Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

[music] where we revisit past episodes

for the most potent and actionable

science-based tools for mental health,

physical health, and performance.

[music] 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 [clears throat] 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 [music]

appreciate it, man. Let's do it again.