Warrior Kid (Podcast): Ask Uncle Jake

this is episode 1 of the warrior kid podcast ask Uncle Jake good morning echo good morning and we’re putting that together this podcast for kids this is a podcast for kids specifically this is a podcast for warrior kids based on the book the way of the warrior kid and we’re going to talk about that book and basically answer a bunch of questions that a bunch of kids asked so first of all really quickly if you don’t know anything about the warrior kid don’t know who uncle Jake is don’t know who I am and don’t know who EKKO is really quickly my name is Jo willing I was born and raised in a little New England town on the dirt road and I joined the Navy when I was 18 years old and I went into the SEAL Teams and I stayed in the SEAL Teams for twenty years I had a great time I love my job I worked with a bunch of great people people that were in the SEAL Teams people in the army people in the Navy people in the Air Force and the Marine Corps I fought in the war in Iraq and it was an honor to be there with so many brave men and women and I eventually retired from the Navy and now I have a business where I teach people about leadership and I live out here in California and I have four kids of my own now uncle Jake he’s one of the characters in the book way the warrior kid and a lot of people think Uncle Jake is me but that is actually not true uncle Jake is a fictional character which means he isn’t real and it but but even though he’s not real in real life he’s real in my head so when I wrote about him it was very easy for me to write about him because I kind of knew what he was like he’s uncle Jake is kind of that I always tried to be uncle Jake’s better than me he’s the the ideal seal meaning that he has the characteristics that I think the best seal would be like I was certainly not the best seal I tried my best but it’s a hard job and even though I don’t know even though I’m not quite as good as uncle Jake is in many respects in many respects not even close but I do know how he thinks and that’s why I think I’ll be able to answer some of the questions that people had for Uncle Jake and then lastly echo Charles he is a friend of mine from jiu-jitsu who is really good with computers and video cameras and voice recorders and he helps me make all these podcasts and the reason that we know each other is from training jiu-jitsu which he’s been training for a long time in jiu-jitsu and that’s how we know each other and he has two little warrior kids of his own how old are they echo currently nine months and four years little kids one girl in one boy I have three girls and one boy and my oldest girl is about to graduate from high school and my youngest daughter is in second grade so that’s my that’s who I am and like I said this is a podcast for kids and you all sent a bunch of questions and I definitely appreciate it I appreciate that you all you kids put pictures of yourselves doing a bunch of things that are good for you reading a book which is awesome you sent pictures of you doing pull-ups doing push-ups studying making times tables all those things and and I really enjoyed seeing all these kids doing all those things that are good a lot of times you hear about kids doing things that are bad and this was a complete opposite of that kids doing things that were good so I got a bunch of questions and I’m going to just try and answer them as quick as I can thank you for asking them so here we go I’m going to get right into it Nathan wanted to know when the next warrior kids book is coming it’s coming in May of 2018 Benedict wanted to know how many books I have and how many I’ve read already I have a lot of books I don’t know the number but I have a lot of books I read books all the time and when I went to college I actually studied English which means I read even more books I didn’t keep all those books I kept some of them the ones that I liked I kept the one that I didn’t like I got rid of them and it but right now I would say I have a few hundred books and I’ve read probably a little bit well probably around half of them some of them I only refer to but yeah the more you read the smarter you get so keep reading next how does a seven year old deal with bullying physical bullying and being left out of groups so this is the best way I think to deal with bullying DuPont’s that’s one thing dude you Jitsu study learn read and with all those things the better you get at those things the more confident you’ll be then the more confident you are the less bullying occurs now sometimes you’re going to get bullied everybody’s going to get bullied I got bullied when I was a kid it happens there’s always in it and I even see adults that get bullied even it’s not quite the same but some people have a boss that’s a bully or they’re in a relationship with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a husband and wife and they can be bullies so bullying happens all the time and you you got to learn to deal with it but some of the best things you can do is try and make yourself better by working out by studying by learning and those things will help you gain confidence and when you gain confidence there’s less bullying now as far as being left out of groups that’s not that big of a deal because you know what it’s okay to be alone sometimes and if there’s some people that are out there that don’t want to hang around with you find some other people to hang around with and if there’s no one to hang around with that’s okay to go hang around with a book go hang around with a pull-up bar that’s okay it’s not always fun but sometimes that’s the way it has to be sometimes there’s no kids around that are interested in the same things as you so that’s no big deal all right next question do you get a lot of Ali’s uncle Jake well yes I do get some Ali sometimes well uncle Jake rarely gets hurt Jaakko me I get hurt sometimes right now I have a broken knuckle which is bothering me I cut my foot last night for no reason which is bothering me and I have a little tweaked knee that’s what’s going on with with Jaco right now uncle Jake gets hurt a little less than Jocko but everyone get hurt everyone’s a human and who taught uncle Jake to be a warrior kid when he was four years old and those questions are from Zacky we’re gonna get into Uncle Jake and how he grew up but Uncle Jake wasn’t born a warrior he wasn’t born a warrior kid he had to become a warrior kidney kind of talks about that in the book he couldn’t do a bunch of pull-ups before he joined the military he couldn’t do a bunch of pulps he had to learn he didn’t know to be smart he had to learn how to study so we’ll talk about that in some of the future warrior kid books next up how often could you have a treat without falling for the sugar-coated lies and that’s from Durham age 11 sometimes you can have treats for sure and you just have to make sure that you’re not going overboard and going crazy with the Snickers bars and the Cheetos echo knows that that I eat Cheetos sometimes yes they have bags of Cheetos in our in our office where we record this and so sometimes I grab a bag of Cheetos and the thing is you just got to be careful that you don’t go overboard with stuff so if you want to have an occasional make sure that you earn it that’s one thing I like to do is I like to make sure that I earn it meaning I’m going to work out hard before I delve into the sugar-coated lies just be careful good way to look at that and how I go over it with my daughter is things like Cheetos and M&Ms and all these things they make you weak other food to make you strong so yeah if you eat a bunch of strong foods if you have some Cheetos sure it’s going to make you weaker but you’ll still be strong overall yeah so it gives them an idea you know they’re like eating a bunch of strong food you’re still going to maintain that strong Ness right right and then okay so everyone’s in like you can have some weak foods but you’ll still be stronger more weak food you have the weaker you’re going to get yes and you don’t want to let the weak food to be more than the strong foods really then you’re going to be weak instead of being strong yeah or even even because you eat a bunch of strong foods you get all strong and they need a bunch of weak foods then now you’re back to zero yeah we don’t be zero no we don’t all right leave I sent a video question that was pretty funny and a good question how many pull-ups push-ups sit-ups burpees should I be able to do by the end of summer and I had asked him back how many can you do right now and he said he could do five pull-ups 14 push-ups 36 sit-ups and he didn’t know how many burpees and so I answered him back and said he should try for 12 pull-ups 35 push-ups 60 sit-ups and 30 burpees in two minutes and he said thanks for helping with his exercises so that’s something that everyone’s going to want to know is how many should I be able to do well it’s as many as you can and you’re always working to try and get one more that’s what I’m always doing so if you can do for hopefully next week you can do five once you can do five hopefully week after that you can do six you’re always trying to build and get stronger and what’s really nice about being a kid is that you’re able to keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger for years and years and years once you’re an old man like me then it’s harder to make those gains yeah but that’s okay we still keep working because otherwise we start going backwards yeah and we don’t want to do that next one from Colin I’m 14 so I guess I’m still considered a kid love to know what would happen if you ever took a day off from your routine I guess he means by my routines working out and getting up early and if that happened you know I would just have to get back on the routine the next day and I think what you have to watch out for is you take a day off and then that turns into two days off and then that turns into a week and then that turns into a month and then the next thing you know you’ve been off your routine kid you’re not getting stronger you’re getting weaker you’re not getting smarter you’re getting dumber you don’t want that you be next one you beat the Sun up every morning what time you go to sleep and how important is rest and nutrition to a war your kid rest and nutrition is really important and you should sleep a lot that’s what makes you recover that’s what helps you grow especially kids that are still growing you need to get as much sleep as you can so go to bed I’ll tell you when you go to bed go to bed when you feel tired and a lot of times this these days that means putting away the iPhone and the iPad and stuff that keeps you awake for no reason put those things away and go to sleep because when you’re going to sleep you’re getting stronger next one my little warrior wants to know if all kids have to Train Brazilian Jujitsu are there other options she’s in another sport for ten hours a week well the most important thing and that’s great is that she’s training and she’s training hard and there’s all kinds of sports in all sports are good for you and it’s good to train hard in sports and it’s good to focus on sports so you don’t have to train jiu-jitsu to be a warrior that being said if you get the chance try and take a little jiu-jitsu and I’ll tell you why because one thing that jiu-jitsu will give you that other sports won’t give you is the means to defend yourself and stand up for yourself as someone’s picking on you or bullying you so it is important to train jiu-jitsu but if you’re training really hard in other athletics you might not be able to do as much as you want but that’s okay just try and squeeze in a little bit so you know how to take care of yourself and defend yourself good for autonomy as well so like if you play team sports it there is this element is a good thing by the way that where people are depending on you to do your job you’re depending on other people to do their job so you can collectively win in jiu-jitsu or track which there’s a small element of that but mainly it’s you you you have to go in you have to take it upon yourself to get the job done for you and it’s essentially all on you and you learn that so if you play team sports the whole time you get less of that you have a lot there is that in team sports for sure but it’s more prevalent and you get to arrest or attract something where you’re it’s just you just to you yeah those are those are good sports very intense very intense sports and you like I said you learn how to defend yourself next one Bennett from Michigan wants to know Uncle Jake why did you want to be a Navy SEAL well uncle Jake always wanted to be some kind of commando ever since he was a little kid and as soon as he figured out what the SEAL Teams were that’s what he that’s what decided to go for next one Uncle Jake my son McCoy wants to know when you will have your own TV show I don’t know but we do have right now the first warrior kid podcast so we’ll see what happens with the TV show I would rather have a bunch of kids reading books rather than watching a TV show next anderson turns eight today and asks what would win karate or jiu-jitsu and the answer that question is jiu-jitsu actually that’s been gone over a bunch of times now there’s a bunch of good stuff you get from karate too you learn a lot about discipline and karate you learn some good striking in karate so that’s good too but if you can try and train some jiu-jitsu as well so that you learned some grappling it’s a different type of fighting and when you put pure striking which is punching and kicking each other against pure grappling most of the time it’s the grappler that wins next one how do you be a warrior well talk about that a lot in the way of the warrior kid book and uncle Jake explains too he explains to mark exactly well kind of not exactly but he explains to him what a warrior kit is and he NE explains to him in a pretty good paragraph I just opened up the book here’s what here’s what a warrior kid is a normal kid doesn’t push himself a warrior kid does a normal kid doesn’t work constantly trying to improve himself a warrior kid does all these problems that you cried about yesterday mark a warrior kid wouldn’t cry about those problems a warrior kid would something about those problems so those are some of the things that a warrior kid does also if you read though the code that mark writes at the end of the book of what it’s like to be a warrior and his he makes his own warrior kid code that he’s going to live by that the rules that he’s going to have and those are very good rules to be a warrior and I think I think mark did a great job of coming up with those rules and I’ll tell you what they are number one the warrior kid wakes up early in the morning number two the warrior kid studies to learn and gain knowledge and asks questions if he doesn’t understand number three the warrior kid trains hard exercises and eats right to be strong and fast and healthy number four the warrior kid trains know how to fight so he can stand up to bullies and protect the weak number five the warrior kid treats people with respect and helps out other people whenever possible number six the warrior kid keeps things neat and is always prepared and ready for action number seven the warrior kid stays humble number eight the warrior kid works hard and always does his best number nine I am the warrior kid so that’s what being a warrior is especially for a kid next hi Uncle Jake my name is Chris I’m 8 years old I go to jujitsu class every week how can I get better the bigger kids always beat me well that’s what happens in the beginning what you did too when you first start off too Jitsu you get beat all the time it happened to me when I was starting to Jitsu and it happens to everyone when they start you did too you get beat and the way that you get better is by keeping training keep training all the time as much as you can and that’s how you get better and eventually what’s good about jujitsu is when you know more jujitsu than the other person you can still beat them even if they’re bigger than you so that’s why I really like jujitsu next my son wants to know why no matter what the situation or problem mark has uncle Jake always says good so the reason that uncle Jake always says good when there’s a problem is because he always looks at things in the most positive light and when he sees things other people might see something as a problem he sees them as a challenge that he can overcome and that’s why when he sees a problem he just says good let’s find a solution to that problem next hi uncle Jake my nephew Lincoln is a military kid 2nd grader loves your book what would uncle Jake tell Lincoln about being sad when his friends move away okay so when your friend friends move away one thing that’s good is that when they’re moving away oh you can still talk to him you can write them letters you can write them emails so it’s no problem when friends move away and then the other thing that’s good about when friends move away is it gives you opportunity to make new friends so go shake some hands with some new kids and get to know them next would you ever consider making this book into a movie and is there ever going to be a part – yes there’s going to be a part – a movie that’s not up for me to decide I’m sure someone will want to make it into a movie make it into a cool cartoon maybe a cartoon will have to say Rebekah asks what time should a nine-year-old get up and first of all you need to go to bed early enough that you get plenty of sleep and then you need to get up early enough in the morning that you are ready for the day and if you’re going to try and do some kind of exercise in the morning got to get up a little bit earlier and if you need to get up and do some extra studying you got to get up a little bit earlier so you know get up early enough that you can have a good start to the day that’s what you want to do next what is your what is uncle Jake’s favorite gun to shoot uncle Jake’s favorite gun to shoot is the 50 caliber machine gun which is a big heavy machine gun and it’s very fun to shoot next Jackson from Ohio says asked uncle Jake how can I be a better gentleman it’s a great question and the answer that is treat people how you would like to be treated so if you follow that rule and that basically boils down to a word that we use called respect you treat people with respect in other words you treat them how you would like to be treated that’s a great way to be on the path to becoming a better gentleman next would uncle Jake have treated the kid the same if Mark was a girl or would he have led up well the answer that is uncle Jake would have done the same treated if Mark was a girl and her name was Marsha instead of Mark uncle Jake would have done the same thing taught Marsha how to do pull-ups taught Marsha how to study taught Masha how to defend herself all the problems that Mark has in the book are the same I have three girls that as kids three girls and one boy they all have had the same problems so uncle Jake would have done the same thing and it says would he have led up and the answer is no uncle Jake would not have led up because that would have helped her next I’m eating good but any tricks or tips to eat faster it’s an interesting question in the military you learn to eat very fast first of all there’s no reason to eat faster you can take your time and it’s probably better to take your time when you eat if you are taking too much time you’re probably doing something else while you’re eating like talking so stop talking and eat my daughter’s asked if Mark in the book is named after Mark Lee yes mark Lee was a seal that was worked with me in Iraq and he was killed in Iraq and yes mark in the book is named after Mark Lee it’s another way for me to make sure people remember mark next what can a kid say if kids use too much social media to convince their words to limit use in their free time well if your friends are using too much social media I think what you want to say to them is hey let’s go play some basketball let’s go do some pull-ups let’s go wrestle let’s go do some jiu-jitsu let’s go find bugs in the yard let’s put that computer screen away and let’s go get better that social media stuff is not making you a better person next nine-year-old girl that struggles to make friends at school and sometimes feels left out well like I said earlier it’s hard for people to make friends and sometimes the people that are around aren’t going to be the best friends with you and that’s okay I know different grades that I had different classes that I had I didn’t always have a bunch of friends in them sometimes it was hard to get along with people sometimes they were interested in things that I wasn’t interested in and what I would do in those times is just find something that I am interested in and I would go and do it so if you’re having trouble making friends go find a book read a book go look at what they’re doing maybe they’re playing a game that you haven’t played before and you’re a little bit shy about getting involved in it don’t be shy about it walk over and say hey can someone teach me that can someone help me learn this and if you open up the conversation if they’re nice to you maybe you make a new friend if they’re not try and find someone else that maybe is doing something else that you could be interested in so I think a lot of times kids when you’re a kid and I know I felt this way as a kid you feel like you should always have people around and if you if you’re alone maybe it’s not a good thing but it’s okay it’s okay to be alone it’s okay to spend some time by yourself you don’t always need friends everywhere it’s friends are great and it’s great when you make them but you can’t force people to be your friends so I always found it comfortable or comforting that if I was by myself I was okay with it and I don’t feel bad about it next how can i this is from Benjamin how can I discipline myself to workout every day and I have a lot of adult asked me this question too and you know how you discipline yourself to workout every day you discipline yourself to workout every day there’s no magic trick it’s not easy you get up and you workout and you do it every day that’s how you do it no magic trick there what kind of workout routine for mark and pull-up program well what if you want to do pull if you want to get good at pull-ups the best thing to do is pull-ups you do lots of pull-ups if if you have a choice between doing sprints and long runs I like to do Sprint’s more so all these things you know don’t get caught up around kids don’t get caught up around doing some specific program that’s what your parents are all concerned about I want to get told the program to do what you do is you just do a bunch you do eight sets a set is when you get on the pull-up bar and you do as many as you can do that eight times do it 10 times do it four times do it six times and then do as many pushups as you can and do that three or four times maybe five times so don’t get caught up on the program just go do some stuff it’s not that hard it’s well I shouldn’t say it’s not that hard it’s can be hard when you start working out and you’re going to get tired and stuff and that’s one of the thing that you do need to do when you get tired a little bit more that’s what working out is when you get tired go a little bit more so go do you know I like to say 8 to 10 sets of pull-ups 8 to 10 sets of push-ups do some squats do some burpees one thing that’s good with bird pieces do as many purposes you can in two minutes see how see how many you can do do that it do that every few days maybe do that do that on Tuesdays and Thursdays many burpees as you can in two minutes on the other days do some pull-ups do some push-ups next what should middle school young men ages 11 to 13 be working on to prepare to become a productive young man hmm well these are really easy to answer study learn learn as much as you can work or card workout be nice to people make friends read those the kinds of things you do the other question about social media that’s not going to help you become a productive young man what made you know what you wanted to do in life so like I said earlier uncle Jake he always wanted to be a commando next hmm my kid cares about other kids even the bullies he doesn’t cattle but doesn’t stick up for himself how can he grow confidence and courage again people want to grow confidence and courage confidence and courage don’t grow on trees confidence and courage grow from work from working from working out from studying from learning from participating in sports that’s where you get confidence and courage from so try all those things out a four-year-old girl says how are you doing Uncle Jake Uncle Jake is doing really good right now and a six-year-old boy says did any of your friends die in the Navy and yes uncle Jake lost some friends very close friends while he was in the SEAL Teams that’s part of being in the military in the military your job is to fight a war and in war people die and it’s very sad and very tragic and also it’s the job of the soldiers and sailors and airmen of Marines to go out and fight next uncle Jake how long is Uncle Jake been in the Navy in the book uncle Jake has been in the Navy for eight years when he goes to stay at his sister’s house who’s Mark’s mom nine year old son and want to know funcle’ Jake ever want to quit during training no uncle Jake never wanted to quit and a nine-year-old girl says how can I get over not doing things perfectly I get so frustrated when I don’t do something perfect oh that happens to a lot of people and what you do with that is you have to realize that wanting things to be perfect is imperfect you’re not perfect if you want everything to be perfect and also if you’re trying to do everything perfect you’ll never get anything truly done because you can’t do anything perfectly in the world so look to be look to do a great job look to do an outstanding job look to do an excellent job but when you’re going for perfection it’s going to be too hard to do next how does mark work on self-awareness and frustration outside of Brazilian Jujitsu well when you get frustrated you have to realize you have to realize the things that you do when you start getting frustrated so if you start tensing up your arms or you start gritting your teeth or you start getting tears in your eyes you have to realize what’s happening you know those tears in your eyes are just frustration and then when you start getting all red in the face that’s just frustration so what you have to do is realize that you’re getting frustrated and then take a step back take a deep breath think about something else relax so that you don’t let that frustration take over your brain next eight-year-old girl asks was Uncle Jake bullied or a wimp like Mark and the answer is yes all little kids are getting bullied it happens it happens too well it happens to just about it maybe not every single kid in the world but most kids get bullied especially when you’re 10 years old when you’re 10 years old there’s always going to be somebody that’s bigger and stronger than you and you know anyone that’s 12 years old is bigger than you they’re stronger than you there are even a lot of times smarter than you because they’ve learned a little bit more next is echo gonna make any movies about mark he made one little short movie about mark I don’t know I don’t know what’s going to happen with that will definitely make more books about mark every okay kid Lucas that wants to be a seal same answer you want to be a seal the advice is study hard work hard train hard be a good kid don’t get in trouble do the best you can in school play some sports study hard that’s it okay the this boy is three and a half years old and wants to take jiu-jitsu but the school doesn’t allow it until six years old so the question is should he go and watch or take kid karate what do you suggest I would say definitely let him come watch maybe once a week just let him go there and be on the mats and see what it’s like and then the after I’ve got a karate kid that if they got a karate program that he can get into until he can start you Jitsu I think that’d be good for him so would wrestling a lot of times if you can find wrestling they start a little bit younger and same thing with judo maybe you can find a judo program they start them a little bit younger I would do wrestling first then judo second and then do those when he’s younger until he can get old enough for jujitsu how do you stand up to a bully it’s all in the book way the warrior kid you got to train hard you got to work hard you got to be in good shape you’ve and then you got to stand your ground and guess what it doesn’t mean you’re gonna win you might not win I got the I know this is Jocko Jocko got beat up when when I that I got my first fight I got beat and I got put in a headlock taken down to the ground I think I was in fourth grade and taking down to the ground held in the headlock and punched in the head luckily it didn’t last too long because the teachers were pretty close so I stood up to the bully and I got taken down and put a headlock and punch in the head you know what though I didn’t die and I felt good about it I was okay with getting punched in the head and a lot of times bullies you know just like in the book bullies the reason that a bully is because they’re mean and but no one ever challenges them so once they get challenged a lot of times they will back down can you teach me to face my fears well again we have things that we’re afraid of we’re afraid of them because we don’t understand them so prepare as much as you can do as much as you can to get ready for that thing that you fear and then when you’ve practiced the thing that you fear the final step you have to do just like in the book is you have to step you have to you have to go for it that’s what you eventually have to do can you teach me how to recognize things that aren’t good like poison ivy and stuff that’s from Emma these questions were all from Emma yeah Emma I can’t teach you because I’m on a podcast right now but luckily there’s so many good books out there and you can make little flashcards just like Mark does in the book with pictures of all the bad stuff out there in nature and that way you know what poison ivy looks like let’s see most important thing about being a warrior kid I think the most important thing about being a warrior and a warrior kid is to be humble and to be humble means you don’t think you’re the best thing in the world we shouldn’t think that the minute that you think that you aren’t trying to get better anymore you aren’t trying to improve yourself you’re treating people poorly because you think you’re better than them so there’s a key word it’s called humility and you always want to stay humble 11 year old that wants to go towards the goal of being a seal same thing or card workout study hard favorite Brazilian Jiu Jitsu move for uncle Jake what do you think uncle Jake’s favorite Brazilian Jiu Jitsu move his I think it’s the rear naked choke I haven’t confirmed this yet and uncle Jake joined the Navy after he got done with high school he was 18 years old Oh Lucas wants to be a seal or a ranger but he has a hard time controlling his temper and following orders from his superior uncle Jake would say that in the SEAL Teams and in the Rangers if you have a bad temper you’re not going to make it so watch and you know what a lot of kids have bad tempers I had a bad temper when I was a kid and at some point you got to realize that that bad temper is not good and so what you have to do is learn to control your temper so it’s what I talked about earlier if you start feeling that temper if you start feeling your face getting red and you start phew most tears coming in your eyes you gotta say to yourself oh I’m losing my temper I’m actually being weak right now by losing my temper so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna take a breath I’m going to step back I’m going to calm down even if you have to walk away and go in your room for a minute and just sit down and take a breath and get control of your temper any older you get the better you’ll get it controlling your temper and then as followed as far as following orders from your superiors in the military SEAL Teams Rangers you absolutely have to listen to the people that you work for and it’s the same thing in the civilian sector so a good way to practice that is by listening to what your parents say now you might not think what your parents say you might not feel like doing it you might not feel like cleaning your room so it’s good practice to look at your dad when he says to clean your room and say no problem dad I got it that’s good practice for when you get in the military now you should also grab a conversation with your dad and say hey dad why is this important and have them explain it to you so that way you’re more of a team than just your dad barking orders at you once you understand why it’s important that will help you get motivated to do the job that’s in front of you and we got a bunch of questions from a guy named Mike Hurley Mike Curley from it he’s a teacher so I’m gonna have to go through these pretty pretty quickly first one is from I think this one’s from Mike as well how did you get the idea of writing way of the warrior kid a lot of the kids books that I read went from my own kids I didn’t like them very much do I have any new books coming out the new book is coming out in May of 2018 favorite book I have written well I’ve only written two books so far one is called way the warrior kid which is for kids and the other one is called extreme ownership which is for adults and I like them both did I relate to Marc when I was younger yes I think that’s one of the reasons why this book is so populous because everyone can relate to Marc there’s no one that woke up and were in and they went when they were 10 years old they would’ve asked at everything no everyone has problems with different things what inspired me to become an author I wanted to kind of teach some of the lessons that I had learned let’s see kay asks how to improve your grades in math how to improve your marks you’ve got to study that’s the thing just like just like just like mark in the book he didn’t study his times tables and therefore he didn’t know them so make your flashcards and study and then the other big thing that I learned from being in the Navy is when you don’t understand something you have to ask the question in class you have to ask your teacher you know why you don’t want to ask it because you’re embarrassed cause you feel awful if I ask this question that means I’m stupid and people will laugh at me it’s not true and even if they do laugh at you you know what it doesn’t matter because when you take the test you’re going to do better so don’t be embarrassed to ask questions ask questions and study hard next what mental challenges did you face training to be a Navy SEAL well there’s all kinds of challenges that you face trying to become a Navy SEAL and I’m trying to think of my personal ones well there’s a bunch and the biggest thing for me is I wasn’t great at anything I wasn’t the fastest runner I wasn’t the fastest swimmer I wasn’t fastest at the obstacle course I wasn’t the best shot with a pistol rifle so everything for me was hard and I had to work hard at everything that I did and so for me there was never a mental rest some guys they might not be the best runner but they’re a great swimmer so during the swim it was kind of easy for him I didn’t really have any brakes so that was probably my biggest mental challenge next is from a reader how am I supposed to stop missing one of my friends that live really far away and we’ve been friends for over five years okay well when you miss one of your friends the best thing to do is write to them write them letters call them if you can write them emails and keep in touch with them and snow it’s normal to miss your friends when they leave so you shouldn’t even try and stop missing them just write them letters tell them what’s going on and maintain contact with them next uncle dear Uncle Jake you are so wise you’re the only person who knows the answer to this question how do I stop eating junk food I can’t stop help me so actually the only person that can stop you from eating junk food isn’t uncle Jake it’s you it’s you you’re the one that has to stop eating junk food and the way you do it isn’t as hard as you think actually it’s simple it’s not easy but it’s simple the junk food that you want to put into your mouth don’t put it into your mouth don’t do it you know it’s weak food like Ecco said earlier it’s weak food and we don’t want to eat that weak food we want the strong food so when it when you get tempted to eat that weak food don’t do it don’t do it don’t take one bite don’t even say I’m just gonna have one cookie instead of four don’t have any because once you have one it’s all known so the way that you stopped from eating junk food is by stop eating junk food that’s what you need to do next why did I write decide to write this story because I thought there was a lot of kids that could learn from it even my own kids that’s one of the main reasons I wrote it do I have any other books coming out yes May of 2018 I also have a book coming out it’s more of an adult book coming out in October what’s the favorite book I’ve written I already answered that one what have I ever been in Mark situation when I was a child yes like I said of course it was hard I couldn’t do a bunch of pull-ups I was not one of the stronger kids I had trouble in school sometimes so every I I relate to everything that Mark went through and I saw my own kids go through those same troubles how can I stop eating so much junk food I already answered that stop eating junk food how can I convince my parents to get a puppy now if I could answer that question I’d probably be the most popular person in the world it’s really hard because what kids don’t realize is that puppies are a huge huge responsibility and it’s I have had dogs a lot in my life and I have kids a lot in my life and had four kids and I will tell you that the responsibility of a dog is almost as much as the responsibility of having a kid so it’s not really easy to get a to own a dog so the best thing you can do I think if you want to convince your parents to let you get a puppy which is no guarantee the best thing you can do is be a good kid work hard show responsibility get good grades in school help with the chores help with the cleaning up because the bottom line is when you when you get a puppy there’s one big issue with a puppy that no one wants to talk about and that’s puppy poopoo right what’s going to happen who’s going to who’s going to clean up the puppy poopoo in the yard is it going to be you because your parents don’t think you’re going to do it and that’s one of the main reasons they don’t want to get you a puppy because they don’t want to pick up puppy poopoo so show that you’re responsible and how can I convince my parents to allow me to be on social media more than I am now I would say your parents are doing a great job the social media is not going to help you and don’t try and convince them of that work on the puppy instead that’s going to be better for you next my brother bullies me and makes me do everything for him and if not he says he will take something from me and hide it or hurt me well you got to negotiate with your older brother first of all he’s running around being a bully that’s not cool at all I would talk to your parents about it and say that you’re being bullied and tell your parents what’s going on but I would also talk to your brother about it and say you know why are you doing this to me why are you treating me like this do you think it’s fun for me and if he doesn’t seem to care well then you might have to go into some kind of guerilla warfare against your brother and start maybe if he wants you to do something for him maybe you don’t do it perfectly do it a little bit less than perfect or maybe take a long time to do it and it’s really hard it’s really hard growing up in a house with older brothers and older sisters that bully you so talk to your parents about it and as always start doing a bunch of pull-ups try and learn some jiu-jitsu learn to stand up for yourself study hard and also the worst case scenario in this if you let’s say that you can’t stop your brother from bullying you because that’s just the way it is and your parents aren’t around enough you know what you can do from this situation is you can learn from it you can learn from your brother by the way he mistreats you you can learn that you’re never going to do that to other people you’re never going to do that to other kids and that you’re going to treat people much better than your brother treats you so even if you can’t stop him and he ends up bullying you until he moves out of the house he’s taught you such a valuable lesson about life and about human beings that it’ll be worth it in the long run so I know it’s tough I know it’s hard but learn as much as you can from it and in the meantime also take those steps so that you can stop them good luck with that buddy it’s a tough one question 1 what is the meaning of life I guess that you are not playing around with any easy questions for Uncle Jake Uncle Jake Uncle Jake will tell you that the meaning of his life is to try and help other people and try and do good in the world that’s what he’s trying to do with his life how do I stop my friend from laughing so much I would say if your friend is laughing so much I don’t know why you’d want to stop them unless they’re getting in trouble and if they’re getting in trouble just go sit in a seat that’s not so close to them in class I had a friend named Ryder when I was a kid and he would add laughing attacks and he would laugh so hard that he would get kicked out of the classroom and I remember one time he was laughing so hard he got kicked out of the classroom and after about five minutes went by I looked to the door where the window was there was a window in the door to the classroom and his face came up into the into the window he was still laughing hysterically after five minutes so sometimes people laugh and and normally people laugh hard when you’re not supposed to that’s one of the things that makes laughing hard funny is you’re not supposed to be laughing so yeah just move away from him and tell him to calm down or else you can’t hang out with him during classes most pushups okay no matter how much stress I put on myself the most pushups I can do is fifty how do i improve just keep doing push-ups if you can do fifty right now do two or three steps of fifty and keep doing push-ups that’s how you get blood better better at any of these things can you join the Navy at 12 years old no you can’t join the Navy until your turn 18 let’s see how we doing on time oh I think we’re going to make it I’m trying to keep this to an hour everybody because I know I got what great letter yesterday from a kid that rode said hey thanks for writing away the warrior kid and putting all the lessons in it that you talk about on your podcast but we don’t have to listen your whole podcast which gets boring to learn the lesson so honesty yes kids are always honest and that’s while kids most of the time are honest what is the question on this one was this book a kid and adult guide to becoming strong and healthy because the books talks about things what mark needs to do to become smart and fit yes that’s exactly what the book was for the book was a guidebook for kids to become smarter stronger faster and better people that’s that’s what the book is about and also I wish I would had this book when I was a kid let’s see I have a question about the book I always fight with my brother what should I do well that’s that’s a tough one because kids fight with their with their siblings I had two sisters growing up and we got in fights all the time and I wish I could go back and be more mature because I was you know a kid and when you look back you say what was I doing fighting with my two sisters that’s ridiculous so what you need to do is look at the things I this is one thing you can do to start with look at the things you’re fighting about and I can pretty much guarantee that the things you’re fighting about are the most silly and ridiculous things right like what what piece of carrot do you get I want this carrot no I want that carrot and then you’re fighting about it what where are you going to put your head on the couch don’t put your head near me don’t put your foot near me right that’s the kind of things that kids fight about so what we have to do is instead of letting those things annoy you just say you know what he’s going to put his head over here I’m just going to move my head a little bit there’s a Great War hero that we had that I talked to named captain Charlie plumb and he was in the Vietnam War he was a fighter pilot in Vietnam War and he was shot down he was held in a prison camp for six years and one of the things that he said is if you can imagine you know you you think it’s hard living with your brother because you have to spend you know a couple hours a day in the same house imagine being in a little tiny prison cell for six years with other people day in day out 24 hours a day so what they figured out was if they got mad or they got annoyed at something someone else was doing they didn’t blame the other person they blamed themselves so you don’t want to fight with your brother stop blaming him for being annoying and start blaming yourself for getting annoyed and just try and be a little bit more mature about it next I enjoyed your book and go to medical school and I don’t want to lose touch with people hey if you’re this happens when kids move around just get out get their address and start writing letters that’s what you need to do let’s see how do you improve and pull-ups do pull-ups how do you improve and running run how do you overcome your fears talked about that one you train you practice and then you face them and what are healthy foods other than milk I think the key thing with healthy foods is to eat things that are made by nature not by man so if it comes in a big plastic package in a box and it and when you look at the list of ingredients it’s a hundred and forty seven words that you can’t pronounce that’s the thing you’ve got to watch out for but if it’s a carrot or it’s an orange or it’s a steak or it’s a piece of chicken and the ingredients in the chicken are chicken and the ingredients in mistake are steak and the ingredients in the fish is fish and the ingredients in the in the lettuce is lettuce those are the things you want to try and eat those are the healthiest things major question for uncle Jake need more money for fidgets spinners and a may merch Pocky and robox but my parents won’t let me have money for it what should I do really easy get a job that’s what you do when you need money you get a job you don’t get things for free you have to work so if you need money for all these ridiculous things that you want to spend it on which by the way they’re all ridiculous you should save your money for some things like pull-up bars or just save your money for your future save it for when you go to college but you’re not going to get more your parents aren’t obligated to give you money for junk which is what you want it for your parents are actually smart for not giving you money I wouldn’t give you money to buy that junk so if you want money get a job mowing lawns pulling out weeds throwing newspapers whatever it is you got to do but if you want to buy junk you got to do with your own money not your parents next question if someone’s too lazy to get up in the morning and doesn’t want to get woken up by someone who’s smashing utensils or anything in your eardrum what what is the more easier way to get up what is an easier way to get up and you are talking about yourself that’s from our well what you need to do in those situations is get an alarm clock when the alarm clock goes off get up and get out of bed and if you still feel tired in the morning then you need to go to bed earlier at night so it’s never easy to get up in the morning get up getting up in the morning is hard that’s why it’s such an edge over normal people because normal people they want to sleep they want to sleep and sleep and sleep and when you sleep you’re not being productive now of course you need sleep it’s good for you to sleep you’re going to be stronger the more you sleep the stronger you’re going to be but if you sleep and you don’t work out and you sleep and you miss your schoolwork and you sleep and you’re just being lazy that’s not going to be good for you so get an alarm clock set your alarm clock when your alarm clock goes off get up and get out of bed how do I stop eating food that’s not healthy you stop eating the food that’s not healthy that’s it also tell your mom another thing for those of you to ask you this question tell your mom and dad not to buy that food you don’t want it in the house that’s what you need to do tell your parents you don’t want the ice cream in the house you don’t want the Cheetos in the house you don’t want that what’s another good one and what you don’t want the chocolate chip cookies in the house now if you’re out and you just had a nice you know at ball game and you play baseball or you played a soccer game or a football game and your mom stops at a shop on the way home and says hey son you played a great game you want a chocolate chip cookie and you go yeah that sounds good little reward that’s okay that’s great but if you have those chocolate chip cookies in your house and you just got done playing two hours worth of video games and you’re feeling a little bit hungry so you go in the kitchen there’s a chocolate chip cookie box and you eat nine of them that’s not good so don’t do that or soda or Leah soda is horrible you shouldn’t you should beg your parents not to bring soda in the house if you’re if your parents bring soda in the house you should say oh do you not like me because why are you feeding me this this is poison don’t feed me poison I want water just bring me some water mom and dad please let’s see how to start a good habit such as working out you start working out okay next how old was uncle Jake when he joined the SEAL Teams he was 18 can you join at 10 years old no how was uncle Jake’s experience in the SEAL Teams he loved it all uncle Jake I have a question for you how do you get stronger and not get bullied I already answered that one you work out you trained jujitsu you trained boxing you trained wrestling trained judo and you stand up to those bullies like I said not always going to win but you’ll win in the long run five-year-old wants to know why you have to do pull-ups to be a war your kid you don’t have to do pull-ups to be a warrior kid but pull-ups is a great exercise like there’s some people that maybe they have some issue that maybe they got a hurt shoulder or a hurt arm and they can’t do pull-ups and that’s okay you can still be a warrior kid but if you if your arms are healthy and you can do pull-ups they’re a great thing to do because it means you can handle your own weight it means you can carry yourself it means you can take care of yourself so that’s why pull-ups are great a great exercise and they’re also I’ve read a lot of stuff that if kids can do pull-ups it did it helps their overall health so pulps are great for you it’s a great exercise if you can do them Dylan if you’re injured or you’ve got some kind of an issue where you can’t do them try and find a different exercise that you can do and focus on that one next questions from six-year-old boy McGee his uncle Jake real know Uncle Jake is a fictional character how old is Uncle Jake Uncle Jake in the book as I think about 26 years old and what keeps Uncle Jake moving during really hard times when the going gets tough for Uncle Jake you know what Uncle Jake does he actually enjoys it he knows he’s being challenged and so he pushes himself next when you’re working out and feeling under the weather should you still give a hundred percent well actually if you’re feeling sick maybe it’s time for a little rest if you just don’t feel a hundred percent like maybe you’re feeling a little tired a little mopey that day still get in there and you’re not gonna be able to give 100% every day no one can give a hundred percent every day you’ll run out a percent so you got to save some of that percent so you can’t give a hundred percent of your day but give what you can do what you can get in there make it happen how is Uncle Jake doing in college uncle Jake is doing outstanding in college did Uncle Jake respond a Marx letter yes he did and what was a response you’ll find out in May when the next book comes out how uncle Jake’s knows so many languages and how does he know the warrior code in the book Uncle Jake studies languages when you’re when you’re in the military and you go to other countries a lot of times you’ll study the language that they speak there so you can communicate with the local people so that’s how Uncle Jake knows a little bit of a lot of different languages and how does he know the warrior codes in the book he studies and reads about the past and reads about history and reads about what other warriors were like so that he can figure out what they did well so he can do the same thing how many pull-ups can Uncle Jake do Uncle Jake can do 75 pull-ups as Uncle Jake ever jumped off a bridge into a lake before many times what was your job in the Neal in the Navy SEALs and what team were you on well this is Jocko and Jocko I was on my job I started off as a radio man which I meant I carried the radio and then I became an officer which means I would be in charge of a seal squad or a seal platoon or seal task unit and then the SEAL Teams I was on I was on SEAL team 1 SEAL team 2 SEAL team 3 until team 7 question from warrior kid Aden what kind of workout would you recommend for 12 year old boy to get stronger push-ups pull-ups sit-ups squats and I would do a lot of those like I said 8 to 10 sets and that’s what you build up to when you first start you might only be able to do 3 or 4 sets and then sometimes you goo one day you do pull-ups eight sets of poles the next day you do push-ups eight sets of push-ups the next day you do squats eight sets of squats and just keep working next what is the middle name uncle Jake’s middle name could have to find that one out in the second book and what was it like to be in the Navy SEALs being in the SEAL Teams is so fun and it was a great job and I loved every second of it and uncle Jake loved the SEAL Teams as well and it’s also a dangerous job so a lot of people think that they want to join the SEAL Teams because it’s a lot of fun and it looks cool and you get to do cool stuff but you also got to remember it’s a very dangerous job and being it being in the SEAL Teams isn’t just fun all the time it’s hard work a very hard work and it’s very dangerous sometimes so if it’s something that a lot of a lot of kids have been asking about how do what do I do to get ready for the SEAL Teams you need to make sure that you have the right attitude about danger because it’s a very dangerous job sometimes but it’s also a lot of fun will uncle Jake come back to mentor mark in his teenage years yes he will he’s going to mentor him for about six books until he’s done with his high school career let’s see Nolan and Brady asked how are you so smart well I’m not that smart Uncle Jake is very smart but the way you get smart is by reading that’s that to me that’s one of the most important reading and studying that’s how you get smart so read and study as much as you can and find books that you’re interested in I read a lot of books about war because I’m very interested in war but those are the those are the kind of books that I’m interested in and there’s a lot of books about that but anything that you’re interested in if you’re interested in cars read about cars and how they work if you’re interested in computers read about how computers work if you’re interested in space travel read books about space travel but the more you read the smarter you’re going to be let’s see how can I get my little brother more interested in the story and reading the book if he doesn’t like reading that much we get to them sit down with them and read it to them five-year-old a question here what should I do when my friends don’t want to play with me at school I say you play by yourself I say you go over and find a pull-up bar and find the swing set and do things that you can just do by yourself and every once in a while go over and see what they’re doing and ask them about it and see if you know if they need anyone else to play with them and if they don’t then that’s fine like I said it’s it’s okay to be alone sometimes and and sometimes kids the owner of the hardest thing is one of the another reason why I wrote this book is that being a kid is hard and kids can be really mean and when I was a kid I felt both sides of that sometimes I had kids be mean to me and sometimes I was meeting the other kids like I said because I was immature they didn’t know so the older I got the nicer you can be but sometimes when you’re you know six and seven and eight years old sometimes kids can be really mean and that doesn’t mean you should be me in fact what it means you should be nice so if you got kids that don’t want to play with you that’s okay spend some time by yourself look for some other kids that maybe do want to hang out a little bit what do you do on a daily basis as a Navy SEAL it’s really hard to describe what you do as a Navy SEAL on a daily basis because it changes everyday sometimes you’re parachuting sometimes you’re shooting guns sometimes you’re blowing things up sometimes you’re working out sometimes you’re doing to work sometimes you’re traveling sometimes you’re going on long patrols which is like a hike through the desert or through the jungle or through the mountains sometimes you’re in the water doing diving sometimes you’re it’s just a very it’s very hard to describe what you do every single day because it’s different every day and that’s one of the things that makes the job very exciting and fun is that you get to do different stuff all the time what tips and tricks would you have for getting up and getting after it when I’m not feeling it that’s from Gavin I think that was a video 1 Gavin said he’s not feeling it sometimes those are the special days where you actually have to do it so the days when you’re not feeling it are the days where you get better the days that you don’t want to study those the days you get smarter the days that you don’t want to work out but you work out anyways those are the days you get stronger so when you’re not feeling it tell yourself oh good it’s an opportunity for me to step up overcome some weakness and get better what made Uncle Jake and Jocko want to be a Navy SEAL like I said always wanted to be a commando kids in class want to know what Jake’s purpose is for going to college what’s his new goal well uncle Jake has been an enlisted guy in the SEAL Teams and he wants to become an officer he wants to move into more of a leadership role and so what he’s going to do is he’s going to go to college he’s going to get his degree and then he’s hopefully going to go back to the SEAL Teams as an officer so he can be in charge of a seal platoon that’s one of his goals the inspiration for mark like I said was Mark Lee and that’s who he’s named after but also mark represents all kinds of kids even myself and my own kids is you know it’s like I said it’s hard being a kid so mark is a representation of some of the struggles that kids face and then the struggles aren’t going to be the exact same right some kids might be good at math but they’re not good at spelling some kids might be good at math and spelling but they can’t memorize any history facts so your challenges are going to be different some kids might be good at pull-ups but they’re not fast runners some kids might be fast runners but they’re not good at throwing a baseball so the challenges are different but how you overcome those challenges are the same and that’s through hard work and practice so that was the inspiration and like I said the Uncle Jake to me was always in my mind just the ultimate seal and that’s what I tried to make him to be like then mark was an average kid that’s going to do above-average things through hard work and through discipline and so those are the questions that we had for this podcast and appreciate all those questions that everyone sent me I know it’s a lot of stuff out there and I know that it was hard for me to go through them all but I was really thankful that we got all those questions and I’m sure we’ll have some more questions in the future thanks for reading the book thanks for showing all those cool pictures of everyone out there reading the book and doing their time stables and studying and using flashcards and doing pull ups that’s great for me to see and like I said I like to team kids do things where they’re getting better so thanks for reading the book and and telling your friends about the book I appreciate it and most of all thanks for training hard thanks for studying hard and thanks for working hard to get stronger smarter faster and better so stay on the path of discipline and keep getting after it until next time from Uncle Jake and echo and Jocko out