The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... | Jocko Willink
15 May 2025
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with Jocko Willink — decorated Navy SEAL, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur — to explore the principles of discipline, leadership, and the relentless pursuit of meaningful goals. From parenting to entrepreneurship, from writing books to rebuilding American factories, this is a masterclass in how to live deliberately and lead effectively. Jocko shares how to recognize the problems that matter, transform them into opportunities, and cultivate the habits that compound into lasting success. Together, they trace the journey of “Way of the Warrior Kid” — from a simple idea to a major motion picture — and reflect on what it means to lead with humility, ask earnest questions, and build a life driven by purpose. Whether you're trying to straighten out your life, launch a business, or simply stay on the path, this episode is packed with hard-won insight on how to aim upward — and stay there. Jocko Willink is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer and decorated combat leader who commanded Task Unit Bruiser—the most highly decorated Special Operations unit of the Iraq War. After 20 years of service, including overseeing SEAL leadership training, he co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership consulting firm where he teaches battlefield-tested principles to business leaders. He is also a New York Times bestselling author of “Extreme Ownership, Discipline Equals Freedom,” and the “Way of the Warrior Kid” series, and hosts the popular Jocko Podcast. Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy This episode was filmed on April, 24th, 2025. | Links | For Jocko Willink: On X https://twitter.com/jockowillink?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Website https://jocko.com/ Jocko Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@JockoPodcastOfficial Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALS Lead and Win (Book) https://a.co/d/edlceXB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
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.
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.
You want to take that self-criticism and narrow it to the point where it turns into a strategy for progress.
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.
Yeah, I don't know how much you care about Hollywood behind-the-scenes stuff.
Well, let's hear the story. Hello, everybody. I had the privilege of sitting down today with someone who's really become a friend, Jocko Willink, former Navy SEAL, a serial entrepreneur. And we had a chance to dive into the practices of his successful and adventurous life. And we talked about two broad categories of topic, both of which are a great practical utility.
One of them was an analysis of where you find ideas and opportunities. How do you determine where to look for what might change your life? How do you pursue your interests? How do you pay attention to what bothers you? How do you turn the problems that bother you into opportunities? How do you pursue the things that compel you so that they are the gift that keeps giving?
How do you generate a life of abundance around you conceptually and practically? And Jocko's done that in a multitude of ways. We used his latest foray into a new entrepreneurial domain as a case study, so to speak. He's got a new movie coming out, The Way of the Warrior Kid, and we discussed
why he wrote that book, what problem he thought he was solving, how that morphed into a sequence of publishing opportunities, how that then transformed into the opportunity to make a movie, how he made that work properly. We also talked about leadership a lot and what leadership is and how it is that you configure yourself and the way that you interact with the world so that you can become a
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