At this moment in time, I’d guess you don’t give two hoots about Texas A&M baseball or Jocko Willink. Or that you’d be able to guess my response to that.

“GOOD.”

But that’s not a wise-guy or a wise owl’s response. Nor is the use of all capitals to imply I’m shouting at you.

That word written that way is the common bond between a college baseball team that got within one game of winning the College World Series this year and a retired U.S. Navy Seal who has become a leadership instructor, author, and podcaster extraordinaire. How that bond came to be makes for an interesting story.

One you can apply to yourself to lower the height of any health hurdle you encounter. Or maybe even toss it from the track altogether.

More than eight years ago and during his third podcast ever, Jocko Willink delivered what some now call “The GOOD Rant.” Here’s an excerpt.

Didn’t get promoted? Good. More time to get better.

Didn’t get the job you wanted? Good. Go out, gain more experience, and build a better resume.

Got injured? Good. Needed a break from training [anyway].

The GOOD Rant became a key piece in Willink’s book, Discipline Equals Freedom, and GOOD became a big enough buzzword that you’ll now see it on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and baseball caps.

Before the 2024 baseball season, Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle bought a couple dozen of those caps and gave them to his team, along with a pep talk containing Willink’s words and his interpretation of them. He did so because Schlossnagle’s nobody’s fool.

A preseason ranking had his team 11th in the nation and for good reason. Not only had the end of the last season and subsequent recruiting gone well, but the Aggies had also panned the transfer portal and struck gold: four - count ‘em, four - no-doubt-about-it starters, including Braden Montgomery.

A right fielder/pitcher so talented that he was expected to be an early first-round draft pick in the major league baseball draft after the college season.

But Schlossnagle knows that in the midst of every baseball season there’ll undoubtedly be pockets of adversity and failure. That failing to find a way to reframe either positively can cause even the best of seasons to go awry.

So he suggested GOOD become their rallying cry. It did. And did the Aggies ever need it.

After starting the season 16-0 against non-league opponents, they dropped the two out of three SEC conference games to Florida. Since the Gators were ranked 8th in the nation at the time, many wondered if the Aggies were for real.

But the losses must’ve been GOOD because the team won 17 of 19 games after that.

They then hit another rough patch, in which they lost two games each to LSU and Ole Miss. But that must’ve been GOOD too, because they ended the regular season by defeating SEC West champion Arkansas twice to earn the top seed in the SEC postseason double-elimination tourney.

Where they were immediately eliminated by dropping their first two games.

But again, more GOOD came from bad. The Aggies went 8-0 in the regional qualifying games to reach the College World Series Final.

They did so even though after the first inning of the first game, Braden Montgomery - the kid so good he’ll be a millionaire as soon as he signs a MLB contract - was in an air cast instead of the line up and would play no more.

The it’s-all-GOOD point of view, though, became even more important after that. The team sustained four more significant injuries.

The number-two pitcher couldn’t pitch, and the three guys nearly as good with the bat as Montgomery were, in the coach’s words, “banged up.” One, in fact, actually kept playing despite a torn meniscus in his knee.

All of which makes the Aggies finishing second in all of college baseball proof of the power of GOOD. It also proves that the word Mary Maxey uses on the Nick Glassett website to summarize Jock Willink’s power to inspire others is spot on. “Incredible.”

Which is the same word I want you to be able to utter in response to “How’s your health?” So let’s also consider what Willink says immediately before and after The GOOD Rant excerpted above.

The Before: When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that will come from it. The After: That’s it.

But what needs to be stressed now is that there really is more to it, as Willink later admits. That after bad happens, you need to “get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage –- and go out on the attack,” in addition, to “accept reality [and] focus on the solution.”

If you can do all that, you’ll drink in good health, regardless of what word’s imprinted on your coffee mug.