know, he knows he made a mistake, cool.
[01:13:25] Well, we'll support him.
[01:13:26] If they're doing the other thing,
[01:13:27] and they're blaming everybody else,
[01:13:28] they're not taking ownership.
[01:13:29] You can have a hard time with it.
[01:13:30] And as a matter of fact,
[01:13:32] I actually had a mutiny in,
[01:13:35] in one of my potuence,
[01:13:37] where this is a long time ago,
[01:13:39] it's, you know,
[01:13:40] all the names are long since forgotten,
[01:13:43] but we had a,
[01:13:45] we had a mutiny in our potuence,
[01:13:48] where we said, you know,
[01:13:50] pretty much us,
[01:13:51] us lower and listed guys,
[01:13:53] we had a,
[01:13:54] we went to the,
[01:13:55] we literally went to the commanding officer,
[01:13:58] and said,
[01:13:59] we don't work with this guy.
[01:14:01] Yeah.
[01:14:02] So, you know,
[01:14:03] all these ideas that people have of the,
[01:14:05] you know,
[01:14:06] military and of,
[01:14:07] you know,
[01:14:08] we obey orders and all this stuff.
[01:14:09] I mean,
[01:14:09] think of what a little Jack asked I was.
[01:14:11] We, you know,
[01:14:12] we said,
[01:14:13] well, you know what,
[01:14:14] we don't work with this guy.
[01:14:15] We're going to go to the commanding officer,
[01:14:16] and tell him we don't want to work for this guy.
[01:14:18] And the commanding officer,
[01:14:19] to his full credit.
[01:14:21] He was like,
[01:14:22] listen, guys,
[01:14:23] you can't have a mutiny,
[01:14:24] not a my command,
[01:14:25] not a my team.
[01:14:26] You guys suck it up,
[01:14:27] you figured out a way to work it out.
[01:14:29] Go do it,
[01:14:30] you're told,
[01:14:31] get in line.
[01:14:32] So let me,
[01:14:33] you didn't work.
[01:14:34] And then he fired the guy.
[01:14:36] Yeah.
[01:14:37] No,
[01:14:38] he,
[01:14:38] he like basically made it perfectly clear like,
[01:14:40] this is your one chance.
[01:14:42] Hmm.
[01:14:43] And he fired him.
[01:14:45] But it was,
[01:14:46] it was,
[01:14:47] it was pretty crazy to see,
[01:14:48] to see it happen.
[01:14:49] But,
[01:14:50] and I say,
[01:14:51] it's all the time.
[01:14:52] It wasn't because the guy
[01:14:53] lacked tactical skill,
[01:14:54] it wasn't because he was physically fit.
[01:14:56] Most of the reason was because he just couldn't,
[01:14:59] take anyone's,
[01:15:01] you know,
[01:15:02] advice,
[01:15:03] he wouldn't listen anybody.
[01:15:04] And so when he was making a mistake,
[01:15:06] it was,
[01:15:06] no,
[01:15:07] no,
[01:15:07] we do it this way.
[01:15:08] No,
[01:15:08] it's okay.
[01:15:09] Constantly cover up for himself.
[01:15:11] And obviously,
[01:15:13] it didn't work out for him.
[01:15:15] So your mutiny sort of just put him on,
[01:15:17] put him on notice.
[01:15:19] That was his right up essentially.
[01:15:21] Yeah,
[01:15:22] but I think the commanding officer,
[01:15:23] I think was really just doing the right thing.
[01:15:26] Saying,
[01:15:27] look, guys,
[01:15:28] you can't have a mutiny.
[01:15:29] Doesn't work that way.
[01:15:30] Get back in there,
[01:15:31] do what you're supposed to do.
[01:15:32] And then he was like,
[01:15:33] okay,
[01:15:33] I've got to fire this guy.
[01:15:34] Because it must not be good to have
[01:15:36] every,
[01:15:37] enlisted guy in the Poutoon come forward and say,
[01:15:40] I don't want to work with this guy.
[01:15:41] Yeah.
[01:15:42] That's not a good side.
[01:15:43] So the commanding officer did an outstanding job.
[01:15:45] And he was actually a great,
[01:15:46] great,
[01:15:47] commanding officer too.
[01:15:48] So it kind of worked on the deal.
[01:15:49] It worked on the deal.
[01:15:51] Yeah.
[01:15:52] And then I actually,
[01:15:53] the guy that took over was one of the best guys I ever worked for,
[01:15:56] if not the best.
[01:15:57] Yeah,
[01:15:58] it was pretty awesome.
[01:15:59] And then as far as regaining trust,
[01:16:01] which is the other part of the question.
[01:16:04] This almost as soon as you admit that you made a mistake,
[01:16:08] you are automatically regaining trust.
[01:16:10] That's where you start regaining trust.
[01:16:12] Yeah.
[01:16:13] And it just goes from there.
[01:16:14] Then you follow through with what you say,
[01:16:16] you know,
[01:16:16] you're constantly trying to build trust in relationships.
[01:16:19] That's what you're trying to do.
[01:16:20] And the minute you're lying to people,
[01:16:22] how are you building trust?
[01:16:23] Right.
[01:16:24] And if you make a mistake and you say,
[01:16:25] it's not your fault,
[01:16:26] then that's a lie and everyone knows it.
[01:16:28] Yeah, that that fear is,
[01:16:30] especially not especially,
[01:16:32] but in regards to regaining trust,
[01:16:34] so to speak.
[01:16:36] You know, when someone admits mistakes,
[01:16:39] they have that fear that,
[01:16:40] oh, they're going to think I don't know what I'm doing.
[01:16:42] Yeah.
[01:16:43] Or I don't have a handle on this, you know?
[01:16:44] So doesn't matter.
[01:16:45] It's so doesn't matter.
[01:16:47] It's so much better to go,
[01:16:49] hey guys,
[01:16:50] I don't know how to do this.
[01:16:51] Can you show me how to do this?
[01:16:52] I'm not sure I've never done this before.
[01:16:53] Right.
[01:16:54] Or hey,
[01:16:54] I'm never used this kind of weapon before.
[01:16:55] Can you give me an endoc on this thing?
[01:16:57] Right. Right.
[01:16:58] The worst thing you can do is step up to the line
[01:17:00] with a weapon you've never used before.
[01:17:01] Not know how to lock and loaded or clear and safe.
[01:17:04] It looks like a total idiot.
[01:17:05] Because then you look like a guy that is too arrogant
[01:17:09] and too insecure to ask.
[01:17:11] Yeah.
[01:17:12] It's actually,
[01:17:13] it's actually a sign of insecurity.
[01:17:14] If you can't ask when you need some help,
[01:17:16] it's something.
[01:17:17] Yeah, and it's funny how one people are in that position.
[01:17:20] And all kind of,
[01:17:21] just,
[01:17:22] this is kind of a general
[01:17:25] thing to know.
[01:17:27] Is that you come off way more transparent than you think.
[01:17:31] You know how people will like,
[01:17:32] I don't know,
[01:17:33] something just as small as like name dropping.
[01:17:35] If you name drop someone,
[01:17:37] even,
[01:17:38] or you just mentioned this person name,
[01:17:39] but you're really name dropping even in a small way.
[01:17:41] Yeah, yeah.
[01:17:42] People can smell that.
[01:17:44] Yeah.
[01:17:45] So even like this stuff stuff that's a little bit more important
[01:17:47] where if a leader's insecure about something,
[01:17:49] it makes like you know everything,
[01:17:50] but he really does.
[01:17:51] I hate when I do stuff like that.
[01:17:52] I know,
[01:17:53] but yeah.
[01:17:54] I hate when I do stuff like that.
[01:17:56] Yeah.
[01:17:57] Oh, God.
[01:17:58] That's such a loser.
[01:17:59] And it's transparent.
[01:18:00] Everyone knows it.
[01:18:01] And a lot of people,
[01:18:02] brother,
[01:18:03] not in touch with that.
[01:18:04] They think that,
[01:18:04] oh yeah,
[01:18:05] they don't know because I'm just going to sort of mention it.
[01:18:07] And there's all these little things that it's just,
[01:18:09] you just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just,
[01:18:09] just, just, right you both put that broad mindset.
[01:18:13] I think,
[01:18:15] the way
[01:18:15] active you're you,
[01:18:17] era,
[01:18:17] and off,
[01:18:17] just you're in your campus.
[01:18:19] So the inside you go to.
[01:18:19] Just,
[01:18:20] that's some kind of somebody here.
[01:18:20] So the inside you go to.
[01:18:21] You go to the theater,
[01:18:22] and then you go to,
[01:18:22] the theater,
[01:18:23] you go to the floors,
[01:18:26] and you go to the third floor.
[01:18:28] And you go to the theater,
[01:18:29] and you go to,
[01:18:29] that before you set-to- pretentious.
[01:18:30] You actually have a plate out here,
[01:18:30] but I kind of thought about what you say,
[01:18:31] 뒤-
[01:18:30] and you know,
[01:18:32] drawn up and that your office is
[01:18:32] understand for the least
[01:18:34] years.
[01:18:35] So I've got that short-ranking
[01:18:20] ones here,
[01:18:36] be transparent. Right. There's a big difference there. And totally true, but it is definitely
[01:18:41] better just to ask, say, hey, I don't know. That insecurity, that when you don't feel
[01:18:48] like asking something, that's a little knocking. You're no other say. So you're insecure.
[01:18:52] You're insecure. When you're, hey, you know what? I don't know how to do this. Can you
[01:18:56] be having this? I am stuck on this problem here. Can you give me help with this? Because
[01:19:00] I don't know how to do it. People don't say all of this, guys. Unless you're doing it every
[01:19:05] three sentences because that means you haven't studied. Yeah. Because you got to study.
[01:19:09] You got to know your trade. You got to know your craft. And if you don't, you got to
[01:19:13] learn it. You know, you got to break out the books and get on it. But once you broke
[01:19:17] out the books and now there's a little bit of stuff that you still don't understand,
[01:19:19] well, guess what? Just ask the question. Because your frontline troops are going to know more
[01:19:23] than you. They shouldn't know more than you. Yeah. You know, it's highly likely that you don't
[01:19:27] know more than you. I mean, I was a radio man for eight years in the seal teams. By the time
[01:19:31] I was a lieutenant commander in a troop, I didn't know as much as those, you know, guys knew
[01:19:38] about all the new radio stuff. So I just have to ask a question. There's no big deal. Yeah.
[01:19:41] If you're secure in your leadership, you're, you're fine to ask a couple questions. It's not
[01:19:47] that big of a deal. Yeah. But you are not clear to light a people. You're not clear to make excuses.
[01:19:55] And that's what, that's how you regain the trust is by telling people truth. It's really
[01:20:00] a simple concept. Yeah. Next question. In regards to working out, right, and training for, you
[01:20:12] know, selection. And by selection, you mean, mean special forces or ranger or seal selection.
[01:20:20] Yeah. That's what they're talking about here. Yeah. So, Jaco, what do you think of
[01:20:24] rocking as fitness versus just train up? So for people that don't know what rocking is,
[01:20:32] rocking is putting a backpack on a rucksack with a bunch of weight in it and walking long
[01:20:38] distances. And to be honest with you, you really are jogging. You know, you're really going
[01:20:42] at a pretty good pace when you're doing it. And that's it. It's first rocking those. That's it.
[01:20:46] Because because in a military, they can bring the pain with rock match, just forced road
[01:20:53] marches is what they're called. Yeah. You'll be rocking. You'll be rocking until you don't want
[01:20:58] to be rocking. And so, you know, you'll do 20 mile force road march, which is just, you're on the
[01:21:07] road with a 50 pound pack, just marching. Yeah. And so, the thing is, like anything else,
[01:21:17] if you want to get good at it, you got to do it. Right. So if you want to get good at people
[01:21:25] ask me, well, I need to get, we're going to get it. Pull ups. You know, how do you get good
[01:21:27] up? Pull ups. How do you get good up running? Run. How do you get that swimming? That's why
[01:21:34] oh, you want it out of good. Good. Good. Do you get to do you do you do you do you do you do
[01:21:37] you know, get on the mountain. Do you do you do you do you all bunch? Yeah. And if you want to
[01:21:41] get good at rocking, that hump and a rock, that carrying weight over long distances, rock.
[01:21:47] Because there's all kinds of little things that you got to get used to. Your feet got to get
[01:21:50] prepared. You're going to get weird muscles. Your back's got to get stronger. You're going to get,
[01:21:55] you know, calisers all over your feet. It takes a special type of fitness regiment to get used
[01:22:01] to and ready for long rock marches. And that special fitness regiment is rocking and lots of it.
[01:22:08] So, if you want to eventually, you can augment that, you know, you can start doing squats,
[01:22:15] you can start doing sperrins and that'll help you. You know, that's fine. But the foundation
[01:22:21] of the preparation for rock, humping should be rock, humping. And that's what's going to
[01:22:29] make you good at it. So, did you do that? I did. I did. And rocking for me actually, oddly enough,
[01:22:36] is something that I was always good at. And it's weird because I wasn't the fastest springer
[01:22:43] and I wasn't the best long distance runner. Which, what does that make? Great.
[01:22:47] They choose a loser. Right. You can't win a spring and you can't win a long distance run. What's
[01:22:51] wrong with you? Yeah, you're kind of in the middle. I was in the middle of the song. What I realized
[01:22:56] was that was good for carrying a rock sack. Yeah. And I got used to it too because I was a radioman.
[01:23:02] So, you always had to carry a freaking radio, you know, 30 pound radio with water or batteries.
[01:23:08] And you're just, it's always heavy. You're just sucking it up. And so, I got used to it.
[01:23:12] I suppose it was more than anything else. You're like, um, you're seeing the movie tremors?
[01:23:18] No. I'm thinking of the movie tremors. Right. Well, there's a time at the end there. Like, man,
[01:23:22] we need to, we need to go to those mountains for those, you know, to avoid underground worms.
[01:23:27] And they were like, hey, we could take the cat. And he's like, hey, it's slow, you know, the cat is a big,
[01:23:33] you know, Bobcat, you know, the Bobcat is not sure. I know what underground worms are.
[01:23:39] That's something that's something completely different. But they're bad. So,
[01:23:44] they took the cat in the guy was like, no, we can't take the cat slower than hell. He's like,
[01:23:49] it doesn't, it can carry a ton of, you know, it was like you, you're like the cat.
[01:23:54] So they hooked up this big trailer, which is the rock in your chat. And, you know, and they drove
[01:24:00] everybody, um, you know, to the mountains. What would they plan to do to walk? No, they're
[01:24:04] trapped on on roofs on rooftop. And they're like, we're all going to starve up here. We got to
[01:24:09] make it to the mountains. It's like nine miles. Okay. They're like, how are we going to get there? We can't,
[01:24:13] you know, we can't run. They're going to get us. We can't, you know, so they'll say, we'll get the cat.
[01:24:18] God, they were like, oh, it's too slow. But they're like, yeah, but it can carry this big trailer.
[01:24:24] Yeah. You know, and I used to say that in the sealed teams that I, my opinion was it was better to be
[01:24:29] built like a four by four, and then like a Porsche. Yeah. It was better to be just because you got a
[01:24:35] carry way around. Right. Irreable. Yeah. What would you rather have working on a farm?
[01:24:40] Ford F 350 or a Porsche. Yeah. I mean, a Porsche is cool for the track. When everything's all lined
[01:24:49] up and down the way it's supposed to be, but you get any kind of terrain going on. You want that
[01:24:53] four before. And you want it bad. And so that's why, you know, the seals, the seals,
[01:24:59] guys that were kind of more a four by four than a Porsche. Yes, it would be better in the field,
[01:25:07] in the real seal situations. Yeah. You know, the actual, because the thing about that's, that's,
[01:25:15] it's a misconception about the seal teams is, you know, you see guys running on the beach.
[01:25:19] And you see guys swimming in the ocean and they never are carrying anything. Yeah. Yeah. That's just
[01:25:23] complete lie. Because every time you do anything in the sealed teams, you're carrying a ton of weight
[01:25:28] with you. Yeah. And so you've got to be built like a four by four and not like a Porsche. Yeah.
[01:25:34] Yeah. Makes sense. So yeah. You weigh rather someone like you than some Sprinter who can run like a
[01:25:39] four to 40, but then you put some, you know, something on the screen. The Sprinter is actually,
[01:25:44] you know, what you, you just want somebody that's durable. Yeah. Durable is the word.
[01:25:51] Yeah. And if they're great athlete and they can have a awesome 40 time or they can run a marathon,
[01:25:57] but they're just durable. It's awesome. Yeah. Okay. I'm not trying to put four amateurs around the
[01:26:02] guys. Sure. Because there's guys that was a guy when I was a team two and it was a guy I actually
[01:26:08] went through Buds with and he was he's kind of a short guy and he was kind of had a odd body shape.
[01:26:21] And so he kind of looked, he kind of had almost like a little pudgy belly and
[01:26:29] he just was one of those guys and the funny thing is he could run faster than me and he could
[01:26:34] bench more than me. Yeah. No kidding. It goes awesome. I love that. Yeah. He's an awesome guy.
[01:26:40] Awesome guy. I said, you know, that's cool. People say that about him because he's a little bit
[01:26:45] short and a little bit pouty looking. I'm like, he can, he can actually bench more than me and he can
[01:26:49] run faster than me. He can beat me in all the runs. So let's just be quiet. Yeah.
[01:26:57] Alright. Next question. Jockel, do you think that the military or me Navy Air Force is a
[01:27:02] young man's game? Because this guy is 29 years old and he's about to join up.
[01:27:09] He's about to get it on. Yeah. That's awesome.
[01:27:15] Two answers to that question. And as usual, with answers from me. The dichotomy. Unfortunately,
[01:27:23] there's a dichotomy and they oppose each other. First of all, yes. And anybody that says
[01:27:29] it's not a young man's game is not telling the truth. Because it's a game where you're going to be on
[01:27:36] travel, you're going to be gone, you're risking your lives at times. You're going to have to
[01:27:44] put up with a lack of comfort in your world. You're going to be living in barricade. I mean,
[01:27:49] it's just going to be, it's not, it's not creature comforts, right? It's the military. It's a semi-sparton
[01:27:54] environment. It's not the forgotten highlander for the love of God, but it's definitely more
[01:28:00] Spartan than what the average person has in regular life. So anybody to say it's not a young man's
[01:28:08] game is not telling the truth. Because it absolutely is. And for me, I joined when I was a kid when I was
[01:28:16] 18 years old and it was awesome. I had no attachments in life. I went to the map station with nothing
[01:28:24] with that's the recruiting station where you actually go and I forget what it stands for, but
[01:28:30] it's where you actually leave for the military. And I had nothing. Do you need to store anything?
[01:28:36] No. What's your, you know, where you need to send your mail? I don't get mail.
[01:28:40] Yeah. There's no mail that's sent to me. But blank slate. And that's awesome. You don't think about
[01:28:46] family. You don't think about anything. You just get in there and you get your job done. And if they say,
[01:28:50] hey, we're going to deploy you tomorrow for the next eight years, you say, cool. Let's do it.
[01:28:53] Yeah. Let's bring it. And and you have an old B to get nature because you don't know any better.
[01:29:01] You know, you joined the military and you're, you're stoked. You're getting a paycheck all of a sudden.
[01:29:06] You know, you got a three-hots and a cot. It's all good. You know, whereas when you're 17 years old
[01:29:14] and you're not quite putting things together yet, yeah, man. All of a sudden, like I said,
[01:29:19] you got a paycheck. You got three-hots and a cot. You're ready to rock and roll. They tell you
[01:29:22] which dude, you do it. That's good. So yeah, it's a young man's game. Now, that being said,
[01:29:29] of course, there's a dichotomy to that. And that is that the military is always in need of guys
[01:29:36] that are mature and smart and have experience in life, right? That you need to have people like that.
[01:29:44] Now, you get them eventually through the military. But it's also good to have people that won't
[01:29:48] raise in the military environment so they can always have a little bit of an out review and you can
[01:29:53] learn a little bit from them. But what you have to get over, it's all those things that the young guy
[01:30:00] can eat for breakfast, right? You know, if you're 29 years old, there's a decent chance you've had
[01:30:05] a pretty nice apartment somewhere. There's a decent chance you slept in until, you know, 945 on the
[01:30:12] weekends. There's a decent chance that you stayed out until 2 o'clock in the morning and party and
[01:30:16] you know, brought a girl back and you slept in until 9 and you might be doing that on the regular.
[01:30:21] You know what I mean? You got some clothes you're watching cable TV, you got all these things, right?
[01:30:26] And then the other part of that is you might have a family. You know, you might have a wife, you
[01:30:30] might have kids at 29 years old. Yeah. You might be established. You might have people relying on you
[01:30:37] not just financially, but emotion. Yeah, just to be there. So how you can cut all that away.
[01:30:42] That's the challenge for the older guy. Now, some older guys that are 29 years old, they don't have
[01:30:48] any of that yet. If so, best case scenario, you got both. Now, I'm not telling the 18 year old to hold
[01:30:54] off on an on and listing of the military. Don't hold off. Just get it done. Get it done. And you won't
[01:31:00] regret it unless you're, unless you screw up and bring it upon yourself. But if you are 29 and
[01:31:07] you can either overcome those obstacles of the things that are going to, the things that are going to
[01:31:12] things that are going to tear it you emotionally, right? They're going to tear it you emotionally.
[01:31:17] Now, what's cool is when you're in the military and you're raised in the military,
[01:31:24] you are raised in such a way that those those distractions are easily overcome.
[01:31:35] Right? You learn how to, you learn how to cut part mentalized those things. At least I did to say,
[01:31:40] you know what? Hey, I understand it's nice to stay home and sleep in on the weekend, but I'm not going to
[01:31:45] do it. Right? It's nice to be able to hang out with your wife and kids, but it doesn't matter to me
[01:31:50] compared to my job. That's what you end up like, which is slightly psychopathic, but it's where you end up.
[01:31:55] Right? It's where it's where I end. It's where I end it up. It's where I end it up. Was, you know,
[01:32:00] nothing else matters besides the seal teams and I don't care about anything else. So, if you want to be
[01:32:06] in my life cool, you just got to do it around these giant parameters that's called the seal teams.
[01:32:10] Deal with it. Yeah. So, join up my brother 29 years old. Go and get after it. Do that. Be
[01:32:19] to you. Next question. Jocco, when do you cut your losses or give up on something and walk?
[01:32:31] When and how to decide to cut bait. Not a quitter. Too much brain damage.
[01:32:43] Brain damage. So, word I've been hearing more from the corporate world. Actually,
[01:32:46] these people talk about what's something's really hard to do and they're just causing brain damage by trying to do it.
[01:32:52] And these were actually two questions. That's obviously a metaphor. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. It's a metaphor.
[01:32:56] And it's a metaphor for what I talk about when I was like beating my head against the one that's
[01:33:00] against you. And this is one of those things that confuses people because
[01:33:06] everyone here is including us in the seal teams. We hear the mantra of never, never quit, right? Never quit.
[01:33:15] And it's not just a mantra that we say. It's actually what we believe. Yeah.
[01:33:24] And furthermore, it's not just what we say and it's not just what we believe.
[01:33:31] But it's literally how we act. Yeah. So, that that drive, that attitude of never quit,
[01:33:41] it's a powerful force. And it does push you over the edge to victory. To victory in many cases.
[01:33:54] But, and there's always a dichotomy to just about everything. There's a dichotomy to this too.
[01:34:01] Because over that attitude, you have to layer something on top of that. And that is
[01:34:12] it's basically strategic vision and understanding of the battlefield as a whole.
[01:34:20] So, you know, it's like the the saying of when the battle loses the war, this is the opposite, right?
[01:34:31] When the battle loses the war, meaning, oh, you stick to it right now and you might win right now,
[01:34:35] but in the long run, you're going to lose. This is the opposite. Where you, you're going to say,
[01:34:39] you know what? I'm going to lose this battle right now. Yeah. But I'm going to win the war and the long run.
[01:34:43] So, you absolutely need to know when you got to stop beating your head against the wall. You've got to know that.
[01:34:53] I personally draw my limit at 27 times after I beat my head against the wall 27 times. On the 28th time,
[01:35:01] I'm going to say, you know what? I bet there's another way to do this. Or maybe this isn't a battle worth fighting.
[01:35:05] Now, the main reason, I think why people get caught in the trap of banging their head against the wall
[01:35:15] or not knowing when to quit is because, and again, quit is a strong word and it's almost hard for me to say right now,
[01:35:21] because it's not knowing when to quit. I'm not talking about quitting. Yeah, I'm talking about,
[01:35:27] give up. Yeah, and I'm talking about making a strategic assessment of an unwinnable situation and deciding
[01:35:35] to disengage only so you can re-engage with superior firepower and crush the enemy.
[01:35:42] So, there's a big difference between that and quitting. Quitting means you curl up into a ball and wait to die.
[01:35:48] That's where quitting is. And I don't support that under any circumstances.
[01:35:53] So, when do you, when does it happen where it happens because people get emotional?
[01:36:02] They get too emotional about whatever obstacles in front of them, they get crazy about it.
[01:36:07] And they start seeing the obstacle as not only the battle, but also as the war.
[01:36:14] And they get lost in their own determination. I've seen this with some seal buddies in mind.
[01:36:23] They're so determined that they will not stop even when it's completely detrimental.
[01:36:32] And they do it with just about everything. They'll be determined that anything.
[01:36:36] They'll be hurting themselves, training, they'll be determined to drink harder than anybody else.
[01:36:42] They'll, I mean, just anything you can throw out of them and they're determined to win at that.
[01:36:47] And they're actually losing. Yeah.
[01:36:49] So, so how do you prevent that from happening?
[01:36:55] Is you have to again, common theme here. You have to detach. You have to detach yourself. You have to
[01:37:03] be able to step back away from the problem enough to look at it from a strategic viewpoint and say,
[01:37:07] okay, what's what's going on here? What's the risk? What's the reward?
[01:37:12] How much am I willing to sacrifice right now? And how is that sacrifice going to impact me tomorrow?
[01:37:17] Or the next day or next week? Yeah. And then, once you've detached and you've weighed and you've
[01:37:25] seen what the real value of this immediate objective is, then you can assess and make a logical decision.
[01:37:35] Based, not on your emotion, but on the actual impact of the situation in the overall strategic
[01:37:44] picture. Yeah. That I, you're saying when you weigh the detriments and the rewards.
[01:37:56] I think that that really makes it real clear when you can assess and be like, oh,
[01:38:02] all of this, we're getting all this, like all these detrimental stuff.
[01:38:07] When we're trying to get this, you know, this one benefit, you know, out of this person or out of this
[01:38:12] situation or whatever. And when you're, you're using up your resources or sacrificing more resources,
[01:38:16] then you are gaining ground. Then, you know, that that seems like a clear time to, that's a very
[01:38:21] least start thinking about disengaging. Yeah. And you got it. You got it detached to be able to
[01:38:26] set it. I noticed this in the digital all the time. People try to pass the passing guard as a successful
[01:38:30] example. Yeah. People just like do one guard pass and it doesn't work and they do it again and it
[01:38:36] doesn't work and they do it again. It doesn't work. They do it again. They go on and on and on until
[01:38:40] their exhausted and gets wet. They get mounted and then they get put to tap.
[01:38:46] And it's because they were stubborn and they didn't detach and say, I mean, after you've tried to
[01:38:51] pass a guy's guard 14 times in a row the same way and it hasn't worked. Why is it going to work the
[01:38:55] 15th time? The answer is it's not. Try something else. You know, I think I'm sorry.
[01:39:02] Solid, solid answer. There is no solid answer. And it's the same thing you see this put in
[01:39:07] seals through training. They'd get like bogged down in a bad situation and they would they would
[01:39:14] just be start get focused on that one problem. You know, one room in a building they'd be like,
[01:39:19] no, send more guys into it. Send more guys into it. If you're just getting sprayed with paint,
[01:39:23] ball and put down in the training operation and no, two more guys and eventually everyone's just
[01:39:29] you know, it's training but everyone's dead and they're like, I don't know what up and
[01:39:32] you just didn't they got focused on and it cost them. So the leaders got to be able to step back
[01:39:37] and patch and take a look at the situation and decide, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and
[01:39:45] change course right now. Not going to quit but I'm going to adjust make a strategic adjustment.
[01:39:50] Yeah and that's it's weird how those semantics can really change your outlook on the whole
[01:39:57] task when you use the word quit versus disengage or another one with quit like I said is give up,
[01:40:05] you know, give it up. I mean unless it's something negative like smoking or something like that,
[01:40:08] you know quit smoking or get me to give up smoking. That's good but obviously smoking is negative
[01:40:12] but any kind of task or anything that requires effort. If you quit or quote unquote, give up,
[01:40:18] it's like it's hard to have that sound like a good thing, you know. Yeah and one thing that's
[01:40:26] this is you know obviously it applies to combat. It applies to jujitsu as we just talked about but also
[01:40:33] you know you look at what you're doing day to day and the little things in your life that you're trying
[01:40:37] to make work or in a business that you're trying to make something happen and sometimes people
[01:40:42] get so addicted to their plan. They get so their egos wrapped around their plan. Their plan is like
[01:40:48] 50% 50% tactics and technique and it's 50% their own ego and so when you try it when
[01:40:56] that person's plan starts to fail guess what they don't want to let it go because it's all wrapped
[01:41:01] up in the re-go so they just push it further, they push it further and especially if that person's
[01:41:07] in a senior position well then everyone's kind of just followed in line and they're looking at
[01:41:11] them. They all know they all know when they're at the bottom of the chain of command they're
[01:41:15] all looking at this person saying hey buddy it's not working. Yeah let's disengage and fall back
[01:41:23] and figure out a new plan of attack and then let's re-approach the target from a different angle let's
[01:41:28] flank this target. So if you're in a business, if you're in a relationship and you've got a situation
[01:41:37] where you're trying to make something work a certain way and it's not maybe it's got to
[01:41:43] disengage and you've got to come with a different angle of attack so that you can get the big wind
[01:41:48] in the long run. Yeah and with relationships obviously it's it's it's the same dynamic but it's
[01:41:54] different because what's the same because when you're in a let's say boy from girlfriend relationship
[01:42:01] whatever even husband life you say it's not working. It's just one of them's abusive right meanwhile
[01:42:08] the other one's trying to quote unquote make it work and if they end up leaving all you gave up on him
[01:42:14] you know or you you quit I don't think you'd ever say you quit the relationship but you
[01:42:19] will just say you gave up on the relationship right you know well he's been abusing her for 10 years
[01:42:25] already you know or in your case 27 years or you know whatever the number is and you got to
[01:42:32] I do not abuse my wife all right but you know as far as your numbers go that's 27
[01:42:37] but again like if you say oh you gave up on the relationship it's kind of like it's the
[01:42:44] girls fault a little bit like maybe she's she shouldn't have done that almost you know but
[01:42:51] yeah you disengage and if you want to if you want to go for the win in that relationship
[01:42:56] and if you really want to maintain the relationship don't let it be husband wife relationship
[01:42:59] maybe go back to being neighbors or something like that even though an abusive relationship
[01:43:04] that might not work but I'm just seeing theoretically yeah I'm not sure about all that
[01:43:11] but I do know that if you find yourself trying repeatedly to make something happen
[01:43:18] and it's not happening try a different route don't consider yourself a quitter consider yourself
[01:43:25] a tax strategist or a tax issue next what
[01:43:34] question juggle in a fight MMA or otherwise would you substitute anger or rage for aggression
[01:43:53] would I substitute anger or rage for aggression this isn't a fight MMA or otherwise that's important
[01:43:59] actually yeah so we so just to clarify this means like instead of aggression is it okay to use
[01:44:06] anger or rage yeah okay well I think pretty obviously and people who expect the answer to be
[01:44:15] for me the initial answer here is no and I would not substitute anger or rage for aggressiveness
[01:44:22] I think obviously when you let rage take over you you're not thinking anymore yeah and the mind
[01:44:33] is allegedly the most important weapon and I actually believe that to be true so if you
[01:44:38] let your rage and anger take over you're not using your mind and that's not good and you actually
[01:44:43] get to see this in MMA on a fairly regular basis because you'll get somebody that is really good
[01:44:49] at talking smack yeah and they'll get in the other person's head what does it mean to get
[01:44:54] the other person's head what does it do to him does it make them sad no does it make them not hate
[01:44:59] the opponent no what does it do to him it makes them angry yeah it makes them frustrated and that
[01:45:07] anger leads to frustration which leads to defeat so
[01:45:15] and again I think it's important to recognize that this doesn't just occur in MMA it occurs
[01:45:25] in everyday life and a good example is when you get to conversation with somebody you get to
[01:45:29] bake with somebody you get to an argument with somebody the minute you get frustrated or angry or
[01:45:37] enraged you just lost the argument you might you might feel like you won but you will not win the
[01:45:45] argument you lost the argument the minute that that happens yeah in any
[01:45:53] yes especially if it's an a debate man because you know it's an understood you're debating
[01:45:57] you're kind of against each other and then you just went off the rails basically right yeah it's not
[01:46:02] good to lose your temper in a debate in a conversation or in an MMA match it's like if you're playing
[01:46:07] chef we're playing chess and I was talking smack to you you got frustrated and the flipped over the
[01:46:13] chess board yeah you're with it with it you know a display of monumental power whatever whatever
[01:46:20] the rage actually rage yes yeah you you lost you know you absolutely this so I know I talk about
[01:46:33] this all the time is that the rule is you never let your emotion get in control so you don't let
[01:46:39] anger rage overwhelm your little brain now here's the here's the other side of that coin here's
[01:46:50] the dichotomy and I don't think you can even argue against this because it's that's pretty
[01:46:56] sound argument right I mean what we just said I mean we've seen it we know we know for a fact
[01:47:02] but rules are made to be broken um there are times win emotion can increase performance
[01:47:10] right they're absolutely are and I remember when I was a kid growing up the the Soviet Union was
[01:47:18] still just hardcore communist and when I would watch like the Olympics they would be like
[01:47:26] machines the Soviets no emotions and I thought bad ones guys are bad ass I wanted to be like that
[01:47:33] and an often brought in victories but I heard a quote when I was a kid and I actually looked for
[01:47:38] it because I wanted to bring it up I couldn't find it but it was something along the lines of this
[01:47:42] and that was that Soviet the Soviet athletes perform better in practice but the Americans perform better in
[01:47:50] the stadium so the Americans and that's not a universal statement and there's plenty of examples
[01:47:57] of the Russians beat Americans in whatever but there's also examples of where the Americans
[01:48:04] with their emotion and their fire were able to beat these Russians and I mean the greatest
[01:48:12] example would be the miracle life on ice and in late class of New York in 1980 which is you know
[01:48:17] that was a bunch of college kids that were fired up to beat the hardened Russian professional hockey team
[01:48:26] and and it's because you know they kind of trained their emotions out of it and there's a great
[01:48:30] time to have your emotions trained out of it you know there's a great time where you like you know what
[01:48:34] I'm not gonna let my emotions play into this I heard a heard something about tiger woods
[01:48:42] and his golf game and he's not thinking about you know the the broad statement is when he's hitting
[01:48:49] a shot and golf he's not thinking about the last shot and he's not thinking about the next shot
[01:48:55] he's just thinking about that shot right there so there's no emotional of whether he's
[01:48:59] I had or behind or nothing else it just he just is there on that one shot so
[01:49:06] I think that you know we I think that people I mean Americans is the example I used but I think
[01:49:13] that people in general can use your emotion to to your advantage sometimes but
[01:49:23] it does take control and it takes direction and also I think it's important to remember that
[01:49:28] it doesn't take long for that extra fire of anger to go from making you stronger and faster to
[01:49:38] making you slower and weaker both mentally and physically so you can get that burst and you know
[01:49:45] you see this in fighting all the time where people punch themselves out you know they go
[01:49:48] up and they go level seven rage and they start swinging for the first excitement even yeah
[01:49:53] or excitement they think the guy they think they got the guy in the in the heart locker they come
[01:49:57] they bring the thunder for they get they get emotional you know and I think on the mat
[01:50:05] when you get a guy that loses his temper when when somebody loses their temper with me on the
[01:50:09] mat it's just a matter of time like I just go okay cool he's got you know he's got three minutes left
[01:50:15] because he's gonna be done so yeah you've got to stay calm now a couple situations that I've seen
[01:50:25] or been a participant in and I'm pretty sure I was trying to remember this for sure but I was
[01:50:32] cornering Jeremy Stevens and if you don't know Jeremy Stevens is little Heathen MMA, awesome guy,
[01:50:39] stud fighter and we were training him at the time and he was fighting I'm pretty sure it was
[01:50:46] against Marcus Davis who's a well-respected boxer really good MMA fighter as well but definitely
[01:50:55] known for his boxing well Jeremy's known for his striking as well he's a very powerful striker
[01:51:00] and he's got unbelievable one punch knockout power Jeremy does so I was cornering Jeremy
[01:51:09] and it was a really really close fight I mean it was a I didn't know if he was winner losing
[01:51:16] I think it was leading towards Marcus actually and there's three rounds in MMA in this
[01:51:22] fight and in between the second and the third round I got in the ring got in the cage with Jeremy
[01:51:32] and I did the full on you know in his face and I you know I gave him the hey listen this is
[01:51:39] what's going on this guy crossering from you is taking money off your kids table it's taking food
[01:51:45] off your kids table he's gonna take you the roof off their heads he's taking everything that you
[01:51:49] work for he's gonna take it from you right now you gotta get past you gotta go when you're
[01:51:52] you gotta destroy him and I got you know I've got to get my fired up speech like that and you
[01:51:56] could see it switching his eyes he realized like he went into a rage of I need to kill this guy
[01:52:03] yeah and he came out that round and knocked him out yeah and that's a one I'll tell you another one
[01:52:09] I saw that was it was the same so it was it was Carlos Condit versus Rory McDonald and this was
[01:52:21] this was the first time they fought I'm pretty sure it was in Canada I was there I forget who I was
[01:52:27] cornering but I was there and I was done with cornering whoever I was cornering and
[01:52:33] I want to say it was Peter Symbodah I was cornering I think it was up in Canada but
[01:52:41] so Carlos Condit versus Rory McDonald and Carlos who's the veteran is going up the kids the
[01:52:49] kid you know Rory McDonald was in kind of an A was an unknown but he was definitely the younger I
[01:52:54] think he was 20 years old you know just a kid no offense Rory but he was young you know what I mean
[01:53:00] badass but young and Carlos was the vet you know he was a veteran grown man with a wife of kids
[01:53:07] and man Rory was getting the better moves in front of Rory's hometown well I don't know
[01:53:12] his hometown but it was a Canada and so the crowd was absolutely supporting Rory at least I'm
[01:53:18] pretty sure I remember this right I'm sorry if I don't but it seemed like the crowd was on the
[01:53:23] side of Rory McDonald so in between so I'm just watching the fight but I just snake some really
[01:53:31] good seats so I had a really good view by the way when I go to UFC thanks day to white and the rest
[01:53:37] of the crew like I sneak into some awesome seats after I get done cornering people so thank you
[01:53:42] so I was sitting you know in the second row or something phenomenal seat that I'd snuck into
[01:53:46] and because they throw you in the cheap seats when you're when you're cornering people you come out
[01:53:51] to watch the fights and yeah you're up in the nose bleeds which isn't cool so I just get aggressive
[01:53:56] and tact we move to better positions which is usually the second row right behind the press box
[01:54:00] so I'm sitting down there and I'm watching the fight and Greg Jackson is cornering Carlos
[01:54:08] content now if you don't know anything about Greg Jackson he's he's pretty zen like a guy and
[01:54:14] I'm actually going back in the day going way back in the day when Dean and I were competing all the
[01:54:22] time in the kind of the so-called scene of grappling we would we do every competition there was
[01:54:30] we're competing all the time grappling I don't even remember there were so many of them that we do
[01:54:36] and Greg Jackson would bring guys out to to fight to compete and so like we wrestled against
[01:54:43] these guys you know or we did some fishing grappling and these guys so I kind of knew him from that
[01:54:47] and then surprisingly one time when the UFC was in San Diego I was at work at the seal teams and
[01:54:54] someone called and said hey there's a there's a guy from the UFC here do you want to give them a tour
[01:54:59] of you know he wants a tour the UFC set up a tour of the seal teams they want to show them around
[01:55:04] like the facility there is facilities you know the whatever some guns you know just the gear
[01:55:10] whatever so I show up and it's Greg Jackson and you know we kind of had a little bit of a recognition
[01:55:15] but anyways Greg Jackson and you know you kind of hear this stuff about Greg Jackson all the time
[01:55:21] that he's this really nice guy and that he's super mellow and that he's really humble well it's all
[01:55:27] freaking true okay he's a super nice guy he's super humble he's just a fantastic guy and uh I
[01:55:34] gave him a tour and so we kind of got to know each other and then you know going fast forward now
[01:55:38] in the UFC I I've cornered him several times I don't know how many times I've cornered against him
[01:55:43] you know against him like my fighters are fighting his fighters yeah and you know like I said he's a
[01:55:49] really like a really mellow and a zen like guy if you watch him in the corners of his fights he's always
[01:55:54] like that just very steady and hey this is what you need to do you need to watch out for this or whatever
[01:55:59] hmm so I'm watching this fight and like I said Carlos Condit versus Rurric Donald Carlos is not
[01:56:07] winning right he's not winning and in between uh the second and the third ground Greg Jackson
[01:56:17] goes full berserker mode on Condit I mean he is yellow and Adam he is in his face he's
[01:56:23] pointing out on his wave and his finger he's just going nuts on him and I was like damn Greg Jackson
[01:56:29] is bringing the heat and sure enough he empt up Carlos Condit Carlos Condit came out and finished
[01:56:38] Rurric in the third which of a fight he was definitely gonna lose so what you see there is emotion
[01:56:45] helping to win in that situation yeah and actually before when the fight was over I saw Greg
[01:56:55] and I just kind of said something to him you know like hey you went full berserker mode on
[01:57:01] Carlos and he said yeah he said like I had to do it it's funny it's you could see it almost seemed
[01:57:07] like he'd never done it before I don't know maybe one I have to have Greg on at some point he can tell
[01:57:11] the story but he said something along lines of you know I had to do it and it worked so he
[01:57:18] did it a big smile and that was working it and it definitely indeed it did work yeah and those
[01:57:25] would you do you think I mean total gas but do you think that's because those just happen to be
[01:57:32] the exceptions or is it because really the formula kind of seems like here's the emotion and then
[01:57:40] here's all the logic and the skill and the planning implementation of you know game plans and all
[01:57:46] the all the stuff that you're gonna use in your mind and here's the emotion it's like it's like
[01:57:51] it's like a little spark plug or something and and um sure the emotion can go up but the skill
[01:57:58] got to go up proportionately and once you start to do this when the emotion takes over that's one
[01:58:04] you know when you're gonna fail or you think advantage so I think there's a sweet spot in there
[01:58:10] where for moments in time emotion and even borderlining on rage which I think range is a
[01:58:19] little bit strong because I think rage you lose your clarity but anger which is you can still have
[01:58:24] some clarity of what you're doing right so if I think you can actually that can be utilized appropriately
[01:58:31] at the right times and I think these times you know like I talked about Jeremy you know I had to
[01:58:36] provoke some anger out of him you know I had to provoke and it absolutely helped him he's gonna lose
[01:58:42] that fight and it's the same thing with Carlos Carlos was absolutely gonna lose that fight if he didn't
[01:58:48] do something different if he didn't you know it's like it's like hit in the turbo button it's like
[01:58:52] hitting uh when I hit your socks I right it's not gonna it's like hitting the blood the
[01:58:56] nitrous oxide blower it's only gonna get you it's only gonna make you go hard for another yeah
[01:59:02] what is another two minutes or well without nitrous oxide it's not very long at all but yeah but with
[01:59:08] but with anger you know it can make you go for another you know whatever maybe it's maybe it's two minutes
[01:59:16] and this is something else have you ever missed like a heavy single like like okay you're lifting
[01:59:21] your deadlift thing or you're doing power cleanser something and you miss a heavy signal
[01:59:25] I know I never have heard so so this is another easy way to prove it man I miss a heavy
[01:59:33] signal sometimes and sometimes I just get angry yeah it's true and I just have to bring the anger
[01:59:40] yeah and I start getting fired up and I start thinking about things that make me angry yeah
[01:59:45] and I get over that barn I rip that thing off the floor like I hate it yes and it absolutely
[01:59:51] makes me stronger that moment so is that a dress probably adrenaline and it's probably the same
[01:59:54] thing that pumped into marcuses or into Jeremy's head it's probably the same thing that part
[01:59:59] pumped into Carlos's head but it's crazy because despite getting punched despite getting beaten
[02:00:05] despite having someone you know trying to destroy you in front of a large crowd of people none of
[02:00:10] that was able to spark the it was able to spark the adrenaline as much as some kind of a
[02:00:16] tap into the emotional portion of your mind to bring out just enough rage to get out there and get
[02:00:23] that job done once and for all yeah and yeah and that's really the key they're just enough rage
[02:00:28] especially when you're talking about something that requires technique when you say lifting your
[02:00:33] you're like powerfully for example and I remember it was in in college and I was going for my
[02:00:40] one right max and yeah you fail a couple times but for the sake of saving time and stuff you
[02:00:46] can only give you three times won't in my case they were like you have to get it three times
[02:00:50] so the first time I'd gotten all of them I was pretty solid at parkling to that type
[02:00:57] so I was getting all of them and then I got to that point and I didn't get it it was 300
[02:01:03] 300 I weighed 185 at the time 298 are you looking for props right there yeah okay drop
[02:01:10] you drop props to everybody drop stack but when you was talking earlier about when you
[02:01:14] named drop and stuff yeah that's what it sounds like no I did that don't perfectly try to do it
[02:01:20] if I were to go out of my way to leave out that number true you know you wanted to know you
[02:01:25] wanted to know how much I was doing I knew you were going to say it didn't matter for now you wanted
[02:01:28] to help anyway doesn't matter nonetheless the first time I failed and I was like no you got this
[02:01:36] you got this and I had this getting run wood this name it's a broad blonde hair like it's
[02:01:42] used like is this tough guy could hit real hard and you you would always get nuts and you
[02:01:46] like you got to shoot in you know you're this and then you know making me mad or whatever and
[02:01:52] I didn't outwardly express any kind of anger but I felt that anger and power playing takes
[02:01:56] technique that's the thing it's not like it's just you know like I don't know like a
[02:02:01] even bench has some technique but that left is I mean everything has technique but
[02:02:06] power clean takes a little bit more technique than other left yeah so it was just the
[02:02:14] perfect amount of rage you know and that's going to depend on what kind of person you are like
[02:02:18] Jeremy Stevens you could tell just even the way he trains he uses some rage in there and you know
[02:02:23] as opposed to roaring me down for example seemingly I don't know I don't want you to
[02:02:27] train on time or nothing but it seems like he's super methodical you know in rage or anger whatever
[02:02:32] is it he is as much of a part as someone like Jeremy Stevens with uh
[02:02:41] probably love yeah oh my god crazy braw yeah what I'm gonna do yeah and yeah
[02:02:48] Mary's not spending the way they train up there at try stories I spent like the week
[02:02:54] and I was like half a week or whatever with them with for us and um and Rory and it's heat
[02:03:00] for us as this head you know how guys hold mitts I'm sure they hold mitts and stuff but he has
[02:03:05] this head that you hit the head instead of the mitt I'll say cool it seems like oh that's not that
[02:03:12] like it seems kind of obvious so I never seen no one do that and it made way more sense because I
[02:03:17] have hit mitts before and then when you go to sparse like it's kind of weird you gotta get used to
[02:03:22] the difference between hitting mitts and hitting someone's head so I thought man that's clever man
[02:03:27] he's guys it's getting some smart up here and yeah yeah I respect to those I mean I respect all the
[02:03:32] guys to get in the get in the UFC and fight man it's awesome to watch and that that
[02:03:38] lawler uh McDonald fight was just uh was just insane yeah it was insane yeah you know watch that
[02:03:45] fight if you have anyone that hasn't watched that fight go watch that fight you've seen a couple
[02:03:48] warriors just bring in the bringing it all and leaving it all right there and again you go watch that
[02:03:53] fight so did you get the power cream I got the power cream yes yes and then here's the thing
[02:04:00] about that power cream so you yeah I got it right and so you go up and you're like all right you
[02:04:06] got to you go up and wait the next one was like 303 like super small wait because you want to get
[02:04:12] yeah yeah yeah just so you can get the 303 not even close everything was spent on that we didn't
[02:04:18] miss that one didn't we yeah we did it was at the all-time life life not I just disengage that's all
[02:04:24] that we're just disengage I see where it's at we can be good with that all right I feel like we should
[02:04:32] go into the next question we got time for about one more what do you think I think so yeah okay
[02:04:38] juggle is the ability to switch on and off a personal feature or is it a trained skill
[02:04:50] is this confused with the term beast mode what causes that switched to flip the overdrive
[02:05:01] the beast mode the full on destroyer that will not stop I think it's actually this is it is
[02:05:14] something that's learned I think and I think it's a hard lesson I don't think everyone gets it
[02:05:19] and I think some people go through life without ever getting it and I'll tell you it's
[02:05:25] it's an important lesson it's a critical lesson it's a thing that allows you to go the extra
[02:05:33] distance to dig just a little bit deeper and push a little harder to get after it and
[02:05:47] like many other things in life there's a dichotomy because it actually takes in my opinion
[02:05:52] to opposing forces to bring it to life it takes both emotion and logic for you to reach your
[02:06:05] maximum potential to really give everything you have and go beyond your limits because both
[02:06:16] emotion and logic they're going to reach their limitations and in one fails you rely on the
[02:06:26] other one so when it doesn't make sense logical sense to go on that's when you got to use your
[02:06:37] emotion that's when you got to use that anger and frustration that fear to push yourself
[02:06:44] harder to push yourself to say I don't stop and when your feelings are screaming that you've
[02:06:56] had enough and when you think you're going to break emotionally you got to override that emotion
[02:07:02] with the concrete logic and will power that says you know what I don't stop so you fight the
[02:07:17] weak emotions with the power of logic and you fight the weakness of logic with the power of emotions
[02:07:25] and in the balance of those two that's where you find the strength and the tenacity and the
[02:07:38] guts to say yourself I don't stop and you won't and I think that's about it for tonight
[02:08:03] so thanks to everyone for tuning in and listening to us if you want to continue these conversations
[02:08:16] you want to join in these conversations you connect with us through the interwebs
[02:08:22] on Twitter I'm at Jocca Willink and of course echo Charles is
[02:08:27] at echo Charles thanks for leaving reviews of the podcast on iTunes and of the book on Amazon
[02:08:39] and most of all everyone that's out there tuning in listening you got your head set on
[02:08:47] you're getting in the zone thank you for getting after it and so until next time
[02:08:59] this is Jocco and echo out