Moment 175: How To Build A ROUTINE You’ll ACTUALLY Stick To!: Navy Seal Jocko Willink
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for it is this idea of waking up early now I'm not someone that wakes up early I know you no alarm clock and you're usually up by 11 so no meetings before 11 okay so I stay up quite late yep um

What's the best case you could give me for changing that? And do I need to change that? Because what I do is, you know, I flew into LA, I'm jet lagged. I'm flying back in a couple of days. I'm going to be jet lagged when I land as well. So what I'm trying to do is just protect my sleep at all costs because I've come to learn that it's really the foundation of my performance. So if I'm unslept and I show up at work, the chance that I'm not going to show up correctly in a variety of ways, emotionally, creatively, whatever,

is high, and that for me is the greatest risk. So I just, in the last sort of year or two of my life, I've just said, okay, prioritize sleep, because then everything else seems to follow. But when I heard that you wake up sometimes at 4.45 or 4.30, like pretty much all the time, and I've literally seen you on social media upload your alarm clock day after day after day, I go, shit, maybe I should rethink.

No, I think if you've got a system that's working well for you, then I wouldn't change anything. If you feel like you're performing well, you're physically healthy, you're getting all the work done that you need to do, you're naturally more of a late night, late morning type person, I'd run with it. It's

If you were telling me, yeah, sometimes I get up, sometimes I don't, sometimes I work late, sometimes I don't, I'm not, don't work out every day. You know, sometimes I feel groggy. If you were telling me that kind of thing, I'd say, okay, pick a time and start waking up at that time every day. It doesn't have to be 440. It could be eight o'clock, could be seven o'clock, doesn't matter. Could be 11 o'clock, but try and go to bed around the same time and try and wake up around the same time. And that's going to be a great foundation for everything that you're doing.

And I would say when you wake up in the morning, do some kind of exercise. Because I think that is very helpful in getting your day started correctly. What are your non-negotiables in your life in terms of habits, routines, disciplines? I wake up early and I work out every day. That's kind of my... Those are the minimum requirements in my life. Train jiu-jitsu. I don't get to train jiu-jitsu every single day, but...

If I can train jujitsu, I'm going to train jujitsu. I'm going to work out every day. If I can surf, I'm going to surf. You know, I obviously have to work every day. I work every day doing something. You know, I've got a bunch of different companies. I got to write books, podcasts. So I work every day. Are you ever undisciplined? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chocolate chip cookies. They're a discipline thing.

for me. Yeah. So yeah, I'm not a cyborg. When people look at someone like you that's, you know, done all the things you've done, you've been a SEAL and you've written all these books and started these companies. And actually the drink I'm drinking now is one of your products, which is the, what's that in front of you? Yeah, it's an energy drink called Go. Called Go. Delicious, by the way. Thank you. I think my mouth has been connected to my brain during this interview, so I think it's working. I understand there's misconceptions that people have of me.

Because they assume, it's kind of like the halo effect. We assume because someone's done something well, they do all things well. But there are so many things that I think would really liberate people and make them inspired if they could see how deficient I was in so many things in my life. You know, because they just assume that if you've done one thing well, you have a good podcast, you must be like, you know, the perfect picture of... What are the big misconceptions generally, moving away from this idea of imperfection, but just generally about...

Jocko, because you realize you've become a bit of a character, right? You know, like Navy SEAL that comes with an identity package. Yeah, I think the biggest misconception, I think, and it's not just me, but it's really the military in general, is the misconception of this kind of authoritarian and even authoritarian dictatorship from a leadership perspective. And even when we were having this conversation, I said, I'm going to let

I'm going to let my subordinates plan. And you kind of had a stunned look on your face. What are you talking about? Why would you let your subordinates plan? And so there's an idea and a misconception that the leader is going to stand up and bark all the orders. So that's one misconception. Another one is I look like a Neanderthal. And so people think I'm going to scream and yell at everybody. And I never yell at anybody. You know, I've

My business partner, Leif Babin, who's worked with me, he was in my task unit at SEAL Team 3 and deployed to Ramadi with me. And now we've written a couple books together. We have a business together. And he was like my direct subordinate in Ramadi during a workup. And, you know, like I never yelled at him. And he likes to point out that he gave me plenty of reasons to yell at him, but never yelled at him because what good is that? And by the way, if I have to yell at somebody...

What does that say? That means if I have to yell at you to get my point across as a leader, I've made like 47 other mistakes. My goal is that I don't even have to say anything. That's my goal as a leader. My goal is I don't have to say a word and you already know what to do and you make it happen. And I look at you and give you a thumbs up and say, good job. That's my goal. So I think the biggest misconception is the idea of someone in the military or myself being a authoritarian leader, being very close-minded. Like, you know, I...

I got asked a question the other day about, you know, if China attacked Taiwan and you were taking troops in there, what would you be focused on? And I said, I'd be focused on keeping an open mind. Because if you have a closed mind about what the mission is, about how it's going to happen, about what your troops are going to do, about what the enemy is going to do. If you have a closed mind about those things, you're going to get caught off guard.

You have to have an open mind. You have to be accepting of the information that you're receiving. You have to be accepting of the other ideas that other people have. And if you have a closed mind, you're going to fall apart.

kind of counterintuitive in some ways, because the reason people often think they've been made the leader because they have loads of the correct ideas. So I think as people often climb in life, they go, well, I've been right so much that they've put me here as CEO. So now I need to defend my righteousness at all costs, even when I'm not, you know, sure, because that's a weakness. Yeah. And you quoted Steve Jobs earlier. And I think actually, it's from your book, which was

I don't hire people so I can tell them what to do. I hire good people so they can tell me what to do. So yes, in a leadership position, you should be listening more than you should be talking.