Jocko Willink is one of the scariest human beings imaginable. He is a lean 230 pounds and a Brazilian jiujitsu black belt who used to tap out 20 Navy SEALs per workout. He is a legend in the special operations world, and his viral podcast interview with me was the first public interview he ever did. Jocko spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy and commanded SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit from the Iraq War. Upon returning to the United States, Jocko served as the officer-in-charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams, designing and implementing some of the most challenging and realistic combat training in the world. After retiring from the Navy, he co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership and management consulting company, and co-authored the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. He has since authored a best-selling children’s book, Way of the Warrior Kid, and his latest, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual, which details his unique mental and physical “operating system.” Jocko also discusses human nature through the lens of war, leadership, and business on his top-rated podcast, Jocko Podcast. Last, but not least, Jocko is a husband, an avid surfer, and the father of four “highly motivated” children.
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
At some point about halfway through my 20-year career in the SEAL Teams, I read About Face by Colonel David H. Hackworth. I haven’t stopped reading it since. Hackworth came up through the ranks and served as an infantry officer in the Korean and Vietnam wars. He was revered by his men and respected by all who worked with him. While the stories of combat are incredible and there is much to be learned about battlefield tactics in the book, the real lessons for me are about leadership. I adapted many of his leadership principles over the years and still continue to learn from his experiences. Thanks for everything, Colonel Hackworth.
To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. —Elbert Hubbard
Daniel Negreanu is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, the independent poker ranking service Global Poker Index (GPI) recognized Daniel as the best poker player of the decade. Since his second-place finish in the Big One for One Drop tournament in 2014, he is considered the biggest live tournament poker winner of all time, having accumulated more than $33 million in prize money. He was named the WSOP Player of the Year in 2004 and again in 2013, making him the first (and only) player in WSOP history to win the accolade more than once. He was also the 2004-05 WPT Player of the Year. He is the first player to make a final table at each of the three WSOP bracelet-awarding locations (Las Vegas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) and the first to win a bracelet at each. In 2014, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is a quick read, just 140 pages or so, and it’s the simplicity that makes the book so powerful. Anytime I have a friend who wants to embark on the journey of introspection, that’s always where I start.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?
I still distinctly remember the time I lost my whole bankroll on one of my first trips to Las Vegas from my hometown of Toronto. It was about 4 A.M. and I was playing at a table of eight people. I lost my last $5 chip and went to the bathroom. When I got out of the bathroom, I looked over at the table I was just playing at and noticed everyone had left! For the first time in my life, I realized I was the sucker. They were playing because of me. I was their tourist for the evening.
In a real sense, to grow in life, I must be a seeker of stress.
Dr. Jim Loehr is a world-renowned performance psychologist and cofounder of The Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute. He is the author of 16 books including his most recent, The Only Way to Win: How Building Character Drives Higher Achievement and Greater Fulfillment in Business and Life. Jim has worked with hundreds of world-class performers from the elite ranks of sports, law enforcement, military, and business, including gold medalists, FBI hostage rescue teams, military Special Forces, and Fortune 100 executives. Sports clients include golfers Mark O’Meara and Justin Rose; tennis players Jim Courier, Monica Seles, and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario; boxer Ray Mancini; hockey players Eric Lindros and Mike Richter; and Olympic gold medal speed skater Dan Jansen. Jim’s science-based energy management training system has achieved worldwide recognition and has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Success, and Fast Company, among many other media outlets.
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
The book that I have gifted most, and one that I continue to read and reread myself, is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. His brilliant articulation of the importance and power of purpose in life resonates deeply within me. I continue to be struck by his seemingly boundless capacity to feel deep compassion and love for his fellow concentration camp prisoners as well as the cruel prison guards who enabled the horror, and he was able to experience this even as he inched closer to death himself.
I’ve realized that instead of following the trends, you want to identify the trends but not follow them.
Steve Aoki is a two-time Grammy nominated producer/DJ, entrepreneur, founder of Dim Mak Records, and designer of the contemporary menswear line Dim Mak Collection. Since launching in 1996, Dim Mak Records has become a springboard for acts such as The Chainsmokers, Bloc Party, The Bloody Beetroots, and Gossip. As a solo artist, Steve lives on the road, averaging more than 250 tour dates per year. His 2016 Netflix Original documentary I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead was nominated for a Grammy. Known for his genre-bending productions, Steve has collaborated with Linkin Park, Snoop Dogg, Fall Out Boy, and more. His hits “Just Hold On” with One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson and “Delirious (Boneless)” with Kid Ink are both certified Gold. His latest album, Kolony, debuted at #1 on the Electronic Album charts. Marking his first full turn into rap music, Kolony features Lil Yachty, Migos, 2 Chainz, Gucci Mane, T-Pain, and more.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?
The iMask Sleep Eye Mask is an absolute blessing to have on tour; I carry it with me wherever I go. Because we travel and our schedules are so stressful, I need to be able to sleep any time there is quiet. That time isn’t necessarily the traditional time that people sleep. For me, it’s when I have finished DJing or I’m in a car. It is then that I put on my iMask and get those 15 minutes of sleep. When you’re tackling a strenuous work weekend—something like five countries in two days, which is something that we do in the summer—you have to sleep in any situation. This could be in the car, on the plane, going from hotel to the venue, or from the venue to the airplane. I carry the iMask with me and stick it on to sleep or practice my Transcendental Meditation, which sometimes allows me to fall asleep. I like the iMask because it shuts everything out. It’s absolutely one of the necessities on the road that helps me get my z’s.
When you stop caring about being right in the eyes of everyone … it’s amazing how little you care to waste energy trying to convince people of your view.
Dr. Peter Attia is a former ultraendurance athlete (e.g., swimming races of 2.5 miles), a compulsive self-experimenter, and one of the most fascinating human beings I know. He is one of my go-to doctors for anything performance- or longevity-related. Peter earned his MD from Standford University and holds a BS in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He did his residency in general surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and conducted research at the National Cancer Institute under Dr. Steven Rosenberg, where Peter focused on the role of regulatory T cells in cancer regression and other immune-based therapies for cancer.
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
Books that influenced me the most:
The Transformed Cell by Steven A. Rosenberg Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feyname! by Richard P. Feynman
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say? Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?
Well, assuming it’s a big billboard, I’d lobby for the following:
Stephanie McMahon is the chief brand officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) and is the organization’s global brand ambassador. She is the primary spokesperson for WWE’s corporate social responsibility initatives, including the Special Olympics, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and Be a STAR, WWE’s anti-bullying program. In 2014, Stephanie and her husband, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, established Connor’s Cure, a fund dedicated to fighting pediatric cancer. Stephanie appears regularly on WWE’s flagship programming as a personality. She has been recognized as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Cable” for the past five years by CableFAX magazine. Adweek has included Stephanie in their list of the “Most Powerful Women in Sports” for the past two years. Most recently, Stephanie received the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award at the 2017 ESPN Sports Humanitarian of the Year Awards.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?
My Bucky neck pillow. I travel all the time, and I don’t get much rest on the road, so it’s important for me to be able to sleep when I can. The Bucky neck pillow is rectangular in shape and fits perfectly behind my head when sitting on an airplane. I can’t stand the U-shaped pillows because I have a pea-size head (Irish people either have giant heads or tiny heads; I’m of the tiny variety) and they slide up too much. The Bucky pillow stays perfectly in place, giving me all I need for a comfortable flight.
Several years ago, following the example of my then wife, Amber O’Hearn, I eliminated all plants from my diet….
Zooko Wilcox is the founder and CEO of Zcash, a cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zooko has more than 20 years of experience in open, decentralized systems, cryptography and information security, and startups. He is recognized for his work on DigiCash, Mojo Nation, ZRTP, “Zooko’s Triangle,” Tahoe-LAFS, BLAKE2, and SPHINCS. He is also the founder of Least Authority, which offers an affordable, ethical, usable, and lasting data storage solution.
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. When it came out ten years ago, it was the definitive study of the history and science of human nutrition in the 20the century. As well as exploring history, it became part of history itself, since a subsequent generation of nutrition researchers have been forced to take sides for or against the thesis of this book.
Unfortunately, most of the people I’ve given copies to didn’t get much from it! They were not historians or researchers; they were just people who needed to decide what to eat every day, and a dense tome of facts and scientific arguments wasn’t what they needed. I learned that in order to communicate with people, you have to meet them where they live.
No one is qualified to tell you how you experience the world.
Vlad Zamfir is a blockchain architect and researcher at Ethereum, working on blockchain efficiency and scaling. Vlad is interested in governance and privacy solutions, and he was also the first person to introduce me to absurdism. He is a frequent contributor on Medium and lives in Antarctica (or so he wants us to believe).
What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russell Complexity and Chaos by Dr. Roger White The Lily: Evolution, Play, and the Power of a Free Society by Daniel Cloud
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why?
“No one is qualified to tell you how you experience the world.” I find this helps people think for themselves more than anything else I’ve come across. I’m not really sure why. I should credit my friend Tom for the quote.
What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
I love being very pedantic about the use of the word “absurd.” You meant absurd as in “ridiculous,” not as in “self-defeating” or “futile,” for example. I usually reserve the term for use in the second “futile” sense, and I have an “unusual” habit of pointing this out whenever anyone uses the word informally.
