Name: Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink
Uploaded: 2015-12-02T01:53:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-12-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-12-02. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #729 - Jocko Willink

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are here, and I'm here with Jocko Willink
of Extreme Ownership, How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win.
I'm really excited to read this because I really enjoyed your podcast with Tim
Ferriss, and I've seen you around the UFC a bunch of times, but I didn't know
much about you.
But you're one of those dudes, you know, where I look at this guy, I'm like,
that guy probably knows some shit.
There's something about you, like when I see you, you know, you're hanging
around with Lister, I saw you a few times at the UFC, I'm like, that guy
probably knows some shit, or he's seen some shit.
And then I saw, or listened to the Tim Ferriss podcast, and I go, okay, well,
that makes a lot of sense now.
If you haven't heard that podcast, it is excellent, and you're the first guy
ever to come with your own notepad and your own pen, too.
I just want to point that out.
Just trying to be prepared.
Well, that's your whole thing, man.
I'm a big fan of your social media posts, too, because I like feeling like a
lazy fuck whenever I look at your social media posts, and you have a picture of
your watch, 4.45 in the morning, this dude's out there working out.
I like it.
Yeah, it's interesting, because, you know, I obviously had zero social media
presence, like, three months ago, or whatever the case may be.
And Tim Ferriss was, you know, basically said, hey, you need to get on this
social media stuff, and I said, okay, can you kind of show me what to do?
And he says, yeah, sign up.
So then I signed up, and then he dropped that podcast that gets listened to by
a bunch of people, and all of a sudden I was engulfed in the social media world.
And I found Twitter to be the one that was the easiest to use, and you don't
have to write a lot.
So, you know, I don't like people that talk a whole bunch without saying
anything, so I figured that one's pretty cool.
Yeah, that was the thing that I was thinking when he was encouraging you to use
social media.
I was like, a guy like you, you're not a peacocker, you know?
And there's something about social media that, as a person who's an avid social
media user, there's some peacocking to it, you know?
And I try to do it with humor, and I try to, because it's an important aspect
of promoting comedy shows and podcasts and things along those lines.
But you were much more of a keep it to yourself.
One of the things that I loved about the Ferris podcast you were talking about,
how you would have commanders would come to various leaders and ask them, what
do you need?
What do you need?
And guys would have all these requests and all these things, we need Wi-Fi, we
need this, and you were like, we're good, sir.
We're good, sir.
And the idea behind that is, when you did need something, if you really did
need something, someone would come to you, and you would get it quickly.
Absolutely.
When I needed something, and I spoke up and said, hey, boss, this is what I
need, and this is why I need it, they would instantly give it to me.
Because they knew that I was telling the truth, and it wasn't some, you know,
half-assed request that wasn't real.
It was something that we legit needed, and they'd give it to me.
Well, this is the value of someone who keeps their words short, and means what
they say, and says what they mean, and doesn't have a lot of bullshit involved
in their vocabulary.
And this is coming from a professional bullshitter.
I mean, this is what I do.
I bullshit.
I talk, you know.
I feel a lot of hours of just shooting the shit about nonsense.
Yeah, and I mean, I have to, you know, look in the mirror myself.
I mean, I just wrote with my partner, Leif Babin, who I served with, you know,
we just wrote a 300-page book about us, you know, for all practical purposes.
Now, of course, it's about our team, and it's about what we learned and what we
experienced, but there's no doubt that there's some level of, you know, self-promotion
when you're writing a book that's got your name on the cover of it, and now I'm
sitting here talking to you, and I guess that puts me in the same league.
Maybe not the same league, but at least I'm playing the same sport.
Yeah, we're definitely playing the same sport, but there's benefit to that,
because I think what you have to say, and especially what you had to say in the
Tim Ferriss podcast, is very important.
It's not just important, it's unique, because your perspective is of one who
was involved in the most intense activity a human being can participate in in
today's world.
You were involved in combat in Iraq during the worst time of the war, and you
came through it with some pretty intense lessons, and you can, I think anybody
listening to that podcast can get a lot out of it.
There's inspiration to be gotten from that podcast, for sure, but there's also
an understanding that can only be, I don't think anybody else can relay what
you experienced but you.
You know, you can have all these guys that write these, you know, movies, and
they could write screenplays and television shows about it, or guys can write
books about it, embedded journalists can write about it.
It's not the same.
It's not the same.
I got a sense from just you talking about it on Tim Ferriss podcast, literally
a shift in my perspective of what it's like to be there.
Yeah.
It is, you know, for me, it was my, and I know this might sound weird, but it
was my lifelong dream to be in combat, and to be in a leadership position in
combat.
Ever since I could remember wanting to do anything of any substance with my
life, I wanted to be some kind of a commando.
And so, I really felt, and the Battle of Ramadi was, you know, like you said,
it was 2006.
It was Ramadi, Iraq.
It was the worst place in the world at the time, and I knew that, and I felt
like my whole life had sort of been preparing me to be there in that position,
taking care of those guys to the best of my ability, and going out and sending
them out to go and kill the enemy,
and supporting the conventional forces that were there, that were unbelievably
brave and humble, and just miraculously patriotic.
And we formed a brotherhood that, you know, to this day, I don't think it'll
ever be replaced.
And you can see why, you know, these stories of war stand the test of time.
And when we talk about the Peloponnesian Wars, we talk about war for all time
because there's something there.
And I think it's what you began with because it is the ultimate human test.
You know, it's the ultimate, it is other people are trying to kill you, and you're
trying to kill them,
and that's just the ultimate test.
And not that it's a great test or a test that everyone should want to have
happen because it's awful and horrible and wretched in many ways.
But at the same time, it's there, and it's present, and there is no avoiding it.
There is no avoiding it.
War is part of the world.
It's part of human nature.
I know Dana White, you know, says, fighting's in our DNA.
Well, you don't have to go but one or two degrees further from fist fighting to
where, you know, tribes of human beings are trying to kill each other.
Yeah, it's one of the subjects that I've talked about with my friend Duncan.
And we were going over this, and we essentially came to the conclusion that the
history of the human race is a history of military warfare.
I mean, whenever you talk about the human race, you talk about the Civil War.
You talk about, you know, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam.
You talk about wars, and in between those wars, people preparing for more war
or trying to avoid war.
The Cold War, in between wars, you know, you talk about the various conflicts
throughout history, whether it's Genghis Khan, or whether it's Napoleon, you're
talking about war.
I mean, almost all of our history has been trying to keep people from fucking
with us and trying to take things that we think will help our people.
That's essentially the history of the human race.
Yeah, and I think what really strikes people and why there's an almost sick
fascination with it in some ways is because there, it's, you know, we say that
combat is like life but amplified and intensified.
So, it's similar to regular life, except for the consequences are obviously
everything.
You know, you can die.
That can be the end of you.
And so, when you're in that moment, and when you read about that, and when
people read these books or watch these movies, they get some sense of what that
must be like.
And I think that's why there is, like I said, some attraction to it.
I mean, that's why there's hundreds and hundreds of war movies and hundreds and
hundreds of war books because people try and understand what that emotional
content really means.
Well, there's no higher stakes.
So, anytime you're involved in an activity that literally there are no higher
stakes, other than the loss of your loved ones and the grief that you would
suffer because of that, the loss of your own life is about the highest stake
possible.
And when I talk to people like you or many of the other guys that I've talked
to that have served and been involved in combat, one of the craziest aspects of
it is many want to be back there.
Many experience that life tuned up to 11, and they recall it like it's the best
time of their life.
There's no doubt about it.
Best time of my life.
That's crazy.
No doubt about it, feeling that pressure, knowing what was at stake.
And, again, for me in a leadership position, you know, everyone feels a little
bit different.
For me in a leadership position, you're not worried about yourself getting hurt
or killed.
You're worried about your guys getting hurt or killed.
And that's the most important thing and the thing that's keeping you awake at
night and the thing that's driving you.
And so there's an intensity there.
But having so much pressure and so much at stake when it goes away, it
definitely leaves a hollow, empty space inside.
There's no doubt about it.
Well, you see it with fighters, with boxers, MMA fighters.
When they retire, they have a real hard time finding regular life to be
fulfilling.
And I can only imagine it would be way more intense because of war.
Because the thing about fighting is it's such a solitary sport.
You know, you have your team behind you.
You have coaches.
You have guys that you prepare with, that you train with.
But once you're locked up inside that cage or you step inside that ring, it's
really all just about you.
The experience is yours.
When you're at war, your experience is protecting all those around you as well
as staying alive and losing friends and thinking that you could have done
something differently and maybe someone would still be here.
That's a completely different kind of thing to leave.
And to come back to regular civilization and then to watch all the shit that
you did in Iraq go to pieces now.
You watch just fucking chaos over there now.
Every day in the news, whether it's the civil war between the Sunni and the Shia
or whether it's what's going on with ISIS.
And it just seems like whatever gains that you guys made there are slowly being
eroded every day.
Does that also like pull at you?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, like I said, we fought.
And when I say we, I'm talking about a giant group of 5,000 or 6,000 Americans
with a 1-1 AD.
Just a huge group of awesome guys, soldiers and Marines.
And we were a part of them.
And so we all fought very hard for the city of Ramadi.
I mean, this is, it's a city.
It's a city like a city in America.
It's a, you know, it's got roads and it's got houses and it's got building and
it's got a government center.
It's got a soccer stadium.
It's a city like what we have in America.
And we went in there and fought to take this city back from these savages that
owned it at the time.
And why do I call them savages?
It's because they tortured people.
They skinned people alive.
They beheaded people.
They raped little girls and little boys.
It was just disgusting.
And so we went in there and fought