138: The Dichotomy Of Leadership with Leif Babin. Self Control, and How to Find The Balance

0:00:00 - Opening 0:08:10 - The Dichotomy of Leadership with Leif Babin 1:07:37 - Self control and When to raise your voice. 1:11:10 - Ensuring success when working with Iraq Troops. 1:21:23 - Balancing giving clear direction and talking too much. 1:25:48 - IN n' Out VS What a Burger. 1:27:42 - Teaching Jiu Jitsu white belts "dangerous" techniques. 1:35:23 - Is the Muster for older people, too? 1:36:33 - Are big group meetings less productive than smaller group meetings? 1:43:29 - How to mediate upper management and front line troops at work. 1:49:17 - Avoiding isolation of leadership. 1:56:21 - What has change for Leif and Jocko from the time Extreme Ownership was written until now? 2:02:23 - Support. 2:35:58 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 138 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  "Sir," the young SEAL whispered in a faint voice, "come here." Our hands were clasped in a handshake. Not a formal handshake like two businessmen, but palm to palm with thumbs wrapped around the back of the hand like an arm wrestling contest. A handshake of brotherhood. The young SEAL was feeling the morphine. I saw it in his eyes, but he was still there, still conscious and aware. He was everything a young man should be: smart, brave, athletic, funny, loyal, and tough.

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  He'd been shot in the leg about a half an hour before. I found out later that Mikey Mansour, a young SEAL machine gunner, had run out into heavy enemy gunfire and dragged this SEAL out of a war-torn street in the Malab district in the city of Ramadi, the violent heart of the insurgency in Iraq. The wounded SEAL now lay on a gurney in Charlie Med, the Camp Ramadi Field Hospital, where US military surgical teams worked furiously to save the lives of gravely wounded troops almost every day.

• 1:36Jocko Willink?

  The bullet, a mammoth armor-piercing 7.62x54mm round with a steel core, had entered his leg at the lower thigh, ripped apart flesh and bone inside his leg, and exited in his upper thigh, close to the groin.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  It was hard to say if he would keep his leg.

• 2:00Jocko Willink?

  From the looks of the wound, my guess was no.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  He would lose it.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  The wounded SEAL's grip on my hand tightened. And he pulled me in, drawing me just inches from his face.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  I could tell he wanted to say something to me, so I turned and put my ear to his, next to his mouth.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't sure what to expect.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  Was he scared, or angry, or depressed that he might lose his leg? Was he nervous about what might happen next? Was he confused?

• 2:42Jocko Willink?

  He took a breath, and then whispered, "Sir,

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  let me stay.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  Let me stay, please, don't make me go home. I'll do anything. I'll sweep up around the camp. I can heal here. Please, please, please, just let me stay with the task unit."

• 3:04Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 3:07Jocko Willink?

  Not scared, not angry, not depressed that he might lose his leg.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  Only concerned that he might have to leave our task unit.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  Task Unit Bruiser. Our task unit. Our lives.

• 3:28Jocko Willink?

  This SEAL was our first significant casualty. We had had guys catch some frag on previous operations. We had had some very close calls.

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  But this was the first SEAL wounded from Task Unit Bruiser, whose life would be forever changed by a grave combat injury.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  Even if he kept his leg, the damage was so substantial that it didn't seem possible he would ever fully regain the extraordinary athleticism he had displayed previously.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  And yet this SEAL was only concerned that he would let me down, let the task unit down, let his platoon and his team down.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  This was a man.

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  This was a true friend, a brother.

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  This was a hero.

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  Young, brave, and without question, more concerned for his friends than for his own life.

• 4:41Jocko Willink?

  I was moved.

• 4:44Jocko Willink?

  I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I fought them back, then I swallowed the lump in my throat.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  This was no time to break down.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  I was supposed to be the leader.

• 5:04Jocko Willink?

  And he needed me to be strong.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is from the opening chapter of a book called The Dichotomy of Leadership.

• 5:25Jocko Willink?

  Which is actually a new book. And it was written by me and my brother Leif Babin.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  And Leif has been on this podcast before. We wrote Extreme Ownership together. We obviously served in Task Unit Bruiser together.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  And he was on this podcast. He was the first guest. He's the

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  been the guest the most times. He was on 11, he was on 34, 65, and 114 if you want to go get some background on Leif. But I'm glad to say that he is actually back here with us again. So Leif Babin? Welcome back.

• 6:10Leif Babin?

  It's good to be back. Thanks for having me on.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, right on, man. And it's, it's good to have you back because we're done writing and editing this book, which feels good.

• 6:22Leif Babin?

  It does feel good. It's been a lot of work, but it's been awesome to, and being able to tell those kind of stories like you just read, and, and even though I've, I've read that now a hundred times, it's, uh, just takes me immediately back to, to that, that situation. And, um, it's just, uh, extraordinary. Uh, we, we were able to work with some incredible, incredible seals like, like that young man.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  Yep. No doubt about it. The, it's, it's weird when you're writing a book and you're, and then you're rereading it and rereading it and rereading it. And like you said, every time I would be reading these, these sections, you know, you, you just get that, you just, you just can't help but go back there. You just can't help but go back there. And this was definitely, there were some, there were some parts of this book that I was writing that were, uh, definitely hard to write and even hard to edit. Um, you know, even this, this being one of them. And I'm glad that we're able to share the stories of, of guys like that. And that particular individual, which I don't talk about this in the book,

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  but he, he's, he kept his leg, thank God. And, um, he, he kept getting after it for years and years. And he kept training jiu jitsu and he's a total stud. Maybe sometime he'll come on the podcast. Uh, who knows? But what a, what a great guy. Now, you, you also kind of kicked off the book with what I thought was, uh, was like a solid way to kick it off. And you should, you should go into that. I know we were, we were trying to pick out some good sections here, but I thought the opener that you put in, which you opened with a phrase that we've been using quite a bit lately, but kick off that, that, uh, introduction to the book, Dichotomy Leadership.

• 8:16Leif Babin?

  Stand by to get some, said someone over the inner squad radio, in the calm demeanor you might expect of a flight attendant telling airline passengers to stow their tray tables for landing. The street in front of us had emptied of people. Like magic, the local citizens had all suddenly disappeared, and we knew what that meant. Enemy attack was imminent. The hair on the back of my neck stood at rigid attention. After many a vicious gunfight in Ramadi, stand by to get some was a running joke that eased attention right when we knew trouble was coming. The more nonchalantly it could be said, under the direst of circumstances, the funnier it was. It was broad daylight as our patrol of SEALs and Iraqi soldiers made its way on foot down

• 9:01Leif Babin?

  the narrow city street bordered by high concrete walls on both sides. Suddenly, the world exploded. Dozens of bullets snapped through the air, each with a sharp supersonic crack and smashed into the concrete wall next to me with thunderous impact. Shards of concrete flew everywhere. The heavy volleys of incoming fire sounded like multiple jackhammers simultaneously chewing up the street and the walls all around us. We had walked right into an enemy buzzsaw. Insurgent fighters hit us from multiple directions with belt-fed machine guns. I couldn't see them or where they were shooting from, but the number of enemy bullets flying

• 9:40Leif Babin?

  through the air around us was crazy. There was no place to hide. With high walls on both sides, the narrow south-central Ramadi street provided no cover. The only thing between us and the enemy machine guns was a single parked car on the side of the road some distance up the block, and the typical trash strewn about. The patrol was in a dual column formation. Each column split on opposite sides of the street, hunkered close to the walls. There was nothing to get behind that could protect us from bullets. But we did have something on our side. Devastating firepower. We fully expected a firefight on every patrol into this enemy-held neighborhood,

• 10:24Leif Babin?

  and we rolled in heavy. Each squad of eight SEALs packed at least four belt-fed machine guns to suppress any enemy attack we encountered. When we came under fire, our immediate response with violent and overwhelming gunfire provided the only answer. Cover and move. Having learned through the humbling experience of months of urban combat, Task Unit Bruiser had had plenty of practice in this fundamental gunfighting principle. Within nanoseconds, the SEALs with the big machine guns up front unleashed the most ruthless and lethal barrage of fire you could imagine. Despite the intensity and violence of the close urban combat, I couldn't help but smile.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  Couldn't help but smile. Yeah, that's, uh, we've said this before, but obviously, guys that have been to, uh, war, usually that's the best thing in their life and the best experiences they've had in their lives, and it gives you that, that type of feeling right there of where you can't help but smile. And then, you know, as I just talked about, and as we both know, it's also the worst days of our lives are also there. And, and we know that, you know, people in the military all feel, well, most of them feel the same way. That you have your best days and, and your worst days there. And it's interesting.

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  Cover and move. It's just, it always comes back to cover and move in these, in these gunfights. And, you know, a client we were working with recently, and, you know, remember, he switched around cover and move and made it, uh, second and put, put simple first. And it's like, well, there's a reason why that, that exists that way. Cover and move is first, because if you're not working together as a team, there's no, there's nothing to even keep simple. It's not happening. You just, you need to start off with cover and move. Teamwork is critical. And... Obviously, we just read a couple of sort of war story ish type things, but like Extreme Ownership, this book's kind of set up the same way as Extreme Ownership. I mean, well, not kind of.

• 12:20Jocko Willink?

  It is set up the same way as Extreme Ownership, which is a story about combat that reveals a principle and then actually state what the principle is. And then we use a business example that shows how this principle applies in civilian life and usually in the business world. In fact, always in the business world. That's those are the examples that we use. Although, we could probably do another book that was about how these principles apply to your under nine-year-old soccer team, or your relationship with your spouse, or your relationship with your teenage daughters, two of them, or your

• 13:04Jocko Willink?

  relationship with your teenage son, one of them, or your relationship with your nine-year-old daughter, or your, what do you got, threes and fours?

• 13:12Leif Babin?

  I've got a three and a two-year-old.

• 13:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, get some.

• 13:14Leif Babin?

  Absolutely applies. It could absolutely apply to any of those situations. I think that was, that was what was amazing about Extreme Ownership, to see how people applied that in so many aspects of their lives. And now, I think with dichotomy of leadership, it's exactly the same thing.

• 13:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Leif Babin?

  It applies across all aspects of a professional and personalized.

• 13:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, it was weird too, because when, you know, when I got out of the teams, like, I didn't understand, I didn't understand the broad application of what we knew. I didn't. I mean, when I started working with civilian companies, then it's like, oh, well, this is your problem. You don't keep things simple enough, or this is your problem. You don't have decentralized command, so you're trying to control all the decisions made. It's, but as soon as we realized, well, and I realized, it was like, oh, it applies to this company. Well, what about this company? And then, okay, what about this company? And you just realize, okay. And that's when I started just seeing it everywhere. And, and I think, yeah, exactly right. The dichotomy of leadership is the same way, and it...

• 14:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, like I said, it's not just a book of war stories. The, the point of the book is to make people better leaders, is to give them leadership tools, including me, including you. Like, when you write stuff down, you understand it better. And so, you know, part of writing these books is like, okay, how can I capture these lessons for myself? And of course, it's nice that other people can grab them then and, and look through them. But, like I said, it's not, it's not just about war stories, but to make people better leaders. And I think, I think we covered that pretty well in, sort of in the intro of the book. And just a couple paragraphs, and you should hit that part that we talked about earlier

• 14:48Jocko Willink?

  where it just kind of gives the overall, the overall view, or the, the high level view of the topic of the book.

• 14:56Leif Babin?

  Every behavior or characteristic carried out by a leader can be taken too far. Leaders can become too extreme and upset the balance required to effectively lead a team. When balance is lost, leadership suffers and the team's performance rapidly declines. Even the fundamental principles of combat leadership and extreme ownership can get out of balance. A leader can cover and move too much and step on the toes of other leaders, departments or divisions. A plan can be too simple and fail to cover likely contingencies. A team can go too far with prioritize and execute, resulting in target fixation and loss of situational awareness on newly emerging problems and threats.

• 15:38Leif Babin?

  Even decentralized command can be taken too far when too much autonomy is given to subordinate leaders who then don't fully understand strategic goals and how to execute in support of those goals. And this idea continues on with just about everything a leader does. Leaders must be close with their people, but not too close that it becomes a problem. They must hold the line with discipline, but they must not become tyrannical. A leader can even become too extreme with extreme ownership, when a leader takes so much ownership of everything in his or her world that members of the team feel there's nothing left for which they can take ownership. When this happens, team members will execute only at the boss's specific direction without

• 16:19Leif Babin?

  any root ownership or buy-in themselves, resulting in a team far less capable of overcoming obstacles and accomplishing the mission. Therefore, balance in leadership is crucial to victory.

• 16:33Jocko Willink?

  You can't say that one enough and you literally can't say that one enough. I was thinking so when you have the same word too many time on all times on a page. It's it's not good writing, right? It's not good to use the same word over and over again. So I remember there was times where we would have the word balance like nine times in a paragraph. But there's it's like, hey, there's no real other way to say what we're trying to say. You gotta balance these things. And it's interesting too, as as as you're reading that, I'm just thinking of all the different situations. We've been in in the last few years with Echelon Front where we've seen every single one of these things. You know, the person that comes up, hey, we want to keep this plan simple. And then they don't think of any contingencies or hey, I'm just trying to cover and move. And that means I'm gonna go and do the job for them.

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden they're making everyone mad because they're stepping on everyone's toes. I mean, decentralized command where no one knows what's going on because it's like, hey, I'm a hands off leader. I'm using decentralized command. But boss, what in God's name do you actually want us to do? So all these things are are are we've lived, we've lived through them now. And it became really evident, even though we have, you know, it's the last chapter. The last chapter in Extreme Ownership is the dichotomy of leadership and discipline equals freedom. And, you know, we put it in there because we knew it was important. But now, after working with more people over the past few years, it's become so obvious that this is like such a critical, the being able to balance, balance, balance, balance.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  I use that word nine times in every paragraph because that's what you have to do if you're a leader. And and we talk about this too, in the opening of in the opening of the book and you know, in the opening of Dichotomy of Leadership, we talk about how one of the problems with the book Extreme Ownership is the title Extreme Ownership because it made everyone just want to get extreme with everything. I'm gonna be super extreme. And so that means you know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get extreme on own everything. And we that was one of the earliest things that I started noticing was people that took so much ownership. So I'm a leader, I'm in charge and I take so much ownership of everything that everyone below me in the chain of command, there's nothing left for them to own. And and all of a sudden they're just feel like, hey, they're just along for the ride.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  And they're just gonna do what they're told to do and all their initiative is gone. And they don't, they don't even have, I they don't, they don't. It's not that they don't believe, but they just think, okay, well, we're just gonna do what we're told. So it's not their plan and so they're gonna do the best of their ability, but it's not theirs. They don't own it. So all those things that you just talked about are things that we've now seen.

• 19:04Leif Babin?

  And there are things that I struggle with. You know, I think there are things that you struggle. I think we each of us struggle with them. It's the hardest part about leadership. And as we've seen that over and over again, that, you know, that brief introduction that we gave it in chapter 12 of Extreme Ownership, you know, introduced the concept, but this dives so much deeper into those challenges. And I think that's what, what I love about this book is it answers the questions that we get most often about, about how to balance that because that's the hardest part. And it's so difficult to do. And I remember at our first muster, there was a question about, you know, can you take, you know, can extreme ownership go too far? I actually answered the question, well, I think if you're properly understanding what extreme

• 19:45Leif Babin?

  ownership means, no. But, but you actually answered it as like, absolutely, you can take too much ownership. And I think that's what people take that as, well, I've got to do everything. Like, no, you, you're responsible for everything. That's what extreme ownership means. But certainly you can, you can absolutely take too much ownership where no one's doing anything. And I think we explained that pretty well in this book. And this, this book was written, just like Extreme Ownership, the economy of leadership was written to help leaders as a reference manual. And if it's something that, you know, if I see pages like we see so many copies of Extreme Ownership, I mean, I want to see pages that are underlined, that are highlighted, that are tabbed, that are, that are utilized by leaders. And if we've done that, and this is a manual that helps leaders lead better and be better people and lead better teams, then

• 20:30Leif Babin?

  this will have accomplished its mission.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  You know what's cool is, is I think, think it's very similar to the fact that with extreme ownership, right? With that attitude, with that attitude, when you get in that mindset, you start seeing it everywhere. And you start, when someone makes an excuse, you, you recognize immediately, oh, that's an excuse. Like Echo was giving you a hard time about your, your lack of a haircut. And, and you know, you were, you were saying that.

• 20:55Leif Babin?

  It was all Jock's fault.

• 20:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's my fault. And we're laughing about it, right? And, and of course I was, I was like, well, you know, I should have, I should have told you, you know, there's going to be a timeline and you need to get a haircut before. But, you know, we're joking about it. But in the same time that we're joking. About it, the fact that like you brought that echo that up is a real thing. And for us to be sitting here joking about it means that we actually think about it. We actually, every time, you know, Leif's making a joke and excuse like, oh, chocolate. He's, it's like, we all know, and it's a, it's, it's a, it sinks in. And it's becomes really, like, for someone to make an actual excuse becomes really, really hard. And I think, for me, that's one thing that I've benefited over the last few years of seeing other people.

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  What you, it's, it becomes, when you're aware of it, when you're aware of it, the balance becomes much, much easier to see. And that's what I think is going to be very helpful about this book is people won't know that they're out of balance. That's the biggest problem. The biggest problem is they don't know. They're thinking, my, my guys aren't taking any initiative. What's wrong with them? And it's like, well, you're micromanaging them. You've gone too far in that direction. You've gone too far in controlling everything that they do. They think that that's the, they think that if you want them to do something, that you're going to tell them to do it. And other than that, they're going to sit there and stand by and wait for orders. And it's like, no. So, and you've, if you don't understand that you can be out of balance, then you won't recognize that. But if you know, hey, my guys aren't taking in any initiative, I wonder what's wrong with them?

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, actually, maybe it's me. Maybe it's me, and maybe I am micromanaging them so much that I've beaten the initiative out of them. So what I need to do is back off a little bit and give them some leeway and give them some ownership of what they're doing. And let them make some decisions down there. And if, if you do that, then you start seeing it come back and you start seeing them take initiative and you feel good. And that's a, you know, one of the chapters in the book is actually that right there where I talk about my first deployment to Iraq. Where I, where I first got to Iraq, my first time in combat, I was just basically wanted to own everything. Because that was my, that's my personality, like I'm going to take ownership of this. And then I realized my guys, I'm like, oh, you know, they're not really taking the initiative I want them to take. Well, why is that? It's because I'm micromanaging them.

• 23:09Jocko Willink?

  And finally, luckily, we got overwhelmed with operations. We had so many operations to conduct. And I was like, I can't, I can't manage all these. I can't oversee everything that's happening. And I had to cut the guys loose. And as soon as I caught him loose and said, hey, you got this and you got that and you got the other thing, the guys just started stepping up and running everything like I knew, like, like, of course they could because they're freaking highly capable guys. And they started kicking ass and I realized like, oh, I don't even barely even need to be here, right? Barely even need to be here. Whereas in the beginning, I thought, oh, this is all, if it wasn't for me, you know, and I'm only talking about a period of a few weeks of me trying to micromanage everything. So I think what's going to be beneficial about this book is that people will see how they can get out of balance.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  And, and they'll also see that that balance pertains to just about everything. And every trait that you have that's positive as a leader, you can overdo and you can turn it into a negative trait if you go too far.

• 24:10Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta watch out for that.

• 24:12Leif Babin?

  You definitely gotta watch out for that. It's easy for us to see, you know, we always talk about detachment, detachment is so important. And, and for us with, you know, through our company, Echelon Front, it's we're working with these leaders and working with these companies, you, you can see it, you know, it just, it just stands out so obvious that someone is, you know, they're trying to cover and move by helping another department and yet they're stepping on people's toes and they're pissing people off and, you know, like, why are you, you know, you're trying to do my job and make me look bad?

• 24:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:37Leif Babin?

  And, and they, they're like, well, I'm trying to cover move just like you told me.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm just trying to help.

• 24:41Leif Babin?

  And then you're saying, well, you have to be careful about that. You have to, you have to balance it. So once, you know, it, it is the absolute most common problem we see all the time. And, and even for, you know, folks that have read Extreme Ownership, you know, three or four, you know, multiple times, that, that are really trying hard to be better leaders, they struggle with that. And this is something to help them and help leaders everywhere. And, you know, we wrote the book too, so that it could be read. It's a follow-on, certainly a sequel. You gave me a chance to correct that on the.

• 25:11Jocko Willink?

  Why? What'd you say? What'd you say on the?

• 25:13Leif Babin?

  You were talking about Jaws 2 on Podcast 114. And I said, it's not a sequel, it's a standalone book, but it absolutely is a sequel. I mean, it's a follow-on book. It expands on the concepts. However, we did write it so that, that it is a standalone book. And you can read, you can read Extreme Ownership, if you have, if you can read Dichotomy without having read Extreme Ownership, you'll certainly understand it and be able to apply it.

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but you'd understand the concepts better if you read Extreme Ownership first.

• 25:41Leif Babin?

  No question.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  And then you jump into dichotomy, which, yeah, like you said, can you read it alone? Sure, you can. I guess there's echo. We need like some kind of a movie reference here. Like, yeah, I'm thinking, could you see Terminator 2?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:56Jocko Willink?

  On its own, right?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  But you will, you will get more out of it.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  If you saw Terminator 1 first.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, same with Rambo.

• 26:04Jocko Willink?

  See, look at me, just nailing.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Right, you're nailing it. Yeah, so Rambo, right, First Blood Part 2, same deal. Where you could watch just Rambo and be pretty, pretty happy about it.

• 26:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, hold on now. My problem with that is we know that Terminator 2 is equivalent in quality to Terminator 1, correct?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 26:22Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 26:23Jocko Willink?

  Right, Maeve?

• 26:25Leif Babin?

  I think so. Terminator 2 is awesome, except for the kid.

• 26:27Jocko Willink?

  Are we saying that Rambo 2, which I don't even think I've seen?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  First Blood Part 2, yeah.

• 26:34Jocko Willink?

  I don't, is, are we saying that's the same level of quality as Rambo 1?

• 26:37Leif Babin?

  No, you, you gotta be careful there.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  That's what I think, that's what I think. I, I mean, I'm not saying it's necessarily Jaws 2, which, Jaws 1, which is a masterpiece.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:47Jocko Willink?

  Right? Masterpiece, Jaws, Jaws 1, Jaws, it's not even called Jaws 1, it's called Jaws. Right? Jaws 2, problematic. We got issues.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  So, what I'm saying is, we're more like the Terminator scenario.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 27:01Leif Babin?

  Or, or aliens.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say aliens.

• 27:04Leif Babin?

  You could totally watch that movie standalone, but obviously it gives you some more context if you watch the first one.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:09Leif Babin?

  But I think the second one's actually better than the first.

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  Do you feel like, do you feel like dichotomy's better?

• 27:15Leif Babin?

  I actually do. I actually do feel, I feel it's better. I mean, I'm, I'm interested to hear what readers think about it, but I, I think that it's more useful and applicable to, uh, to, to leaders. Uh, I mean, we, we have three years of, of additional leadership experience and not only evaluating our experiences in, in, in combat and, in the SEAL teams, but, uh, but now working with hundreds of leaders and, uh, I mean, really, uh, we're talking. You know, a couple of hundred plus companies that we've worked with in that time. Um, easily, you know, between just me and you probably not, that's not even counting some of the other members of our team. So, um, we, we've seen this in, uh, in a whole lot of different scenarios.

• 27:56Leif Babin?

  And, and I think it really addresses the, it's a direct application to the problems that we see. Um, so I'm, I'm pretty hopeful and I'm looking forward to, to, to reader's feedback on it.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  Was it easier for you to write?

• 28:08Leif Babin?

  Yes.

• 28:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, for me, it definitely was. And I say easier just because we've, we, well, we became better writers as we wrote. Extreme Ownership. Extreme Ownership, the first version that we did Extreme Ownership was in the third person. And I forget why we even did that. But we was about these two guys named Leif and Jocko. It was about, it was, I don't know, I forgot, I kind of forget.

• 28:32Leif Babin?

  I think it was a recommendation that came to us from a literary agent or the publisher, whatever. And we, and no, then we finally had to say, yeah, we're not doing that.

• 28:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Leif Babin?

  Uh, you know, that friend of yours that talks about themselves in the third person that you make fun of? Yeah, we're not going to do that.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, and, and it's weird because there's, uh, the, the book, there's, there's a couple of books I've done on the podcast. Clay Pigeon's of St. Lo by Glover Johns, who's the guy that, you know, Hackworth wrote about. He wrote the book Clay Pigeon's, Clay Pigeon's of St. Lo. And it's in the third person about a guy named Major Johns. And it's him. And he writes a thing in the beginning and says, hey, I didn't feel comfortable talking about myself, so I did, wrote it this way. And it's like, okay. And the, the only thing I would say that's cool about it is you could, he could kind of give an outside view. But the thing that's not cool about it is he couldn't be, I was thinking this right now, which is kind of what I want to hear. And that's why I normally cover books that are first person, people that actually experience it.

• 29:30Jocko Willink?

  But he's a guy that did a couple of other people I've, I've done.

• 29:33Leif Babin?

  When you're Glover Johns though, and you're, you're, uh, David Hackworth's C daddy, I think you can.

• 29:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can do what you want.

• 29:39Leif Babin?

  Whatever you want to do.

• 29:39Jocko Willink?

  Do what you want, for sure. Now, that's another part that's, again, you know, we've, we've.

• 29:48Jocko Willink?

  In this book, we set it up the same way with combat story, principle, followed by a business example. But one thing that I think, and this is feedback that, that we both got, that I certainly got, was that for what, for, because the consequences are so high in combat, it makes the principle very clear. And even though people might know, well, I've never been in combat, but they understand that if we're not working together as a team doing cover and move, we will die. And so when they understand that, they go, okay, now that means if I'm not working with the other department, then we're gonna lose money, or we're not gonna complete our mission, or we're not gonna take market share. Yes. So I think one of the strongest

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  points of, of Extreme Ownership that we did again is the combat stories to, to sort of introduce the principles. And plus, it's cool to hear cool, cool stories like that. But one of them, I think, chapter three, another, another one that we pulled out that said it'd be good to sort of cover this one real quick is, you opened up chapter three with a little, a little bit of get some, I guess we could say. And hit that one, man. I wanna, I wanna hear that one. I wanna hear the Texas Batman get crazy in, in Ramadi in 2006.

• 31:07Leif Babin?

  This is bringing back some awesome memories here.

• 31:11Leif Babin?

  "Bright orange tracers streaked like laser beams just a few feet over our heads. Each supersonic bullet zipping past with a thunderous crack. 'Holy shit,' I thought, as we quickly ducked down behind the roof wall. Those are friendly shooting at us. I looked over at Dave Burke, who crouched down nearby. Like the other SEALs on the roof with us, we tried to stay low enough not to get our headshot off. Dave looked back at me and shook his head with a smile that mixed humor and concern. 'That's not cool,' Dave said, the understatement of the year." Dave Burke was a US Marine Corps major, a fighter pilot by trade. He had been the lead instructor at the legendary US Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. Dave had left the cockpit behind and volunteered to serve on the ground as a forward air controller

• 31:56Leif Babin?

  in the most dangerous place in Iraq, Ramadi. He led a Supporting Arms Liaison Team, or SALT, attached to the US Marine Corps Fifth Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company. Dave and his 12 Marines from SALT 6 accompanied Charlie Platoon to coordinate with the aircraft supporting this operation in the skies overhead. They patrolled in with us on foot to spearhead the operation ahead of the US Army and Iraqi Army units. A US tank 200 yards away had fired a burst from its heavy machine gun directly over our position. It was friendly fire, a "blue on blue" in US military parlance. To be killed or horribly wounded by enemy fire was one thing. To be killed by our own American forces was something much worse.

• 32:41Leif Babin?

  That was way too close for comfort, I thought, and the seconds following, as I crouched as low as possible behind the low concrete wall that was our only means of cover. We had to shut that down immediately and alert the tank that we were friendly forces. To do so, I had to contact the specific tank commander directly via radio and tell them to cease fire. The tank's heavy machine gun was a 50 caliber M2 Browning, known as the Maude's. It packed a hell of a punch. In US military service since 1933, it had proven its deadly effectiveness in every American war since World War I. Each massive round could take a man's head clean off or remove the bulk of his chest cavity.

• 33:24Leif Babin?

  It could also punch right through concrete walls, like the one we were hiding behind. We had just received a fully automatic burst of probably a dozen rounds in a matter of seconds. If I didn't shut down the fire immediately and let the US tank know we were friendlies, it could mean horrible wounds and death for a number of us.

• 33:44Jocko Willink?

  Blue on Blue. It's even in Extreme Ownership, we talked, there's three episodes of Blue on Blue. Potential, or yeah, with, with Chris potentially shooting the American trooper that was in a, in a building. The Bradley getting ready to light up. Stoners guys in, and also the Blue on Blue that the book starts off with. There's, it's, it's interesting and a reality of war that we talk about Blue on Blue a lot in that urban environment. The other thing I noticed is, did you, I don't mean to accuse you here, like, you know, on this, in this format, but each massive round could take a man's head clean off. Is that not just Jocko from Clint

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  Eastwood right there? Come on, man, that's 44 Magnum, that's Dirty Harry, right?

• 34:33Leif Babin?

  I can neither confirm to deny that.

• 34:34Jocko Willink?

  Look at you. Look at you.

• 34:36Leif Babin?

  There's a...

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you consult with Echo for, you know, part of your writing here?

• 34:42Leif Babin?

  Echo, Echo and I, we see eye to eye on the movie quotes. There was a little, there was a use of parlance in there too, that in the parlance of our times.

• 34:50Jocko Willink?

  Of our times, you threw a little, little Big Lebowski in there.

• 34:54Leif Babin?

  That we had previously. Look, that was, that was a crazy situation and we were, I thought we'd done everything. What was so crazy about that situation for us is I thought we'd done everything in our power to mitigate the risk of that and let everybody know where we were, marked our position, you know, talked and coordinated with people and, and to still get shot at by friendlies, you know, they, that was, that was crazy. Dave and I were sitting looking at each other like, man, this, this isn't good. This isn't good at all. So it was, it was a, I was fuming for that radio, trying to get and, and talk to them immediately. And thank God, as we talked about on previous podcasts, you'd come down on us to be able to use, to be able to learn how to use those radios ourselves and not just rely on the

• 35:36Leif Babin?

  radio and, and I was able to swap over and, and make direct comps to that tank and, and get them to ceasefire. And that's one of the things that I like completely held the line on and, and, you know, and you talk about in the book how there's some other things where I allowed a little bit of slack and you actually...

• 35:52Jocko Willink?

  You actually kind of capture that in a couple pages later that I pulled up here. It's a middle of page 76. Punch through that little section right there and I think it's a, it's a good, good, um, kind of captures what we're talking about in terms of, and, and you were saying this to me early, earlier today. You're like, everyone thinks Jocko would just be like, hey, you're going to shut up and do what I tell you to do. And it's like, well, actually there's some things I'm going to tell you that, but there's some, it's going, there's going to be a balance.

• 36:24Leif Babin?

  Well, you actually, you never said, just shut up and do, do us, do what I tell you to do, right? I'm, I'm sure you probably wanted to, but, uh, many, many times, uh, and still do, I'm, I'm sure often, but there is, uh, you, it's not effective. It's never effective to do that. And I think so many leaders that want to just, you know, why won't they just do what I tell them to do? It's, it's, people get really frustrated by that. But obviously there, you've got to hold the line. You absolutely have to hold the line, you know? And if you'd have relented on, on us being able to learn how to use our radios, I mean, that could have cost lives right there. Another burst of rounds comes, it comes to the roof wall, or we take a main gun round. Now you're talking to the cannon on the tank, the 120 millimeter main gun round, you know, just smashed through both sides of the walls. You know, it would have, it would have been absolutely catastrophic. Those guys think, you know, they're under attack.

• 37:09Leif Babin?

  They're shooting back at what they think is enemy and they didn't even realize it.

• 37:12Jocko Willink?

  And it's not like they were, they were not ready to use those main gun rounds if they had to. They were, they were putting some buildings down over there for sure.

• 37:20Leif Babin?

  And that's, and that's the hard part, right? Is that you've got to hold the line and there's standards that can't be compromised. And you've got to, you're, you're failing your team and you're failing as a leader if you're not keeping those standards, uh, high and making sure the team achieves them. And yet also you can't be the unrelenting taskmaster, the slave driver that just smashes people down and says, shut up and do what I tell you to do.

• 37:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And this is something that I bring up a lot when I'm working with companies is like, do you actually want people to do exact, to do whatever you tell them to do? And the, the, the immediate answer is like, well, yeah, I just want everyone to shut up and do what I tell them to do. Well, the actual answer is no, you don't want that. If you're a good leader, what you want is if I tell Leif, hey, go take that building over there and you say to me, no. And I say, why not? And you say, well, there's an IED in the front yard and we'll all get killed if we go there. I go, okay, thank you. Now, as opposed to you're just going to blindly do whatever I tell you to do. Well, then that's going to be problematic. So there's a balance in this too. And, and that's something that we talk about all the time, but to surround, you don't want to surround yourself with yes men. You don't want to surround yourself with

• 38:26Jocko Willink?

  yes men. And we, I've seen plenty of companies where the boss man has surrounded himself with yes men, and they yes themselves into the grave. Because they're, everyone's just agreeing, oh, yep, we'll, we'll do that. That sounds like a great plan, boss. Oh, yeah. Yes, boss. That sounds like a great plan, boss. And, and the next thing you know, someone along the line should have said, hey, boss, that doesn't make any sense. Hey, boss, like, oh, we got a good relationship with these people over here. But you know what? They're raising their price a little bit. We don't want to work with them anymore. Okay. Well, let's think about that. You know, that, that, that's one of our biggest suppliers. Do we really want to nix our relationship with our biggest supplier? Does that make sense? Well, you know, they're getting in our face. Now, a yes man will be like, that's right, boss. We don't take no crap from no one. Screw

• 39:11Jocko Willink?

  those guys. But maybe you want someone below you in the chain of command says, hey, boss, let's think about this. That's our biggest supplier. If we cut them off and demand goes up, we won't be able to service our customers. That could be problematic. Wouldn't you agree? How about we negotiate with them? So there's, my point is, you don't just want people, you just don't want to be surrounded by yes men. You want people that are going to question you. You want people that are gonna, maybe that's why I like you so much, Leif, because you, you questioned, you have no problem questioning what I'm saying. It's all good.

• 39:39Leif Babin?

  Pushing, pushing back. Yeah. The humble, not passive. I've, I've never, never been passive.

• 39:47Jocko Willink?

  But I think this, this here, page 76, that's a good, that's a good little way to capture what we're talking about.

• 39:54Leif Babin?

  As reflected upon Jocko's demonstration of a leader's responsibility to ensure standards are maintained, I thought about the times in my career when I failed to do so. As a young leader, I knew there were times we needed to improve our performance, do another run to the kill house, where we practice close quarters combat, or add an additional rehearsal to ensure we were fully prepared. Yet in those moments, I sometimes hadn't held the line. I hadn't pushed the team hard enough. Any additional work assigned to the team was going to get pushed back and generate complaints. And there were times when I let things slide, confusing the idea of taking care of your people with allowing them not to work as hard. But in the end, that resulted in mediocre performance. And the team never got better, never held each other accountable.

• 40:39Leif Babin?

  This was a failure of leadership, my leadership. I also recognized the dichotomy. There were other times when I was overbearing. I insisted on doing things a certain way because it was my way, or harped on trivial matters that were strategically unimportant, thinking I was doing right by holding the line. It caused unnecessary friction, stifled growth, and inhibited junior leaders on the team from stepping up. It prevented us from functioning properly with effective decentralized command. I had seen and worked for numerous leaders throughout my Navy career who had been overbearing, and it wasn't the way I wanted to lead. Some of them imposed harsh discipline, screamed at their people, and crushed the morale of the team. No one wanted to follow them.

• 41:23Leif Babin?

  They might accomplish an immediate task, but in the long run, the team's growth was smothered. Often, their negative example stood starkly in my mind. I never want to be a leader like that.

• 41:36Jocko Willink?

  There you go. The tyrannical leader that's running around screaming at everyone. And, and, and like you just said, they'll get some little tasks accomplished, and they actually think that... What's horrible is, they get some little task accomplished because they screamed and yelled, and it reinforces that behavior. And so they become even more tyrannical and yell and scream even more, and they never see the fact that acting that way, it'll get you some little short-term thing done, but you'll never get everything you can out of people. You never get everything you can out of somebody that you've beaten into submission. They're not going to perform to their fullest potential and capability, and that's just where you're going to be. That's just where you're going to be. The other thing...

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  It takes, this is, this is one of those things like if you've got something that's hard to do, right? You've got something that the team has got to do that's hard to do, and you're wishy washy about it. You know it's the right thing to do, but you're wishy washy about how you approach the team with doing it. It's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen. I'm reading another book right now by a guy that was in Vietnam with Hackworth, and he's saying, just, he would just lay down the law. Like Hackworth would just say, no, we're doing this. This is what we're gonna do. This is how it's gonna be. And that's, that's what it is. You know, I've got so many examples from my career, but

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you a really, kind of a lame one, but it's, it's worth telling. So, back in the day, guess what we used to do in the teams? We used to drink beer, a lot of it. And that was kinda like, hey, you know, we're, we're in the SEALs, you know, we're beer drinking frogmen, and that's cool. And I was in a SEAL platoon where we drank a lot, even more than a normal SEAL platoon, which is, which is a lot, which put you in the running for a lot. And this is back in the 90s, there's no war going on, and I've said this before, kind of the way that we proved ourselves, because there's a certain level of sacrifice you have to make to prove to your teammates that you're like, you're willing to sacrifice. Well, one of the ways that you can sacrifice is you can just drink

• 43:40Jocko Willink?

  a lot and prove that you can go all night, go hard, and still get up the next day. And so I was in a SEAL platoon where we drank a lot, just about everyone in the chain of command, except for the, the, the commander, the OIC. But everyone else, you know, we drank hard, and, you know, we, we partied and whatever. And we were a shipboard. We were an ARG platoon, so we were deploying onboard a ship. And...

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  When we were getting ready to deploy on the ship, it was kinda like, oh, well, you know, we'll just, we'll just, because you're not allowed to drink any alcohol on the ship. You're not allowed to have any alcohol, you're not allowed to drink any alcohol. You, after 90 days at sea, you can get a beer day.

• 44:20Leif Babin?

  Forty-five.

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  Was it forty-five? Back when I was.

• 44:25Leif Babin?

  So you get, you get one beer forty-five days.

• 44:27Jocko Willink?

  They gave us, they gave us a two beers, but I will say they gave us Fosters. So they were big oil cans, right? But.

• 44:34Leif Babin?

  You were living large.

• 44:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I did two, two beer days in one deployment. Anyways, you're not allowed, other than that, you're not allowed to drink. That's the rules. And so I think, it wasn't like we openly discussed, like, how are we gonna smuggle beer? Or maybe we did a little bit, but our bosses came down and like, yeah, well, there's no drinking on, no drinking on the ship. And we were like, okay, those rules. They just came down and put the rules down, like, hey, no drinking on the ship. And I had respect for my office, my platoon commander at the time, had respect for my platoon chief at the time. And they came down and said, yeah, well, there's no drinking on ship, so don't even think about it. We're like, okay, cool. That's the, the law came down and we just got on board, we just got on board with it.

• 45:17Jocko Willink?

  Whereas it would have been, well, you know, a little bit of wishy-washiness, us young E3s, E4s and E5s, if they would have been remotely wishy-washy, we'd have been like, oh, cool, you guys go drink whatever you want, just don't let us see it or whatever. And that would have been bad, because eventually, guess what? You put a bunch of SEALs on a ship with, with booze, and you leave them on there for multiple days at sea, months at sea, well, they're gonna have an incident of some kind. They're gonna get in a fight, they're gonna throw up somewhere, they're gonna, you know, some, just dumb stuff.

• 45:46Leif Babin?

  It's gonna get to the highest level of attention, it's gonna be a total disaster.

• 45:49Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a total disaster. So the idea of actually just stepping up and holding the line, and I'll tell you, what I learned as a leader, is it's liberating to do that. It's liberating to say, hey, look, here's the rules. And, and, you know, I did this with the fact of when we got back to Ramadi, when we got to Ramadi and they told us we had to work with Iraqi soldiers, and everyone was kinda hemming and hawing about having to work with Iraqi soldiers. And I told you guys, don't even submit a concept of operations without Iraqi soldiers, don't even submit it, because we're not doing it. And you guys were like, okay.

• 46:21Leif Babin?

  Got it.

• 46:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Leif Babin?

  It, it is super liberating. I, I think that's the, you know, one of the things that, that I, you know, that, that I learned from you as we started working together, I mean.

• 46:31Leif Babin?

  And I talk to people about this all the time. I've talked about it on the podcast before, but it was the kind of things that you know you probably should be doing, but for whatever reason you are and, and, and you know, for you could just put in perspective for me of like, it's very black and white of like, no, if you're not, if you're not holding the line on these things that are important and pushing your team to perform at the highest standard or making sure they're not going to do something that's going to get them in trouble or cause massive issues, not only for us, but for the entire, you know, not only for our unit, but the entire SEAL teams, then, then that's, you're failing them as a leader. You, you've got to hold the line on that stuff. You've got to, and, and it is very liberating to say, oh, check. Okay, that's the way it is. And I, and I think that ambiguity is very frustrating for people, but they don't know what's right. They don't know what's wrong. They can get away with stuff.

• 47:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what I was going to say is the people below you in the chain of command, they get frustrated because they're like, well, what does that mean? And they're going to push it to the envelope that they can.

• 47:21Leif Babin?

  This guy got away with it over here, but that guy didn't, you know? I mean, that's, yeah, those are the kind of things where there, there needs to, there's got to be a standard. You got to hold that standard and it's, I, I, the team is so much better off when you do that. And certainly Bruiser absolutely was.

• 47:34Jocko Willink?

  And, and this is one of those things where then people think, well, Jocko always holds the line and there'll be no slack whatsoever, right? No fucking slack, right? That's how we roll. And it's like, actually there is slack and there's times where you give slack. And I mean, I always talk about, and we always talk about how I was super strict about uniforms, right? Like, hey, we're going to wear uniforms, no patches, all this stuff, right? We talk about that stuff all the time. But when someone was in, when we were, when we were in our camp, I didn't care what you wore. If you weren't going to be interacting with the army or the Marine Corps, I didn't care what you wore at all. I mean, I barely put on a shirt when we were on bed, right? I mean, I'd be sitting in the tactical operations center and I mean,

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  I, yeah, flip flops and, and green shorts and that's it. Yeah. And a brown T-shirt.

• 48:20Leif Babin?

  Sometimes.

• 48:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes. And, and so I didn't, I'm not holding line. I'm not getting crazy because guess what? That's not important. If I would have been running around policing up people's uniforms inside of our camp, which was just us.

• 48:36Jocko Willink?

  Man, that would have wasted a bunch of leadership capital and frustrated everyone. And then guess what? When I tell them, hey, you gotta learn how to program your radio. That is, that is explained with the same importance as, hey, you gotta blouse your boots when you're inside our camp. That's the wrong message to send. So that's why this, that's why I wrote this book, because this is about balance. You've got to be able to balance when to hold the line, what's important, what's worth holding line for? And what things do you go, okay, you know what? You, you know what, Leif? You guys want to do it that way? That's cool, go do it. And that's what you need to learn. That balance, that balance is hard. It's hard to do. I think that, again, I think the awareness of it.

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  I think the awareness of it. And I don't really know when I recognize the awareness of it. I mean, I know like when, um, when Flynn, Flynn puts up the slides of like the Jocko brief from back in the day. I talked about the dichotomy of leadership back then. I'm surprised I even knew what dichotomy meant.

• 49:41Leif Babin?

  Probably looked it up right before the brief.

• 49:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I probably looked it up right before the brief and said, what, what am I talking about? But it's one of those things. I recognized it, I saw it, and I could definitely see it. But now, and just the more we work with companies, even when I was in the teams, the more I was working with a SEAL platoon. You'd see when a guy was like, here's a good example that, you know, when a guy talks too much. When, when you have a leader that just talks all the time, just doesn't stop. He always has something else. He, he won't let anyone else get the last word. It's always, that guy's, people stop listening to him because he's talking all the time. And it's like, hey, I got a good idea. Well, why don't you be quiet for a little while? And I, I hated to have to tell that to somebody because they get super self-conscious. But you know, I'd usually phrase it a different way like, hey, you should, you should, you should let your guys run a little bit.

• 50:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, let them, let them get the last word in. Let, it's going to give them more ownership of what you're doing. If, if when they get done saying, and that's how we're going to do it tonight. And then this guy chimes in, and you know what? When we do it that way, and you're like, bro, you just said that. You don't need to say it again. He's like, you don't need to double tap. Guys would say this debriefing. I'm gonna double tap that. Like, that's already been tapped. Don't double tap it. We're gonna triple tap this thing? We used to have a symbol. If you can't see this, if you're listening, we'd put our two, whatever, two peace signs and, and touch your thumbs together. And it's like four legs sticking up in the air. That's a dead horse. That's the symbol for dead horse. Bro, you don't need to say this again. It's a dead horse. Quit beating it to death.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Wait, what is double, what is tap, double tap?

• 51:11Jocko Willink?

  Double tap, well, when you shoot a target, you shoot it once, and then what you normally do is you shoot it twice. Boom, boom. And so it's called a double tap.

• 51:17Leif Babin?

  It's like a fa- a fast mobile.

• 51:19Jocko Willink?

  So if I was debriefing you, and, and I was like, Echo, you know, you need to keep your, uh, shot groups a little bit tighter on the next run. Cool? You got it?

• 51:30Leif Babin?

  And I'd say, well, to double tap on that, you know, you really need to work on the shot.

• 51:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Leif Babin?

  So I'm, I'm saying the same thing.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Kind of like I second that notion, kind of thing.

• 51:39Jocko Willink?

  It is, but if you said that, if you said, I second that, you could leave it there, right? But if you said, I second that, because you really need to tighten up your groups, because your groups are a little bit dispersed around the target area, and that's gonna be bad. We all know it's bad, bro.

• 51:55Leif Babin?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  We all know it's bad.

• 51:56Leif Babin?

  Think, think Office Space TPS report.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. Alright. Hundred percent clear now.

• 52:01Jocko Willink?

  And now, all that being said, so it's cool. I think, again, having the combat stories let some of these things shine, and that's a good example right there. You're talking first person what you're actually thinking, which I think is powerful. But it's good also to, to outline the principles. And tha- and that's what we did. So here's one of the principles we outlined, and this is an important one, because, man, we got, because we talk about being aggressive. As a matter of fact, we have T-shirts that say default aggressive, right? Like, we're not playing around with being aggressive. And what does that mean? That means that we get some people in this, in the military and in the civilian sector, that we say de- default mode aggressive.

• 52:45Jocko Willink?

  They go default mode aggressive, and they don't know when to stop. They get reckless, they get careless, they go too hard. And so, going back to the book here. Problems aren't going to solve themselves. A leader must get aggressive and take action to solve the problems and implement a solution. Being too passive and waiting for a solution to appear often enables the problem to escalate and get out of control. The enemy isn't going to back off. The leader must get aggressive and put the enemy in check. The good deal isn't going to deliver itself to a company. The leader has to go out and make a good deal happen.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  Changes and new methodologies in a team aren't going to implement themselves. Leaders need to aggressively implement them. An aggressive mindset should be the default setting of any leader. Default aggressive. This means that the best leaders, the best teams, don't wait to act. Instead, understanding the strategic vision or commander's intent, they aggressively execute to overcome obstacles, capitalize on immediate opportunities, accomplish the mission, and win. Rather than passively waiting to be told what to do, default aggressive leaders proactively seek out ways to further the strategic mission. They understand the commander's intent,

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  and where they have authority to do so, they execute. For decisions that are beyond their pay grade or above their authority, default aggressive leaders still make a recommendation up the chain of command to solve problems and execute key tasks to achieve strategic victory. In SEAL platoons and task units, we expect this from leaders at every level, right down to the frontline trooper in charge of just himself and his small piece of the mission.

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  But this mentality is crucial to any leader in any team or organization. It is just as critical to success in business as on the battlefield. Aggressive means proactive.

• 54:56Jocko Willink?

  But it doesn't mean that leaders can get angry, lose their temper, or be aggressive toward their people. A leader must always deal professionally with subordinates on the team, peers, leaders up the chain of command, customers or clients, and personnel in supporting roles outside the immediate team. Speaking angrily to others is ineffective. Losing your temper is a sign of weakness. The aggression that wins on the battlefield, in business or in life, is directed not toward people, but toward solving problems, achieving goals, and accomplishing the mission.

• 55:36Jocko Willink?

  It is also critical to balance aggression with careful thought and analysis to make sure that risks have been assessed and mitigated. The dichotomy with the default aggressive mindset is that sometimes hesitation allows a leader to further understand a situation so that he or she can react properly to it. Rather than immediately respond to enemy fire, sometimes the prudent decision is to wait and see how it develops. Is it a simple reconnaissance by fire? Is it a feint by the enemy meant to distract from the real attack? Is the enemy simply trying to lure you into a confined area

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  where they have a superior force waiting to ambush? A careful moment of consideration might reveal the enemy's true intentions. To be overly aggressive without critical thinking is to be reckless. That can lead the team into a disaster and put the greater mission in peril. To disregard prudent counsel when someone with experience urges caution to dismiss significant threats or to fail to plan for likely contingencies is foolhardy. It is bad leadership.

• 56:54Jocko Willink?

  A chief contributing factor to recklessness comes from what military historians have long referred to as the disease of victory. This disease takes place when a few battlefield successes produce an overconfidence in a team's own tactical prowess while underestimating the capabilities of its enemy or competitor. This is a problem not just for combat leaders, but for leaders and teams anywhere in any arena throughout the business world and the civilian sector. It is a leader's duty to fight against this disease so that the team, despite its success, never gets complacent.

• 57:35Jocko Willink?

  The risk in any action must be carefully weighed against the potential rewards of mission success. And of course, to counter that thought, the cost of inaction must be weighed as well. As aggressive as leaders must be, leaders must be cautious that they are not running to their deaths simply because it is their instinct to take action. The dichotomy between aggression and caution must be balanced. So be aggressive, but never reckless. So there's a principle. Principle laid out and then of course it's followed up with a business example of which

• 58:19Jocko Willink?

  there are manifold of businesses where the business gets too aggressive. They start getting properties to put more stores into and they build up all this rent that they gotta pay every month and next thing you know, they have a down month and they got real estate bills to pay. Or they start hiring a ton of people because they get super aggressive and that's you know, kind of where this story leads to is we're bringing, gonna bring in all these people because we think this future success is coming and the next thing you know, your overhead is so huge because you got overly aggressive, you end up with problems.

• 58:52Leif Babin?

  That is hard too. That's so hard because that is absolutely in my nature is to and I think in so many people that resonate with extreme ownership that come to the musters that I mean, we've got default aggressive leaders that want to go dominate the universe. And you've got to really, you've got to really take a step back and detach and think, okay, what am I not thinking about? What am I not seeing? How am I planning for those contingencies? We just talked about, you know, a situation today, you know, with a client where, uh, you know, they, when things are going really well, like that's when you gotta be looking at, okay, what, what, what's, what's, what's about to go wrong that I haven't seen yet? You know, what am I not planning for? So it is very, very difficult to balance this as a leader, uh, but you absolutely have to balance it. You have to be aggressive. You have to maneuver.

• 59:36Leif Babin?

  You know, so many people get, you know, the paralysis to analysis that people talk about, uh, don't want to make it, make a decision until, you know, the solution is right there and it's a hundred percent guaranteed. Nothing is ever a hundred percent guaranteed. And by the time that's, you know, that's even close to being that, you know, the, your competition's already maneuvered on the battlefield. You're going to get wiped out and killed. You know, in the business world, you know, you're going to get, uh, you're going to get crushed by your competition and, and so, and yet being aggressive and also being prudent so that you're not falling into the traps, not running to your deaths, not sending your team up for total disaster.

• 1:00:09Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's the only, the only answer to this, the only answer to this is you have to be balanced. That's the only answer because if you go too far in one direction, the other, if you get super aggressive and you take too much risk and you'll get wiped out. If you don't do anything and you sit there, you're going to get wiped out. You have to, you have to balance these two all the time. And yeah, you're right. This is something that, it's something that we see all the time. And I saw it, you know, training SEAL platoons. You get the guy that's super hyper aggressive and every time there's something going on, they're, hey, let's send a fire team over there. And okay, you send, you send a fire team over there and then that fire team gets whacked. We'll send another fire team over there. Okay. Then that fire team gets whacked.

• 1:00:54Jocko Willink?

  We'll send another fire team. Next thing you know, you don't have a platoon left. Okay. So that was good. You, you got everyone killed because you were hyper aggressive. The other end of the spectrum is, well, we're not sure where the fire is coming from. So we're going to sit here and wait. Okay. Well, while you're not shooting at the enemy. The enemy is maneuvering and they are getting high ground and they are getting a superior position. And this is the exact same thing in the business world where, I mean, the example of like, hey, we gotta grow and so the aggressive leader, the overly aggressive, the hyper aggressive leader will grow too fast and all of a sudden has overhead that's too much and can't afford to go on. But at the same time, you get a, you get a company that's not, that's not aggressive

• 1:01:35Jocko Willink?

  enough and they should be entering another, another line of operation. They should be putting, they should be entering another market. You know, we were talking about this morning while we were working out Blockbuster and BlackBerry, right? Blockbuster and BlackBerry. Who would have thought that Blockbuster, which was, there was a Blockbuster on every street corner and there was a BlackBerry in everyone's pocket. And they owned something like eighty something percent of the market share. They're done. Now, are you telling me that someone that was default aggressive would have said, you know what? We need to figure out how to, you know what? These, these movies might be able to come on the internet. In fact, there's streaming video. Let's get into that market. And of course, they would have had the capital, they would have had the infrastructure, they

• 1:02:20Jocko Willink?

  would have had the people and, and they could have, they would have been, been able to make that happen. They had relationships with, with, with the, um, with the big Hollywood studios, right? They were getting sent those movies. They had relationships. They could have done that. But they were sitting there going, you're gonna come rent these videos for $4.99? You gotta get that VHS tape up in here, right? That's the way it's gotta be. And same thing with BlackBerry. They're thinking, well, no one's gonna leave us because we got the little thing with the keyboard on it and we're set. And, and meanwhile, they're, they're both done. Done. Lack of aggressive, lack of foresight, lack of planning. And, and for me, it's really just a lack of being aggressive, aggressively looking around.

• 1:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Now, we could go the other way and we could look at, look at companies that put so much capital out there that they run out of money and they go.

• 1:03:12Jocko Willink?

  They go down too. So what do you have to do? You have to balance. You have to balance. That's what you have to do. Uh, you know, one more thing. I think we do one more thing from this, from this book. Just you, and it's a short, short little piece. We were talking about earlier and it kind of relates to what, and I think the reason we were talking about, because it was kind of related in the disease of victory. You had that little chunk. Again, we do the, we do the applications to business so people can see really directly how these principles in combat and the principle correlates to the civilian sector. But you had a good one. Just a couple paragraphs on, uh, 84 about you're kind of a stereotypical fired up,

• 1:03:56Jocko Willink?

  extreme ownership boss that's going to come in there and make stuff happen. I thought this was a good one. Go.

• 1:04:05Leif Babin?

  I've read a lot about Patton, the executive vice president said with pride, referring to General George S. Patton Jr., the famous US Army general, whose exploits in World War II were legendary. I love that you referenced Patton in your presentation. I want exactly the kind of disciplined organization around here that Patton expected. We need people who carry out orders, not question them. I could tell right away that the executive vice president had no previous military experience. He clearly misunderstood how effective leaders in the military led their teams. It was not through rigid authoritarianism. Do this because I said so, or you'll be punished. Sure, there were those in the military who tried to lead like that, but it was never effective.

• 1:04:47Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. And I know you and I both and, and the rest of the team has dealt with guys that they, they have that vision of this military leadership and usually it's guys that weren't in the military. And you know, I like to draw a line and maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong about this. I think, well, and, and from what I know from military history, when you go back to conscripts, when you, when you get to the conscripts, those guys are beaten until they are doing what they, you know, what they're told to do. We've, we've covered some great examples of that on this podcast of situations where it's like, oh, you know what, you know how we're gonna lead? We're gonna lead through tyranny, and we're gonna lead through punishment, and we're gonna lead through rigid

• 1:05:30Jocko Willink?

  discipline, rigid discipline, which obviously everyone knows I'm a fan of discipline, but when you're leading guys and the reason that they're following your orders is because they fear being beaten, or fear being shot, shot by you, you know, punished by you. If that's why they're, again, it's the same situation where if that's why they're doing it, you're never gonna get the true optimal work and effort out of those people, ever.

• 1:05:58Leif Babin?

  And even from, from history, I mean, if you read Alexander the Great, right, or, or Julius Caesar, who's a great example, I mean, they had conscripts, but his men loved him and admired him and held him in tremendous regard because he, he rewarded them, he gave them credit, he, he explained why. I mean, he, he was, he was a guy who was always put himself at the forefront of, of where the, the fighting was, and, you know, much more so than just a political leader like many of the, the Roman, the Roman leaders. So, just a phenomenal leader on the battlefield, and, and so even, even then, you're, the most effective leaders are always gonna be, they're always gonna, gonna try to get the team on board with the mission, help them understand why they're doing it, put it, put a greater purpose in their mind. And I think so often, as you said before, you know, a leader,

• 1:06:42Leif Babin?

  a leader like that, this was, this was an aggressive leader, great, you know, great person who wanted to dominate the universe and, and make things happen, love extreme ownership, and yet is, is struggling to see that because they think they're leading like you would lead. They look at, they look at a picture of Jocko and like, this is what Jocko would do, just crush everyone, and tell them to do it, because I said, and, and as you've explained, it, it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. It's never effective. And that's why, that's why I'm, you know, I'm proud of this book, and I think it can be so useful to leaders to see, you can't do that. If you do that, you're not ever gonna be as successful as you could be if you actually get the team on board, explain why to them, and, and tie that to the bigger purpose of, of what you're trying to accomplish in the world.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's all true. I think the book will be helpful to people. So yeah, Dichotomy Leadership, it's coming out September 25th. If you want to, if you want to get some, you can get some of that. We got some Q and A. We got some questions to discuss here. I'll just jump right into it. Number one. What are, speaking of that, this is, this is flowing together quite nicely. Question number one, what are things to look for? When you're debating whether to raise your voice or yell due to those under you being lazy or unmotivated? Y'all talk a lot about the importance of self-control and not just losing it.

• 1:08:04Jocko Willink?

  But would you say there's a time and place for raising the intensity while still being respectful towards your guys? So, there you go. Yelling and screaming. Get some.

• 1:08:13Leif Babin?

  Sometimes you gotta just drop the hammer.

• 1:08:17Leif Babin?

  Jocko yelled and screamed at us all the time. Like I've, I've, I've talked about on this, you know, I think on the podcast, we certainly talk about all the time. I mean, the number of times that Jocko screamed and yelled at me? Zero. Zero times in all the years that we worked together. And, and I know I gave him at least dozens, maybe hundreds of opportunities to want to probably done that. And he didn't do that because he realized that it wasn't effective. So now listen, there, there is, there is a time where, you know, if there's a, a major safety issue going on and you're trying to get people's attention and you want people to cease fire, or you need to rally the troops, where you gotta raise your voice and get people's attention. And I think that's, you can't be afraid to do that as a leader.

• 1:08:57Jocko Willink?

  There are certainly times where I'd say, hey life, get, get, get those bodies lined up over there or stuff like that. I mean, for sure. That's, is that yelling? Well, yeah, I'm definitely raising my voice and using a loud voice, but I'm not doing it whatever with anger. It's just, hey, you gotta hear me. And so, and also, You know, there is times where you've got to, you've got to pick up the intensity in your voice so that people realize there's something important happening, right? There's just enough, now you don't want to yell and scream and get all crazy, but to be like, "Hey, I need vehicles here now." Like, that is different than, "Hey, can you get the vehicles over here now?" Like, those are two different things. And you, I would react differently if I heard those two voices. So, yes, now to go, "I need those vehicles over here now."

• 1:09:41Jocko Willink?

  No, and now we're creating a whole panic situation.

• 1:09:43Leif Babin?

  But that, that's a great point too, right? And it's, it's the kind of, you know, never cry wolf, uh, you know, story. So, when, when you're, if you're yelling all the time, "I need those vehicles over here right now," when there's nothing at stake and it's no big deal and it's just a, a routine movement, you know, then when you do that and you really need it, uh, then no one's paying attention. They think, "Oh, it's just Leif yelling again into the, the radio." So, so I think that's another reason why, uh, I, I actually have seen Jocko raise his voice on one occasion.

• 1:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:12Leif Babin?

  And, uh, when there was a, a serious issue that needed to be addressed and you needed to get, uh, the, the person's attention to show just how serious of a situation it was, and it got everybody's attention.

• 1:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Leif Babin?

  It got everybody's attention right away because you never did that. And, and when you did do it, it was like, "Oh, man."

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I was, always tell that to leaders, like, being on the radio, and this goes for being in a meeting, right? If you go to a meeting, if you're in charge of a meeting and you talk the whole time and then you have something important to the, to say at the end, well, that's great, but it's not as impactful as when you say very few things during the meeting and, and then at the end you say, "Hey, guys, listen up. Here's what's going on with us." And everyone, everyone pays attention. So, I've said this before, the less you talk, the more people listen, and that goes true here. The more you yell, the less people listen. And it takes away the opportunity, if you ever do have to yell, it's going to have zero impact. So, my blanket statement is you should hardly ever have to raise your voice and it should just barely ever happen.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  It's a long one. Can you explain more how you managed working with the local Iraqi troops? General Mattis, who I hold in the highest esteem, esteem, said something to the effect that if you are doing anything that negatively impacts relations with allied forces, you are of more use to the enemy than you are to your team. This makes it quite obvious that he believes that full cooperation with allied forces is key to attaining victory. It is a well-established fact that most of the Iraqi forces were incompetent to the point of posing danger to US troops. So what steps did you take to ensure success when working with them?

• 1:11:59Leif Babin?

  Well, obviously, relations with your allies are critical. It's cover move, right? You gotta work together as a team. And, and if you've got, if you're working against each other, that's absolutely catastrophic. Uh, I, I think for us with Iraqi troops, you know, again, we, we talked about how, uh, that was liberating, right? For, for, you know, the, the big pushback was always like, is we want to do just SEAL, unilateral operation, we call it, just SEALs or just Americans, uh, you know, just like NATO ally forces and, um, and not work with, with Iraqi troops. And, you know, when you said that right away, that's your reason, listen, don't even put up a concept operations, we have a CONOPS, we call it, which is the approval for the plan that doesn't have Iraqi troops on it. Okay, got it.

• 1:12:44Leif Babin?

  We're gonna have to figure out a way to make that happen. So that was, the line was drawn. We knew we had to do that. And we knew it was also important. I mean, cause you explained that, we talked about it, we, we thought through that. Um, but obviously we had to take some steps to mitigate that. So I think there were, uh, there were, again, this is the dichotomy. It's, you gotta be balanced. There were, I saw units who thought, um, and we gave some examples, uh, even extreme ownership, certainly. Um, and we talk about regularly about where you, you see a unit that would take two or four Americans and a bunch of Iraqis and try to go into a really bad area. You're like, man, you, you're not gonna be able to count on those Iraqis in the middle of a gunfight when they're overwhelmed. You better have enough Americans here to have your

• 1:13:22Leif Babin?

  back so so they were asking too much of of the Iraqis and then there are other units that didn't want to do you know didn't want to have any Iraqis with them didn't want to have any relationships with them and I had some stern talking to you know talking talking to some of my guys who wouldn't weren't treating Iraqi soldiers with respect I threatened one of my guys who was gonna have to go sleep in the Iraqi soldiers barracks if he didn't go shake their hand

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  I think he knowing that particular individual who's a great guy I think that was the last threat you had to make to make him submit to to do

• 1:13:52Leif Babin?

  I didn't think I was serious the first I was like I'm totally serious you better fix this so

• 1:13:56Jocko Willink?

  and you know what props to props to SF guys mid teams that go out there and they do they live they eat you know even even having Dakota Meyer on here he did two meals a day out of three with with his Afghan soldiers that's that's awesome and you know what I liked about this question was the way that that it relates to to the civilian sector because you know what I talk about a lot a lot of times I talk about how my relationship with my boss regardless of who my boss was regardless my boss was great or my boss was horrible my relationship was always the same I was gonna have this great I was gonna build a relationship where they trusted me they gave me what I needed to do my job and then they let me do my job that's the relationship I always had with all my bosses right but I I

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  that same methodology and concept can absolutely be applied to other organizations that you're supposed to work with so whether it's the army whether it's the Marine Corps whether it's the Iraqi soldiers whether it's the MPs whether it's the I the the intel people that intel organization that you're working with no matter what the organization you can build a relationship again might you love that organization no you might not and where I see this all the time well we see it all the time now is with businesses because guess what there's no business that's standalone or I should say there's very few that are completely vertically integrated businesses I mean like an origin right we don't we we're pretty vertically integrated but guess what we don't grow the cotton

• 1:15:23Jocko Willink?

  like we don't do that we don't grow cotton but guess what we have a good relationship with the people that grow cotton we have a good relationship with a people that stain the cotton or sorry dye the cotton so we build those relationships with those other people now I work with businesses where there's a supplier that they don't like So guess what? They form a hostile relationship with this whole company, a whole company. What good does that do them? It doesn't do them any good at all. What it means is they have no personal relationships. They, they form that antagonistic relationship with a whole nother organization and it's almost impossible to overcome. So now this is something where if you don't explain that culture throughout your team, they're going to treat that other team horribly. And so if you're waiting on supplies, if you're on a construction site

• 1:16:08Jocko Willink?

  and you're waiting for materials to be delivered and you don't have a good relationship with the people that deliver the drywall and now the drywall's running late for whatever reason and you call, you, you fly off the handle or whatever, you're, you're not going to get that drywall any earlier. It's not happening. Have you ever, you, you know, when I call customer service, right? Customer service, I learned this when I was working for, for the Admiral, working for the Admiral's aide. I'd call up, we, we traveled a lot and I'd have to call up whatever, Delta or American, whoever. And I'd be trying to get whatever seats on an aircraft or something or a flight that was full, whatever. Get him an upgrade, whatever. And you know, I'd say, hey, how you doing?

• 1:16:53Jocko Willink?

  That's always, I'd always start off with the, with the, because they're going, American airline, how can I help you? And they're mad, right? They're just mad to start with. Out of the gate, out of the gate, they're mad. Whatever, you know, airline, whatever, car rental service, whatever restaurant, like people are just mad.

• 1:17:09Leif Babin?

  They don't care.

• 1:17:10Jocko Willink?

  They're, they're mad. They don't know who you are.

• 1:17:11Leif Babin?

  Well, they actually, they've just talked to probably, you know, the last 25 people have screamed and yelled.

• 1:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Screamed and yelled at them. That's awful. So you know, you, you call them and say, hey, how's it going? And you know, I always, I had little, I had little micro jokes that I would make with the airlines that I used with all of them all the time. But one of them was I'd say, they'd say, well, do you need to, do you need to sit next to your boss? And I'd say, you know what? I'd honestly appreciate it if you put me as far away from it. And they'd laugh and then they'd try and hook me up, even though my boss was a great guy and I'd sit with him all day, but just, it was a funny thing and it, it, it humanized me with them. They thought I was that some poor, sorry bastard that had to travel with his boss and then they were trying to take care of me. It was like awesome. So I would get the hookups. I remember one time I went up and I, I had a conversation on the phone with someone. And then of course, this is different because it was live, but I had a conversation like, no, can't get you on that flight.

• 1:18:01Jocko Willink?

  And then I went up to the counter and I was like, hey, how you doing? I'm trying to get me and my boss and it's on this flight and we're trying to get there. And he's like, this girl's like, well, you know, do you need to go today? I'm like, well, look, if we don't get there, here's the deal. If you can just get my boss on, that's great. If, if neither one of us get, get on this flight. It's been nice knowing you because I'm screwed. And she just started laughing and again, humanized it. And then it's like all of a sudden she's like, oh, guess what? We're gonna, we're gonna bump some of these or whatever. And she's making room and we're on the flight. So don't develop this antagonistic relationship with another organization, with Iraqi soldiers, like, is it great working with Iraqi soldiers? No, it sucks, it's hard. But guess what? That's what we have to do.

• 1:18:46Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you something else. Strategically, the Iraqi soldiers that are descendants of the guys that we train, I mean, maybe not, I'm saying, training or, or training descendants, right? The guys that we trained, trained guys who just went and fought back and got Ramadi back from ISIS and got Muzul back from ISIS. Those are the guys that went in there and did the bulk of the fighting. Did they get supported by Americans? Yes. Did Americans do a kick ass job of doing massive fire support? Yes, but the guys that were moving from street to street, those were majority Iraqi soldiers. Did they have special ops guys with them? Yes, but it was a majority of the people that were moving through the streets were Iraqi soldiers. And there's no way possible that wouldn't have happened if

• 1:19:29Jocko Willink?

  American coalition forces over the last, whatever it was, 10 years, 12 years, would have taken those guys and made them work and done the, the type of partner missions that we did with them. So it was, and when I, again, when I say we, I'm not talking about us, the, the SEAL teams. I'm talking about everyone. Everyone made this concerted effort and it ended up being a great call because when those guys went out to To finally have to fight to take these cities back, they were able to do it. Not totally by themselves, but they were able to do it. They did it. And that's a vast improvement. If we would have sent, if we would have sent the Iraqi troops as they were when we were in Ramadi, into Mosul, they would have gotten decimated.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  So it's a credit to the US military, it's a credit to the Iraqi military that they have now gotten up to speed where they can push forward. And it's a credit to the US military and other coalition forces that worked with them to get them up to speed. And what that all boils back to is forming relationships with the people that you are dependent on, not just the people, but the organizations. That's all I'm saying.

• 1:20:36Leif Babin?

  Yeah, I think they, we learned the lesson. It's, it's, let's do, uh, let's use them for their strengths. And, and that's what we learned in Ramadi. Uh, we, we put them in situations where they could succeed. Uh, we took enough Americans where we could actually succeed and, and, and help them succeed. And, uh, and of course we put some, uh, you know, some efforts to mitigate rest too with, with, uh, we always had armed guys, you always had guys looking around, we always would present a, you know, hard target if one of those guys decided that they wanted to, you know, start batting for the other team. And, uh, you know, we were in a position to, to handle those problems and we never had any issues as a result, but that's, that's what you have to do is, is it's all about building coalitions and, and, and using people's strengths, uh, and complimenting those strengths and working together as a team. It's, it's cover move. If you don't do that, you're gonna, you're gonna fail.

• 1:21:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And to all you people at the airlines, thank you. Thank you for taking care of me over the years. Appreciate it. Next question. Jocko, Leif and Echo. Your opinion has been solicited on this leadership question right here. So we'll see how that works out. A good leader ensures his team understands what their goals are and why they are performing tasks. But how do you balance doing this with not being the leader that talks so much that the team stops listening? We, did we just cover this for a long period of time?

• 1:21:56Leif Babin?

  Pretty much.

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  We did, didn't we? I guess we can leave it at this. Echo, do you agree with what we said earlier or do you have a different opinion about talking too much? And mind you, you've said a lot today, so don't be, you know,

• 1:22:08Leif Babin?

  Don't get all the nuts.

• 1:22:09Jocko Willink?

  Don't get crazy over here or we'll stop listening.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  The guy who talks too much. No, yeah, less is more. Hundred percent. I agree.

• 1:22:20Jocko Willink?

  There you go. I like it.

• 1:22:22Leif Babin?

  I will say it musters when Echo's Echo's words to the audience.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  He always gives an epic speech.

• 1:22:29Leif Babin?

  Would have have solicited probably the greatest applause of everyone out there.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, see.

• 1:22:34Jocko Willink?

  I guess to dig in this little bit of how to balance that with with being a leader that talks too much. I think you've got to pay attention to what the reactions are you're getting from people, right? You've got to pay attention to the reactions you're getting from people. If the people are not totally actively listening to you, right? If they're not actively listening to you, if they're taking notes, if they're looking at their phone or what? Not taking notes, but if they're looking at their phone or whatever, then you're you're talking too much. Keep it short, keep it concise, and people will listen to you more.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Also, that when you say you got to pay attention to yourself, that's like a deep one. It's like you just said it really simply like, oh, hey, just pay attention to yourself. I mean, you didn't say it like that, but that's what it felt like. That's the hardest part right there because a lot of times like, hey, me and Leif are talking and Leif starts looking at his phone. I'm not thinking, hey, I'm talking too much. I'm saying what I'm saying is not interesting enough. So I need so I need to say some more cool stuff or I need to be more of this or more of that because I'm losing them kind of thing. Like if I'm losing you, the intuitive thought is not to to completely disconnect and stop talking. That's not the intuitive thought. Seems like when you're in a situation, you got to pay attention to that kind of stuff on yourself.

• 1:23:49Leif Babin?

  Jocko does this all the time.

• 1:23:50Jocko Willink?

  What do I do?

• 1:23:51Leif Babin?

  He like busts his phone out and starts answering emails or whatever.

• 1:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you know what?

• 1:23:55Leif Babin?

  Okay, cool. I guess our conversation is done.

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  You know, I do that to Dean and Dean Lister. So Dean, Dean is.

• 1:24:02Leif Babin?

  Oh, Jack.

• 1:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Dean's a really important stuff we're talking about here. He's like. Yeah, no, what Dean does though is he it makes him mad, right? He's got the he's got the pet peeve. So Dean will be telling something and.

• 1:24:14Leif Babin?

  So you're doing it on purpose to get under his skin?

• 1:24:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh, no, sometimes he's saying some rambling stuff, right? And I'm I've got stuff going on, Dean. Come on, I know you're listening to this, bro. But sometimes he'll be saying something to me and all of a sudden I'll like I'll like look around. I'll be and and now I realize I'll just be watching people do jujitsu because we're normally on the mat when this happens. So he's telling me something like looking me in the eyes and he's like, you know, in the ancient blah, blah, blah, blah. He'll be telling me about the Peloponnesian War or something or whatever and and as I'm listening to him. I'll kind of look and I'll like start looking at someone that's training or looking at something and he'll he'll like attack me. He went through a period where he would just attack me and like take me down and just start, you know, going psycho on me. So

• 1:25:00Jocko Willink?

  that got me tuned up. It got me tuned up where I try and give Dean some more attention.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Leif Babin?

  I I like that.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:06Leif Babin?

  Dean, I think that's uh, I think that's a good.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Cause that's what you feel like. Like when he starts doing that sort of, bruh, I see what you're doing.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  You know, well, the thing is though, and I think you're in the same boat, Leif, where I know you kind of know now. Like in everyday life with other people, you might think, I mean intuitively anyway, like, oh, I'm losing him or whatever, but you can tell with him. If he starts doing that stuff, you're like, okay, I need to either stop or yeah, move on or something, but it's only because you know.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  For me, I was like, listen, if you can give me thirty five more seconds, we'll be done with this and then you can move on, do whatever you need to. Oh, yeah. I will say that's a bad characteristic that I have where I can do that sometimes. I'm done listening to you. So wrap it up.

• 1:25:45Leif Babin?

  Efficiency all the time.

• 1:25:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Leif Babin?

  Disruptive time management system.

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  All right. Next question for Leif. This is kind of a heavy one. You know what?

• 1:25:59Jocko Willink?

  All right, Leif. In-N-Out Burger or Whataburger?

• 1:26:03Leif Babin?

  Dude.

• 1:26:05Leif Babin?

  I do not want to go there, man. That is uh, that is too much. That's like double rainbow too much right there.

• 1:26:10Jocko Willink?

  Man.

• 1:26:14Leif Babin?

  This is uh, I I gotta, I gotta tell you, look, obviously I'm from Texas. Whataburgers are all over the place and Whataburgers are awesome. You you can't go wrong with Whataburger. Um, In-N-Out is uh, is pretty tough to beat though. It's uh, there's something special about the In-N-Out. I used to have, um, you know, over in Pacific Beach. I had a storage unit over there and there's like, my storage unit was like right up the hill. Those are good burgers, dude.

• 1:26:41Leif Babin?

  The uh, my storage unit was, it would like kick the exhaust like right back up into the so, so like the exhaust blasting in your face, you know, from like 25 yards, 30 yards away. As I'm like there at my storage unit, unloading server boards or whatever and I was like, double, double, we're getting something.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Double, double.

• 1:26:59Leif Babin?

  So yeah, In-N-Out's are awesome. I like, it's, it's tough to beat. I'm a huge fan of In-N-Out. I will say this though, where's the meat, man? Come on. Those burgers. You gotta put, what a burger. It got a lot more, more patty to it.

• 1:27:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, apparently you're not ordering the triple, triple.

• 1:27:14Leif Babin?

  That's what we need, quadruple, quadruple.

• 1:27:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what we're going for next time. My, my kids, after they would cut weight for wrestling, during wrestling season, I spent more money at In-N-Out Burger during wrestling season, cause after they cut weight and then they wrestle all day and then you're going home and all they want to do is go, In-N-Out Burger, In-N-Out Burger, In-N-Out Burger.

• 1:27:33Leif Babin?

  Yeah. See, cutting weight for me is the very, I mean, playing football, it's like, man, you want to be as big and fat as possible. Crush food.

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is. Check. Alright, speaking of, well, I guess speaking of combat sports, next question, six. This is a jujitsu question. Should instructors not teach white belts, AKA Leif Babin, David Burke and JP Denell? That's cold blooded. It's a good deal, Dave.

• 1:28:03Leif Babin?

  That is good deal, Dave.

• 1:28:05Jocko Willink?

  Should instructors not teach white belts certain techniques? Or should, why they shouldn't do them be explained, but still expose the white belts to techniques? So that the white belts recognize them. So, there's some techniques that you don't get taught very often as a white belt. For instance, a heel hook. I believe that it is good to not teach people, teach white belts to do heel hooks.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  Because, for example, heel hooks can be very dangerous. The reason that they're dangerous is because they don't hurt a lot before they injure you. And so white belts, who are by nature completely insane and going crazy and going nuts. And so when they get a hold of something, they just go as hard as they can. And by the way, they're usually going against a white belt. That's the only reason they're getting anything on them because they're going against a white belt. And that other white belt's going completely insane and he's not going to tap. And so what happens? You get the triple, triple Lindy, right? ACL, MCL, PCL tear. Game over. This guy's never training jujitsu again, or this guy's not training jujitsu for two years or whatever.

• 1:29:13Jocko Willink?

  So is it smart to not teach them? Yes, it is. However, dichotomy, balance. Should you just never show them what they are? No, you should, you should explain to them, hey, this is what the move is. This is, this is why we don't teach them. The other thing, this is why we don't teach them because you can get hurt. And when you get a little bit more advanced and you learn to relax a little bit more, we'll teach you some of these, these techniques that are slightly more dangerous. Dean always freaks out because you, saying that a heel hook is more dangerous than a, than a kamura. I mean, if you ask me whether I wanted to have somebody just go berserk on a kamura on me or a heel hook, I'd probably pick the heel hook, right?

• 1:29:52Jocko Willink?

  Cause then you, you still have shoulder mobility. Whereas kamura, that's, that's just, if someone goes nuts on a kamura and just rips your arm, your shoulder apart, what would you rather have?

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  The heel hook for sure.

• 1:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm thinking heel hook all day long. So, but for some reason.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  It's a kind of a rough choice there.

• 1:30:09Jocko Willink?

  That is a rough choice. That is a rough choice. That's not a choice you want to be making because either one of them's not good. But I think you can do a better job of replacing the knee and getting the knee squared away than you can the shoulder. There's no, the shoulder's tough. But for some reason, the kamura is everywhere. You're learning kamura day one, right? Day three, you're learning kamura and you could definitely trash someone's shoulder, but it hurts. It does hurt and that's beneficial.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you, the shoulder's gonna have way more flexibility than your little, your knee.

• 1:30:40Leif Babin?

  twisting joint you like that's that you can't be like hey I'm unless you get some your knees a bone exactly right so you got guys who can do shoulder you know there's varying levels of shoulder flexibility and then that also goes for like the pain tolerance as well knees last way less from from a white belt perspective there's so much to to learn I mean it's you know and the more I train the more I realize how little I actually know and how much more there is that I mean why I would I would I would I'd rather focus on you know uh on the more uh the more foundational aspects of the game and and until I can get those a little bit better I think that's that makes a lot of sense to me

• 1:31:20Jocko Willink?

  I think you might be the bull white belt right now of the world so in the in the Navy the Ensign which is the lowest ranking Ensign at a ship or a SEAL team he gets called the Bull Ensign which means he's been the junior guy for the longest amount of time and you've been training for quite some what you well you start training with me in 2005 right yeah didn't you train before me with Fabio

• 1:31:45Leif Babin?

  I trained a few times

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  oh okay so you've been training since oh three oh four

• 1:31:51Leif Babin?

  it's been a long time

• 1:31:53Jocko Willink?

  bro

• 1:31:54Leif Babin?

  most of that time

• 1:31:55Jocko Willink?

  14 years

• 1:31:56Leif Babin?

  most of that 14 years uh I'd say I've been seriously training for you know probably probably like back at it you know pretty consistently um you know multiple times a week for a year and a half

• 1:32:07Jocko Willink?

  okay so you're you're in the zone you're in the zone you'd be getting that boot about you at some point Todd White down in Texas gonna gonna crack it out possibly I don't know maybe you're not ready though maybe Todd White Todd White

• 1:32:18Leif Babin?

  I'm definitely not ready

• 1:32:19Jocko Willink?

  he's looking at you going no you got nothing you got nothing check so yeah that's I think the deal same thing with same thing uh the other problem with teaching a person for instance heel hooks is then they think that that's the solution to the guard and it's not the solution to the guard it's a solution to the guard it's one possible one one one small possible solution there's many many more and there's others as you said Leif that are more fundamental so it's that's my that's my answer

• 1:32:55Leif Babin?

  yeah that thing um how you say the

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  Like let them know what it is.

• 1:33:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  And when you consider an actual typical white belt class, the heel hook is probably not going to be introduced in any significant capacity at all. Like no one's going to choose to spend time in a white belt, white belt class to teach a heel hook. Typically it's not going to happen. But like the control thing, right? Like, you know, you get even a, a good blue belt who's been in for a long time, purple up, purple belt and up. They're going to know the control on a heel hook. Like if I, you know, a purple belt does a heel hook on you.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  The risk of you getting injured unless you don't tap or something like that is pretty low. It's going to be pretty low because they know that control of just their whole body in general.

• 1:33:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, you should tap.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Yes. So the white belt, they don't even have control, very important. They don't have control or they have a lot less control in everything, by the way.

• 1:33:44Jocko Willink?

  There's a strong possibility they have zero control.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, very strong, very strong. But that's with everything, like even on a defending a takedown or defending, it's like so out of control.

• 1:33:53Jocko Willink?

  As a blue belt, I heel hooked a friend of mine and I heard him. And, and, and I didn't, it wasn't even, he was, he was, he was a no nothing, right? And we're going and I just started learning heel hooks and I put a heel hook on him and we were overseas. And I put a heel hook on him and he wasn't tapping and I was kind of like, oh, that's weird. You know, why isn't he tapping? So I went a little bit harder and then all of a sudden there was a little pop and I let go and I was like, and yeah, but you know, he was a seal. And so he was like, oh, this isn't going to work on me. That doesn't hurt.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Feel it.

• 1:34:29Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden, so I, I wasn't going nuts because I, like I said, I was a blue belt. I was in pretty good control, but even I didn't realize at that time, oh, this will injure him before it will cause pain, which is a bad thing to have.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  Thing to have.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  So yeah, these kids, I mean, these guys, if they're, no one has control over anything, by the way. Any, any of their moves and they're doing heel hooks as a normal thing. Like, oh yeah, we do, we got taught this and stuff and it's effective. You know, like a lot of submissions and heel hooks and a lot of foot locks are one of those ones where you, to gain the position to, to go for that submission, you have to work a lot less than like an arm bar. Where you have to actually pass someone's guard and you know, getting even side control. But a lot of times get to the, you know, you gotta work more to get into the position with heel hooks. Not, not so much like that. So if you know.

• 1:35:18Jocko Willink?

  Throw it at them.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can just throw it out there and you throw in the lack of control. Yeah, man. So you in, increase the chance for injury for sure.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink?

  Next question. I am a 66-year-old police chief and CrossFit athlete. Is your muster doable for me?

• 1:35:37Leif Babin?

  Absolutely. There'll be, there'll be plenty of people who are in your age group and there's no question that you should come and join us for muster, get after it. If you're, you're a police chief, you're a CrossFit athlete, you can more, more than get after it with us. The 445 club workouts are voluntary. We usually have, I mean, we probably have what, you know, 80, 85% participation. I mean, it's massive. But they're, they're designed so that really anybody can do it. We have people with top-level athletes down to, you know, folks who look like they probably hadn't been to the gym a whole lot in the last few years, but they wanted to just get started again. So.

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  I, I remember one guy that was, "I'm heading in for double knee surgery in a week." And so I'm just, and he was an older guy, you know, that had been out of the gym for a bit and he was out there, like you said, that the, the workouts are scalable to the individual that's participating in the, in the event. And so we get all, every level. You can come to the muster in any, literally in any physical condition. You can come to the muster and you can, you can get after it with us. Next question. I find meetings of greater than or equal to eight people far less productive than smaller groups, even with, with a structured, action-oriented agenda.

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  Is there a maximum amount of people you'd involve in a strategic or tactical planning group?

• 1:37:08Leif Babin?

  I don't think, I don't think there is a maximum amount. I think it just has to be controlled. And you've got to have, you've got to have some decentralized command where people understand. If there's just a bunch of people at a meeting and everyone's kind of speaking in turn and talking over each other, you're not going to get anything done. So you gotta have, there's gotta be one leader who's running that. There's gotta be some, some, you know, some other subordinate leaders that, and, and one person's got to drive that meeting and make sure that when someone starts going in down a rabbit hole, okay, you guys have a sidebar conversation afterward, let's keep this meeting focused. And let's, and ultimately the, a decision maker who can focus the team on a single course of action, get everybody behind them.

• 1:37:46Jocko Willink?

  I agree, and there's certainly times where you can bring too many people in to try and figure something out. I mean, that can certainly happen, and we have the good idea fairies that keep coming around with their good ideas and saying, oh, what if we did this? And what if we did that? There's also an interesting dynamic that you just pointed out that ties into a question that we had earlier, or something that we were talking about earlier, which is, okay, so let's say we have a meeting and there's 15 people in that meeting. If the leader of that meeting then, we'll say, steps down into the position of being the the director of the meeting itself, guess what he's doing the whole time? He's talking, he's pulling things, he's getting, and what he's doing while he's doing that is he's getting in the weeds of what's going on.

• 1:38:30Jocko Willink?

  So as he's getting in the weeds of what's going on, he's losing the strategic vision. And so if there's 20 people in a meeting and you as the leader are going, okay, what do you think? What do you think? What are you thinking? Hey, no, let's get it refocused. When you're doing all that traffic copying, you're actually losing your strategic altitude. You're not going to be able to see and make a good clear decision. So if there's 30, 40, 50 people in a meeting, and you as the leader get down in the weeds and get down in the trenches and you start throwing down with everyone, well, it's not going to take very long. Well, you're just, you're just one of the troops and you don't see anything. Whereas if you let, let one of the other leaders, let one of the subordinate leaders, let them step up,

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  let them start to do their thing, let them do the direction of the meeting, and you might even tell them, hey, run this meeting. I would do that. I'd be like, hey, you run this meeting. And then you let them get in there in the trenches and let them try and sort out ideas and their mind gets filled with a bunch of crap. And meanwhile, you're in the meeting, you're just not running it. So there's a big difference between running the meeting and overseeing the meeting, or being in the meeting, or being the leader of a meeting. So if we're going through a kill house, or if we're going, if we're going through a kill house, that's a good example, which is, you know, the building with a bunch of rooms in it. If as the leader, you don't say, hey, I'm gonna run this kill house, I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not gonna direct the movement through the kill house. Because then guess what you're doing? You're directing the movement through the kill house.

• 1:39:57Jocko Willink?

  What you want to do is take a step back and say, hey, you. Third, fourth, fifth in the chain of command, you run this kill house. You run the train and now that guy goes, okay, cool. I got it. And now while he's running the train, doing the work, you step back at altitude. You can see what's going on. You can hear the frustration. You can hear shots fired. You know where people are moving, then you become, you're the real leader. So same thing at a meeting, if the dynamics of the meeting or you get more than 10 people, 15 people, and what you're doing is you're down there directing traffic, it's going to be really problematic for you. If you have a meeting with 15 or 20 people and you tell someone else to direct the meeting and run the meeting and you take a step up and you simply observe,

• 1:40:41Jocko Willink?

  you're going to have a better time

• 1:40:45Jocko Willink?

  feeling like the meeting is effective and you will get the benefit of hearing all these different voices, which is good, which is good to hear all these different opinions and voices and be able to pick through and sort through, and that's going to give you more benefit than, you know what? I get, there's too much going on in this meeting. Only give me two people and we'll make the decisions. Well, there's some people, number, number, the sixth person, that person had a good input, right? The 12th person might've had some good input. So again, is there balance? Yes. Are there certain decisions that you kind of need to take and really dive down in with a small group? Absolutely. But is it good sometimes to let things air out and let someone run a meeting and you listen and you learn kind of what the overall atmospherics of the situation are? Absolutely. That's my answer.

• 1:41:31Leif Babin?

  I think it's a great, but it helps people, it helps people listen to you as well, right? I mean, when, if, if you're the boss and you're just sitting back and you're not saying anything and then all of a sudden you're like, hey, guys, we're getting way off topic here. This is what we need to do. Here's the direction we need to go. Got it. Everyone's back on track. Whereas if you're in the middle of it, then yeah, people are just automatically, you know, kind of doing their thing.

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure we've said this before and I know we talked about it earlier, but like when I would say something on the radio and tasking a bruiser, when I would say like a legitimate thing, man, it would happen. If I got on and said, everyone get to building 34 now, people would go. And I, one of my favorite things to do, one of my favorite conversations to have on the radio with, with either you or Stoner was like, I remember you'd be like, You'd say, "Hey, Jocko, we got another mover where I want to take down Building 34." And I'd come up and go, "Do it." That was all I'd ever said. Be like, "Do it." And then just like go, because I'm not trying to talk, right? I got, these guys got their situations handled. "Hey, he's going outside of something that we planned." "Hey, Jocko, I want to build a, move to Building 34 and take that thing down." "Do it."

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  Nah, "Well, why do you want to do that?" You know why he wants to do it? Because he's got a good reason. He's not asking me that because it's a fantasy that he thinks it's going to be cool. No, there's a reason. And he'll explain that to me later. And if it was something where he's like, "I want to, you know, start doing jumping jacks out here," then I might ask why, because that doesn't make much sense to me. But to say, "Hey, we're going to hit Building 34 as well."

• 1:42:55Leif Babin?

  What if, if we were doing burpees? Would, uh, would that make more sense?

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  That, that makes a little more sense. A little more sense than jumping jacks.

• 1:43:03Leif Babin?

  No, look, that, that absolutely worked. It worked for us. When you, when you said something over the radio, like, "Got it, we're good." Like, it, it, decision made, everyone's on board. And, uh, I, I think it's, it's something that, um, you, you've got to, you've, you've got to focus on what, like, when a leader talks, it should matter. And, and, and I think you can be, you got to be really careful about that. Uh, and I've certainly been a chief violator of that, of like, going off of too dip, too many different directions. But, um, that, that you did extremely well with Tasking a Bruiser, and it works. Uh, and every leader should be very cognizant of that.

• 1:43:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the less you talk, the more people listen. All right, next question.

• 1:43:39Jocko Willink?

  "In a,

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  in a middle management position, what's the best way to support the company and leadership you work for while still showing your fellow workers they are supported and appreciated? I work in surgery at a large hospital within an even larger corporation."

• 1:44:03Jocko Willink?

  This is one of those things, and I remember saying, I'm sure I got this from Hackworth, but it's one of those things that I've said so many times, I actually probably forget to even give credit to Hackworth. But, you know, when problems, little problems would arise up the chain of command, and I'd be like, "Everyone hates the echelon of command above them," right? That's the way it is. Like, and, and that's just the way it is. That's the way it is. It's always, they don't get it. It's always, they don't understand. Unless you get somebody that really knows how to explain and communicate down the chain of commands that everyone understands why they're doing what they're doing. That's what this is. That's exactly what this is. What's the best way to support the company and leadership is to take what the company and

• 1:44:43Jocko Willink?

  the leadership of the company says and translate it to the troops in a way that they understand and that means something to them. Right? So, you go to a big meeting and, you know, like let's say an all hands meeting for a company. And, and the CEO is saying, "Hey, we made, you know, we made eighty-seven million dollars last year profit." And if all the frontline troops are in there, they're like, "Well, that's cool.

• 1:45:13Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't see that reflected in my paycheck. By the way, you gave me a four-dollar raise over the last three years. How about some of that eighty-seven million, kick it down to the people?" So, that's problematic because we aren't explaining, "Hey..." That's it. That, literally, that statement right there will actually make people mad. The, the CEO's thinking, "Everyone's gonna love me because I'm telling them how profitable we are as a company." All everyone's thinking is, "Well, then why can't you afford to buy me that piece of gear that we need on the front lines? What's your problem?" That's, so you actually think you're helping, but you're actually hurting. Unless you can explain to people, "Look, we made this much profit. Here's how it's gonna benefit us as a company and you as a frontline troop. By us making this much money,

• 1:45:55Jocko Willink?

  it means we can grow these areas. It means we can bring on more people. That means everyone in this room right now, in the next three years, you're gonna have an opportunity to be in a leadership position." That's what I'm talking about. That's why we're trying to grow. That's why we're trying to do better. By the way, as we, this is snowballing even more because now we're putting more money into advertising. We've got a whole advertising campaign that's going out. We've invested a bunch of money in that and it's gonna bring us more business. And that means the jobs that you think might not be stable, your job, if you don't think it's stable, it just got stable because we have the capital to get this machine moving even faster. So, when you do that, when you explain to the troops why something's happening, it makes them understand and it shows your people, "Hey, you're supporting."

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Are there times where you should push back? Yes, there are. And if something makes no sense whatsoever, you should raise your hand and say, hey, let me run this up the chain of command. Let me run this up the chain of command and explain why this isn't a good idea. And that way you can go, and when you get the reason, because there'll be a reason. And it might not be the best reason, but it'll be a reason. And you go back to troops and say, hey, here's why this is going on. This is what's happening. This is the decision they made. And you know what? We're going to do our best to execute it because that's what we do. We make things happen. We're going to get it done. Boom.

• 1:47:09Leif Babin?

  And we got a great, we've got a great depiction of that in, in the, talking about being humble, not passive and pushing back where it matters. In the dichotomy of leadership. That's, that whole section is talking exactly about that. It's a very hard thing for people. And the basis of this question though, is the us versus them, right? Front lines versus corporate headquarters. And you've got to defeat that. If you're a good leader, you got to recognize, look, we're all on the same team. We can't do what we need to do without having the support. And, you know, the resources and the approvals of plans from the corporate headquarters, you know? And corporate headquarters that oftentimes, so not only is there frustration up the chain, there's also frustration down the chain.

• 1:47:53Leif Babin?

  You hear that all the time, like, well, the front lines, they don't really get it. They don't get it over there. Well, listen, the front lines is where the actual mission gets won or lost. So you've got to.

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  You might want to have them on board with the program.

• 1:48:05Leif Babin?

  Exactly. So you got to make sure that, you know, that it's got to, if you want a successful team, you can't have us versus them.

• 1:48:10Jocko Willink?

  Why don't you get on board for the big win?

• 1:48:12Leif Babin?

  Get on board for the big win.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the full metal jacket, right? What's your problem, son? Why don't you get on board for the big win? And, and you think, oh, well, if I'm the general and I'm telling this young guy that's got a peace sign on his helmet. That represents the dichotomy, maybe that's where I learned the word dichotomy from. That represents the dichotomy of, what does he say? The dichotomy of man.

• 1:48:31Leif Babin?

  I think he says the duality of man.

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  The duality of man. Yeah, you're right. That represents the duality of man. Why don't you take that thing off and get on board for the big win? And that's such a great line from that movie. Join the team, son. Get on board for the big win. That's such a great line from that movie because that's exactly what we're talking about. That does absolutely nothing for that frontline soldier that goes, okay, you're saying that and I'm literally burying people right now in this situation. And so for you saying that to me means nothing. In fact, it shows how completely freaking out of touch you are. And so they did a great job in that movie of representing that through one single line. Hey, why don't you just get on board for the big win? It's like, well, no, actually, why don't you lead? How does that sound?

• 1:49:16Jocko Willink?

  So communicate up and down the chain of command. Make sure people know why and tie in why it matters to them. Next question.

• 1:49:27Jocko Willink?

  In Extreme Ownership, you talk about being close with the team, but not so close that they forget who's in charge or that the good of the team suffers. How do you overcome the isolation of leadership? What strategies did or do you employ to avoid the isolation becoming an issue?

• 1:49:48Jocko Willink?

  This is an example of I'm gonna take this to the extreme. Hey, I'm not gonna be too close to my people. Guess what? I'm not talking to them, right? I'm not gonna speak to them. I'm gonna, I gotta maintain a distance. I gotta, and it's, it's obviously not true. It's obviously not true. And I think, you know, the, the relationship that you and me and Seth and the, that, that we all had was clearly this, right? I wasn't alone. I wasn't isolated as the leader because we were all bros and hanging out. And now, did it start off like that? No, you know, I, as we always talk about, like I come across Hackworth style of like, hey, we're not gonna joke around for at least whatever, six to eight weeks to make sure that these dudes are good to go and that, that they understand where I'm coming from. And, and that's cool.

• 1:50:33Jocko Willink?

  But once we get through that, okay, like then it's like open up a little bit, then it's like open up a little bit more and then it's open up a little bit more. So that you're not isolated at the top because not only is it important that you're not isolated, that's like, that's like a marginal thing. What's more important is what I talked about earlier is If you, if Leif can't come to me and say, "Hey, man, hey, I don't agree with this plan." Or more importantly, "Hey, Jocko, here's what's going on with the troops right now. Here's what's going on with the mentality. Here's what's going on with the morale." If he can't knock on my door and say that to me, then that's a real problem. Because now, you know, I'm in the dark on what's happening inside with the troops, which is problematic.

• 1:51:17Leif Babin?

  Yeah, I think it's, this to me sounds like, I was thinking about this question and it sounds to me like maybe a junior leader that was promoter of the chain. Because that's where you really feel like when I go from, you know, the assistant platoon commander, where I'm like kind of one of the boys and I'm, you know, we're, we can, you know, it's kind of, I can kind of play interference with the officer in charge and the platoon commander. Now all of a sudden I get promoted, you recognize instantly there's a little bit of difference. You've got to maybe kind of distance yourself slightly from where you were previously and recognize.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  When you took over Charlie Platoon as the platoon commander, when did you realize that you needed to transition from being one of the boys until being the OIC and that there was, that the gap was going to open up a little bit? Was it as soon as you took over?

• 1:51:59Leif Babin?

  It was pretty quick because I'd been to BUDS and SEAL qualification training, you know, SQTR advanced training with several guys and I knew these guys very well. And, you know, I think we had a big house party, hanging out, you know, having a good time and everybody's over at my house and all of a sudden I realized something I did all the time, you know, as an assistant platoon commander. And all of a sudden, we're in at work, you know, the next week and I gotta, gotta make some tough calls and we gotta get, you know, drive the standards a little bit higher where we're at and there's some pushback. And you realize like, okay, when it's time to give people some bad news or say, "Hey, we're not doing as good as we should, we need to fix that." And they kind of give you the like, "Hey, bro, you know, what are you doing Friday?" Yeah, then it's, then you're like, okay, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to distance a little bit.

• 1:52:43Leif Babin?

  But the isolation, you should never be isolated. I think that's one thing that, you know, I remember coming into your office and I'd come in and hang out all the time in your office, you know, you'd come in and hang out in the platoon space. I mean, I'd come, you know, we'd see each other in the gym, we're like, we were always trying to find a way to like hang out and talk and, and it was even when, you know, Seth Stone was all the way across the other side of the city. I mean, you know, we'd still connect with him and talk to him on the phone at once in a while.

• 1:53:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I talked to him all the time on the ANDVT.

• 1:53:15Leif Babin?

  Yeah, you guys, you guys talk regularly, but, but having, but even, even me, you know, he, we'd always, when he came by, like, we'd always try to, try to get together and talk to each other and catch up, whether it was in the chow hall or, or, you know, in, in the platoon space. And, you know, guys like, I remember Tony would come in there, I'd come in, I'd walk in and I'd see the win plan written up on Jocko's whiteboard in Task Unit Ruzer, where Tony had written down all the things that we needed to do to win in Ramadi.

• 1:53:40Jocko Willink?

  Which were pretty harsh.

• 1:53:42Leif Babin?

  Yes, yes. Probably on the, probably on the level like Genghis Khan would certainly approve.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  There was a Genghis Khan win plan, which, you know, well, hey, man.

• 1:53:50Leif Babin?

  But we were, we were joking and laughing about that. This is the relationship Jocko had, you know, not only with me, but with, with other leaders in, in the task unit. And, and I think you have to have that. I mean, you, you've got to have a, you've got to have a relationship with your people. Um, you can't think that I can't talk to anyone, I can't interact with anyone. I think this, you're going to be unsuccessful as a leader. Um, you know, if, if you try to roll that way, it's just not going to work.

• 1:54:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think where you might feel, what might feel like a isolation, which is definitely true, and this is the burden of command, right? Like, guess what? You, you're friends with Leif, you're friends with Seth, you're friends with Tony, you're friends with these guys, but at the same time, like, oh, the burden of command is on you and it's going to be, it's going to be you, you're going to, you're going to bear that, right? In your platoon, it's like, hey, you got your assistant platoon commander, you got your platoon chief, you got your LPO, but when something goes wrong, if something goes wrong, if you, if there's a bad, if something happens on a mission that goes bad, I'm not talking, I'm not, I'm not looking at

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  the assistant platoon commander, I'm, I'm looking at you. That's the burden of command. That's, so that thing, yeah, that's the, there's one man that stands on the carpet, right? That's, that's the way it works. And sometimes being one man, that's, that's a little bit of an isolating feeling.

• 1:55:05Leif Babin?

  And to help, help you understand, our leading petty officer, Charlie Platoon, awesome, awesome, amazing SEAL, love the guy. And, uh, hopefully he can be on here one of these days after his, maybe three years, as retirement comes, one, one, one of these days. But, uh, he was, I remember we were, we were up in Nevada training and, uh, we took a couple of days to go snowboarding, which was an awesome, good deal. And he like, we're in the van, he looks around, he like sees me, he's like, I'm not the senior guy in charge. And so he's screaming and laughing about how awesome it is to not be the senior guy because he knows the burden of command is now with me and not with him. If guys get in trouble or do something stupid, they shouldn't have known.

• 1:55:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Which is while you're in Tahoe, guys getting in trouble and doing stuff stupid is probably a fairly likely thing to have happen.

• 1:55:57Leif Babin?

  Highly probable.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  That's one of my favorite trips that I did multiple times. Yeah, so that's it, man. Build relationships and at the same time, you, when you're in charge, you're in charge. And there's a little bit of, that's called the burden of command. Embrace it. And I think we've got time for one more quest. There you go. In Leif and Jocko's opinion, you've been excluded from this one. Echo Charles, they don't want your opinion. What has changed or what point do you find you need to emphasize more from when you wrote Extreme Ownership to now? Well, this is a softball question that I selected.

• 1:56:41Leif Babin?

  You took all the easy ones.

• 1:56:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I think the answer to this one's pretty obvious.

• 1:56:46Leif Babin?

  That's why we wrote the book, The Economy of Leadership. I mean, this is, uh, this is what we had needed to emphasize more. And just as, you know, you talked about this when we were talking about Jaws 2, you know, whether or not, you know, the sequel is going to be as good. And, you know, we had, we had pressure to write a book. Extreme Ownership did very well. Like, hey, you guys should write another book. We didn't want to write another book until we actually had something useful to write about that would impact leaders for the better, help them be better people, better leaders, lead better teams, lead better lives. And, and that's what this is. The Economy of Leadership answers the most difficult challenges and, and obstacles that we see leaders face. And I think that three years, you know, one thing that Extreme Ownership did for us is, I mean, our company blew up as a result, Echelon Front.

• 1:57:30Leif Babin?

  We were able to work with so many more leaders and so many more companies. And we got to see this over and over and over and over and over again. And, and this, uh, this is capturing those, those issues that, that we saw, uh, and then the solutions to, to solve those problems through leadership.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think it's gonna be pretty evident. I think it was cool how it revealed itself as the subject matter of the next book. I mean, we, we, like you said, business blew up, yes. We were busy. We weren't really sitting there going, okay, what should the next book be about? What should the next book be about? We, we actually didn't even think, we weren't even thinking about it. And then as we started saying, hey, you know, people don't understand this as well. Hey, we, we should have added more chapters about the dichotomy. We should, and it's like, over time, all of a sudden, it became very, it became completely blatantly obvious that what people needed help with was this most difficult thing, which is achieving

• 1:58:31Jocko Willink?

  the balance of all the different dichotomies of leadership. And that's why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership gets on. Right on. Well, we're just hitting that two hour mark, which means we only have two hours for Echo to talk about support.

• 1:58:49Leif Babin?

  Just saying, man.

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:51Leif Babin?

  You, you said Echo was excluded for that last question, but I want to know what your answer is, Echo, from, uh, what you've learned. Since Extreme Ownership's come out, since the podcast has launched.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  Okay, so the, the, the main thing that sticks out, main thing, is that is what people seem to ask you all the time, is what do I do when other people aren't taking Extreme Ownership? And here's the thing, when you're outside and listening, you're like, haha, I see what, you know, I, it's almost like a funny question, right? Cause it's like, what, what do you call that? Like ironic, right? Kinda, where they're like, what do you do when other people, but it's you the one supposed to? Anyway, so that's, but the reason that that's significant is because when you're in the situation, that's exactly what it feels like. You can't like really see it. See what I'm saying? So you gotta detach, which kinda, kinda sheds more, even more light on the, uh, the importance of detaching, right? So it kinda feeds in, uh, into itself, but, so yeah, when you're in the situation and you have to.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Essentially take ownership when the other person should be taking ownership factually in your mind, the other person, hey, you need to take responsibility for this, that's the time you gotta take responsibility of it.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  It's hard to like, it's hard to really grasp that in the beginning, I thought.

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, that was pretty cool. Recently, we got an email from a guy that's overseas running a company and he, he listened to Dave Burke and

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  Good deal too.

• 2:00:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, good deal Dave. And I, I think it's a great example to say, can you take ownership of the weather, right? Cause the obvious answer is no, I can't take ownership of the weather. And I talked about this on that podcast is like, well, actually you can, cause you can come up with contingency plans, you can come up with, you can stage your force forward closer. And so anyways, this guy in his company, it's a software type company, an implementation company, and they piggyback on a big giant, you know, one of the biggest companies in the world. And that biggest company in the world, one of the biggest companies in the world, made some errors and it messed up their platform. And they went to their client and said, hey, the platform got messed up. It was the big guys. They did this, this

• 2:00:54Jocko Willink?

  and this wrong. And the people were like, oh, well, okay, you know, I guess. And then he went home and he listened to that podcast and he went, damn, I screwed up because that's, hey, the biggest company in the world is still easier to control than the weather, right? And so he went back to the company and he went back to the, his client and said, you know what? It wasn't their fault. It was our fault. It was my fault. Here's some things I'm gonna put in place so that this never happens again. And all of a sudden, the attitude completely changes and the client is super happy and is all of his team also. Cause what does that do to your team? When you blame, when you blame the weather, your team just goes, okay, we got a permanent excuse now. Weather wasn't good. Seas were too big, wind

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  was too high, cloud cover was too low, whatever the case may be, you got a permanent excuse now because you can't control the weather. Actually wrong, wrong. We do control the weather. We, we will set up our missions. We will set up our contingencies that no matter what the weather does, we're going to accomplish the mission. No matter what our big, whatever, no matter what the big platform that we rely on, no matter what happens with them, we're gonna be in control. That's how we roll. Get some.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  That feedback was phenomenal. And to hear him, you know, say that his client was like, I've never seen anyone handle a problem like this before. You guys have done an amazing job. And it's, it's another example of how

• 2:02:12Leif Babin?

  You're scared to take ownership.

• 2:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Scared to take ownership.

• 2:02:15Leif Babin?

  By taking ownership, you're building trust. You're building trust and you win. When you take ownership and you actually get the problem solved going forward.

• 2:02:24Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of ownership and taking ownership. Maybe Echo could take ownership of, you know, support.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Sure, be happy to.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  How to support, you know.

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  People's selves.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  Selves, the path, really, that's what we're supporting, the path, right? We're on the path. Either you're on the path or you're not on the path. Alright, if you're not on the path, I'm, well, actually, even if you're not.

• 2:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Somebody posted a picture of just a sign that said, "Please stay on the path."

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was good.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's legit.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. And I was gonna say, if you're not on the path, we're not talking to you. But if you're not on the path, I think we're talking to you equally.

• 2:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, maybe more so?

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  I wanna say more so, but really, if you're on the path, I'm talking to you super loud too, so. Equally, I think, I don't know. Maybe we'll think about that more later. Um, we'll go into Origin, right? Our company, OriginMaine.com. Geez Rashguard for Jiu-Jitsu, Leif, talked about Jiu-Jitsu earlier.

• 2:03:23Leif Babin?

  Awesome stuff. Yeah, Origin makes the best stuff. It's, uh, I've got, I think I have like five different, uh...

• 2:03:29Jocko Willink?

  You have the first, the first, the first Origin gi I ever touched was yours.

• 2:03:35Leif Babin?

  I think Rekko, you as well, right?

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:03:37Leif Babin?

  And I was like, dang.

• 2:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was at the muster in, uh, yeah, in New York. When you see the weave, like on the Origin gi, the pattern in there?

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  You're gonna understand. Here, do you have, do you have, currently, do you have any other gees that are not Origin?

• 2:03:53Leif Babin?

  I have three gees. I have one non-Origin gi, I have two Origin gees.

• 2:03:56Speaker 01

  Should I go put that on? Should I put that on?

• 2:03:58Jocko Willink?

  I like he says it like it's a threat.

• 2:04:00Leif Babin?

  Go put that on.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  See what happens, boy.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  And I'm serious, cuz I put on mine, I was like, oh, should I keep this or not? I put, I put on, you know, one of my older, and I was like, bro, I can't, I can't wear this, like, it doesn't, it's not correct.

• 2:04:11Jocko Willink?

  Donate those gees.

• 2:04:12Leif Babin?

  Even, even at the, at the, at the white belt level, uh, I can totally tell that, uh, I roll better in my Origin gi.

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, see, now, that's, that's a whole nother level. I said, I said they felt good. He's rolling better.

• 2:04:24Leif Babin?

  I'm telling you. I know, but there's something about like, it actually has give to my shoulders. I can move in a, in a way that like I, with my other gi, it's like, it's, it's really tight, I can't move, and I feel like I don't. I actually, I seem to be more successful.

• 2:04:37Jocko Willink?

  What percentage of increased performance do you achieve wearing an Origin gi?

• 2:04:42Leif Babin?

  At least nineteen percent.

• 2:04:44Speaker 01

  At least nineteen, okay.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  Minimum of nineteen percent.

• 2:04:46Speaker 01

  Actually, that is a good point, because I had a gi, it was like my second gi ever, and I was like, hey, that one looks cool, because it had like cool designs on it or whatever, and it was like thick material, for some reason, I thought that beefy, thick material looked cool. So I got it, and it, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna name the name of the brand, so it doesn't even matter, but, um, yeah, when I'm rolling it, it feels like more claustrophobic, like with it.

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Which we know you have an issue with.

• 2:05:09Speaker 01

  I did before, yeah, back.

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  Did I cure you of that? Did I cure you of claustrophobia?

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  I think you were a contributing factor to the cure of my claustrophobia.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  I was rolling with Andy, and we were rolling with the gi, and I was trying to do like a crazy, whatever, lapel, not lapel, what's the, what's the down here, like the bottom part of the jacket?

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the lapel.

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  So I had Andy, and I was, and I was almost just working something, and I couldn't, I didn't have enough jacket out. And I was like, I whispered to him, I'm like, I'm gonna have Origin make you a thing, a gi with longer, for me to wear, for him to wear, when I'm rolling with him.

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:05:46Jocko Willink?

  And then he was doing, he, you know how people drag your jacket and they get between your leg on a single? You know what I mean?

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:05:52Jocko Willink?

  And he, he's doing, he's like, that's his game right now, and I told him, and I was like, I'm gonna make, have Origin make a gi for me that's shorter than this, so you can't grab it. So anyways.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  Tailor to your gi.

• 2:06:02Jocko Willink?

  We gotta do it, we gotta do it.

• 2:06:03Speaker 01

  But that makes sense, though, if you roll better, like if you're feeling like you're kinda in a straight jack, I'm not saying other brands feel like straight jack, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying if you have a specific feeling while you're rolling, and it's improving your game.

• 2:06:16Leif Babin?

  The fit of it makes all the difference for me. And particularly for a guy like me who's not very flexible, it's, it's awesome, and it definitely improves your game, and it helps you.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  And you look good, by the way, side note. Also, speaking of looking good and feeling good and comfort, they do have joggers and t-shirts and whatnot. Most comfortable joggers, still, to date, in my experience, which is, means a lot.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Are you getting Jocko to wear those joggers yet?

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  I.

• 2:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Joggers, yeah. Even though apparently the undisputed champion of comfort, according to.

• 2:06:43Speaker 01

  Connoisseur, yes.

• 2:06:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and rash guards. I, I wear, I wear the rash guard when I'm working out, some days, the days I wear it when I'm working out, it's long sleeve, is when I'm doing a lot of stuff on the rings, so my arms don't get all chafed up, which is a comfort move, if you break it down. Just saying.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 2:07:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm approaching that.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Let's say the results of not having the rash guard or impedes or gets in the way of your functionality or something like this. You know, you know how like, um, like some people that they'll wear straps or they'll wear, um, I don't know what.

• 2:07:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like someone that's in a full powerlifting suit?

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:23Jocko Willink?

  You ever seen that?

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  Like the full thing?

• 2:07:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's more of like in a, I don't know.

• 2:07:28Jocko Willink?

  When someone else has to put your belt on you?

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  (laughing).

• 2:07:31Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? When they're like heaving, there's two or three people trying to heave the belt in a position.

• 2:07:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess. No, I'm thinking more cause like compare that to your rash guard scenario, right? It's like something, something that's gonna like, you know, people wear those things on their hands so they don't get blisters, right? So the blister, sure, you could power through it, but if it was measurable, would it get in the way of the performance? The blister?

• 2:07:54Jocko Willink?

  If you do rip a callus, which sometimes people post ripped callus and, and I get it, like you got a good workout in, but guess what? Your tomorrow's workout is not going to be as good, especially with that deadlifts.

• 2:08:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:08:04Jocko Willink?

  Tomorrow on the deadlifts with a ripped callus from pull-ups, it's a bad sign. You need to go back for some maintenance and make sure you don't rip those calluses.

• 2:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the question is?

• 2:08:12Jocko Willink?

  I'm stoked you got after it.

• 2:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:15Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not stoked the next day when you're like not being able to lift.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's say they wore gloves or in your case, you wear the rash guards. Is that technically for comfort? Or is it for, you know, to facilitate functionality?

• 2:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I could see fit to say that I've witnessed you do anything for comfort as far as getting after it goes.

• 2:08:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, that's cool.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:39Jocko Willink?

  I'll keep note.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we'll keep looking for that one. Also, what? Supplements, oh, Jocko has supplements.

• 2:08:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  Jocko, what supplements?

• 2:08:46Jocko Willink?

  We got joint warfare. We got krill oil. We got discipline. Joint warfare and krill oil is for your joints. And now surprisingly, alternate fact.

• 2:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Kirkumene is also good for your brain function, apparently, which I could use all the help I can get.

• 2:09:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:10Leif Babin?

  I just, I just got an order in, uh, my, a new, new replacement order in for some kroloil and, uh, joint warfare.

• 2:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Wait, you're, you're on the discipline train right now?

• 2:09:18Leif Babin?

  I'm on the discipline train.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Right at this moment. I see you've got some discipline.

• 2:09:22Leif Babin?

  Right, right at this moment. Unfortunately, I lost discipline earlier.

• 2:09:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Dude, this is weird.

• 2:09:26Leif Babin?

  Lack of discipline.

• 2:09:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he had a lack, he, he, he made discipline and then he lost his discipline.

• 2:09:31Leif Babin?

  I mixed up a huge bottle of discipline at Jocko's house and then as we were leaving to come here, I'm like, what the hell did I do with it?

• 2:09:37Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, Leif, where is your discipline?

• 2:09:40Leif Babin?

  I, I think your, I think your dog is probably getting after it right now, just like on level nineteen.

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  But you got it back though. I see. So that's good.

• 2:09:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, milk. Can't forget about the milk. Which is the tastiest of all tasties. This is comfort. This is a comfort.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that is true. That is true.

• 2:09:57Jocko Willink?

  And I'll be honest with you. Now, maybe I'd burn myself out on mint, but I've been going, I've been going Richter on TV.

• 2:10:03Leif Babin?

  Yeah. I, I haven't tried these yet. I've only have, I've got mint chocolate chip that I've.

• 2:10:08Jocko Willink?

  We'll go get some out right after.

• 2:10:09Speaker 01

  So the, okay, so the chocolate or the peanut butter chocolate comes in, right? Oh, big hype. We're talking about it. When's it come in? It's supposed to come in this one week. It took what? A few days later, whatever. Big hype. Comes in, everyone's fired up. I'm one of those people. So I'm like, boom, pounding, so I'm pounding, uh, uh, chocolate peanut butter now. Pounding it, milk train, full speed, double milk train it. So after a while, I'm pounding the, the peanut butter, you know, one and, and then I look and I still have that mint one. One day I go in, I'm gonna make it. I see the mint one and the mint one, it looked like it was looking at me like, did you forget about me? You know, like I was cheating on the mint, like I had left the mint, you know? So, uh, I put the mint one back in and I was reminded that that is my favorite one.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's your favorite flavor.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I hear you, but, um, they, they taste good.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  See, it's kinda like, it's kinda like, um,

• 2:11:00Jocko Willink?

  It's it's ridiculous.

• 2:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  It's ridiculous that you can just completely eat that and just enjoy it.

• 2:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, my daughter's.

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  Been posting, I've been retweeting it, someone's been posting like milk recipes.

• 2:11:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:11:12Jocko Willink?

  And there are all these. I haven't tried any of them yet because I just, that's not my thing.

• 2:11:18Speaker 01

  What do you, we just put it straight in milk?

• 2:11:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, I just put it in milk, but this guy's creating like, like. Cookies, all kinds of crazy milk conventions. And they look good and he's saying they taste good. So I don't know, I'll give them a try.

• 2:11:33Speaker 01

  You, what you do is, or what I wound up doing is, cause peanut butter is like, in my opinion, undeniable.

• 2:11:41Speaker 01

  Thing in life, peanut butter, the flavor. Actual peanut butter, sometimes you can mix one scoop and one scoop, you know, peanut butter, chocolate and the mint chocolate, cool, but I.

• 2:11:54Jocko Willink?

  You've done that?

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:11:55Jocko Willink?

  I'm not doing that. That's like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters.

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  And you know, that's how they won the movie. That's how they defeated the bad guy, they crossed the street.

• 2:12:05Jocko Willink?

  I'll stand down over here.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  To do is, you put peanut butter with the milk one, that's, do that, report back.

• 2:12:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  If you want.

• 2:12:16Jocko Willink?

  Hey, would at this time invite everyone to the immersion camp, but it's sold out, so I'm sorry. Sign up next year early and come hang out with us at the immersion camp. Check.

• 2:12:27Speaker 01

  Yes, also, good way to to support, Jocko has a store, it's called Jocko Store. And this is where you can get apparel. Apparel's cool, right?

• 2:12:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:39Speaker 01

  Fashion is not.

• 2:12:40Jocko Willink?

  Not cool.

• 2:12:42Speaker 01

  Okay, cool apparel, but if you wanna represent.

• 2:12:46Jocko Willink?

  Not what we're doing.

• 2:12:47Speaker 01

  Alright, there you go, but you will look fashionable if you accept the term fashionable. Jocko doesn't.

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  Maybe not.

• 2:12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, all good, you'll look good though, I think, I don't know, that's a matter of opinion, but if you wanna represent, that's where you can get shirts, rash guards. Hats.

• 2:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Trucker hats, namely, Leif, trucker hat or flex fit, where are you at?

• 2:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Chucker hat, see, there you go.

• 2:13:10Speaker 01

  Dang, one in the flex fit though.

• 2:13:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:12Speaker 01

  Interesting. I'm not against that.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  Actually, speaking of report back, I wanna know what sells more, trucker hat or, or flex fit. That's an interesting question. We'll find out what the deal is on that. And also, got a long comment about hoodies. A guy from Michigan that works construction said, "Hey, Jocko, just letting you know, in Michigan, we do need lightweight hoodies."

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  Oh, boom.

• 2:13:39Jocko Willink?

  So now, everything I've ever said has been disproven. Now, this is one man's opinion. You know?

• 2:13:46Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing about that when you kinda did take a step back, it's like you, you just went extreme. You weren't wrong, you just went extreme, that's all. You know, you gotta do the...

• 2:13:54Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have the balance.

• 2:13:55Speaker 01

  You gotta have the balance.

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Bring back the equilibrium.

• 2:13:58Speaker 01

  So this guy in Michigan, he had the balance, cuz he knows the extreme. He knows about the value of the thick hoodies in Michigan.

• 2:14:04Leif Babin?

  I gotta say for the folks in Michigan though, like, uh, being up there in North Dakota, doing some work, like, when you go to Alaska and you, you know, it's like, pretty cool out, and you, you got your jacket on, you look around, there's dudes in like t-shirts just hanging out.

• 2:14:16Jocko Willink?

  That's the way I was.

• 2:14:16Leif Babin?

  It's all relative.

• 2:14:17Jocko Willink?

  I was always like that too. This, like, in Maine, just wear, I just wear a heavy sweatshirt all day long. I mean, all winter long. Maybe occasionally you gotta throw on some kind of a parka. You know what a parka is? Being from Hawaii?

• 2:14:29Speaker 01

  No, it sounds... What you do with your car, right?

• 2:14:33Leif Babin?

  On, on the trucker hat, uh, flex fit debate though, like, flex fit, I think is great. I, I like flex, flex foot hats, but I will say, I got a large melon, and, uh, being able to adjust is, is important, bro. Particularly when you're fishing and you're rolling out, and your hat gets blown off, and it's, then it's soaking wet, you're like, eh.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  The largest melon, uh, I've ever seen on a human. There was a guy on the special boat teams, who was a great dude. He was a big... I'll just say Polynesian. Maybe he was Filipino, maybe he was Polynesian. I don't know, but he was something like that, right? Pacific Islander, I guess. His head was so big. Okay, you know a Protech helmet? You know, you know a Protech helmet. It's like a Protech bike helmet. He had one of those for, for riding in the boat for like doing operations where you gotta wear a helmet. He had one of those and he had all the foam inside of it. All of it was gone. And we still had to like basically grease up his head to get that thing on.

• 2:15:32Jocko Willink?

  And it would be, it was crazy how big his head was huge. And he was a great dude, but he had a huge head. He had no protection. He just had a little thin, he only wore that thing because it was a part of the rules.

• 2:15:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:15:44Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:15:44Speaker 01

  Technicality.

• 2:15:44Jocko Willink?

  He could have, he could have just called, he gives a look, I don't need a helmet. My freaking skull is nine inches thick. Get away from me. I can't even put this stupid helmet on, people. All right.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  So he would need the flex fit. Need a lot of flex in that fit.

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  He'd need a lot of flex in that fit.

• 2:16:00Speaker 01

  I don't think the trucker would fit, nonetheless. Anyway, like I said, jocko store dot com this week can get all this cool, my opinion, cool stuff.

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  And you made new stuff too.

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  New stuff is on there, yeah. Jocko, white tee, there's a shirt. So my brother has a Pepsi shirt and a garbage, remember garbage pale kids?

• 2:16:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  You know, the little cards, they're like, so. My twin brother, gee, he has a garbage pale kid shirt. And you'd think as an adult, you're like, all right, but it kind of, you know, it's kind of cool. It's cool shirt. And then you get your Pepsi shirt, like even if you don't drink Pepsi, it just looks cool, right? So we got a Jocko white tee shirt.

• 2:16:40Jocko Willink?

  So you just, Jack, so that was not, I thought, I actually gave you credit in my mind for having an original cool. Cause I thought I did think it looked pretty cool.

• 2:16:47Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, and the thing is, it does. The, the fact is that concept is a very cool concept. I didn't do it because, hey, Pepsi did it, so let's do it. That's not why I did it. I think that, that, that concept is cool.

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  I know.

• 2:16:57Speaker 01

  You know, Jocko white tee, let me get this shirt. And it's a tee shirt.

• 2:17:02Speaker 01

  We call those layers. Anyway, yeah, some new stuff on there. Um, check it out.

• 2:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:17:08Speaker 01

  Also, good way to support is to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, you know, wherever you, wherever you listen to your podcasts, just subscribe. That's a good way to support and leave a review if you're in the mood.

• 2:17:21Jocko Willink?

  And you know you want your kids to listen to this podcast, but you know you can't because sometimes it's completely inappropriate, but for that reason, we have the Warrior Kid Podcast. And that's questions from Uncle Jake or for Uncle Jake. And so you can get that one too, the YouTube, we also have a YouTube channel that you can subscribe to. Hey, subscribe. You know what? Let's not do this. You ever watch a YouTube video and they, at the end it goes, please subscribe and click whatever?

• 2:17:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  We're not gonna do that.

• 2:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:51Jocko Willink?

  We're not gonna do that.

• 2:17:52Speaker 01

  When you think about it, and I don't want to go into a whole deep thing here, but it seems like as a consumer, that's as an, as an audience member, a viewer of videos, whatever. You, and it does defeat the whole purpose of clicking like, right? When you like a video.

• 2:18:08Jocko Willink?

  How many people do you think get the end of a YouTube video where it says, click subscribe now to watch more awesome videos? How many people does that convince, push them over the edge and they just can't stop from clicking that subscribe button?

• 2:18:18Speaker 01

  I don't know, but from what I've read before, it's like they recommend that, like that you do that. As a content creator is what they call it. They say, yeah, hey, just ask, cause people will do it, kind of thing. It's kind of like, hey, you can't get it if you don't ask. But it does kind of give you this kind of underlying feeling of like, you're asking me to do something that's made to be organic. It's made to be, if you like this video, you press like, that's what that thing is made for. And now you're asking me to violate that whole reason that it's made. So you want me to do it as a favor. You want me to like your videos.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Like I was watching your video, cause I thought we were just cool.

• 2:18:55Speaker 01

  I, yeah.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  And I thought we were just having a little moment, right? A little two minute and 30 second moment. And then I get to the end of it and now all of a sudden you're coming out saying, asking me to do this and do that. Now this was, now I see what it was. It was a setup.

• 2:19:08Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying that's what people are doing. I'm not saying that's what you're doing if you're doing that. I'm just saying as a consumer or as a viewer, that's what it kind of feels like.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, we'll try and avoid that.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  Trying to.

• 2:19:19Jocko Willink?

  By just saying, hey, on this podcast, go there and subscribe to it. That way you won't get bothered with a little thing from Echo at the end that says, please click subscribe to catch more videos from Echo Charles.

• 2:19:30Speaker 01

  Actually here, let's put it this way, the most, the most, how should I say, accurate for lack of a better term, way to put it.

• 2:19:38Speaker 01

  If you didn't know that we have a YouTube channel, we do. If you didn't know, you could subscribe to it. Boom, now you do. If you wanna subscribe, you can, but that goes without saying, obviously. Same thing with the likes, the likes.

• 2:19:52Jocko Willink?

  I like it, that's YouTube.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  That's YouTube.

• 2:19:55Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to it.

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  Yep, it's true. Also, if you're working out, you wanna switch it up, I'm gonna talk about Onnit. So, Onnit.com slash Jocko. Here's the thing too, which I kinda forget to say. You get 10% off if you go to the slash Jocko. So, go Onnit.com slash Jocko. So, when you're buying your kettlebells, Primal Bells, Legend Bells, Rings and, you know, Battle World, stuff like that, go Onnit.com slash Jocko. That's where you can get 10% off. Really good stuff there, good info as well.

• 2:20:23Jocko Willink?

  Psychological Warfare is an album with tracks. We're working on number two right now, so we'll make that happen. And I'm getting some good requests via the interwebs about what should be on there. So, iTunes, Google Play, MP3 platforms, you can get that Psychological Warfare album.

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  With tracks, but what is that for though?

• 2:20:47Jocko Willink?

  We're not gonna let you say it, everybody knows what it's for.

• 2:20:49Speaker 01

  What's it for?

• 2:20:49Jocko Willink?

  Don't say it.

• 2:20:50Speaker 01

  Do you know what it's for?

• 2:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Yes, he knows what it's for.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  It's to combat those moments of weakness that we all have.

• 2:20:55Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna make a psychological track about how to not say something that has been said.

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  Wait, what'd he do? How'd he do it?

• 2:21:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. The dead horse. That's something that's not been said, yeah, beat a dead horse.

• 2:21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just saying, if this is the first time they heard it, they're gonna be like, hey, what is that, Psychological Warfare? I know what regular, the traditional Psychological Warfare is.

• 2:21:15Jocko Willink?

  It's kinda like if I kept saying, hey, Jocko White Tea, oh, you know what? You can deadlift 8,000 pounds. And I kept saying that over and over again, and never stopped saying it. That'd be kinda like what you're doing.

• 2:21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, so it seems like from your perspective, but from the perspective of someone just tuning in, you're not seeing it over and over.

• 2:21:30Jocko Willink?

  We're 138 podcasts deep.

• 2:21:32Speaker 01

  Here's the thing.

• 2:21:33Jocko Willink?

  And they started here. If they did, they'll go listen to another one, they'll hear it eventually, bro.

• 2:21:36Speaker 01

  And then they'll start to hear it over and over again. But, I'm saying as an individual account, which means more, in my opinion.

• 2:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:21:44Leif Babin?

  I think this can only be said on the mats.

• 2:21:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's right, I agree with you, thank you.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  No, no, no, we're getting answers.

• 2:21:49Jocko Willink?

  I like it. Jocko White Tea, Amazon, cans, you can get cans, people don't know this. You can get cans of Jocko White Tea, it's, stop drinking. Other energy drinks that are filled with sugar and other crap and get yourself some Jocka White.

• 2:22:03Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this, so you know how there's these pre-workouts?

• 2:22:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  Right, you know what pre-workout thing is, right? It's like super like it's.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what pre-workouts are, but I know what pre-workouts are.

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  Anyway, you know what I'm talking about, right? The one they have, they have like a bunch of caffeine, whatever. The, the label is real shiny a lot of the time, you know what I'm talking about?

• 2:22:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you know the ones that have a light label that's really shiny?

• 2:22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. Like in bolts on them a lot of the time? Alright, so let me ask you this. If I have a Jocka White tea in a can.

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:35Speaker 01

  It's cold.

• 2:22:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:36Speaker 01

  Right, very refreshing. And then I put some of that energy, uh, pre-workout in it. Since it doesn't have that much caffeine and I was maybe looking for some caffeine. If I put that pre-workout stuff in the, in the Jocka White tea. How much of a violation is that on a scale from one to 10?

• 2:22:53Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it's a violation, but I would just use discipline. You can put discipline in Jocka White.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's just another microdose of caffeine though.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you just want caffeine?

• 2:23:01Speaker 01

  But I'm a Jocka White tea, that's the thing. Sure, the taste got jammed up.

• 2:23:05Jocko Willink?

  There's 60 milligrams of caffeine in Jocka White tea can. That's, that's enough.

• 2:23:09Speaker 01

  Let's say hypothetically, again hypothetically, one was looking for more than 60 milligrams.

• 2:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Get. Get. Greek Fire.

• 2:23:22Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 2:23:22Jocko Willink?

  You know what Greek Fire is?

• 2:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, Origin.

• 2:23:24Jocko Willink?

  Greek Fire from Origin, which has caffeine in it. It's, it's like a, it's like a fat burner, right? So if you get that, that has caffeine in it and it'll get you, it'll get you what you need.

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  Alright, so the violation level four.

• 2:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:23:40Leif Babin?

  I, I drink a lot of coffee and, uh, a lot of caffeine and I, yeah, that's. Jocka White Tea's got plenty of caffeine for me, it's legit. I'll tell you what I like about it with the cans in particular. Where it's been crazy hot in Texas this summer.

• 2:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:53Leif Babin?

  And just, just pull like a freezing cold one out of the, uh. If I'm about to jump on my truck that's, you know, 125 degrees from sitting out in the sun. And, uh, crack open a super cold while I'm rolling down the road, it's pretty legit.

• 2:24:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's mellow. I gotta make it, you know what I gotta make is I gotta make something that, like this, that you can drink before you go to bed at night. Oh yeah huh. Just cuz cuz I can't, I mean, I want sometimes it's seven or eight o'clock at night and I think, oh man, I'll crack one open. But then I think, no, then I'll be all wired up all night. Potentially, yeah.

• 2:24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, what like you put some sort of a um cuz there's like, you know, tea, what do you call the tea that you brew before bed? Makes you mellow.

• 2:24:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:24:31Speaker 01

  Chamomile? Kind of that, yeah. Like chamomile tea?

• 2:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, we got a situation here. Late family covering and strong for the tea.

• 2:24:39Speaker 01

  Don't tell me you're made to, you're made to a bread. Don't tell me you don't know all about tea.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  I didn't know about, what is it?

• 2:24:44Speaker 01

  Chamomile.

• 2:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Ooh, look at this.

• 2:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you could take that approach, right? You could, you could call it.

• 2:24:51Jocko Willink?

  So we can have Jocko chamomile tea?

• 2:24:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, you know, you could call it that if you want, yeah.

• 2:24:56Jocko Willink?

  I would probably just call it like, well, I'll figure something out, but I will do that. Because I do need something at night, warm, hot in the summertime or hot in the wintertime, but you could drink it cold. That's tasty cuz that's the thing about the the Jocko white tea is the taste is good. Like we had this, I thought where you're going with this is if you had a can of Jocko white tea and a can of the most sweet like like doctored up thing that's supposed to taste delicious, which would you pick? I'd pick Jocko white tea all day long cuz the taste is, you know, when you, you know, when you realize that Gatorade? No offense against Gatorade, no, a little bit of offense, you know, when you realize that Gatorade doesn't actually quench your thirst?

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  Like when you're, I don't know, I think I was twenty, right? And I was real thirsty and I drank a Gatorade and I was like, why am I still thirsty?

• 2:25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  That cuz there's syrup in there or whatever, doesn't work good. Jocko white tea, you get that quench.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  It's not like.

• 2:25:52Jocko Willink?

  Get that legit quench going.

• 2:25:55Speaker 01

  Well, this spurred back to the energy or the pre-workout mix in the tea scenario. This person that we're talking about didn't finish it cuz it did jam up the whole tea scenario.

• 2:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:26:06Speaker 01

  It was like a theory.

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  That's cool. Check.

• 2:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, there it is. Boom. Jocko Whitey. Outstanding.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  Hey, books. We got Way of the Warrior Kid books. Way of the Warrior Kid and Mark's Mission. Those are good books for kids to read. Just talking to a teacher out in the gym.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:26Jocko Willink?

  Teaching the book. Eighth grade, if you're wondering about, how old is an eighth grader?

• 2:26:30Speaker 01

  Eleven, twelve.

• 2:26:31Jocko Willink?

  Eleven, twelve. So eleven, twelve year old, definitely in the zone. Sometimes when I meet someone and their kid is eight or ten, I just think your kid's in the zone. And they dig it. So Way of the Warrior Kid and Mark's Mission.

• 2:26:44Leif Babin?

  I just started reading Way of the Warrior Kid to my son.

• 2:26:48Jocko Willink?

  Does he get it? He's three, right?

• 2:26:49Leif Babin?

  He's three.

• 2:26:49Jocko Willink?

  Does he get it?

• 2:26:50Leif Babin?

  Uh, we got about thirty pages into it. He was like fired up and he wanted to go out and do some pull ups.

• 2:26:57Speaker 01

  It's funny, they get certain parts, right? You know, the grander kind of messages may not, you know, compute quite yet. But yeah, they'll get certain parts. So they'll like, like when this part comes. Just keep doing it. That's what I do.

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  Stoked at the feedback on that one. Also Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. It's a manual about how to get after it. And the audio version is not on Audible. It's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play and other MP3 platforms. So you can make it specifically, we did that.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Maybe took a little financial hit, whatever. Want people to be able to use it as an alarm clock in their phone or a ringtone. So that's what you can do there. Those are a few books. Then we got, then we got Extreme Ownership, obviously, which Jocko and I wrote. Been out for three years now. We have a new addition out. And of course, Dichotomy of Leadership, which we were just talking about. And that's for, it's available now for preorder. It'll be released September 25th. Super excited about that. Looking forward to all your readers out there providing some feedback on that. And I hope this is at least as useful to you in your lives, professional and personal lives as Extreme Ownership.

• 2:28:08Jocko Willink?

  So go get some Dichotomy of Leadership. Find the balance. You also, Leif, talk to me about the difference between first edition and let's say fifth edition of a book. Which would you rather have?

• 2:28:25Leif Babin?

  Which was, which would I rather have?

• 2:28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:30Leif Babin?

  I'd have to go with the first edition.

• 2:28:31Jocko Willink?

  That's right. That's sort of the standard.

• 2:28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the standard.

• 2:28:34Jocko Willink?

  Is there anyone running around going, "Man, I wish I had the ninth edition."

• 2:28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, can't wait for that fourth edition. Yeah.

• 2:28:40Leif Babin?

  It is pretty cool with Extreme Ownership with, where their, uh, people still come up to us and have, you know, with, with a, the co- and the original paper this was printed on was not very good for Extreme Ownership. You know, it, it doesn't have the, uh, and it doesn't have the number one New York Times bestseller across the top. So every once in a while, we still see some of those. You're like, wow, that's a, that's a, that was a first printing run.

• 2:29:01Jocko Willink?

  I just, I just, I just did that the other day. So a girl came up and I was signing her, her first edition. And there's, there's, there's four editions that you could possibly have. There's more than that. But the first one that came out is white and there's no sticker on it. As soon as they, as soon as that made New York Times bestseller, they went and got stickers that says number one New York Times bestseller. And they put them everywhere because it's a, it's an advertising gig, right? But there's, so the people that got the first 10,000 copies, it's just a plain first edition. So I know there's people, and then you got, then, then they got the stickers on it. So you're still early. Then you got the one that actually has printed on the cover, number one New York Times bestseller, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:29:41Jocko Willink?

  And then finally we get to the fourth, the fourth version, which is the black cover, back in black, which is, we have to say that one's pretty dope.

• 2:29:50Speaker 01

  It's cool, yeah.

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  It does look wicked cool.

• 2:29:52Speaker 01

  It's a different avenue of coolness though.

• 2:29:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a different avenue of coolness, but still the first edition, we always like the first edition. And if you, so if, my point is if you want the first edition, you gotta order it pre. Otherwise you're gonna get some other, you know, you'll get one that says something else on it, be all different. And we'll know. When I meet you, I'll just, I'll just be, "Oh, you want me to sign that for you, huh? That's cool. I'm glad you got in the game eventually."

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  No, man, appreciate it. Echelon Front?

• 2:30:25Leif Babin?

  If you're interested in coming and bringing us in to talk to your leadership team, your frontline troops, your mid-level managers, whatever it may be, that's what we do with Echelon Front is we solve problems through leadership. Everything that we wrote about Extreme Ownership, all the things that we just talked about for dichotomy of leadership, this is what we do. It's me and Jocko. We launched this company going on seven years now, and we worked with a lot of companies since. And now, in addition, we've got, to me and Jocko, we've got JP Denell, we've got Dave Burke, we've got Flynn Cochran, we've got some Mike Sorelli, and we just picked up a new member of our team, Main Gun Mike Bahama, a company commander with us in Ramadi, outstanding guy, awesome team of folks. And so, if you're interested in what we do through Echelon Front,

• 2:31:10Leif Babin?

  go hit us up at echelonfront.com.

• 2:31:13Jocko Willink?

  Also, we've got the muster, which is two days, leadership conference seminar gathering. That's what we call it, the gathering. It's a leadership muster, that's what it is.

• 2:31:25Leif Babin?

  Straight up, yeah.

• 2:31:26Jocko Willink?

  October 17th and 18th, up in San Francisco. All the other ones have sold out. This is the sixth muster. They've all sold out. This one's gonna sell out even earlier, actually.

• 2:31:35Leif Babin?

  I think so. We're way ahead of schedule.

• 2:31:36Jocko Willink?

  We're way ahead of schedule. If you want to come to it, extremeownership.com, you can come to the muster.

• 2:31:42Leif Babin?

  And then also, for our military, law enforcement, firefighters, Border Patrol, paramedics, first responders, anybody in uniform, we're launching our first-ever first responder, military, uniform-wearing-focused leadership gathering. And this is, we're calling it the Roll Call. Roll Call 001, first ever is gonna happen September 21st in Dallas. And this thing is, it was by request. We've worked with so many different first responders, and, you know, fire departments, and law enforcement groups, and police departments, federal, state, local.

• 2:32:21Leif Babin?

  We've worked with all levels of, you know, of these groups, and we've had so many folks say, hey, And we have a focus leadership conference just for us, and that's what this is. So we've got several hundred people have already already signed up for this thing. This is this is for you guys. This is for all you listeners that are interested in this. We try to make it at a price point that was much more affordable than the muster so that we could we could have as many folks attend as could come. And we hope you come from far and wide to be there. We're going to be talking about the importance of training, the importance of dealing with what you deal with every day and driving those standards and pushing your team and leading up the chain as well

• 2:33:03Leif Babin?

  as, you know, all those kind of specific law enforcement firefighter, first responder, military focused issues that we can really dive into. You know, we don't have to talk about the business leader stuff because this is for you guys. That's what it's for. So if you're interested in that, if you're on the fence, if you're thinking about it, come join us for a roll call at in Dallas, September 21. And of course, you've heard on this podcast, we've we launched a new company, a subsidiary company to Echelon Front. It's called Echelon Front Overwatch, or EF Overwatch. And you can check that out at EFOverwatch.com. It's a great company designed to, one of

• 2:33:47Leif Babin?

  the biggest things that that we see from the companies we work with is people ask us, where can we get people like you? Where can we get folks with a mindset of extreme ownership? And so we started that in the special operations world. And the goal of Overwatch is to take special operations veterans and combat aviator veterans and place them in companies with, place them in companies who are looking for people with that mindset. And EF Overwatch is something I'm super excited about. We have a massive demand signal right now. Frankly, we have a lot more clients that are reaching out, these companies that are seeking folks a place and offer them job opportunities. And

• 2:34:29Leif Babin?

  we have a lot more clients than we have on the candidate side. So if you're a special operator and you're about to be retired or leaving.

• 2:34:38Leif Babin?

  Just leaving the military, or I've left even a few years ago, or on the combat aviation side, go to efoverwatch.com, fill out the, uh, the application there and start the paperwork because we've got, there's an awesome opportunity, uh, here for some great companies with, uh, some, some great leadership positions and some, some, uh, promising promotion opportunities and, uh, and some companies that exhibit extreme ownership that have that as part of their culture. So, uh, don't miss out on those opportunities. Go to the website, uh, and put your information, efoverwatch.com and, uh, come get in the game. There's a lot of, uh, a lot of great work to be done, a lot of massive opportunity out there.

• 2:35:15Jocko Willink?

  Companies need good leaders.

• 2:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Come and get it. And until we see you at the muster, or we see you at roll call, or we see you at the immersion camp doing the jujits. If you want to ask us questions, or if you want to give us answers, you can find us on the interwebs. On Instagram, Leifiz, at Real Leif Babin, on Twitter, and on that facey boy, Leif is at Leif Babin. And of course, on all those, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, anything else?

• 2:35:58Speaker 01

  Negative.

• 2:35:59Jocko Willink?

  Leif, any closing thoughts?

• 2:36:01Leif Babin?

  Good to be back on with you guys again. Stand by to get some.

• 2:36:05Jocko Willink?

  Always, always good to have you. And thanks to everyone for listening and supporting this podcast, especially to those people that make this podcast possible. The people that make this podcast possible. And it's not some long list of sponsors. The people that make this podcast possible is our military, our police, law enforcement, firefighters, border patrol, paramedics, other first responders. Without you protecting us from evil abroad and keeping us safe here at home, we wouldn't be able to do what we do. So thank you for doing what you do.

• 2:36:47Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else out there, whether you are making something or baking something, whether you're serving food or serving warrants, whether you work in a bank, or you build banks, if you wear a suit and tie, or you wear coveralls and a hard hat, no matter who you are and what you do, do it to the best of your ability. Take pride in your work and be the best you can, but at the same time, stay balanced. Be aggressive, but not reckless. Take ownership, but empower your team. Be humble, but not passive.

• 2:37:32Jocko Willink?

  Be disciplined, but be free. Balance the dichotomies of leadership and the dichotomies of life. And as you do that, keep getting after it. And until next time, this is Leif and Echo and Jocko. Out.