The guest
Jocko Willink: Retired Navy SEAL who commanded Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, Iraq. Bestselling author on leadership (Extreme Ownership), host of the Jocko Podcast, and founder of multiple businesses including Echelon Front and Origin USA.
What this episode covers
Huberman and Willink explore how a firm sense of self and the management of 'energy' underpin a good life. Willink shares his daily routines around training, cold exposure, fasting before performance, and how physical action creates rather than depletes energy. The conversation digs into leadership as counterbalancing a team's 'mob' morale through wins and losses, and into hard themes like loss of teammates, CTE, and veteran suicide. The throughline is detachment, Willink's self-described superpower of stepping back to widen perspective, which he argues is a trainable skill applicable to combat, business, relationships, and parenting. They also touch on punk-rock roots, dog and human personality archetypes, and whether warriors should hold political office.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Psychology of Military Incompetence
Norman Dixon
“There's a really good book”
“There's a really good book and I ended up doing about four podcasts on this book, which is called The Psychology of Military Incompetence.”— Jocko Willink
BookRecommendedISBN verified
By Water Beneath the Walls
Benjamin Milligan
“an incredible book... it's certainly the best book written about the SEAL teams' history”
“Ben Milligan wrote an incredible book called By Water Beneath the Walls... it's certainly the best book written about the SEAL teams' history”— Jocko Willink
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Mastery
Robert Greene
“a book that I highly recommend”
“Robert Green Mastery is actually a book that I highly recommend. People read because it talks about mentorship and finding mentors”— Andrew Huberman
The guest's own work
ProductBy the guest
Jocko GO
Jocko Fuel
“people will see the Jocko GO drinks. This is not some sort of promotional by me, but these are the energy drinks I drink.”— Andrew Huberman
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
“the first of which was published in 2015 and is entitled Extreme Ownership: How US Navy Seals Lead and Win.”— Andrew Huberman
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Way of the Warrior Kid
Jocko Willink
“I've read both Extreme Ownership and The Way of the Warrior Kid, and I found them to be immensely useful in terms of actionable information”— Andrew Huberman
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Leadership Strategy and Tactics
Jocko Willink
“I wrote a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. And one of the things that I wrote about in that book is understanding what's important and what's not.”— Jocko Willink
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferencedISBN verified
FM 7-8 Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad
U.S. Army
“That's the FM 7-8 infantry platoon and squad, I think is the army doctrine.”— Jocko Willink
ProductReferenced
Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle
Saab Bofors Dynamics
“you go out to a range, and you shoot a Carl Gustav... it's a big, giant, like bazooka looking weapon. And every time you shoot it, it rattles your cage”— Jocko Willink
MediaReferenced
The Bridge
Eric Steel
“I don't know that I want to recommend this movie but I'm just going to say it exists, the movie The Bridge where they fix the camera on the Golden Gate Bridge”— Andrew Huberman
Big reveals from this episode
- Huberman reveals the Jocko GO drinks on set are his own choice, not a paid promotion.
- Willink describes feeling 'absolutely awful' for three rounds of jiu-jitsu after a 7-minute pre-workout ice bath, souring him on pre-training cold.
- Willink states he relies on discipline, not motivation, calling motivation just an emotion that comes and goes.
- Willink recounts placing his own jiu-jitsu black belt on his late teammate Seth Stone before the funeral, vowing 'we will not fail him.'
- Huberman raises a major SEAL-community suicide the day prior; both discuss it openly despite fears of social contagion.
- Willink writes 'SEAL ≠' anything, noting SEAL training has produced rapists and murderers as well as heroes.
- Willink tells the oil-rig origin story of discovering detachment as the most junior man in his platoon.
- Willink names Origin USA's 400-450 American employees as his current way of 'moving the needle' instead of running for office.
Worth remembering
- Huberman says sunlight viewing gives roughly a 50% cortisol increase and exercise adds another 50-75%.
- The catecholamines plus cortisol provide enough neural energy to run brain and body for about 50 days.
- A dual-diagnosis patient used cold ice baths to replace cocaine's dopamine, since cold gives a long 2-3 hour dopamine arc rather than a crash.
- Late teammate Seth had synesthesia, perceiving numbers as colors, which aided his memory and guitar playing.
- Willink links many SEAL suicides to CTE and repeated blast exposure, citing wives who said their husbands became 'different people.'
- People who are bipolar, especially males, have a 20-30 times higher incidence of suicide.
- On Twitter, Willink answered a recruit's boot-camp question with one word, 'enjoy,' then publicly conceded a critic was right.
- Roughly 15% of candidates make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training.
- Huberman notes evidence that acquired traits may pass across generations via RNA, not just DNA (famine effects on descendants' blood sugar).
- Willink describes two Dogo Argentino brothers from one litter raised by different owners ending up opposite in temperament, favoring nurture over nature.
More from Andrew Huberman
All 3803 recommended