Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,
where we revisit past episodes for the
most potent and actionable science-based
tools for mental health, physical
health, and performance.
I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
of neurobiology and opthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine. And now for
my discussion with Jaco Willink. Jaco
Willink, welcome.
>> Thanks for having me, man.
>> In my view, and I think in the view of a
lot of people, you embody discipline. So
today I definitely want to talk about
routines but also mindsets but also
things that you do and ways that you
approach things that might not
contradict but not be so obvious to
people might um be a little bit
counterintuitive. There are generators
and projectors and generators are people
that are just from a very young age they
realize they can impact other people.
They want to create things in the world.
And then there are these projectors that
like to just kind of reflect on what
they see. And it's not that generators
are good and projectors are bad. The
world needs both. That they really work
in a kind of symbiotic way. But your
story captures the essence of what it is
to be a generator, which is that by
doing certain things, you can have an
impact and it feeds back to you and it's
likely that they receive something from
it as well.
>> Yeah. And where this all came to
fruition as I as I now piece together as
you're talking through this stuff. Look,
when I joined the military,
you join the military and you get a
blank slate. No one cares what you got
on the SATs or the no one cares about
anything. You're a blank slate. And then
with that blank slate, it is, hey, if
you do this thing, if you perform this
task and you perform it well, you will
get recognition. you will hopefully get
more control over your own destiny,
which is the ultimate in compensation
for for human beings to have more
control over your own destiny. You can
have all the money in the world, but if
you don't control what you're doing
every day, or at least you don't control
most of what you're doing, then then
it's not worth it. The reason people try
and make money is so they can have more
autonomy in their life. And so in the
military, it became very clear to me
very quickly that if I performed well, I
actually got a lot more freedom with
what I did. That's when I started to
realize, oh, what I'm doing right now is
going to impact not only what's going to
happen to me in the next hour, but in
the next 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, the
more I focused on doing things that are
going to positively impact my future,
the better my life became. And I think
that's a very huge lesson to learn that
I know I didn't figure out for quite
some time.
>> I get the impression and I think
everyone gets the impression that you're
somebody with a lot of energy. And I
wonder whether or not you wake up with a
lot of energy and you feel like you have
to burn it off with this physical
activity and and work and other demands
in your life or do you find that you
wake up and your energy is kind of
neutral and exercise and physical
activity gives you energy?
>> I would say it's both, right? There's no
way I could sit here and say, "Oh yeah,
every day that alarm clock goes off and
I'm like, oh yeah, let's rock and roll."
Not certainly that's not the case. It's
also certainly not the case that every
day I'm like, "Oh god, not again." No.
Uh, I'd say most of the time the alarm
clock goes off and I I I don't think a
bunch like when my alarm clock goes off,
I I don't debate with myself. I'm not
negotiating. I I just The thing goes off
and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
It's sort of robotic. Now, I this this
much I can say when you go and work out,
you're going to feel better. You will
get energy from working out. If you go
break a sweat, you're going to feel
better. This you're going to get more
energy from it. And look, you got to go
really, really hard to where now you
feel more tired when you're done. And
even that, I mean, you got to go psycho.
I'll do that occasionally, but I don't
do that on a daily basis. You know, at
the end of a day, if I wake up, lift,
run, surf, and then I do jiu-jitsu in
the afternoon. Like, at the end of that
day, I'm tired and I feel tired. Uh but
normal day working out just makes you
feel better. G definitely gives you
definitely gives me energy.
>> The idea that movement and exercise
gives us energy I think is an important
idea and it's something that I was
frankly I was hoping your answer would
be that as opposed to that you know you
wake up every day and you just want to
just attack the world because you have
so much energy getting out of bed
because frankly I never feel that way
but I always feel better after I train.
Do you nourish after you train or do you
find that eating slows you down?
>> I find that eating slows me down. So,
no. I don't eat a big meal until I'm
kind of done with the physical stuff for
the day, which is usually at night, 6 7
o'clock at night, which I guess there's
some bad things about that. I eat too
late. Well, the data say, you know, if
you're having a regular meal schedule
that allows you to sleep well at night,
whatever that means for you and that
allows you to be active and focused when
you need to be active and focused,
that's the ideal schedule.
>> When I'm working with clients, like, so
I have a leadership consulting company,
Echelon Front, when I'm going to work
with a client, I'm not eating because
because they're going to be asking me
questions. We're going to be diving into
what's happening inside their business.
Like, there's a lot of stuff going on.
It's a lot of cognitive work. Podcast,
I'm not eating before a podcast. before
I'm recording a podcast, I'm not eating
because I don't want to have a bunch of
food in my stomach. I want to you you
get a certain level of mental clarity
when you haven't eaten a bunch of food.
So, going out on missions, I never would
eat before I go out out on a mission. I
would eat when I come home. You know,
get home 4:00 in the morning, 3:00 in
the morning from doing operation. Cool.
Then I'll eat cuz then I'm going to do a
debrief for 15 minutes, clean weapons,
and then eat a big meal, go to sleep.
Cool. Yeah. I don't want to have food in
my stomach when I've got to perform or
execute anything.
>> So much of what you embody and what you
do, I think, centers around this idea of
discipline, of course, but also energy.
It's the intuitive sense I get about why
people are so drawn to your messaging
and what you do and how you do it. Are
there certain forms of exercise like
weightlifting versus cardio that you
find give you an especially big boost in
what we're calling energy? And here this
could be cognitive energy, it could be
physical energy, but a a readiness for
the next thing.
>> I would have to say like the the
highintensity sort of anorobic blast,
you know, whether it's on the bike or on
the rower or, you know, swinging a
kettle bell hard, something like that.
That last 10, 15 minutes, that's a
really good way to, you know, peak my
mentality for the day. When you were in
the teams,
what was your observation about how
winning and losing would impact people
in the short and long term from the
perspective of leadership and maybe more
importantly from the perspective of
yourself?
How do you work with that? How do you
calibrate wins and losses? How do you
transmute losses into energy? Because
wins we know convert to energy, but
losses oftentimes can sap our energy
way, way down. To start with, I think
that the selection process to get into
the SEAL teams is going to weed out a
bunch of people that can't recover very
quickly from something bad. The kid that
was the star of the football team, the
star of the basketball team, the captain
of this, the captain of that, he's been
winning his whole life. He goes to Buds
and he quits. Because in Buds, you're
not gonna win. You're certainly not
going to win everything. They're going
to find what you're not good at and
they're gonna exploit that and you're
going to lose. A lot of guys that may
lose and it disrupts their their
motivation, they're probably just going
to quit. And so that's why you get this
massive attrition rate with guys that
are studs. Division one athlete,
division one wrestlers, division one
football players, division one runners
and swimmers, they all come to Buds.
They all quit. Not all of them quit, but
there's plenty of examples of the
highest level of collegiate athlete in
sports that translate very well to what
you're doing in in basic SEAL training
and they quit. And sometimes it's
because they don't know how to lose.
They don't know how to recover from a
loss. So I think already in once you get
to a SEAL team, you've got people that
are generally speaking going to be
pretty resilient when it comes to
dealing with a loss. Now once you're in
the teams and what you're talking about
is now you start taking much more
significant loss. You're not losing a
race, you're losing one of your friends.
And this is what from a leadership
perspective you have to you have to pay
attention to. So when you're a leader in
any organization,
you're basically in charge of a mob when
it comes to what their morale is. And
they feed off of each other just like a
mob riding in the streets going, "Oh, we
can break this window. Let's break all
the windows." And they they they move
this mob mentality. And that happens
with morale inside of a team. And you as
a leader can't get caught up with the
mob. You have to detach yourself from
the mob mentally so that you don't get
caught up in their emotions and their
morale because if you get caught up in
their emotions and you get caught up in
morir their morale, you can't correct
it. So, we go out on a mission. The
mission goes great. We get into a
gunfight, kill a couple bad guys,
everyone's okay, high fives, everyone's
feeling great. You come back to base.
Hey, we don't need to debrief. That was
perfect. Hey, we don't need to get our
gear, you know, uh, maintained. We can
just go to bed. We We're awesome. That's
when the leader has to say, "Oh, we've
got the mob, and the mob is becoming
slightly arrogant." Hey guys, real
quick, that was a good op, but there's
some things we could improve on. You got
to bring that mob back and bring them
back to center line. Same thing in the
other direction. You go out on an
operation, it doesn't go well. You go
out on operation, you take casualties.
Now you come back to base, you see guys
moping around, you see the the spirit
starting to break. And same thing if you
get if you're part of that mob, you'll
be you'll be with them. Your morale will
be breaking. Your spirit will be
breaking. You got to look and say, "Oh,
I see what's happening. Hey guys, listen
up. That was tough. Didn't go the way we
wanted it to go. We need to learn some
lessons. Here's some things I can do
better. What can we do better to make
sure that that never happens again?" So,
as a leader, when it comes to winning
and losing, you're generally going to be
the person countering what the mob
mentality is. Because when the mob
starts winning, they want to keep
winning and they might get arrogant.
When the mob is losing, they might start
to lose more because their attitude goes
down the drain. So, that's what you have
to pay attention to from a leadership
perspective. For me personally,
I think I know what I did when when I
lost guys was focus on all right,
we need to we need to celebrate the
life. We need to move the lo mourn the
loss
and then we need to go to work. We need
to get our gear back on. We need to lock
and load our weapons. We need to get
back out there. I I know that that's
what we needed to do, you know. So often
the best way to contend with with
problems, with issues, with adversity
is action. Is by taking action.
The more you sit and the more you wait
and the more time you spend with that
adversity with the upper hand inside
your head, the the worse it's going to
get. So for me, always taking action,
making something happen. It doesn't have
to be huge. It doesn't have to be some
mammoth triumph that you're going to go
and pursue. But if you say, "Hey,
listen.
This is what happened didn't go the way
we wanted it to. We're going to get our
gear back on. We're going to go back
out. We're going to do this other
mission." And it's in a in your personal
life, too. You know, something doesn't
go the way you wanted it to go. You
didn't get the job you wanted, you
didn't get the hire, you didn't get the
promotion, you can go home and sit there
and and and dwell on it. That's not
getting you any progress. Or you say,
"Okay, you know what? Let me do a quick
analysis. Why didn't I get that
promotion? Oh, it's cuz I didn't get
this qualification or I hadn't jumped
through this gate. Okay, cool. What do I
need to let me let me look into how do I
how do I get to jump through that gate
so next time I will get the promotion
and you start taking action. Action for
me is a cure for a lot of problems that
we have in life. I think that in the
context of moderating these systems,
it's so key. I mean, it's key to have a
long arc in a career path, military,
science or otherwise. As a father in
particular,
how do you apply these same sorts of
ideas when you know your kid is kind of
down because it's hard to be a
14-year-old or because it was a bad day
or when they're up.
>> Well, clearly it's a very similar thing
to what I just talked about. You know,
if your kid is doing well and and wins
the wrestling tournament and is like,
"Yeah, I won the wrestling tournament."
And what do they want to do? They want
to eat a triple cheese pizza, right? I
mean, they want to go crazy. And you as
a leader and as a and as a parent and as
a friend need to say, "Hey, man. I mean,
you did good. That was awesome. You had
a great day,
>> but let's start thinking a little bit
about next week, too. How about we just
have a few slices of pizza, right? As a
reward." And this goes with yourself as
well. You know, you you do something,
you have a success, and you say, "Oh,
that that that's great. Uh, but
all glory is fleeting, and I need to get
back to work." And look, and do people
go too far with that sometimes? Yes,
absolutely. Sometimes people they they
don't stop and celebrate at all. And
those are the kind of people I think
that get burned out eventually because
they never say, "Hey, that was awesome.
We had a big win. Cool. High five." So I
think, you know, as a leader, as a
friend, as a parent, as a spouse, you
want to be able to modulate that, help
modulate that. Don't shut it down. You
know, your kid walks off the wrestling
mat with for a high five and you say,
"You could have won by more." No, I'm
not talking about that. or your kid
walks off the mat after losing, you say,
"You got what you deserve." No, you've
got to be the counter, the counterweight
to the emotions that other people have.
When you're doing a good job as a
leader, as a friend, as a spouse, as
whatever, you're doing a good job as a
counterwe. I think that's a a good way
to look at it. You want to you want to
provide some balance for people to make
sure that they don't get out of control.
And you you notice when people
have a downfall, it's normally because
they've surrounded themselves with
people that there's no counter to.
There's no counterbalance. You know, if
you were my best friend and I, you know,
I went out drinking last night and had a
great time and partied all night and met
a girl and you're like, "Heck yeah,
let's do it again tonight." Eventually,
where are we going to be? We're going to
be in the gutter somewhere. But if you
say, "Hey, dude, that was awesome, but
hey, remember we got school on Monday,
right?" And you kind of pull me back.
That's we we got to find balance in life
and ourselves. And then and then we gota
as much as we can provide balance for
other people because people are
emotional and they get caught up in what
they're doing and you want to you want
to keep people balanced. You seem to
have a very strong sense of context and
self. Was there something in your
upbringing your parents or or was it
just kind of how you always imagined
yourself as like yeah this is who I am?
Because I actually think that many
people do not have a very firm sense of
self or their sense of self is so rigid
that they can only operate in this like
narrow trench of one domain of life and
they end up very very isolated. As far
as kind of where I became me, I I just
actually have to kind of give a lot of
credit to the music that I grew up
listening to and the attitude that we
had back then listening to hardcore
music, being able to stand up against
what other people were saying, which is
what you're doing when you're in that
scene. And the whole DIY nature of it.
Hey, we we can just do this ourselves.
we can just make this happen for
ourselves. We don't need anybody else.
We can do this. And that hardcore
attitude and sticking by your friends
and standing up and getting in fights
and like that's what you're going to do.
That's kind of my attitude. That music
is the soundtrack to my life. And so I
always would have that music running in
my head. But to your question, I had
something in me that when I heard that
music for the first time, I was like,
"Okay, here it is." You know, here it
is. this is, you know, I hear the
Beatles, I hear the Grateful Dead, I
hear the Rolling Stones, I hear the
whoever, and you go, okay, that's fine.
But when I heard hardcore music for the
first time, when I heard the Cromax,
when I heard Agnostic Front, when I
heard the Bad Brains, I thought it was
that was just like it was part of me
already. I'm like a kid living in the
woods in Connecticut. I I'm just kind of
hearing what I'm hearing. Listen to the
lyrics. Listen to the lyrics of Minor
Threat. Listen to the lyrics. and you
go, "Okay, this stuff, I agree with this
stuff." And I I just think that that
kind of set a datam in my head of being
okay with being outside, being okay with
saying no, being okay with being a
rebel, being okay with not going along
with what everyone else is doing. That
became very important when I was in the
military and I looked at what leadership
might be telling me to do and might
think to myself, "Hey, that doesn't seem
like a good idea." and having the the
wherewithal to say, "Hey boss, I'm not
sure this is a good idea." Not to be a
jerk about it, but just to say, "There
might be a better way to get this done.
What do you think of this?" Or, "Hey,
boss, can I ask you a question about
that?" So, I I think if I had to trace
it back, you know, having Black Flag My
War side 2 on my record player for like
a year and a half straight, that's going
to leave a mark, man. And I think it
left a mark on me.
>> What are your sources of motivation?
>> Well, you pro you probably heard me say
that. Mo motivation isn't something that
I am going to count on because it's just
an emotion that's going to come and go.
Just like feeling happy, you feel happy
right now, maybe you won't feel happy in
15 minutes. You feel sad now, maybe you
won't feel sad in 15 minutes. Feel
motivated right now, you might not feel
motivated in 15 minutes. Therefore, I
can't rely on it. So, I'm not going to
put any money on just being motivated
because it doesn't really matter to me.
So the daily
actions that I take aren't from
motivation. They're they're just from
discipline. Like like I said earlier,
I'm not going to get up and go through
some big debate about well really do I
really feel like doing this? No, I don't
feel like doing but it doesn't matter so
I'm just going to go do it. You
particular have said several times
today, rather than looking for sources
of things outside you like a job or a
relationship, which are all great um but
as sources of energy or motivation or
inspiration to use action as a positive
action as a source of energy.
>> Yeah. And and positive action is when
you have to contend with something when
there's something that you're afraid of,
right? Step into it, move towards it.
You don't solve problems by running away
from them. You solve them by moving
towards them and figuring out what's
going on. Then we could go down the
whole path of talking about the indirect
approach which is a theory of combat
which I completely believe in but it
also applies to you know interacting
with other people. If you have a problem
with some other person to think to
myself, well I got I got a problem with
Andrew. I'm going to go confront him on
it. And that might not be the best
solution. In fact, it's probably not the
best solution for me to go confront you
with the problem because now we're going
to have a confrontation. it might be
better for me to take an indirect
approach and not confront you, but
instead engage in a conversation with
you about something that's maybe
adjacent to the problem that I have. And
then eventually that builds our
relationship to a point where you start
to recognize, oh, I bet Joo feels
something about this thing. And we can
move towards a solution instead of me
trying to punch you in the face with
some truth that I believe versus the
truth that you believe. And now we're
engaged in combat and that's bad.
There's going to be casualties. I'd
rather take an indirect approach and
build a relationship where we can solve
problems in a more positive way.
>> I also heard you say something earlier
that's still flagging in my mind, which
is, you know, not thinking too much. And
you've talked about third personing of
the self. I'd love to talk a little bit
more about this even though it's a topic
you've delved into before. And in
particular, the topic of meditation. Do
you meditate? And if you don't do a kind
of standard meditation, are there times
throughout your day and your routine and
your week where as I'm describing this,
it maps to something that kind of feels
like open monitoring or focused
meditation?
>> Yeah. So, no, I don't meditate. I
haven't ever I don't think I've ever
actually meditated for one second in my
life. And I I I've never tried to do it.
That being said, if the goal is to take
a step back and detach from what's going
on, I do that all day every day. And so,
you know, that's that is something that
I've talked about and it's something I
tried to teach, you know, I tried to
teach the young SEAL leaders not to get
caught up in what's happening right in
front of them, but to take a step back,
detach from the situation, detach from
their emotions on the battlefield. I
want people to be able to see more
angles, more maneuvers, more
opportunities, more of what the enemy
might do, more perspective. And it goes
to what I was saying earlier about the
mob. Being able to be part of a team,
part of the mob, part of the gang, but
still have the ability to take a step
back, detach from that, and assess what
is the best way for this team to move
forward to me is the true superpower of
life. And you know, this goes back to
when you start talking about people that
are having
going through struggles in life, right?
And I've described this before as, you
know, if I'm looking at you and you're
you're in a bad state, right? You're
depressed, you're sad, you're moping
around, you're not getting anything
done,
and I'm looking at you from the outside
and and I'm thinking, for me, I see this
storm cloud around your head. All you
see, no matter what direction you look,
is storm. All you see is darkness. I'm
outside and I'm looking. I'm like, "Hey
man, this guy's got a great education.
He's healthy. He's got a good team
around him. Like, he's got all these
things going for him." But you in that
state, you literally cannot see anything
but the darkness of the storm. And
that's what's so scary about when people
enter that mode is you can look I can
look at it from the outside and be like
Andrew you just got to move like four
feet forward and you're going to be
through this thing and yet you're you
might hear me say that and you go no
Jaco I'm looking ahead there's nothing
but darkness. So helping people move
forward, take action, and be able to get
that perspective, detach and get outside
themselves, get outside their own heads.
You know, Tim Ferrris said, "Get out of
your head, get into your body." That's
one way to do it. Take action, go do
things. It's very scary. And I'm sure
you've had this experience where you're
talking to someone that you know, and
you're looking at them going, "Hey, man.
No, it's going to be okay." Like, you
can clearly see that whatever they're
whatever is bothering them and dragging
them. You can clearly see, you know, a
lot of times it's a relationship, right?
The the girl or the guy, they got they
got dumped and you go, "Hey, man, that
person was a disaster anyways. You're
better off without them and they cannot
compute that. They are stuck there." Or
maybe it's the school that they didn't
get into or the job that they didn't get
and they get so wrapped up in that they
can't they can't get out of that storm.
It's such a helpless feeling. And that's
why trying to engage with people and
trying to give people that superpower of
detachment where they can take a step
back and say, "You know what? You're
right, man. That that girl,
she wasn't who I really thought she was.
I should move on." Yes. The solution to
your problem is not going to be found in
the problem. It's not going to be found
in there. You have to get out of the
problem so that you can look at it, make
an assessment, and you can assess how to
solve the problem or whether you need to
solve the problem or not. So detachment
is a superpower.
What is your process for engaging
detachment or for disengaging?
>> I recognized like in a moment what
detachment was and how helpful it was on
an oil rig doing a training mission. My
whole platoon is in a skirmish line
looking at a a large area of the oil rig
that we're supposed to be clearing.
Again, this is not combat. This is in
the '9s. There's nothing going on. We're
just doing training. And I'm standing in
this skirmish line. And by the way, I'm
the youngest and most junior guy in my
platoon. And I'm standing there looking
down the sight of my weapon. And I'm
waiting for someone to make a call and
tell us what to do. And I wait for 5
seconds. And I wait for 10 seconds. And
I wait for 20 seconds. And no one's
saying anything. And we're waiting for a
leader in my platoon to to make a call,
to tell us what to do, to tell me what
to do. And finally, after like 30
seconds, which seems like an eternity, I
can't take it anymore. I take a step off
the skirmish line. I look to my left. I
look to my right. And what I see is
every other guy in my platoon is staring
down their weapon, which means their
field of view is tiny. It's like a 20
degree field of view. You're looking
down the the the scope of your weapon or
the sight of your weapon. And that's how
big their field of view is. And I'm
looking and I'm thinking, "Oh, there's
my platoon commander. He's looking down
the scope the sight of his weapon.
There's my platoon chief. He's looking
down the side of his weapon. There's my
leading petty officer. He's looking down
the side of his weapon. There's my
assistant platoon commander. He's
looking down the So, everyone in the
platoon is looking down the side of
their weapon, which means they all have
a very narrow field of vision. Well,
when I take a step back and look to my
left and look to my right, guess what
kind of field of vision I got? I got a
massive one. I can see the whole scene
and I can see exactly what it is we need
to do. Look, as a new guy, you need to
keep your mouth shut. You don't say
anything. And I'm thinking, well, but no
one else is saying anything. So, I
muster up all the courage I can and I
open my mouth and I say, "Hold left,
clear right." Which is a basic tactical
call. This is not a patent level genius
maneuver. It's just a normal call to
make in a situation that we were in. I
say, "Hold left, clear right." And I'm
expecting to get kind of slapped, told,
"Shut up, new guy." But instead,
everyone just repeats the call. Hold
left, clear right. Hold left, clear
right. We get to the the top of the oil
rig, which means we cleared the whole
thing. We're on the Hilo deck at the
top, and we go into a debrief. And now
I'm expecting, okay, now I'm going to
get told, "Hey, what were you doing? You
need to keep your mouth shut." And
instead, the platoon chief goes, "Hey,
Jono, good call on the seller deck down
there." And I was kind of like, "Yeah,
that's right." But then I thought to
myself, hold on a second. If I'm the
youngest, most junior guy in this
platoon, why was I able to see what we
needed to do and make that call? Why did
that why did that just happen? And then
I realized it was cuz I took took a step
back. I broadened my field of view which
allowed me to think more clearly because
instead of being hyperfocused and
narrowly focused, I broadened my range
of vision. I took a breath before I made
my call, right? I had to take my take a
a nice breath to speak clearly and I
realized that taking a step back and
detaching,
I got to see infinitely more than even
the most experienced guys in my platoon.
And I started doing it all the time. I
mean, I started doing it in land
warfare. I started doing it in urban
combat. I started doing it in all these
tactical training scenarios. These are
just training. This is the '90s. I
started doing these training scenarios
and it always allowed me to see what we
needed to do. Then I started doing it
like when I was having conversations
with people. I'm having a conversation
with my platoon chief and I can see that
he's starting to turn a little red in
the face and, you know, we're we're
about to argue about something. I said,
"Oh, wait a second. I'm taking a step
back looking. He's getting mad right
now." And he's the platoon chief. And I
say, "Hey, you know what, Chief? That
sounds good. let me go take a re let me
go reook at the plan or whatever. And so
I started to do this kind of with my
normal life was to not get wrapped up in
my own emotions, not get wrapped up in
the the the gunfight that was happening
right in front of my face, not to get
wrapped up in the details of what was
going on, but instead take a step back,
detach, look around, and then you can
make a much much better decision. Now
listen, if you are the only person in a
gunfight, it's going to be harder for
you to do that because you got to be
focused on whatever you're shooting at.
But when you have 16 guys or 20 guys,
they're all looking in the same
direction. It's very easy to be the guy
that goes, "I want to take a step back.
Look around, make a call." When I teach
this to people now, the mechanics of it,
take a step back. Literally, you're, you
know, you and I are at a meeting,
there's a bunch of people, this starts
to get heated argument. I will literally
push my chair back away from the table.
change my perspective. Perspective open
widen my field of view. The other thing
like in the SEAL teams, you don't want
to sound panicked on the radio for a
couple reasons. Number one, because when
you panic on the radio, it's going to
cause other people to panic. Number two,
if you panic on the radio and you sound
panicked, everyone's going to make fun
of you. So, what would I do before I
would key up my radio?
Take a breath. And so, here I'm manually
slowing down my breath. I'm broadening
my field of view. So, if you're in a
meeting or you're in a, you know, you're
at the at the supermarket parking lot
and someone starts to yell at you, take
a step back, take a breath, broaden your
field of view, detach from those
emotions that you're having, and make
some space. And I'll tell you, here's
another like weird little nuance thing.
Lift your chin up and put your hands
down. When I get defensive, what am I
going to do? I'm going to raise my hands
up and put my chin down. That's like a
fighting mode. So, if you and I are
having a discussion and I'm starting to
get heated and I'm starting to like,
"Oh, he's not listening to me." Instead
of me putting my chin down and and
putting my hands like up up to where I
can put them in your face a little bit.
No, I'm actually going to take a step
back. I'm going say, "Put my chin up."
It changes my perspective a little bit
more. Changes my visual perspective just
by changing the angle of my head. Take a
step back. Put my hands down. I'm not
being in a defensive mood. I actually
want to hear what you have to say. And
if I start listening to what you have to
say and not talking, it's very hard to
be detached when you're talking. It's
another key component. You want to
detach, shut your mouth. I'm in a
meeting in my companies. I'm not the one
that's doing all the talking. In fact,
I'm doing mostly listening. And that
way, I'm detached. I'm listening to what
they have to say. I'm more capable of
seeing what holes there are in their
plans by not moving my mouth, not
talking. I'm listening. So those are
some of the methodologies that I use and
that I advise people to use in order to
effectively start down the pathway of
being able to detach in various
scenarios. It applies to everything that
we do. If you're having a conversation
with your significant other and you
start to see that they're getting
frustrated about something, now look, if
you're in the conversation 100%, you're
going to get frustrated too. You're
going to get frustrated that they're
frustrated. Next thing you know, you've
got a you've got an emotional argument
going on. Whereas, if you take take a
mental step back and say, "Wait a why
are they frustrated right now?" Oh,
because I'm trying to solve their
problem when really what they're looking
to do is vent. Okay, got it. Let them
vent. Okay, cool. Oh, that sounds
horrible. H, you know, what do you think
you're going to do? Instead of saying,
"Well, if that's the problem, here's
what you should do." Because people are
always looking for that. So, yeah, this
this thing, this ability is and it's
something that can absolutely be trained
and that's what's cool about it. can
absolutely be trained. It's not a
natural gift. It's it's some people will
be better at it than others, but it's
something that you can train. And I used
to see guys develop it and I see people
develop it now in the business world.
>> Do you think there's value to doing
things each day that suck a little bit
or from time to time doing something
that's, you know, puts one into a state
of deliberate uh discomfort.
>> 100%. I mean even you in order to
improve yourself, you gota you got to
impose some discipline on yourself,
right? Just like you would develop your
legs by doing squats and you would
develop your back by doing pull-ups, I
think you would develop your resiliency
by doing repetitions of things that
require you to be tougher. I just want
to extend an enormous thank you. Um, you
know, as a civilian, thank you for the
work you did in the military, but also
teaching people about the military. I
think a lot of people don't realize what
it's about at any level and learning
about your experience there and what
you've observed, bringing other people's
experiences from the military more
broadly is super important and sharing
this and being able to entertain some of
my um scientific riffs. So, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
>> There's plenty of people that have done
way more than I've ever done and and
sacrificed infinitely more than I ever
sacrificed. So, I'm um thankful for
being here. I know that you uh put all
kinds of information and I the same back
at you. You know, I I have greatly
benefited from the information that you
put out and so I thank you as well and
uh appreciate coming on here and
appreciate you spreading the word about
how people can be better yourself. So,
thanks for having me. I appreciate it,
man. Let's do it again.