>> Being able to take a step back, detach, and see the bigger picture to me is the true superpower of life, of life, and it's a lot harder than it sounds. And you know, this goes back to when you start talking about people that are having, going through struggles in life, right?

And I've described this before as, you know, if I'm looking at you and you're in a bad state, right, you're depressed, you're sad, you're moping around, you're not getting anything done. And I'm looking at you from the outside, and I'm thinking, for me, I see this storm cloud around your head, right?

I see the storm cloud around your head, and you're in there. And all you see, no matter what direction you look, is storm. All you see is darkness. I'm outside, and I'm looking, I'm like, "Hey, man, this guy's got a great education. He's healthy. He's got a good team around him.

Like he's got all these things going for him." But you, in that state, you literally cannot see anything but the darkness of the storm. And that's what's so scary about when people enter that mode, is you can look, I can look at it from the outside and be like, "Andrew, you just got to move like four feet forward, and you're going to be through this thing." And yet you might hear me say that, and you go, "No, Jocko, I'm looking ahead.

There's nothing but darkness." So helping people move forward, take action, and be able to get that perspective, detach, and get outside themselves, get outside their own heads. You know, Tim Ferriss said, "Get out of your head. Get into your body." That's one way to do it. Take action. Go do things.

But it's very scary, and I'm sure you've had this experience where you're talking to someone that you know, and they're bogged down in whatever problem it is, whatever stress they're under, and you're looking at them going, "Hey, man, it's going to be okay." You can clearly see that whatever is bothering them and dragging them down, you can clearly see...

You know, a lot of times it's a relationship, right? The girl, the guy, they got dumped, and you go, "Hey, man, that person was a disaster anyways. You're better off without them." And they cannot compute that. They are stuck there. Or maybe it's the school that they didn't get into, or the job that they didn't get, and they get so wrapped up in that, they can't get out of that storm.

And it's such a helpless feeling to sit there and tell someone, "Hey, you just move a little bit towards me, and you're going to get out of this storm." And it's so much easier said than done. And that's why trying to engage with people and trying to give people that superpower of detachment where they can take a step back and say, "You know what?

You're right, man. That girl, she wasn't who I really thought she was. I should move on." Yes. But easier said than done, and that's one of the biggest challenges I think that we have as friends and in parents and teammates is helping people learn to detach, learn to see the bigger picture, learn to see that the problem that you have that your whole world is actually not that big of a deal.

You know what I wrote? I've written a bunch of kids' books, and one of the things that triggered me to write kids' books is realizing that, you know, one day my daughter came home. It's my oldest daughter. And she came home from school, and she's like, she says, "I'm stupid." I said, "What do you mean you're stupid?" She said, "I'm stupid.

I'm dumb. Why do you think that?" You know, whatever grade it is when you're supposed to know your times tables. "I don't know my times tables." I said, "Oh, well, how much have you studied?" And she kind of gave me the confused look. "What do you mean studied?" I said, "Have you studied yet?

Have you made flashcards to learn them?" And she didn't. She hadn't. She thought she should just know them. From, you know, the teacher went over what they are, now she should know them like some other kids in the class did. And so I'm sitting there going, "Oh, yeah, cool, we'll just, you know, we'll make some flashcards." And she made flashcards, and she learned her times tables in 45 minutes, and we were good.

But what struck me was, to me, I was like, "Oh, no big deal." To her, it was her whole life. And then I got to see that with my other kids. You know, somebody said something to them in the recess yard, and I'm like, "Oh, screw that kid. They don't know what they're...

Don't worry about them." But when you're... That's their whole world. And that, unfortunately, doesn't only apply to kids. It applies to adults as well. And they get this problem in their world that seems so insurmountable and so massive because that little ecosystem that they're stuck in is their world.

And they run into this problem in that, and it's disruptive in that world, and they don't know how to get out of it. You know, I did a podcast talking about these ecosystems that people get into, right? And there's all these ecosystems. You're in an ecosystem. We're both in a shared ecosystem of podcasting.

And we could be like, "Oh, my gosh. You know, Lex just came out with a new podcast, and it's been the biggest success. And what can I do to catch up with Lex?" And all of a sudden, I could get really... You could get really... We could be bothered by that and think, "Man, I'm a failure." Meanwhile, there's people that don't listen to podcasts.

There's people that don't even know what a podcast is, and yet it's our whole world if we let it be. You're in the academic world. You go... You're a professor at Stanford, which is a big deal in that world. I know people that don't give a rat's ass. They couldn't...

They don't know where Stanford is. I get that all the time. They don't know where Stanford is. It's no big deal. In the SEAL teams, same thing. Somebody has a problem in the SEAL teams, and they think, "This is the whole world, and I blew it." And now, what are they gonna do?

When you're facing a significant problem in life, a relationship, a problem with a job, you gotta remember that you're in one ecosystem. And if you step outside of that ecosystem, no one really cares. And you could go move into a whole totally different ecosystem and find happiness there, but at least utilize that to get out of that storm cloud that you're in, and you're gonna find that there's plenty of light out there in the world.

Move towards that, and it's gonna be a much better situation. Thank you.