Jocko Willink
Appearances
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
One time my daughter came home saying that she was stupid, and I said, well, why do you think you're stupid? She says, I don't know my times tables. Bad father. I hadn't taught her how to study. She literally was thinking that she was stupid. Single points of inadequacy do not indicate general incompetence.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Well, as you know, the marketing that you can do, the marketing that I can do is the bulk of the marketing. And so that was one of the reasons why When I did leave them, you know, when I did talk about to them, you know, they offer, well, they could pay you in advance, right? Yes. Well, I didn't need an advance. Right. They could pay to have the books printed. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Well, I could pay to have the books printed. Yeah. They could get you distribution. Well, I was selling 85% of my books on Amazon. Yeah, right. And the final one is marketing. So those are the things that a publishing company brings to the table. Hypothetically. Hypothetically is the marketing piece.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so when I didn't need it in advance, didn't need money to print the books, didn't really need the distribution, and I don't really need them to market it, what did they bring to the table? Well, the last thing that they... that they help with is headache removal. So it's just headache removal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And now they know that they're not gonna get 90% of the profits from it because I would just say, well, that doesn't work. So we sit down, you have a negotiation, you figure out a deal that makes sense for everybody, and that's exactly what we did.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, so we partnered with a company called Apple and a company called Skydance. So Apple is obviously Apple and Skydance is obviously Skydance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, they were great. And did they approach you? So here's... I don't know how much you care about Hollywood behind-the-scenes stuff. Well, let's hear the story. So there's a guy named Ben Everard who, he has kids, and one day he walked into his kids' rooms and his kids were doing push-ups. Oh, yeah. And he said... what are you doing?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And they're doing pushups and they showed him this book that they read called Way of the Warrior Kid. He picks up the book and says, I got to make this into a movie. He reads it in a night, goes, this is incredible. He actually tracks me down, friend of a friend of a friend. And he comes to my gym in San Diego. We set up a meeting. He comes down to my gym in San Diego.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I had had some offers to option the book into a movie. And they were all kind of They didn't seem very serious about it. They didn't seem to really get it. Well, Ben came down and he clearly understood. He had kids that had been impacted by the book and he understood and saw the vision for it. And he had made some really big movies.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
He made a movie called Yes Day, which was one of the biggest movies on Netflix in 2020 or 2021. And so he's coming off kind of a really good reputation. And he came down and said, look, I see this. I see the vision. Let's, you know, let me make this into a movie. And I said, great. So we partnered. The next thing you need to do is you need to have a screenplay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And he said, you know, next thing we need is we need a screenplay. And I said, cool. You know, I'll write the screenplay. I'm a writer. And he said, you don't write screenplays. And I said, yeah, but I'm a writer. Yeah. Come on, I've written, you know, New York Times bestselling books and whatever the case may be. And, you know, he said, look, it's just different. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And thankfully, I was humble enough to say, okay, you know what? This is a medium I'm not familiar with. What convinced you of that? I think just... recognizing that there's things that you don't know what you don't know. Yes. And I'm looking at something that I haven't done before.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And even in talking to him, I could see that there's things that I wasn't thinking of that a movie writer would think of. I could see the way he was talking to me that there was things that I just didn't quite understand yet.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, and I have since learned and... written one, which is a whole nother story. Oh yeah. So we end up, we get pitched, a couple people pitch us on writing the screenplay, and we finally land on a guy named Will Staples, whose dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. When I heard that, I was like, all right, this must be my guy. And this was right before the Hollywood writer's strike.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Again, there's all this Hollywood stuff going on. There's a Hollywood writer's strike. So we hire him to write the screenplay. And the screenplay is... costs a lot of money. And so Ben said, okay, I want to put together a group of investors to pay for the screenplay. How much is a screenplay these days that's high quality? It depends, but let's say $250,000 or so.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, okay, that's about what I would expect. Maybe $300,000, maybe $150,000, but in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars. Right. And he says, I want to put together these investors. And I said, well, what if I just buy it? What if I just pay for it? And he said, well, I mean, you can. And what I didn't realize at the time was that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
the vast majority of screenplays that get written never get turned into a movie. Right, right. And I mean, it is probably less than 1%. Right. Probably a lot less than 1%.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
But I didn't know that. Yeah. So I'm thinking, okay, well, I'll just... pay for the screenplay, and then I'll get to basically sell it to the production. I'm going to make even more money. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
uh vanity project then right away and other people are on board and so that means as you move forward there's more people testifying to the validity of the project right there's lots of reasons to have partners yes lots and i didn't think of any of those right i just thought oh this is you know obviously this is going to get made into a movie obviously it's going to be a great great screenplay and obviously this is going to get bought by a huge studio that's going to happen right yeah and so you know i wrote the check and i own the screenplay which
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Again, very lucky, I didn't realize at the time, but that is a huge amount of leverage, right? Because now you own all this intellectual property, it's yours. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It was an amazing decision.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So, well, the screenplay, you know, luckily this guy, Will, this is a machine. He sat down, I think he put pen and paper. And of course he's got the IP, he's using ideas from the books. And so it's not like he's creating something from scratch, but he did a phenomenal job. And, you know, we're all going back and forth on the thing and revising it and don't like this, add that, take this away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So he was, everyone was very collaborative. He was very open-minded and it was great. And so- When we finally got, like, the screenplay done, I could tell from my, you know, amateur perspective, this is good. This is really good. It was very powerful. What did you like about it? It has everything in it. So it's funny. It's sad. It's exciting. It's just a very emotional screenplay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You're not born knowing your times tables, and you're not born knowing chemistry, and you're not born knowing European history. You have to read about it and you have to study it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It's a very emotional movie.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
The essence of those books is As a human being, you start off in life and you're not gonna be strong. You're not gonna be smart. You're not gonna be powerful. And it's very easy to let that become your life. And yet, if you learn discipline and you work hard and you train hard and you study hard, you can become a good, strong, smart human being. And that's the message.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It's, that story that I told you of kids doing pushups when dad walks, that's one story of thousands of stories that I've received. Letters I receive, notes that I receive of kids that did their first pull-up, kids that got an A in their math test, kids that memorized the Gettysburg Address, you know, kids that started training jujitsu, like.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Oh, I know the movie's going to pull that off.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It is in the editing right now. But I mean, it's close.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
No, it's live action.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, I mean, there's a kid named Jude who plays the kid in the movie, Jude Hill, who is a great actor and just did a phenomenal job. How old are the kids in the movie? So in the movie, in the book, the kid is in fifth grade. Oh, yeah. In the movie. So 11, basically. In the movie, he's in eighth grade. So he's a little bit older, and there's a couple reasons why we did that. Oh, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
But, and then the... The hero of the story is the kid, but the mentor in the story is his uncle, Uncle Jake. And Uncle Jake is a SEAL, and he comes and stays with the kid for the summer. And over the summer, he helps him transform from being a wimpy kid to being a warrior.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
like that in a long time. So in the movie, Way of the Warrior Kid, Uncle Jake is played by a guy named Chris Pratt, who's a huge actor and a phenomenal human. So he's, and he does an incredible job playing Uncle Jake in the movie.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Thankfully, I was very involved. The director is a guy named McG, and McG is just an incredibly open-minded, listener, humble. And, you know, he's made some huge movies in his time. I think he started his career in the movie world making Charlie's Angels, which was a smash success. And that's kind of where he started.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
He had done music videos prior to that, but that's where he started his movie career. And so he's done a bunch of incredible stuff in Hollywood, but he was...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I was... So I was on set just about every single day. We filmed for, like I said, I think it was almost two and a half months or something like that. And McG, the director, I mean, he was just so open-minded. And you said he listened. Oh, he listened. Yeah, yeah. So dive into that a little bit, because you made a point of that. So, interestingly, on...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
on a Hollywood set as you're filming, especially now with digital, you can watch the replays and they have something called video village, which is a bunch of video monitors that are showing real time what all the different cameras are seeing. And so generally speaking, the director will be watching on his monitor all the different camera angles and seeing it real time and then making adjustments.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so for basically the entire filming, Mick G sat in his chair in Video Village and was watching, and I stood over his left shoulder the entire time. Oh, yeah. Tapped him on the shoulder. Hey, I like that. Hey, that didn't look good. Hey, and he just was so open-minded, and he just, he really wanted, you know, he really related to the movie as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You know, he grew up, you know, kind of a wimpy kid himself in the beginning and he developed and he grew. And so he really understood it as well and it meant a lot to him and he really wanted to do it justice. And so it was really interesting to see that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
We meet again.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I'm doing great. Great, eh? Yeah. Define great. It seems like the things in my life are moving forward in a positive direction. So it seems pretty great.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, I would ask him questions and he would say to me, well, here's why this will look this way, or here's why, I don't know. And sometimes he'd say, oh, no, I'm not sure about that. And sometimes you go, that's a good point.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And that's the, when I talk about this with leaders, for instance, and I talk about asking questions, I literally say, you have to ask earnest questions. It has to be an earnest questions. I can't ask you a leading questions. Don't you think it would look better? Or do you think it might be better if we do it like this? When I already think I know the answer?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I have to truly be curious and ask you the earnest questions. Hey, do you think it would look better from this angle over here? Or do you think that this is the best angle?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah. I'd say it's been like that for quite a while. Yeah. What are you doing right? I guess I'm just trying to work hard and keep moving forward myself. I think that accumulates over time, I would say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I really like the idea of consulting my ignorance. I definitely like it. Well, it's inexhaustible. What am I missing here? What am I not doing? And this is something that when people come to me, whether it's a family member or someone I work with, and they don't agree with something I say, my thought isn't, what don't they understand? My thought is, what don't I understand?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I think just from my time in the military and interacting with leaders up, down, and across the chain of command and recognizing, what would you say, accusations are the worst form of question, the worst way to kick
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, a little bit insane. So how do you structure your day? Wake up early in the morning, work out. How long do you work out? It depends. Today I worked out for about probably 15 minutes because I had to get on a flight to come out here. So I just woke up. I got on the rower and I did a little bit of barbell exercise and then was done. 15 minutes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah. All you have to do is, you know, when you're a young student, 20-year-old SEAL, all you have to do is instigate the ego of one senior commander at one time. That didn't seem to work real well. No, no, no. No, especially the first time they meet you. Yeah, that's a really bad idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And then soon you figure out that it's not just the senior commanders, it's the junior commanders, and then you realize it's your peers. And you even. The most important
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
eureka moment is when you realize that it's the same with your subordinates that your subordinate doesn't want to get told what to do they want to get asked their opinion and they want to and you have to listen to it earnestly and say maybe that does make more sense yeah they want to get invited along on an adventure exactly yeah that's the best thing to set up if you can manage that yes and and you can
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Look, but don't push. Yeah, I was listening to something you were doing the other day and you were just talking about the... as a leader, an invitation as opposed to an order. And I think you used something even more extreme than an order, you know, mandates, you know, these types of things. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
But it still is, you know, and this is one of the obstacles I had to overcome when we started doing leadership consulting with civilian companies because people have the stereotypical view that in the military you bark orders at someone and then people are just, they're going to obey. Yeah, right. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
This is called decentralized command. And you just explained it perfectly. That's exactly what you want.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I usually don't eat until like... 10, 10.30, something like that. I don't really like breakfast. And I don't really feel like eating when I get done working out. So I just let it ride for a while.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Not in the least. It has to be a deal. And how much can you grow? Are you really going to be able to make every decision? Okay, you can do that when you've got this little tiny company. But the minute you grow, there's going to be decisions getting made that are If you know about them, it's shocking. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And when you say involved, I mean, obviously I'm not a technical person that's doing any, but I'm watching the iterations of the edits happen and giving my feedback. And I'll tell you what is incredible. You know, the first cut, the very next cut is incredible. exponentially better than the first cut. And so then that just happens over and over.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So we've iterated probably, I don't know how many times right now, 20 iterations down. Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Okay, so you wrote this book, The Way of the Warrior Kid. So there's a guy, he has kids, and one day he walked into his kids' rooms and his kids were doing push-ups. And he said, what are you doing? So they showed him this book that they read called Way of the Warrior Kid. He picks up the book and says, I got to make this into a movie. Oh, really? Oh, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I don't think about it. I just go execute it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
editing video was very, very similar, very similar process. I remember in the Navy, you have to write evaluations for your guys. And I think the number at the time was you had 17 lines to write. And you had to give them as much credit as you possibly could in order to get them promoted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so it was like the number of letters in a word sometimes, like, is it worth those extra characters for this particular adjective? And it was kind of fun for me to do that. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It depends how much time I have. You know, if it's a Sunday and I get up and I don't have anything else in the rest of the day that's pressing, I'll work out for a few hours, you know, just very relaxing. Relax, relax. Have a good time, yeah. And do you do that every day? I do, I do. I always find that... look, I understand rest days, but life gives me rest days, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I'm not sure when it's going to be released yet. Theatrically? I don't know. So Apple owns it. Oh, yes. And it depends on what Apple wants to do with it. So, you know, Skydance made it. Apple owns it. And so, yeah. And just like any other, product release, you know, they have to time it with their other products that they have coming out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And, you know, do they have a family movie or, you know, at that time and which one, which one's ready. So I'm not sure when it's going to come out, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. And I think the world is going to be happier place and a better place when it comes out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
There was an interesting thing that I realized during this whole thing. And it is related to what you just said. So- For many years, I have told people that if you have an idea and you don't execute on it, your idea doesn't mean anything. Ideas are a dime a dozen and it doesn't really matter. And what I realized in making this movie is that I was actually wrong. Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You know, whether it's a super early flight or a broken water heater or, you know, things come up in the world. And so you get forced to take rest days.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Because if an idea, it's worthless if you don't execute on it. I get that. but the actual idea that If you have an idea, if you have an idea and it's good, you can't even put a price tag on that thing. And that's why when you look at Hollywood, Hollywood makes a bunch of, what are they called? Like reruns of the same movies, right? There's a reason for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
They have all this money to throw at ideas and they just go, well, you know what? Make the superhero movie again, make the space movie again. They just make the same movies often over and over again. And I realized that these, you know, if you have a really good idea, you have to execute on it. You have to do something with it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Because if you don't, it's like a mortal sin not to execute on a good idea. Well, it's a revelation, a good idea. It's a gift. It's grace. Where does it come from? That's why I was kind of very curious. That's exactly right. I know the answer to that. I look at it like... you know, they know what molecules are in an amoeba, right? We know what chemicals, but we can't make an amoeba.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
We can't make something alive. And just like in a movie or a book or a song, they know, you go to Nashville, they know what notes make a hit song. Mm-hmm. but they can't just produce a hit song. They can put all the chemicals in there, but they can't bring it to life. And so there is, just like there's something special about life, there's a spark that we don't understand. We can't fabricate it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, you don't have to schedule. They just come along. They come. You get injured, you know, you get some kind of an injury. It's like, okay, it looks like I'm going to take a rest day today. Or you get sick or just whatever the case may be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
We cannot fabricate that spark in life. And we can't, as far as I can tell, we can't fabricate that spark of an idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
typically? It depends on what's happening. But, you know, I have a few different businesses, so we all attend to the businesses, you know, have meetings and discussions and then have clients. So I have a consulting business, so I have clients to talk to. And then just the various businesses require They require a little bit of time and a little bit of care.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I've experienced two things here. These are like the opposite ends of the spectrum. And this is, I think, a very positive thing for people to hear. If I was a young person, I would really like to hear this. So there are gonna be times like you're talking about with your wife, where all of a sudden from nowhere,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
or from somewhere, but somewhere that we don't know and understand, all of a sudden there's an idea there. The source of all revelation. It shows up. It shows up. I've had that happen to me where it's like, boom, I wrote a book called Mikey and the Dragons. That came just boom. I just instantly had this idea. Boom, I wrote the book.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I remember when I was an English major in college and some of the old poets, they would claim that, you know, they just wrote this first, you know, the first draft that was in. It was one draft, one shot. And there was sort of rumors about these that that's not really happened. They found their notes, they'd written a bunch of drafts. But sometimes it's true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Sometimes you will get that inspiration and it'll come and boom, you're done. So you can sit around and wait for that. I don't recommend waiting for that though. It may or may not come. We can't control that. The other side of the spectrum, which I've also had this happen to me, and my silly term that I came up with for it is squeezing your brain.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You have to like squeeze your brain and squeeze something out of it. And what I like is this idea, just to come full circle a little bit here, you know, I had this thing where I wanted to... have lessons for my kids that they could read in a book. And so I have that. There's my aim, what you would call an aim.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Well, I didn't immediately say, oh, okay, what I can have as a kid that's going through kind of kid problems and his uncle who's a Navy SEAL can come and stay with him for the summer and he can teach him. I didn't have that. And I definitely didn't have the nuances of like, oh, he can get bullied by this kid. That fills in. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
But I squeezed on my brain and thought, what would be a good... And then all of a sudden, boom, you just start... you find your path and the story will come or the idea will come.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, so I would say the big three, I'll call them, the big three for me anyways, is I have a leadership consulting company called Echelon Front, and we work with scores of companies around the country and around the world, and we train them and help them with their leadership.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So for the movie, the reason we made the kid a little bit older, well, one thing is there's a girl in the book that befriends, and we wanted to elevate that a little bit, make it a little bit more of a romance. Right, right. And a romance is good in eighth grade, ninth grade, but it's not really the fourth grade, fifth grade type thing. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And then I have a food supplement company called Jocko Fuel, and we make clean supplements for people, whether they need protein or whether they need energy or hydration, we got you covered. And so that, again, we're growing very rapidly and we've been growing very rapidly for many years now. And then the final one is a clothing and apparel company called Origin USA, which,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And just some of the things, some of the conversations that are taking place are a little bit elevated. And then just from a... from interacting with kids. Kids will buy into things that are older than them, but they won't buy into things that are younger than them. Right, right, of course. So a 10-year-old kid goes, oh, cool, it's a story about a 14-year-old, or a 13-year-old, they will do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Sure. But a 14-year-old doesn't go, oh, I want to hear about a 10-year-old. It just doesn't work the other way. So we wanted to attract more people and open their minds to, especially a 13-year-old kid. Yeah, you take a 13-year-old kid to a movie about a fifth grader, They don't really like that as much. But they'll go see their peer. So that was another reason in my mind.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Again, the movie is called the way of the warrior kid. Yeah. Okay. And it's the same title, same title as the books.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So I actually kicked off with a group the other day and I said, you know, let's define leadership. And, you know, we got a couple. There's a question right away. There you go. And then I said, hey, I got it for you. Getting people to do stuff. Right, right. Yes, that's actually what leads to this. Nice short words. Getting people to do stuff. Yeah. Because that's why we're here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
That's why people are wanting to know like, oh, I need to get people to do stuff. Now, what- That's a behavioral level of analysis. How complex it is to get people to do stuff. And we already talked about one methodology, which is, hey, Jordan, I'm your boss. Go do this now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And what I always tell people is that works. Yeah. short term. Yeah. Works for a minute. You know, I can probably get, you know, I could, if you work for me and I say, hey, I don't want to hear from you. Shut up and go do what I told you to do. Or you're going to get fired tonight. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You'll go do it. You want that, whatever, that you want your paycheck for that week's worth of work. But there's no way that you're not looking for another job. And there's no way that you're going to put your best effort in to execute whatever it is I told you to go do. It's just not going to happen. So what real leadership is, is like, I'm, getting you to do stuff because you want to do it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, that's that alignment of interests. And so that's what it really boils down to. How do you teach that? Well, the thing that's interesting about it is, you know, I had you on my podcast a long time ago, and I had never really understood psychology or what a psychologist would do. I didn't understand it, never been to one, never talked to one. I didn't really understand it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And we were talking about someone that was scared of needles and you walked through the protocol of how to get them to not be afraid of needles. And I said, oh, that's, oh, so he knows how to handle this particular, he knows how to handle these psychological problems that people want to overcome. Phobic avoidance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
There's a skill that you have that you learned, and it has to do with interacting with other people and getting them to move forward in their life. And that's the very interesting thing about leadership is it's the same thing. There are skills in leadership that you can learn. We've already talked about one of them. at me asking you earnest questions, earnest questions. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
made basically everything that I'm wearing right now, from my boots to my jeans, my T-shirt. The shirt is made by another company called Hooli, which is another friend of mine, Asil, who makes golf shirts. I'm not a golfer, but he makes golf shirts. And Origin, at Origin USA, we make everything 100% in America with American-made materials.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Me being humble. Is humble a skill? It is a skill.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
especially given the current climb. Especially when you're facing tariffs from overseas. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Which is the least of the reasons why you should want to do it in America, but it is, in fact, a reason that is compelling some people to change their vision. We, myself and Pete, who own Origin, we've had that vision for a long time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
We've recognized it's not about the tariffs, it's not about the money, it's about rebuilding manufacturing in this country. And this is something we recognized 10 years ago.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I mean, if I would have said to Pete, hey, Pete, you know, I want to make a bunch of money. Yeah, right, exactly. Profitability is the number one thing on my list. And he would say, I mean, we can't partner. Same vice versa. If his goal would have been to make a bunch of money, no, our goal was to bring manufacturing back to America. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So the cotton on these jeans, the zippers, the threads, the boots, the leather, everything that I'm wearing from Origin USA is from... materials that are made here, grown here. And then we actually have factories in Maine and factories in North Carolina where we cut and sew.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, where you get lost there isn't through the individual business leaders that are, you're right, because they have individual business leader, if they're doing it for profit and that's their main thing and they're burning bridges, eventually they're gonna fail. But what happens on the corporate side is all of a sudden it's not an individual and the corporation
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
is truly driving for profit, and they're willing to burn bridges. They have the size, they have the capacity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Eventually, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
The vision starts. to the profit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah. And, and a lot of times this is where people get caught up because as long as we're going to the same place, you know, we could take your road or my road, advantages and disadvantages of both. And by the way, we don't really know what the advantages and disadvantages are because we can't see the future. And so, right. So you don't want to get too constrained in your insistence.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I don't want to get too caught up. Normally what's making me want to take my road instead of your road is just my ego. I think my idea is better. Yeah, that's not a good game. Not a good game.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, I don't know how much you care about Hollywood behind-the-scenes stuff.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And my default mode, my default setting is I want to use your idea. Whether you're my boss, my peer, or my subordinate, my default is I want to use your idea instead of mine. That's my goal. So when you come to me and you say, I think we should do it like this. My immediate response, which I've trained and practiced is, okay, why should we do it Jordan's way and not mine?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Right, right. And then... I call it the minimally viable plan. If you come in with a minimally viable plan... that it sounds like it can work. And that you'd implement. We're going to go with it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And by the way, when I say... When I listen to you, you listen to me. So when I say, hey, Jordan, that sounds good. Let's go ahead and execute it that way. Hey, I got one question. And now you actually listen to my question. We're doing it my way. And by the way, here's another thing you need to think about. You don't want to hear any of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, yeah. The other kind of big project that took a lot of time over the past few months was making a movie. So I've written a bunch of kids' books and one – part of those kids' books or one series of kids' books called Way of the Warrior Kid. And the Way of the Warrior Kid has now been, is being turned into a movie.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
you know compelled labor is not what you're should be looking right that's slaves yeah you don't want slaves and why not because they're not very effective and and it's no fun being a tyrant yeah well i guess so there's a whole philosophy in in warfare which is the strategy of the indirect approach which means instead of me assaulting you head on i am going to maneuver around to your flank right and attack you from an area where you're not reinforced and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You know, I always joke with people that we learn the opposite of the indirect approach. We learn that the, what is it, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So if I've got a problem with Jordan, what I should do is go, hey, Jordan, I noticed that in the meeting today you talked like this. I didn't like that. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And that seems like it's the best way to handle things. It's direct. Take that direct approach. Yeah, yeah. But when I use that direct approach and I attack you and attack your ego, what's going to happen? Your ego defenses are going to come up. You're not going to want to listen. You're going to be argumentative about the whole thing. We're in a power struggle. What'd you call it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Oh, yeah, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so we filmed for two and a half months in September, October, or late August, then September and October.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
That's why it has to be an earnest question. If I come to you and say, hey, why did you act like that in the meeting? Yeah. Why did you dress down Fred in the meeting? That was uncalled for. Right. That's just terrible. But if I say, hey, like... I noticed you went pretty hard on Fred. Yeah, right. Was there something going on that I didn't know about?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
I was sitting there kind of, I was a little bit surprised by it. Is there something going on between you and Fred that is not right right now? Is there anything I can do to help it out? Yeah. And that is a totally different approach. And getting back to the indirect approach, That indirect approach, obviously it took me four sentences to ask you that question. But you provide some context.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, showing you're right has a cost. Yeah, that's for sure. Being right has a cost. Just being right sometimes has a cost. Yeah. You know how many times you get in an argument or a discussion with your wife and you get to prove that you're right. Good job.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So what we'll start off with is an assessment. We'll go in there, we'll sit down with people, we'll interview people throughout the chain of command, from junior people to the senior people, and we'll figure out what's happening. Right, right. When I ask... you know, the senior person, hey, what's the mission of the company? And they rattle off an answer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I ask a junior person, what's the mission of the company? And they go, I don't know. Right. You know, or you say, hey, how's your interaction with your boss? And the guy goes, I don't even know who my boss is. But you ask the boss and he says, oh, I've got a great relationship with all my people. So we start to- That's just exploration. Right. So what does this thing do? Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And then once we've assessed it, we figure out what- what areas they need improvement on. And once we figured out what areas they need improvement on, we go in and we start to formulate plans and we give them instruction on how to cover these problems and how to overcome these issues that they're facing. And who's we? Who's your team? So we've got about...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
15 people that are our actual consultants, our leadership instructors that go in and work with the companies. And we've got a bunch of people on the backend that set everything up. But yeah, there's about 15 of us. Some are former military, some are not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Some are just people that were civilians and worked in civilian companies and they were good leaders and they really liked what we do and they understood the way we teach things and came on board the company. And so that's about 15. And how many companies have you worked with approximately? I mean, you know, on varying scales, hundreds of companies.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And, you know, from the actual biggest companies in the world all the way down to, you know, small startups and little construction companies and energy companies, just really everyone because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, and... Leadership is leadership. It really is. And so it doesn't matter if you're working with a, with an oil company, you're out in the field or construction company in the field. These are, you know, hard working people or a finance company or a tech company, the leadership issues that they have. And not only the problems that they have in those companies. are leadership problems.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
All right, so... Years ago, I got four kids myself, and years ago I was wanting to buy some books to read to my kids. And going to the bookstore, The books were just not good. And there was, actually, I remember there was a book that was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was a pirate book. And I picked up this pirate book and I started looking through it. Hoping for a pirate book.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
They're not a process problem. It's not that the people aren't wearing the safety gear. It's that the leadership isn't doing a good job of explaining why that gear is important and how it's going to help them. And it's not that people are pushing up against the regulations in the financial company. It's that the team doesn't understand why those are important and how it impacts them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
The leadership is not leading. And so we look at every problem inside of an organization as a leadership problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, we'll have most of the companies that we work with are companies that have reached out to us. They want us to come out. Right. And they're usually doing pretty well. Like they're doing pretty well. They want to do better. Right. It's great. Right, right. And so when we roll into those companies, their attitude is like, oh, you're here to help us. We have open minds. We're ready to listen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
They've had to put their ego in check to reach out to us. Just for a leader, a CEO of a big company to say, you know what? We need help with leadership. That's a humble move in its own right. Which, by the way, is why that company is doing well. They're doing well because the CEO of the company or the COO of the company says, hey, you know what? The market's shifting. We need to make a move.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
As opposed to the market's shifting, but we'll keep doing what we've been doing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And it's just not true. It's not true in the fact that it doesn't make for great leaders, but there are without question tyrannical leaders out there. And look, we saw this in the military. I see it in the civilian sector as well. You can... you can crack the whip. You can crack the whip and you can get promoted and you can make things happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, hoping for a pirate book, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was by no means a pirate. These were the weakest, wimpiest pirates I'd ever read about in my life. And I went home. I didn't buy the book. I went home and I said, all right. Those were the pirates that used to be known as dead. Yeah. Yeah, dead pirates, exactly. Not the kind of pirates that would survive for very long.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You know, you can be a leader that is just a complete slave driver, abusive to your people. The higher ups, what do they see? They see the numbers. They see the metrics being met. Hey, good job, Jordan. You're doing a great job. Meanwhile, your whole team is going to quit, may quit, whatever. They're miserable. You don't care. You just want to get promoted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Absolutely not. And eventually, like you said, it's short term. Now, listen, that short term in the military, generally speaking, you're in charge of it. You're in command of a unit for like two years. So what happens? You show up at the unit. You know, everyone's, the new boss is around. Everyone's a little bit, you know, okay, let's see what this guy's like.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
It takes them six months before they realize like, oh, this guy seems like he's a bit of a tyrant. Right, right. And then six months later, well, you know, you start, we're confirming this guy's a tyrant. Now, six months later, you're getting ready to go. You're on deployment. Yeah. You hate the guy. Yeah. He hates you. You're totally dysfunctional.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
You still do your job and you do it to the best of your ability despite everything. working for this tyrannical leader. So you work so hard and the troops work so hard, they still make this tyrant look good. They're finally ready to have a mutiny and the deployment's over and the guy's getting promoted because the team did such a great job.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Which is just sad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
These were weak pirates. Right, right. And so I decided I'm just going to write my own books for my kids. And I ended up writing the first book in the series, which is called Way of the Warrior Kid.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Well, obviously, we have these little sparks in our brain that come to us that have to be resolved. And so, you know, writing more books. Yeah, you got another idea for a book? Oh, yeah. I mean, kids' books, obviously. I wrote another, I wrote a novel called Final Spin, which... which now has been an option to a movie. I did write the screenplay for that one. Oh, yeah. So we've got the director.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yes, it's been published, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, and you mentioned it earlier. What's awesome about today is, like, if you have a phone, you can make movies. You can make podcasts. You can write books. You can do it all. And there's just no barrier for entry anymore. And then what it comes up against, there's a lot of stuff out there, right? There's so much... So much content being produced that how are you going to stand out in it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I would say don't worry about standing out in it. I would say make stuff because you want to make it. Right, and make it better and better. And make it hurt a little bit. Like it's got to have – it's got to – When you put it out there, it's got to be something that- It's got to be a sacrifice with blood. It's like a part of it. Yeah, you got to sacrifice a little bit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
If you're hiding behind something, no one wants to see what you're hiding behind. They wanna see what's there. And so when you put yourself out there, put yourself out there, really be honest and tell the truth. And I think that's a good thing to do. And it's worked for me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
The first book I wrote called Extreme Ownership, the opening chapter is about this terrible situation that took place, a fratricide, a friendly fire incident that I was in charge of.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
and it's a it's a combination of my kids of some of the troubles that they had which are troubles that all kids had and have growing up and i kind of modified them a little bit for the books but you know for one thing uh one time my daughter came home my oldest daughter came home who's a incredibly smart young lady but when she was in whatever grade it was she came home saying that she was stupid and i said well why do you think you're stupid she says i don't know my times tables
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I think that if, if I would have hidden that or, or shied away from that, I don't think the book would have landed the same way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Absolutely. Thank you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And I said, well, how much have you studied your times tables? And she said, what do you mean? And she, bad father, I hadn't taught her how to study. She thought she should just know her times tables. And so we sat down. Come out of the womb with timetables intact, if you're smart. Exactly. So she literally was thinking that she was stupid.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so we sat down, we made flashcards and in whatever it was, a half an hour, she knew her times tables.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah. Right. It's something that you can pragmatically fix. Yeah. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
So did she master her times tables? She mastered her times tables. And she, you know, she kind of mastered everything from there on out from an intellectual level and went to a great college and all that stuff.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think she recognized that, oh, you're not born knowing your times tables and you're not born knowing chemistry and you're not born knowing European history. You have to read about it and you have to study it. But...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Which I clearly had not done, right? I clearly had not said, you know, I wasn't engaged enough to know, oh, you got to learn your timetables. Here's what you got to do. It took her coming to me with that complaint about her genetics, that she was stupid, which, you know, I said, actually, you're not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
There are five books in that series.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
There was another book that is called Mikey and the Dragons. Right, right. I think it's one of your favorite children's books of all time, if I remember correctly. But Mikey and the Dragons, that's the one where I wanted to have it published before Christmas one year. And the publishing company said that that's not feasible, completely unfeasible to be able to do that. And I said, are you sure?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And they said, yep, it's just, there's no world where this thing can be published. And I said, oh, well, watch this. And so that one, I published myself. But, and thankfully, then I published a couple more of the Warrior Kid series on my own publishing company. But thankfully, I maintained a good relationship with that publishing company and they've now taken the books back.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
And so now we're publishing, all the books under that same publishing company.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Well, there's one huge advantage, and that is with the movie coming out, this is gonna be, there's gonna be a lot of books to be printed and stored and the whole nine yards. And at a certain point, you know, they're a business. I have a business mind, at least I try to. And at a certain point- And a marketing platform. At a certain point you say, okay,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
what does it cost me to publish these books myself? Well, there's a lot of costs. There's the storage, the printing, the whole nine yards, the mailing, the ordering. There's a whole bunch that goes with it. Yeah, you need to have a business to do that. And there's the brainpower engagement that it takes to do that. So that's all happening. Meanwhile, they have all the necessary infrastructure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
Right. And they were a good partner. You know, I... Maybe it was a little bit too aggressive when I went and published my own book, you know, but... Were you? Okay, maybe not.