145: What We Can Learn From The Principles of War From the US, Soviets, and Other Military Forces. FM FM 6-4.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:31 - Marine Rifle Company Manual: The Principles of War. 0:55:40 - Principles of War from The USSR and other countries. 1:33:15 - Jocko's NEW Book, "Mikey And The Dragons" 1:47:04 - How to Stay On THE PATH / Support. 2:22:27 - 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.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 145 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  The primary mission of the Marine Rifle Company and Platoon is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or to repel his assault by fire and close combat.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  The primary mission of the weapons platoon of the rifle company is to provide supporting, direct and indirect fires, including close-in anti-tank fires and demolitions for maneuvering or defending elements of the rifle company.

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  It does not get much more straightforward than that. That is taken directly from FM FM 6 Tac 4 Marine Rifle Company. And this is a, this is a solid manual, a very solid manual, a very solid field manual. And one of the reasons that I pulled it out again, because I wanted to look at the general principles of war and this has, so the, the US military, all branches, talk about the principles of war as the, as America sees the principles of war. For whatever reason, the FM FM 6 Tac 4 has sort of the best descriptions of them that

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  I like, I should say, maybe they're not the best, they're my preferential ones, the ones that I prefer. So the principles of war, pretty straightforward, but I wanted to talk about them. And this kind of led me down a little rabbit hole, which I sometimes go into when it comes to, you know, military strategies, principles, tactics. And I ended up in a place that I, that I thought was very interesting. It kind of brought me back to something that I'd uncovered years ago. One of those early things that started to.

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  Gel my thought process. Started to, started to see little, little, little connections in the world.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  So it started with this. So the principles of war, so they, they talk about just these broad principles of war. Again, everyone in the military covers these principles, everyone in the US military covers these principles of war. Here's how the Marine Corps in the Marine Rifle Company manual discusses them. Okay. Principles of war. General, the principles of war are fundamental truths governing the prosecution of war.

• 2:52Jocko Willink?

  That's so legit. Anyways, I'm gonna read that again. The principles of war are fundamental truths governing the prosecution of war. There you go. The principles of war are guidelines to be used by a commander to effectively apply the combat power of the marine company or platoon to aid in the accomplishment of the assigned mission. The effective application of these principles is essential to the proper exercise of command and the conduct of war.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  Although combat leaders have studied the principles, it is not enough to name them in sequence, but rather to know when and how to relate them to the combat environment. The principles of war are included here to provide a review for the commander to be used when applying doctrine contained in this manual. Now, the important parts to remember is, and you're gonna see this, that these principles do not only apply to war at all. In fact, they apply to everything.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  Principle number one. Objective. The objective of a military force is the goal or aim usually expressed as a mission for which the force was constituted. This principle is overriding.

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  It is applicable to any operation at any level of command. The objective of a force can be stated in either broad or precise terms depending upon the nature of the goal. Each element of an infantry unit contributes to the attainment of the objective of the larger unit of which it is a part. For example, when the objective of a battalion has been defined, all elements of the battalion must be assigned objectives that facilitate the attainment of the battalion objective. Success in combat is measured by the accomplishment of the mission. So this is important to remember from a leadership perspective. When you come up with a mission, and it's a broad mission for your company or for your team,

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  then the smaller teams within your team have got to redefine that mission as it applies to them. And make sure that what they come up with for a mission is aligned with and supports the broader mission of the team. So when you own a manufacturing plant, and your goal is to manufacture X amount of widgets a month, well then the people on the line, they have their little portion of that widget that they manufacture. And they got to make sure that they can fulfill their part of mission that allows you to do this overall success. Also, there's like supply people that are bringing the supplies in for the widget. Their goal, their mission is to provide the supplies needed to make these things.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  And so that's what it is. You've got to make sure that the the mission of the subordinate units are in support of and nested inside of the broader mission. But sometimes we forget as leaders that the frontline people or the subordinate people below you in the chain of command, they might not understand that they need to do that. It might not happen. So you need to do it for them. Sometimes you need to spell things out.

• 6:09Jocko Willink?

  Next. Offensive.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  By the offensive, the commander can impose his will on the enemy, set the pace and course of battle, exploit enemy weaknesses, and meet unexpected developments. Boom. Be on the offensive. What do we call this? We call this default aggressive, right? That's the similar, and I will continue to make the comparisons between what we talk about, what I came up with the original four laws of combat, and how they are intertwined with these principles.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Even in the defensive, the commander must be alert to regain the initiative by offensive counteractions. Aggressiveness, flexibility of mind, and the ability to make rapid, reasoned decisions are required to apply fully the principle of the offensive. In defense, the commander can often best accomplish his mission by offensive action. So even when you're on defense, you should be you should be looking to go on the offense. And there's some other definitions that talk about, this is very, very clear when you're training jiu-jitsu. Have you ever trained with someone? Well, I know you have. When you're training with someone that's constantly attacking,

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  that's, that's, you're gonna go down. I mean, you're gonna, when someone, that's how someone gets the upper hand. They're attacking here, they're attacking there, they're attacking over here, they're attacking back there again. And you're constantly on the defense, defense, defense, defense, and eventually they get the upper hand and crush you.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:53Jocko Willink?

  Very clear in jiu-jitsu.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  Next.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  Simplicity.

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  Simplicity demands that detailed, simple plans be adopted in every military operation. It's an interesting dichotomy, detailed and simple. It is, of course, a relative term because all actions in war are essentially complex. That's a great point. And I talk about that, too. I talk about how easy it is to, like, how these, how a mission, hey, it's so easy to, a SEAL mission is not rocket science, right? It's not brain surgery. You've, you know where the bad guy is. You know where you are. You're gonna load in some helicopters or some vehicles or some boats. You're gonna go to where they are and you're gonna get them and you're gonna come back. There's the mission. That's a little oversimplified. And it's not that much oversimplified, but, you know, there's things like fuel. There's things like load, load plans.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  There's thing about weight, how much each vehicle can carry or how much each helicopter can carry. So there's, there are, and how you're gonna put cover fire down. There's, there are more detailed things. So, like the statement says, "All actions in war are essentially complex." And I will say

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  that all actions in war are also essentially simple. Because what are you trying to do? You're trying to close with and destroy the enemy. That's it. I've had that happen with companies where I go into a company and

• 9:16Jocko Willink?

  they've lost sight of the simplicity of their mission. The simplicity of their mission is to make something. And they get all wrapped around all these other things. But what you're supposed to be doing is making this thing. And everything that you're doing should be lead to supporting the making of this thing. And people go down, they, they focus their efforts in other areas. So it's good to think about, yes, there's complexities. It's, it's a total dichotomy. It's a total dichotomy in business, too, right? There's a total dichotomy. It's, it's very complicated, but at the same time, it's actually very simple.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  So when you feel things getting too complicated, that's when you take a step back and you go, okay, what is we, what are we actually trying to do here? That's the question.

• 9:59Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, simplicity will be especially important on the nuclear battlefield.

• 10:07Jocko Willink?

  Where the full use of available means will require close control and coordination and where plans must be simple, as simple as the situation will, will permit. Detailed, simple plans lead to coordinated, timely execution. So, what's interesting, the copy that I'm using of this, and it's gonna lead to the rest of this whole podcast, which, which is when we're gonna start talking about the Soviets, and which goes back to the 80s. I think the date on this book, on this particular version, is the 80s, which is Cold War, prepare for nuclear combat. And when we get into the Soviets and what they're thinking, you're gonna see, nuclear combat was absolutely

• 10:51Jocko Willink?

  part of, it was part of their planning. And so, same thing here. I don't even know that I have a comment about keeping your nuclear war simple. I don't know if I have a comment on that. Hey, we're gonna drop bombs and everyone is gonna die. I don't know how we simplify that anymore. And clearly, laws of combat, simplicity, simple, that's one of the primary laws. It's actually law number two, in my laws of combat that we put in extreme ownership. And why is that? Because I would see over and over and over again, what would jam up, to use your term, what would jam up a SEAL platoon?

• 11:33Jocko Willink?

  It's a complicated plan. They would do it every single time. So, you have to keep it simple. And that's one of those ones, before I really started diving into, sort of, the broad canon of military theory. I, I had told everyone, hey, you gotta keep it simple, you gotta keep it simple. And I'd been told, you know, the Vietnam guys would say, keep it simple, stupid, you know, kiss. But I, I was a little nervous that I was maybe overboard with that. And, and as soon as you start looking at it, keeping things simple is a broad military principle that's been around forever. And there's a reason, because it's true.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  Next up, unity of command. Unity of command is the establishment of a single authority. This is the best means of ensuring unity of effort, which implies a singleness of purpose and cooperation by all elements of the command.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  That one seems obvious. I'll tell you what prevents this from happening. Most of the time, it's ego. Most of the time in the business world, it's, no one wants to say, hey, you know what? We're putting this other guy in charge. Give him the support that he needs. Most of the time in the business world, well, you know, we don't want to make Billy feel bad.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:53Jocko Willink?

  So, you know what? You run this part of it and then you run the other part of it. And then, and then Jennifer over here, she can run it. So it's all, it's actually all three of you going to coordinate together to, uh, to make this happen. Well, who's in charge? You're all in charge. How's that work out? Not good. The only way it works out good is if one of those people, or, or two of the three people are exquisite leaders with no egos and can prop up the other person that's an egomaniac and make them feel good and let it happen. Otherwise, it's going to be problematic. You'd see this, so in the military, what they do is they designate someone as the main effort. So, one, one company or one battalion will be designated, okay, you're the main effort, we're all here to support you.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's something you definitely have to be careful of. And I'll tell you, I'll give you a little hint, a little help. The best way to do this is just to do it. The best way to do it is be like, hey, you know what? I need one person running this. So Billy, you got this one.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  Jennifer, I'll probably give you the next one, but Billy, you, you need to, you need to take command of this one. I know you know this terrain a little bit better. You run this one.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  Jennifer, if we go over to your, your market area next time, you'll be running it. So, do what you can to support Billy right now, because you, he'll be supporting you in the future.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  Boom, done. What we, what people do, they don't want to have the hard conversation. They don't want to just tell Jennifer that she needs to take the backseat on this one. It hurts too much, so they put everyone in charge. And now you got no one in charge. Now you got a disaster on your hand. Unity of command.

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  Next. Mass.

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  Mass depends, or sorry, mass demands that superiority of combat power be attained at the critical time and place for a decisive purpose. This superiority is both qualitative and quantitative. Combat power is primarily a combination of firepower and maneuver, which is applied at the right time, at the right place, for a decisive purpose. So what does this mean? Focus your efforts. Yeah. This means prioritize and execute. This is the same thing, this is the same idea as prioritize and execute, which is pick where, pick what the biggest problem is, and that's what you're going to attack. Focus your resources on it.

• 15:22Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. The use of nuclear weapons by enemy forces will require greater dispersion for passive defense. Therefore, a greater stress must be placed on the application of mass from the point of view of time rather than space. Violation of this principle exposes the command to the risk of piecemeal defeat even by an inferior enemy.

• 15:52Jocko Willink?

  Let's hope we don't have nuclear war.

• 15:58Jocko Willink?

  Next, economy of force. Economy, oh, before we get there, mass, another, another way that this relates to jiu-jitsu is that when you get an arm lock, what are you doing? You're focusing all your strength on the one weak point of the enemy. Yeah. When you get a choke, what are you doing? You're focusing all your force on that one weak point of the enemy, their neck. Yeah.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  Next, number six, economy of force. Economy of force requires that sufficient force be applied at other than the decisive time and place to permit mass to be applied at the point of decision. These two principles, economy of force and mass, are so closely related that they cannot be considered singly. Application of the two principles requires a sound estimate of what is sufficient elsewhere to permit the attainment of decisive superiority at the decisive time and place. Sufficient is the key. It connotes the application of force

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  necessary to accomplish the purpose and not the application of as little force as possible. So, economy of force, this is, we heard a lot about this in judo. Right, when we, when we talked about judo in depth,

• 17:21Jocko Willink?

  it's all about economy of force. That's sort of the underlying principle of judo, which therefore makes it one of the underlying principles of jujitsu, depending on what kind of game you got.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say, I think, I mean, that's cool in theory, but you know, get on the mats, it's, it's not gonna be like that all the time. I mean, yeah, if you can perfect it, good.

• 17:41Jocko Willink?

  But there's some people that have the kind of game where they're going to use economy of force to their advantage because they're gonna wear the other person out.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:49Jocko Willink?

  I would say I actually do that.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:52Jocko Willink?

  I do that. I don't, I will, I will allow people to move around and get tired.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  And that's sort of a good thing for me to do. I don't do it all the time and I can't do it to everyone.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, I can't, it's right now, I can't really tire out Andy, Big Andy. He's, he's not getting tired right now.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the, um, that's the general principle, you know, like it's just generally that's what you're doing, whether you're perfecting it or not, generally that's what you do. So like, you know, when you're a white belt and someone mounts you, or even if you mount somebody, you're like going for stuff and you're trying to get out immediately and all this stuff, even though, bro, that's not the best time to get out. You can kind of use timing.

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  Actually, I understand your point.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Before they settle, okay, yeah, there's that.

• 18:35Jocko Willink?

  The best time to get out is right when they get there.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Right, before they.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, that's the best time, that's the best time to disrupt any situation.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  Like if you've got a situation. Like a self-defense situation? You you just disrupted immediately as soon as it starts, right? You just poke some, you know, stick a pen in their eye and run away, right? You don't wait for them to grab you and you don't do that. An active shooter situation. You don't think, oh, well, I'm gonna see where this is going. No, you immediately disrupted, get out of there as fast as you can.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:06Jocko Willink?

  You don't wait around.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:07Jocko Willink?

  So you don't let the enemy settle in their position. Because once they settle in their position, they're they're now. They can now focus on what's happening. Cause they're no longer having to focus on settling, right? They've they've established position. When you when you're fighting against an established position, it's problematic.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, for and and I guess, you know, you know, maybe it's a little bit different, but technically it's in the transition, basically.

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  It is in the transition.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  So it's like.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Dean does a really good job of teaching where as the person gets into their final movement to get in position.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:46Jocko Willink?

  He teaches where the gaps are.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  Cause there are definite gaps there.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and in the middle of a transition, for example, that's that's a huge gap, but in a way, since they don't necessarily have whatever the position they're going for, like the mount, for example. In the transition to the mount, they don't really have the mount. So that's a huge gap, but it's not technically. You know, escaping the mount technically because they don't have it. So when you go to the other side of that that transition, still in the transition, though, maybe the second, we'll call it the second half of the transition. Be way before they settle for sure. Yeah, that's where it's gonna be 100%. But when you're a white belt, though, let's say they they settle in and you know when someone gets like, okay, we're gonna use them out as the example, the guy's mounted, right? Hooks it or feet established, hands, weight established.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  Fully mounted.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Fully mounted. Points established, whatever, if you're in a tournament. Oh, and the earlier the earlier on, you're in your Jiu Jitsu career, you're gonna be trying to get out of there immediately.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  Getting nuts.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's not economy of force right there because it's like.

• 20:43Jocko Willink?

  The person is fully established.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:45Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I'll go ahead and tell you there's you're you're wasting energy.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:49Jocko Willink?

  That person is fully established.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:51Jocko Willink?

  You lost your opportunity.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:53Jocko Willink?

  When during that transitional period.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Right, so the point there, though, is. In jiu-jitsu, the more you learn, the more you kind of learn about jiu-jitsu, the more you you realize that, yeah, that's a general purpose. Like, your whole jiu-jitsu game is economy of force. Your whole game, you're not going to perfect it every single split second of your jiu-jitsu. Sometimes you'll even step outside of the rule to make something specific happen.

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes Dean will be like, "Oh, that was a spaz defense."

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:19Jocko Willink?

  Like, I'll just get nuts for a few seconds because, you know, in hopes that an opening opens up, and oftentimes it does.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Or you're stronger than that guy for a second, or whatever.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm not condoning or encouraging the spaz as the premier escape situation, because it's not. Because there's plenty of times, especially against an unskilled opponent, they can spaz all they want, they're not going anywhere.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yes, correct. Yeah, exactly right.

• 21:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, I got something, you know, I talked to, uh, I was talking to Dave Burke about this.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dean.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And from a leadership perspective, there is also something very similar that happens, from a leadership perspective. As a leader, let's say, okay, when you're a black belt, or a brown belt, you have someone that's a white belt, right? You're mounted on them, and they're grabbing, whatever they're grabbing, they're grabbing it with full, like, craziness. They're grabbing your belt, or they're grabbing your sleeve like as hard as they possibly can, or they're grabbing your neck. It is no factor, right? I mean, it's literally no factor to you. If you make it a factor, that just means you're not experienced enough. That means

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  if you're only a, if you're only a blue belt, you're going against a lower blue belt, and you might start getting concerned about this. But when you're a black belt, you're like, "Oh, this doesn't matter."

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:41Jocko Willink?

  From a leadership perspective, there's things that are going on with your team, with individuals on your team. And if you don't know what you're doing, you're concerned about them and they freak you out and they make you react. And yet, if you're a black belt, these things happen and you just, you just realize what they are. It's just wasted energy for them and it's gonna have no impact on the long-term deal that you're, you know where you're going. So it's a, it's a clear indicator to me when I'm working with a leader and they're spun up about little things. I, for some reason, I always think of like, they're spun up that the person's grabbing their, their belt, right?

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  You're mounted on them and they're grabbing your belt like they're gonna do something with it. They can't do anything. That happens all the time from a leadership perspective. Someone, you know, some of your subordinates are doing something crazy. It's like, okay, does it really matter? Most of the time, it doesn't even matter. Occasionally, you gotta address it. Like if a guy, if a guy's, if you're mounted on a guy and he starts to lift your knee, you reach down and address it. No big deal. You don't panic. You don't give up them out.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:51Jocko Willink?

  You just address it and then you, you take it back to normal. So as, and what this has to do with really is has to do with detachment. Because you, if you're detached, you'll see that whatever this situation is, is not that big of a deal. But when you're all up in the fight and they're grabbing your belt, they're grabbing your sleeve and you're freaking out, you're not doing a good job of detachment at all.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. It feels like they're up to something. I don't know what it is, but you know, just, I don't feel right about it.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  I see it all the time. And by the way, here's another important piece. If they're doing something, if they're grabbing your sleeve and now you expend energy to stop that, well, you're expending energy. You're not following the idea of economy of force. And what you're also doing is you're giving up leadership capital. Cause you're wasting time trying to stop them from doing something that doesn't even matter. So why are you worried about that? Let that thing go. Just let that thing go.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Focus on the wrong things.

• 24:47Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, in one, when I was a bouncer, they, this was part of the training. But they did call it min- min- the minimum.

• 24:55Jocko Willink?

  Minimum force, yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Which kinda, when you're training, it kinda, it's kinda like, especially if you've been in like, breaking up a, like a significant fight situation, you start telling me, I gotta use minimum. I'm like, it just sounds off. I know what they mean, and this is what they mean right here. Sufficient.

• 25:10Jocko Willink?

  They mean sufficient.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, they basically, they don't want you overdoing it.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they do mean, they do mean minimum, but they also mean sufficient.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:18Jocko Willink?

  Cause minimum, well, if you use the minimum force required and it works, then it was sufficient.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, and I, and I understood it when they said it, of course, like, it's a, when, when we're not in the situation, it's like, yeah, that's true. Technically, that's true.

• 25:31Jocko Willink?

  We'll use minimum force.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  But it just, I like how they use sufficient though, because it, when, when you hear, like, especially if you're talking about warfare? Or, in my case, bouncing, when you're breaking up guys fighting with, you know, bottles or whatever, and they're saying, hey, use the minimum. You're like, bro, no, man, we're going in there, we're getting it done as quick as we can, but the thing is, it's like, no, bruh.

• 25:53Jocko Willink?

  But you're not gonna use maximum.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not going in there swinging punches, you're breaking it up, you know, kinda thing, and it makes sense, because guys will do that, they'll be like, oh yeah, it's fight time, you know, kinda thing? And then they'll like injure somebody or something like that when they don't have to.

• 26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not good. Sufficient.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Sufficient.

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  Sufficient force. Check. Alright, next.

• 26:15Jocko Willink?

  Maneuver. Maneuver requires that all military resources be brought to bear in the accomplishment of the objective. Correct application of the principle of maneuver requires not only the full use of combat power at the decisive time and place, but includes the movements of elements of combat power, including combat service support to the area of operations. That's pretty straightforward. You, you have to move your people into the right positions, including the support people that need to get there, to keep the logistics lines open, to keep the intelligence flowing, to keep the radios working and all that.

• 26:52Jocko Willink?

  Application of this principle is a function of command at all levels. At the highest level, it usually means the movement of men, means and supplies to an area of operations, and at the lowest level, it means the positioning of troop units and fires to destroy the enemy.

• 27:09Jocko Willink?

  Straightforward, that's what that one is.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  Next. Surprise. Surprised connotes striking the enemy when, where, or in such a manner that he is unable to counter effectively. The achievement of surprise is not necessarily dependent upon misleading the enemy as to intentions, such as, for example, concealing from him an intention of attacking. He may know from the situation that he will be attacked. Yet, the attacker may achieve surprise by the time, place, direction, size, or composition of forces or tactics employed.

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that one's pretty straightforward. That one's pretty straightforward. That's the, that's the difference. Really, that's the difference. That's one of the differences between like a white belt and a blue belt. I mean, it's actually, it's not even to blue belt yet. You gotta be able to surprise the person. They can't know what's coming in jiu-jitsu. If they know what's coming, and they know any jiu-jitsu, they're gonna defend that thing.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:17Jocko Willink?

  So, surprise comes when you are baiting him with one thing and you hit him with something else. And when you fir-, I've told that, I told you that story, like when the first, when I was like a white belt, I'd probably been training for like four weeks.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:29Jocko Willink?

  And this seal buddy of mine, who had been training for a while, but kinda off and on, and, and he was a friend of mine, and as soon as I was training for like a week, I was like, hey, let's train.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  And so, so I was kinda roughing him up, right?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause he, he was training off and on, and, but he's a good dude, a great dude. And I said to him, so after like three weeks, I said to him, you know, here's the thing. In jiu-jitsu, you can't just do one move, you gotta like set it up with something else.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:59Jocko Willink?

  And the next time we rolled, he was going for a choke hard on me. And I was like, dude, this guy's, oh man, I don't wanna tap to this guy. I can't let him, boom, he unlocked me. And I was like, whoa, yeah, yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Defend the choke.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I, that was the last time that happened.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  But you didn't like that?

• 29:19Jocko Willink?

  What was awesome was, he took just, he took just my words.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  Of what I told him. And this, this guy's a freaking awesome seal. He took just my words of what I told him and applied them to what he already knew physically about how to do a choke and how to do an arm lock.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:37Jocko Willink?

  And he arm locked me.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, surprise. Surprise.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how Jiu Jitsu is.

• 29:45Jocko Willink?

  Surprise.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  There you go. That's how Jiu Jitsu is just kinda naturally too, because they're like, since they're grappling movements, like unless you're one of these super duper quick guys, you know? Like, everything's gonna be more or less telegraphed, you know? If, like, if I say, "Hey, Jocko, um, if I know you love the arm lock and you just go for arm locks," I'm gonna know that's coming.

• 30:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes and no. I, I agree with you. There's some times when I submit people, when they completely know that it's coming. And they can't stop it. Dean does that to me.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  Where it's like, he's getting an arm lock and I can't stop him. He could say like, "Here it comes," and I'm like, "Oh, I know it's coming. I can feel it coming. I can feel..." And I can't stop it.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but here's the thing about that technique too. That's like, there were, there's two elements that go on in here. One, there's like, okay, Dean, because we talked about this before.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Well, Dean, like, he's gonna say, "Okay, Dean, I'm..."

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  The thing that, the, the surprise came earlier.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, and so he got into a position where not, either he was ahead of you now, or he's in a position where all your defenses that he knows have to come for, for you to stop him. He knows the defense and all that. He put himself early on into a position where he can shut down those defenses before you need him.

• 30:52Jocko Willink?

  To the point of this, he did through surprise.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Through surprise.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  He did some little movement and all of a sudden he's mounted with my arm exposed.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:59Jocko Willink?

  And now I know I'm gonna get arm locked, I can't, can't get out of it.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Exactly right, so.

• 31:03Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 31:05Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes, so, but so sometimes you do submit people like that. Where they know it's coming, but you're right, you gotta get that surprise movement to get it in position.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And they're also, the second part is, uh, like little, for lack of a better term, micro surprises. So it's like, you know how it's like, hey, I'm gonna go for this arm lock. And I know your arm lock is coming, but just even for like a half a second, split second, I'm gonna like, tip you off balance. Just for that split second, you're like, oh, your mind goes, okay, or you're just, your body, even if your mind is still on the arm lock. You're like, your reaction, oh, I gotta put my, you know, you know that it's like our early movie learn? And Akbar used to do this all the time, where, you know, the sit up sweep from the guard, sit up sweep for the guard? And when you base, you go back to the triangle. That's what you do, because to base, you put your arm down, you can get your leg over. Like that, for example. Like if someone likes to do triangle, Jill Tudor used to do that stuff to me all the time, because he liked the triangle.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  And yet, he'd do these little things that you gotta put your arm down, just real quick. Even if you're like, yeah, just real quick, I'll just put it down real quick to base or whatever, and I'll put it right back into the defensive position. Like, bruh, that's a little micro surprise. Even though you weren't just in the dark the whole time, and where did that triangle come from? It's not that, it was just for that little, little split second.

• 32:13Jocko Willink?

  Little split second, little micro surprise.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  It's a surprise.

• 32:16Jocko Willink?

  That works.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Hey, back to this, um, maneuver. Like, I feel like that's like, and I learned this from you, where, put simply, you say, hey, build the relationship, right? With people, like, you're like, hey, my boss won't listen to my input. Or my coworker won't, you know, listen to my, my strategy, which is awesome and all this stuff. You're like, hey, because you're just going straight, you gotta, you gotta create a relationship, you gotta get into the position, you know?

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  I just got this question today, I was getting interviewed, and the guy's like, you know, that guy's like, well, I mean, what happens when? And you can see, it's already, it's like, it's like when someone says, well, you know, it's like in jiu-jitsu, when someone says, well, you know, what if the guy, what if the guy does this? And it's like, well, yeah, so the guy says, well, you know, what happens if, you get told to do something by your boss and you don't agree with it? And he just says, do it my way anyways.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:11Jocko Willink?

  Right? And I'm like, well, I don't get in situations like that. Why? Because I've spent the last six months, eight months, one year, building a relationship up with my boss. Where when my boss tells me to do something that I don't believe in, I say, hey, boss, I don't know if this is a good idea. How about we do this a different way? My boss says, oh, thank you, Jocko. Thank you for not allowing me to tell you to do something that doesn't make sense.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  So you're right. It's a preemptive, a preemptive maneuver to be in the right position. So that you will not get told to do something. Now, does that mean I haven't done a bunch of things that I didn't want to do leading up to that point? Yes, absolutely. That's called building leadership capital.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:47Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna make my boss win over and over and over again.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  No one wants to hear that.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:52Jocko Willink?

  I just got asked it when, when, when Leif and I were out in Staten Island. A guy's like, you know, what can I do to lead people that are, that, that don't want to, you know, do what I want them to do? It's like, man, you gotta build relationships with those guys.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:05Jocko Willink?

  You can't bark orders at them, it's not gonna help. It'll help for a minute. Like, they'll load that truck up, but they're looking for another job. You know what I mean? You gotta build relationships with these people.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:16Jocko Willink?

  Up and down the chain of command. And you know what that is? That's maneuvering. You are correct.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was critical. Or, critical, yeah, but really helpful. Because again, that's one of those things where you gotta, you gotta detach, you gotta, you gotta kind of step outside and be like, hey. Cause that, okay, to build a relationship with your boss, no one thinks like that that's the solution to the problem. Because directly, it's kind of not, even though it's probably a, a huge, huge.

• 34:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, why would you say directly it's not? Cause it's straight up is.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't seem like it, put it that way.

• 34:50Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Like, well, if you just think kind of, I don't know, for lack of a better term, linearly. Like if I'm like, hey, I want Jocko to listen to my input, right? A direct approach would be like, hey, Jocko, take your headphones off, listen to my input. That's like a direct. So if I go indirect, right? That's more like, hey, I gotta build a relationship first, then I can, it's basically adding another step. But that step is like this straight up requirement.

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and the thing is, this, it's not a step. It's a broad, underlying, fundamental situation that you set up for success.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  And, and then there's this whole thought. That cuz I and I've said this on here many times to say it all the time. I built relationships with bosses that I didn't like.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:36Jocko Willink?

  Right? People go, oh, well, Jocko's an ass kisser.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  And Jocko's a brown noser cuz he's just trying to build a relationship with his boss. And I always say, no, I'm not a brown noser. No, I'm not an ass kisser. I'm winning. I'm here to win. That's what I'm here to do. You know what I'm here to do? Take care of my platoon and make sure that they can have what they need to accomplish our mission to the best of our ability. If my, if I have an antagonistic relationship with my boss, can I truly support my platoon? The answer is no, all day long. He's not gonna give me the gear that we need cuz he doesn't like me. He's not gonna give me the training that I need cuz he doesn't like me.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:11Jocko Willink?

  So why is he gonna give me what I need? He's not. But if I have a good relationship with him that I built,

• 36:17Jocko Willink?

  then guess what he's gonna do? He's gonna let, give me what I need to accomplish my mission. He's gonna give me what I need to be the most effective platoon we can have. Now, where does it cross the line? Where does, where does Jocko become a brown noser and an ass kisser? Cuz we know these people exist and I'll tell you exactly where the line gets crossed. The line gets crossed where I'm kissing my boss's ass so that I can get promoted or I can get taken care of or I can take care of myself. If that's what game you're in, yes, you're an ass kisser. I don't like you. Cuz you're doing it for you. It's like the difference between manipulation and leadership. Right? If you're doing, if you're, if you're influencing people so that they do something that's gonna help the team and help the mission and help them, that's influence.

• 37:02Jocko Willink?

  If you're doing something, if you're influencing, or that's leadership. If you're influencing people so that you can help yourself

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  and benefit yourself, that's, and it doesn't help the team and it doesn't help the mission, that's manipulation.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fully. Yeah, when you go outside of the scope of like the broad goal, you know? And everyone can see it, by the way.

• 37:23Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can see it. Everyone can see it. Everyone can see it.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:28Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can see it. And what's really jacked up, or it's not even jacked up. What's kinda cool is if you're looking out for the boys and you're looking out for the mission and you're doing everything for their, for their, for the best, for their best, that shows through too.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:47Jocko Willink?

  And when that shows through, guess what? Your people, your boss wants to take care of you cuz you're trying to win for him.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:55Jocko Willink?

  Not for you.

• 37:58Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the way you said, I mean, obviously you're you're you're not new to this concept, but you know, and you're not new to the concept of when you're in the situation, if you don't like the person and now Jocko wants me to build a good relationship with this person that I don't like or whatever, bro, I'm not keeping it real. That's why it's that's what it feels like. What I'm gonna do like, so what I'm gonna be like this two faced guy, you think I'm gonna be give him my respect, my valued coveted respect? No, man, that's I'm I keep it real. I keep it too real.

• 38:29Jocko Willink?

  Too real for that. I'm not I'm not bowing down to that guy.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yep, can't do it.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  Cool. So you're gonna lose.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:34Jocko Willink?

  So you'd rather lose.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, but when you put it into perspective, again, that perspective that you put it in, which is, which I dig.

• 38:40Jocko Willink?

  What's what's what's interesting, just to just to take that to one more level, if you're the guy that's like, hey, I got too much pride to do that. I'm not doing that. I'm not bowing down to him. Okay, so you're gonna lose. Cause to me, I look, I don't just look at it like one hit, like that's the end of the game. The game doesn't end there. The game ends when I'm on top with the big win. And you know what? My ego, my ego won't allow me to let my ego interfere with the fact that I want to win.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  The big game.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the long game.

• 39:07Jocko Willink?

  Gotta play the long game in this one, in all of them.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 39:12Jocko Willink?

  Maneuver.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:13Jocko Willink?

  Little bit of maneuver.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Maneuver. Yeah, if you can get into a habit, like you kind of said, not surprised, you surprised straight up surprised me because I forgot, by the way, because it's not as doesn't come as natural with one of your answers at the at roll call when you were like, hey, build a relationship.

• 39:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Like you're, you know, this person is, uh, well, you know, you remember the situation, right? The person didn't like, he didn't follow through as much as he should have and because he's so so good, you can't tell him anything kind of thing. And then it's like, no, you gotta, you can't like harp on this guy. You gotta build a relationship with him. I was like, ah, dang, I should have remembered that one. Like, because that's a lot of the, most of the time, that's the answer. If you have a problem with somebody like not doing it, you know, like, just like I used to say, but it

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  Wait, you're saying most of the time, most of the time, what people think they should do, like, how should I confront this person?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  Should I fire them to do what I want them to do?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  How can I confront them? Should I fire them? What's it's like, oh, you know what you should do? Build a relationship with them.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  Make them understand, make you understand where they're coming from. Can you lead someone that you don't understand? Not really. Here's another one. You get someone. If, if you're, if, oh, oh, this person that works for me thinks it's all about him, what should I do? You should make him think it's that, everything's about him.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:28Jocko Willink?

  That's the, that's the black belt move. The black belt move is like, yeah, you're damn right. This is all about you and here's how you're gonna win. And by the way, the whole team's gonna be winning because you're winning, but we don't worry about that. We're worried about if your perception is that, oh, Echo, Echo thinks this is all about him. Guess what? I'm gonna make Echo think. He's right.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 40:46Jocko Willink?

  And he's gonna be busting his ass because it's all about him. And the team is gonna, Echo's gonna win, which means the team's gonna win, which means I'm gonna win.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Jocko Willink?

  It's a no-brainer. All you gotta do is step back six to eight inches from the, from, from the front line.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  I know.

• 41:02Jocko Willink?

  To take a look around and see that.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Pretty far, six to eight inches when you're in.

• 41:05Jocko Willink?

  And no, this is the other thing. No one wants to hear those answers.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  No, no, they don't.

• 41:09Jocko Willink?

  I shouldn't say no one, but most people don't want to hear those answers.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Jocko Willink?

  Because the fact of the matter is, is it's your fault.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it doesn't.

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  When you're, when your person is not doing what they're supposed to be doing, it's your fault. Hey, do you get the person that just has a totally negative attitude that shouldn't be on the team? Yes, they exist. I get that. Whose responsibility is it to get rid of them? It's yours. You're the boss. If they're not that person, whose responsibility is it to get everything you can out of them? It's you. You're the boss.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:38Jocko Willink?

  People don't like to hear that answer.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:40Jocko Willink?

  It's a hard answer. Cause you wanna throw whatever, you know, oh, the millennials, the big one, right?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:46Jocko Willink?

  Millennials are a pretty horrible.

• 41:49Jocko Willink?

  It's like, oh, well, maybe if, maybe if, maybe if you were a better leader, the millennials would be on board.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  It's a hard thing to face, but if David Hackworth and Jim Mukuyama can get draftees in Vietnam to go and risk their lives and fight the enemy and possibly get wounded or killed in a war they don't believe in. If they can do that through good leadership, I think you can get a millennial to get, get after it.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, there's millennials getting after it everywhere. I meet them all the time.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Jocko Willink?

  They're not like, hey, I didn't, hey, it's good to meet you. I'm glad you're putting out word about how to be lazy. No, they're like, I am gonna crush the world.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  They're out there.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  Takes a little bit, yeah, yeah, what it takes, it takes leadership, that's what it takes. I'm sorry, leadership is not easy. People, the millennials don't want to listen. Who wants to listen? I was more rebellious than any millennial I've met. Hmm. I can see that. Anyways, so, next.

• 42:58Jocko Willink?

  Security. Security provides readiness for action or counteraction and is enhanced greatly by flexibility. Flexibility in mind, organization, and means contributes to security. Its attainment embraces all measures designed to avoid being surprised or interfered with seriously, and the retention of freedom of action. Security does not imply undue caution and avoidance of all risks. Important, right? Security does not imply undue caution. So there's a dichotomy here. It doesn't imply the avoidance of all risks.

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  For bold action is essential to success in war, and what does bold action require? It requires risks, otherwise it wouldn't be bold. When security is provided, unexpected developments will not seriously interfere with the attainment of the mission. Check. So, got to maintain security. That makes sense. So those are the nine principles, those are the nine principles of war, that's as they existed. Now, they also talk about, and there's a debate right now,

• 44:10Jocko Willink?

  going around of whether, whether flexibility should be the 10th principle. Some people think it should, some people think it shouldn't. And then, in 2011, they added some principles to joint operations. And here are those principles. Number one is restraint. To limit collateral damage and prevent unnecessary use of force. So now we're getting into minimum force, right? Restraint requires careful and disciplined balancing of the need for security, the conduct of military operations, and the national strategic end state.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  Makes sense.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:48Jocko Willink?

  That's where they came up with this. You have to put that minimum force. That's what that is. That's the same thing, right? And I think the key to that, they put on the end, the national strategic end state. So what does that mean? Sometimes, if you use too much violence, if you as a bouncer use too much violence, your, your goal of the, your mission as a bouncer is to keep the place safe.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:13Jocko Willink?

  If you use too much violence, people don't want to go there because the bouncers are, are assholes. Right? They're beating everyone up. That's a problem. So what's our strategic end state is that we keep this place safe. So that's why they, they're talking about that. Same situation.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  They actually changed our name from bouncers to, uh, first it was hosts. Wait, what was it? Yeah, it was hosts. They call it, they're not bouncers, you're hosts.

• 45:34Jocko Willink?

  And then what they changed it to?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Uh, door host. No, no, okay. They went bouncers. They, no, you're a doorman now. You're just a doorman. Then they're like, no, door hosts fits like the personification of this place.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  You know, like you're just a host.

• 45:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was a good try. It's interesting though. Yeah, it's interesting though, because that's a little leadership maneuver that they're doing. They're trying to, they didn't do a good job. Cause you're joking about it, right? You thought it was a joke. You're like, this is ridiculous.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  The, the thing is, I, I actually wasn't mad at it. Ultimately, I was like, that, that totally makes sense. Cause when you think bouncer, you think dive bar guys beating up guy like Roadhouse, you know, bouncing these guys out the, on, off the wall.

• 46:15Jocko Willink?

  Roadhouse talks about minimum force though, right?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Dalton.

• 46:18Jocko Willink?

  But what does he say?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  He said, be nice.

• 46:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's like the rule, right?

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Be nice. And he's like, uh, ask him to walk, but be nice. If he doesn't walk, walk him, but be nice. If he, if he still won't walk, get another guy to help you walk him and you will both be nice. And he said, be nice until it's time to not be nice. That's what he says.

• 46:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's, that's a super badass, right? Look at you. You couldn't even hold it back, bro. You couldn't hold it back.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Right. That's like the, the.

• 46:49Jocko Willink?

  You couldn't hold it back. That smile.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  That's the like the Bible, what do you call it? Not the Bible, but the movie version of the Bible. You know how you have like, what's the Navy SEAL movie? The one you gotta, you know, for for pilots, it's Top Gun, you know?

• 47:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know if there's a SEAL one.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the one with Charlie Sheen.

• 47:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I don't even know if that's iconic. It's not as iconic a bouncer movie as as Roadhouse is.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  If you're a bouncer and you watch, that's your thing.

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. No, it's the iconic bouncer movie. Is there even another bouncer movie?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  I don't know. Shouldn't be if there is.

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't even exist.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Exactly right.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  All right. Next. This is one of the new ones, one of the new principles. Perseverance. To ensure the commitment necessary to attain the national strategic end state. The underlying causes of the crisis may be elusive, making it difficult to achieve decisive resolution. The patient, resolute, and persistent pursuit of national goals and objectives often is essential to success. What I don't like about that one

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  is it it it it kind of

• 48:06Jocko Willink?

  it kind of says, it's it's saying like, what's the number one rule? Objective. Like, you gotta know what your mission is. You gotta have an objective. And this one is saying, look, the underlying causes can be elusive. It can be difficult to achieve decisive resolution. So

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  I guess that the theory or the principle of perseverance means we're going to continue to do this. My problem with that is that is how do you end up then or do you end up then with a Vietnam? Where we're continuing to fight even though we're not quite sure what our end state is, what our objective is, and it's so elusive that we're not sure where to go. That one makes me a little bit hesitant. Do I believe in perseverance? Absolutely. You keep going. But as I've talked about before, don't quit doesn't mean never give up on the the plan that you came up with and just keep going until you freaking either die or you achieve your goal.

• 49:04Jocko Willink?

  Next, legitimacy. To maintain legal and moral authority in the conduct of operations. Legitimacy, which can be a decisive factor in operations is based on the actual and perceived legality, morality, and rightness of the actions from the various perspectives of interested audiences. Together, these 12 concepts form principles of joint operations. Now, I'll tell you what's interesting about legitimacy. Obviously, you have to have it. You have to have, you know, moral and legal authority. The problem I have with that is who gets to judge that? Because the people that you're fighting, they don't agree with what you're doing.

• 49:49Jocko Willink?

  You're not legitimate in their eyes. So how are we coming up with that? I think we can, but I think we have to do that decisively. And say, "Look, this is what we're trying to achieve. This is why." And if there's a bunch of people debating about it, okay, well, we're gonna hold off then. Until someone says, "Oh, you know what? This needs to be stopped," or "This situation needs to end." Because you do need legitimacy. And if you don't have legitimacy, you're gonna have problems really, truly accomplishing the mission.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, kind of in a way. I mean, I'm sure there's exceptions, obviously. But in a way, there's always gonna be like some debate. You know how like, they'll be like, hey, you know, I'm gonna make a generic example, but like, you know, if there's some turmoil in this country because of the way these people are treating these other people in this country. Boom, US steps in and all this stuff. Some, there's gonna be somebody debating, "Hey, like, that's their country. That's how they roll." You know, it's like, who are we to step in and call them, you know, immoral or whatever when that's how they've been living for thousands of years?

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  That's my point. That's my point. So who gets to make that decision? It's a tough one.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, almost like a global standard needs to be established. You know, I think that's kind of the...

• 51:08Jocko Willink?

  And I think it is actually possible to do that.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  I think so, too.

• 51:12Jocko Willink?

  I think it is actually possible to do that. And I think the fact that we sometimes decide that, "Hey, it's not our place to make that decision." Like, I'll give you an example. ISIS. Hey, if you're systematically raping...

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  Eight-year-old, nine-year-old, ten-year-old girls and boys, you don't get to do that.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  We will come and stop you.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:35Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it's gonna be.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you need, if you need a documented argument for why that is, I think, I don't think that'd be a problem to, to produce.

• 51:44Jocko Willink?

  I think if you need a documented argument for that, you just made the list as well. We're coming after you.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  I think I agree with you, sir.

• 51:54Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, Nazis, guess what? You don't get to do that.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Same deal, yeah.

• 52:01Jocko Willink?

  Imperial Japanese Army, rolling into China, rape of Nanking, nope, you don't get to do that.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:07Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't work. We're not okay with that. You just made the list.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  We seem to have a harder time doing that. We, we seem to think these days that evil doesn't exist.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Jocko Willink?

  And that's wrong.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with you.

• 52:22Jocko Willink?

  It's wrong.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Next, next it talks about the application of the principles, application, the principles of war, so that's, that's the, well, it's now the 12 principles. But now I'm going from the new principles that were added on, back to the 1984 Marine Corps Field Manual.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 52:42Jocko Willink?

  FM FM six tac four rifle company.

• 52:47Jocko Willink?

  Application, the principles of war act as a checklist for the commander in order to apply combat power effectively and reduce his unit's vulnerability. A review of military history will demonstrate that those commanders who have adhered to those principles have most often enjoyed success on the battlefield. There you go. I like the fact that they're taking these principles and broadly applying them to the past and saying, look, when this happened historically, you will have victory most of the time.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:22Jocko Willink?

  There have been, of course, exceptions to the rule. However, these exceptions prove the rule that any attempt to rigidly apply all the principles to all battlefield environments may lead to defeat.

• 53:38Jocko Willink?

  We got a, we got a little chapter in the dichotomy of leadership. It's called disciplined, not rigid.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:45Jocko Willink?

  Why? Because of what that just said.

• 53:49Jocko Willink?

  The commander should recognize the need to apply the principles as flexibility as all other tactical principles. Oh, sorry, as flexibly as all other tactical principles based on the circumstances with which he is confronted. Flexibility in the application of principles is as important as flexibility in the application of combat power on the battlefield. Isn't it cool to come up with principles and then just say, yeah, you gotta apply them like as needed?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:20Jocko Willink?

  There's a, there's a, there's a, it shows how much you have to think as a leader.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  You have to look at things all the time and sometimes your principles gotta go, gotta back off that. And that's kind of what we did in the dichotomy of leadership because can you make things too simple? Yes, you can. Cover and move, the number one principle. Can you cover and move too much? Yes, you can. Prioritize and execute. Can you prioritize and execute too much? Yes, you can. What does that look like? It looks like target fixation.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:47Jocko Willink?

  What is, what does cover and move too much look like? It looks like you're stepping on the toes of other elements. What does too simple look like? You haven't covered all the contingencies. What does too much decentralized command look like? It looks like your people don't even know where you're supposed to be going because you haven't made it clear. You've let them go too far.

• 55:14Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, no commander can rigidly follow the examples provided by doctrinal resources, but must modify them according to his mission, the situation, and the terrain over which he is fighting.

• 55:30Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. Now, what was interesting is I found this in an air force manual. So that's, that's what I covered from the FM FM six tac four, which is just really good, broad principles of combat, principles of war. Now, it was interesting, I was looking at an air force to kind of get their perspective, similar perspective, not as detailed, but one thing that they did that was interesting was they put the other countries' principles of war and compared them to our principles of war. And a lot of them are very, very close, but one of them that stood out was the, the former Soviet Union.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  And, and this is where we get into, you know, I was talking specifically about the USSR back in the day, back in the eighties, back in the seventies, you know, this is the other superpower in the world. And they have some interesting theories and, and again, there's a little chart that I found and it, it kind of laid out. You know, so in America, we have objective.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  In Great Britain and Australia, they say selection, maintenance of aim. Right? So understand what your aim is. We have offense, offensive in Great Britain, Australia, they have offensive action.

• 56:54Jocko Willink?

  We have mass, meaning we're gonna use our concentration of force. What does Great Britain and Australia call it? Concentration of force. We both have economy of force. We call it maneuver, they call it flexibility. We call it unity of command, they call it cooperation, which is interesting. Cooperation is very similar to cover and move.

• 57:14Jocko Willink?

  We both have security, we both have surprise, we have simplicity. They don't have simplicity, but they have another one called maintenance of morale, which is an interesting, important thing that maybe we left out. Why did we leave that out? It's an important one.

• 57:30Jocko Willink?

  France, they have three concentration of effort, that's the same as mass surprise, that's another one. And then their last one, liberty of action, which is interesting, that's decentralized command, right? Hey, you gotta go out and make things happen.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:45Jocko Willink?

  China, they have some similar ones. Objective, they call it selection and maintenance of aim. Offense, they call it offensive action. Mass, they call it concentration of force. Maneuver, this is an interesting one. Maneuver, they call it initiative and flexibility. Again, a little bit of decentralized command sprinkled on that. Unity of command, they have coordination, they have security, they have surprise. And their last one is morale, mobility, political mobilization, and freedom of action. Interesting dynamic from China. And then they, they listed out the Soviet, the former

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  Soviet ones, because this is one of the largest armies that ever existed, this former Soviet army, army. And as I was reading that, this little, this little chart about what the Soviets had, massing and correlation of forces, economy and sufficiency of force, initiative, surprise, mobility, tempo. I, I was, I was going to theirs, I remembered reading an old assessment of the Soviet style of warfare. And I remembered it had some interesting takes, and I was able to find this field manual from the eighties. I want to say again, this is, these are like from the same time period as the FM that I just read from the Marine Corps. The FM, there's updated ones, which we could cover as well, but these are the old school ones.

• 59:10Jocko Willink?

  And again, it's in the eighties, I mean, you wouldn't assess the Soviet Union the same now as you would then. So this, we had a manual, America had a manual called FM 102 Tac 1, the Soviet Army. And I thought it was kind of worth reviewing some of what, what they talk about, principles of war, because again, this was like one of the largest standing. Standing armies in history, it was our major foe. Uh, it was well experienced from World War II. So, figure with all that, you know, we probably could learn something from them. So, here we go.

• 59:55Jocko Willink?

  Getting into the Soviet Army a little bit and some of their principles, how they, how they rolled.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Uh, they introduces it by saying the Soviet ground forces, this field manual describes the operations and tactics of Soviet general purpose ground forces. The content is based on information in Soviet writings and other open source literature. Most available information is focused on potential battle in Central Europe. This is when this was a reality, folks, this is in the eighties.

• 1:00:25Jocko Willink?

  The Soviets believe that any future war could involve the use of nuclear weapons. And that the initial stage of the war will be decisive. This is crazy. Tactical nuclear, tactical nuclear weapons have been assigned at all levels from division up. That's crazy.

• 1:00:45Jocko Willink?

  Wait, so what does that mean, everybody has nukes? Well, at the division level, so. Yes, a lot of people have, a lot of people have nukes.

• 1:00:57Jocko Willink?

  The Soviets have the largest and most effective array of chemical weapons and equipment in the world. They are capable of employing chemical agents from battalion level upward. That's crazy. So, a battalion is like the lowest fighting unit. That we have, it's, it's, it's. I don't know, 500, 600, maybe 700 guys generally. And imagine 700 guys with a, with an O5, this is a probably a 35, 40 year old guy in charge of it. They got chemical weapons on the battlefield, ready to employ. And by the way, two levels above them at the division level, that's what we're talking about, nuclear weapons.

• 1:01:41Jocko Willink?

  Not exactly what I love. Okay, the Soviet front. I had to put this in here. The front is the largest field formation in wartime. It is an operational and administrative unit, and its size and composition can vary widely depending on the mission and situation. Roughly equivalent to a US or NATO army group. A front could be composed of three to five armies with organic artillery. Missile-air defense engineer. The reason I found that funny little layer there is I often refer to echelon front simply as the front.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  But what is also interesting, I looked up front to see if that was a commonly used, if to see if that definition and they didn't have it listed. They didn't have, hey, this is a, this is a group, an army group. They didn't list it that way. So that's interesting. Learned something new. Alright, um, at this time, they're saying that the Soviet ground forces were like 1.8 to 2 million people and 191 maneuver divisions. So to answer your question, 191 divisions. And each one of those 191 divisions had tactical nukes. Get some.

• 1:03:07Jocko Willink?

  Man. And now we get into, so that just kind of lays out how this came together. Okay. The Soviet concept of war, to the Soviets, war is a manifestation of the class struggle. It is an expression of the conflict between progressive forces of socialism and the reactionary forces of imperialistic capitalism, which they feel will ultimately be, which they feel will be ultimately resolved in favor of socialism. The Soviet concept of war represents, represents a continuation of politics. Same thing that we have. We, you know, we think of war as when, when politics don't work, that's when war happens unfortunately.

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  But, yeah, reactionary forces of imperialistic capitalism. You know what that is? That's America, boy.

• 1:04:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, that's how the, that's how parts of the world view America. All right. The Soviet military doctrine is officially accepted.

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  The Soviet military doctrine is the officially accepted set of concepts that delineate the ways and means to achieve military objectives in the interest of politics. The formulation of Soviet military doctrine is a continuous evolutionary process based on number one communist ideology. Number two, Soviet foreign policy. Number three, economic and military strengths of adversaries. Number four, Soviet resources and geography. Number five, history. Number six, science and technology. Soviet military doctrine is based on an elaborate, integrated system of thought. And then it breaks down a little bit more. And I kinda had to build that in there because it talks about military doctrine and then it talks about military science is the study

• 1:04:59Jocko Willink?

  and analysis of the diverse psychological and material phenomena relevant to armed combat for developing practical recommendations for the achievement of victory in war. Pretty straightforward, but the reason I had to say, talk about military science is because I wanted to get to this point, which is military art. And a lot of times we don't think of the Soviets, right? When you think of the Soviets, what do you think of? I, I, I know what you think of. What do you think of when you think of the Soviets? Come on. When you think of the USSR, what do you think of? You're gonna let me down, bro.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:05:29Jocko Willink?

  What do you think of? When you think of like the, the Russians, what do you think of?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  They're strong wrestlers.

• 1:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay. As a whole, when you think of the Russians, what do you think of? If you had to characterize the Russians in one individual, who would you think of?

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Stalin?

• 1:05:43Jocko Willink?

  Ah, close. I thought you were gonna say Drago.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Okay, Ivan Drago.

• 1:05:48Jocko Willink?

  Ivan Drago, the machine, right? This is what, this is, that's what I think of. You know, I think of that, that's what the Soviet Union is like the, you know, no emotions, no religion. It's just raw machines. Cold, right? Actually fairly accurate.

• 1:06:06Jocko Willink?

  But they go here, military art is the most important and primary field within military science and is the basis for strategy, operational art and tactics. It is the theory and practice of conducting armed conflict. So they put this high, high.

• 1:06:23Jocko Willink?

  Respect to the art.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Art.

• 1:06:26Jocko Willink?

  Probably, possibly higher than we do.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:06:31Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  It is possible.

• 1:06:34Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so now we get into it. And

• 1:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Principles of Military Art. Soviet military theorists consider the following points to be the general principles of military art. So that's what, that's where I'm going with all this, is to get their principles.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  They do not represent any special revelation of truth or radical departure from traditional military thought. However, by their emphasis on these particular points, Soviet military leaders reveal their charac- the character of their military thinking and predict the basic characteristics of future Soviet military operations. According to the Soviets, their armed forces must, and here's the list. Be fully prepared to accomplish the mission regardless of conditions under which war begins or must be conducted.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Next, achieve surprise whenever possible. Sounds familiar. Military operations must be characterized by decisiveness and aggressiveness. Forces must strive continuously to seize and to hold the initiative. That's good information. Next, make full use of all available military assets and capabilities to achieve victory. Next, ensure that major formations and units of all services, branches and arms affect through thorough and continuous coordination. Gotta work together, cover, move. Select the principal enemy objective to be seized and the best routes for attacking it. Make a decisive concentration of combat power at the correct time. Right, same thing.

• 1:08:07Jocko Willink?

  Next, maintain continuous and reliable command and control. Interesting. The reason that's interesting is that's like a little bit leaning towards centralized control. Right, centralized command as opposed to decentralized command. But they're gonna reverse that later. Next, be determined and decisive in achieving the assigned mission. Next, maintain complete security of combat operations. Security, right, same thing. Next, reconstitute reserves and restore combat effectiveness as quickly as possible. Makes sense. Next. Well, now it continues on. These are general principles that apply to all three levels of military art, strategy, operations and tactics. At each of these levels, there are more specific detailed principles.

• 1:08:52Jocko Willink?

  Soviet military thought subscribes to certain laws of war at the strategic level and principles of operational art and tactics which apply to the actual conduct of combat. So here are the laws of war.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  First law, the course and outcome of war waged with unlimited employment of all means of conflict depends primarily on the correlation of available strictly military combatants at the beginning of the war. Second law, the course and outcome of the war depend on the correlation of the military potentials of the combatants. Third law, the course and outcome of war depend on its political content. Fourth law, the course and outcome of a war depend on the correlation of moral, political and psychological capabilities of the peoples and the armies of the combatants.

• 1:09:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, I didn't break those down because they actually do it for you in the manual. Here's what, in simpler terms, what these things mean. First law, be prepared. Prepare in peacetime for the next war. Forces in being are the decisive factors. The side with the most and best troops and equipment at the start of the war will win the war. That makes sense barring any major strategic blunders. Second law, the side which can best sustain a protracted war will win the war. Makes sense? Third law, the higher the political stakes of a war, the longer and more violent it will be.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  That's a good one. That's a good one. And you gotta think about that one from a leadership perspective. When you start getting involved in things that have higher stakes, this is when people start stabbing each other in the back. It's when people get ruthless. So when there's more at stake, there's gonna be more violence.

• 1:10:54Jocko Willink?

  We don't recognize that sometimes. Hey, this guy's always been cool to me. But all of a sudden, the stakes go up. All of a sudden, we're getting stabbed.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:01Jocko Willink?

  Or the dirt's coming out, right? The claws come out.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Jocko Willink?

  It's always interesting. You get to see people's real true colors, right?

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Jocko Willink?

  When things are at stake, when more is at stake, people's true colors come out. The violence occurs.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, kinda like when the, you know, the detective shows up at your door, "Hey, we've got some questions for you." "Ah, I don't have time." "Oh, we could do it here, or we could go back to the station." "Ah, alright, alright." You know, then they start revealing a little bit more. Then they're like, "Hey," they don't want to cooperate that much. They say this thing. They say, "Yeah, I was there, but I don't remember all this stuff." And they say, "Well, hey, if you don't tell us the truth, you could be going to jail." "All your freedom!" Now the stakes go up. Oh, they start talking more. See what I'm saying? Then they say, "Hey, your friend, was he involved?" See what I'm saying? They're like, "Oh, no, no, no." "Hey, if you're lying, not only do you go to jail." Then, you know, and they raise the stakes a little bit. "Oh, they're right on their friend," you know?

• 1:12:01Jocko Willink?

  When the stakes go up.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Go up, yeah, man.

• 1:12:04Jocko Willink?

  The violence increases. Next, fourth law. War aims must be seen as just. Modern war cannot be waged without public support. Very important.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  Very important. Soviet planning and preparation for war reflect a dominant feeling that war is inevitable.

• 1:12:27Jocko Willink?

  This is not to say that the USSR wants war, but that it is preparing for it continuously.

• 1:12:36Jocko Willink?

  The Soviet state is autocratic, militarized, and centralized. Its political and economic systems give priority to military requirements.

• 1:12:46Jocko Willink?

  The state allocates resources and directs production for preparation and maintenance of a war footing.

• 1:12:53Jocko Willink?

  The Soviet Union is prepared to exert itself at great expense to achieve its goal. It is a nation which through civil war,

• 1:13:05Jocko Willink?

  collectivization, attendant famine, and purges inflicted more than 20 million deaths on its own citizens from the Russian Revolution to the start of World War II.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  It is a nation that endured the loss of 20 million people during World War II. Its tolerance for sacrifice is high.

• 1:13:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a little something to think about. Now, what's interesting is what's stronger? That or the core

• 1:13:41Jocko Willink?

  desire and mandate for freedom that we have here? And actually, I can answer that question because history has answered that question. Freedom will win.

• 1:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Next, as the laws of war dominate strategic planning for war, so do principles of operational art and tactics govern the conduct of warfare within a given theater of operations. The popular Western version of these Soviet operational and tactical principles is very brief. Objective, offense, surprise, maneuver, and mass. This list does not fairly characterize the basis on which Soviet military leaders plan and conduct operations and tactics. Just as they add new equipment to their forces without abandoning older equipment, the Soviets have modernized operational and tactical principles without fully abandoning their earlier ones.

• 1:14:38Jocko Willink?

  A good place to begin is with those classical principles that were taught by the Tsarist general staff. So these are the classic Russian military principles.

• 1:14:50Jocko Willink?

  Here they go. First, extreme exertion of force at the very beginning of the war. Next, simultaneity of actions. Next, economy of forces. Next, concentration. Next, chief objective, the enemy's army. Next, surprise. Next, unity of action, preparation, energetic pursuit, security, initiative, and dominance over the enemy's will, strength where the enemy is weak. And that's the list. That's the old classic list, and it breaks it down a little bit. The most significant points of this list are,

• 1:15:29Jocko Willink?

  first, he who gets to the initial battle with the most wins.

• 1:15:36Jocko Willink?

  That's Sun Tzu, by the way. "The enemy must be confronted with more than one situation to deal with." Oh, that's, that's how I got arm locked all those years ago. I was dealing with that choke and there came the arm lock. Next, "One should not be diverted by geographical objectives, but should concentrate on the destruction of the enemy's military forces." Next, "Detailed exacting preparation must precede an attack."

• 1:16:05Jocko Willink?

  Design actions to preempt your opponent and keep him reacting to situations that you control. Concentrate on the enemy's weak points rather than his strengths. Contemporary military, contemporary Soviet military theorists hold that nuclear weaponry and other means of modern warfare have modified these basic principles. By the early 1970s, the following principles dominated Soviet operational art and tactics.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  So they little, made these adjustments for nuclear war. First, mobility and high rates of combat operations. Next, concentration of main efforts and the creation of superiority in forces and means over the enemy at decisive place and at the decisive time. Next, surprise and security. Next, combat activeness. That's a good one, combat activeness. Next, preservation of the combat effectiveness of friendly forces. Next, conformity to the, conformity of the goal to the actual situation. That's a good one. Conformity of the goal to the actual situation. What that means is, your goal can change and it can change based on the situation you're in.

• 1:17:22Jocko Willink?

  That is important. And the last one is coordination, which, you know, is basically cover and move. Now, it goes on. "A melding of contemporary writings and those of the recent past, plus an influence of significant classical Russian principles, results in the following specific Soviet principles of operational art and tactics." And we go into a long list.

• 1:17:49Jocko Willink?

  The offensive is the basic form of combat action. Only by a resolute offense conducted at a high tempo and to great depth is total destruction of the enemy achieved. So we need to go hard, we need to go fast. Next, combat maneuver units must be mobile and capable of rapid movement. Next, fire support, command and control and logistics must be as mobile as maneuver units. That makes sense. Conduct or conduct thorough and continuous reconnaissance. Find the enemy's weak points. Yes.

• 1:18:26Jocko Willink?

  Perform a thorough estimate of the situation. And make timely analytical decisions. Be realistic.

• 1:18:35Jocko Willink?

  Consider the mission, enemy, your own combat power, terrain, weather and light conditions and time. So, yeah, you gotta look at the situation. You gotta look at it. Best thing about that, and you don't hear this very often.

• 1:18:49Jocko Willink?

  Be realistic. How good advice is that? It's damn good advice. Be realistic.

• 1:18:57Jocko Willink?

  You don't hear that often enough. Next. Plan and prepare extensively and in detail. That's a good idea. As we know, though, you can go to the extreme with that, you can overdo it. The planning and conduct of an operation must involve the full coordination and cooperation of all commanders involved. Man, that's important.

• 1:19:19Jocko Willink?

  If you're coming up with an operation, you got to involve the commanders, the people that are gonna be in the operation with you. You can't just send them an email of how you want it to go down. That's not gonna work.

• 1:19:30Jocko Willink?

  There must be unity of command, a signal commander for every operation. Boom, we already talked about that. Fully orchestrate all of the, all available combat means in a coordinated, cooperative, combined arms effort. Makes sense. Next, deceive the enemy. Attack from an unexpected direction at an unexpected time. Check. Use terrain and weather to your advantage. Check. Strike early with great force. Check.

• 1:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Constantly strive to preempt and dominate the enemy. Again, I always think, when I hear that, I always think of jiu-jitsu when someone's getting the upper hand on you and you can't dig your way out of it.

• 1:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Attack the enemy violently and simultaneously throughout his depth. Carry the battle to the enemy rear with swift penetrations by maneuver units, fire, aviation airborne and hellebore assaults. And by unconventional warfare means. Be bold and decisive. Seize and hold the initiative. Isn't it amazing that just being aggressive goes so far? If you are just get the upper hand, I mean, if you get the upper hand, you just have it. And you just need to maintain it. How do you maintain it? It's by continuing to be aggressive and not sitting back on your haunches when you got the upper hand. I do that in jujitsu sometimes. What, sit back on your haunches? Yeah, get a little bit of an advantage, relax too much.

• 1:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Right. Let, let a little, you know, let a little time, give that person time. You know when you see it as an MMA? When somebody gets dazed. And the person lets him recover, takes him a minute, takes him a minute and 30 seconds, they don't get on that person. Yeah. Gotta do that. Prosecute an operation relentlessly without pause under all conditions of visibility. Or NBC contamination, that's nuclear, biological and chemical contamination. Doesn't matter, keep going.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  The Russians. This is good. Keep the enemy under constant pressure and off balance. Do not allow him to react effectively, obviously jujitsu. Fully exploit the effects of nuclear. Or chemical strikes with deep attacks by all available forces. I wonder what these guys were thinking? They're thinking about how they're gonna follow up the nuclear assault. Bro.

• 1:22:08Jocko Willink?

  Whenever possible, achieve mass by concentrated mass nuclear or non-nuclear fires, rather than by massing maneuver forces.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  What that is actually saying is instead of using your troops, use nukes instead to get the upper hand.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Good lord. Man, how did it get to this? I mean, we can look back on it now, I hope. I mean, because there's obviously nukes everywhere still.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  But man, I hope people aren't sitting around plotting right now, coming up with the tactics. I mean, obviously, we have to. You have to. You have to game it out.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 1:22:50Jocko Willink?

  But man, I hope we got some other avenues of approach before we're jumping into the nuke launches.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  Next, if maneuver forces must be massed, do so rapidly. Disperse them as soon as possible after the task has been achieved. Maneuver first with firepower. Firepower is maneuver. Cover and move. Get some. Maneuver forces should attack the weakest points in the enemy defenses. Yes, Sun Tzu, thank you. We agree. If necessary, create weak points or holes with nuclear or non-nuclear fires. Bypass enemy strong points to strike deeply into his rear. Yeah. Hey, you know what? We're gonna create a weak point with nukes. Get some.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny to hear that, how like nukes is just sort of one of the options.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  They're just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there. We're not talking like, hey, is anyone going, hey, by the way, that's the end of the world? Hey, Colonel. Hey, Colonel, I gotta, I just want to bring something up. You realize that we all die when this happens, right? Like, this isn't, this isn't like a good plan. Your plan sucks.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, hey, we gotta, hey, there's a little, we gotta create a weak point, like, right over there. Hey, we should send, like, like, you know, like, maybe 12 guys or something, maybe over, or we could just use those nukes over here, or maybe, yeah.

• 1:24:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna send this document to, uh, Jordan Peterson, because, because you know, you know how he's all paranoid about nu- nuclear war when he was in college? And that's kind of what sent him down this path of how could we get to this situation? I think this is gonna, this is gonna really disturb them. It's like, hey, boss, let's check this out. These guys weren't playing. Yeah. Guess how we're gonna create a little weakness? We're gonna nuke them. Nuke them.

• 1:24:28Jocko Willink?

  Scary. It's very scary.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  Avoid frontal attacks. Wherever possible, strike the enemy in the flanks of the rear. Obviously, we're all about flanking. Maintain security of your own flanks. Maintain sufficient follow-on force to assure achievement of the mission and to deal with contingencies. Maintain uninterrupted combat support. Maintain effective continuous command and control and communications. That's getting a little bit, you know, that's important. But sometimes I think that they were very centralized. And you can see that from when they fought in Afghanistan, that they definitely had some centralized command going on. And the units that performed well were the units that were the most decentralized, which was generally their special operations units.

• 1:25:10Jocko Willink?

  Maintain redundant communications at higher levels. Rely on audio and visual signals and well rehearsed battle drills at lower levels. Staffs at every level must have equipment and skills necessary to collect and analyze information quickly. Employ radio electronic combat to deprive the enemy of effective command and control of his combat forces. That means they're going to use jammers and whatnot. Adhere, now this is where it's interesting. So as much as I talk about centralized command, adhere to the spirit and letter of a plan. If the plan fails, use initiative to accomplish the mission. Check, that's decentralized command. You can only do that if you actually know what the mission is. Next, be prepared to react effectively to a rapidly changing battlefield. Check.

• 1:25:53Jocko Willink?

  Develop procedures to deal with numerous contingencies. Check. Think quickly and be decisive and resourceful in accomplishing the mission. Check. Conserve fighting strength through the use of combat vehicles with collective NBC protection. Again, that's nuclear, biological, and chemical protection. Dispersal of forces, minimum combat power necessary to accomplish a task. The use of captured enemy equipment and effective logistics.

• 1:26:25Jocko Willink?

  And then that's the end of the list. Obviously, it's a pretty broad list. But very interesting. You can see the parallels. You can see how the same themes come up over and over again. And it says this, "These principles are idealistic. They are what the Soviets strive to achieve. They show what the Soviets would like to do, but not in all cases what they may be capable of doing. However, the principles serve as a basis from which any examination of Soviet operations and tactics must start."

• 1:26:56Jocko Willink?

  And again, it's just crazy to read about this. Nuclear warfare implications. The advent of nuclear weapons caused Soviet planners to go through a long period of rethinking and revising their combined arms doctrine. Modern, totally mechanized armed forces, supported and threatened by weapons that can change the face of the battlefield in a matter of minutes, gave a whole new meaning to the high-speed combined operations in depth. Uh, when we talk about combined operations or combined arms in, in the military, we talk about, you know, we're going to use mortars and we're going to use artillery, we're going to use your air support, we're going to use, you know, heavy machine gunfire, we're going

• 1:27:37Jocko Willink?

  to use all those together in coordination to, to catch our enemy in the combined arms dilemma where there's no way to get out of it. It's like checkmate, right? I never ever thought about, hey, let's get them in the ultimate checkmate over here on this one. Bring in, bring in the tactical nukes. Again, just, just to point out that

• 1:28:02Jocko Willink?

  under nuclear threatened conditions, the Soviet offensive concept would have the following features. Avoid concentrating forces. Concentrate fires, but not firing weapons. Attack across broader frontages on multiple axes. Avoid enemy strong points. Probe for enemy weak points. Penetrate where possible. Commit follow-on forces when and where they can best contribute to success. Drive rapidly and deeply into the enemy rear to destroy nuclear weapons and enemy forces.

• 1:28:37Jocko Willink?

  And just to wrap this up, because I thought this was interesting and we're not covering a bunch of this book, just like we barely covered any of the Marine Corps rifle manual, but.

• 1:28:48Jocko Willink?

  Norms, initiative and flexibility. Soviet military doctrine includes a system of performance standards expressed in numerical forms called norms. Norms define the ideal performance in a multitude of tasks and conditions. I've talked about task, conditions and standards on here before. They are used to determine such things as intervals, rates of march, frontages, logistics requirements, fire support and training drills. Norms provide a mathematical prescription for proper action. So this is where we get to, you know, I start thinking of that Soviet stereotypical like, hey, we're just gonna, here's the numbers, plug them in and that's what we're gonna do.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  They are formulated by historical analysis, training exercises, requirements and gaming models. Based on norms, a given situation has an approved response. The correctness of a commander's action or his troops' response is often measured by their adherence to the established norms for that situation. The advantage of this system is that it provides a high degree of combat readiness, at least in the initial stages. Drills at the subunit level, battalion or lower, are well rehearsed. The tactical level commander is aware in advance of how well his troops can cope with time and space factors. The, so there's, there's what's good about it. You have everything like laid out, like this is what we do in these situations.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the obvious disadvantage to strict adherence to norms is less provision for the unexpected. If a situation arises for which there is no established normative response, a lower level commander might find himself in peril, which I totally agree. That's why I made the training super hard and crazy for the guys that I put through training so that they were ready for non-normative situations.

• 1:30:42Jocko Willink?

  The topic of initiative receives much attention in Soviet military writings. When a plan fails, commanders are strongly urged to use initiative as a cure-all. The Soviet perception of initiative involves finding a correct solution following normative patterns. If the commander adheres to norms and is successful, he is praised. If he violates normative patterns and fails, he is condemned. So what kind of a decentralized command do you end up there? No one wants to take any risks. Success, however, is most important. If commander solves a problem by his own devices, he is lauded. So that's cool, but if you're afraid that if you make a call and it doesn't go right, and you're gonna get in trouble for that, you know what you're gonna do? You're not gonna make a call.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Jocko Willink?

  And that's what crushes your decentralized command.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Isn't that like a good tactic or whatever for like kids? Where, you know, like if they make an honest mistake, you don't just hammer them, you know, you can correct them or whatever. Otherwise, yeah, they're not gonna wanna like venture out and do things, you know?

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, totally. And this, yeah, you have to, you have to allow your kids to make some say. I, I've been saying lately, you gotta let, allow your kids to brush up against the guardrails of failure.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink?

  Without smashing them.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:00Jocko Willink?

  The bumps and bruises are what, are what is going to make them formidable in life. If they never got a bump or a bruise, life's gonna hit them hard.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Jocko Willink?

  They won't be conditioned for it. And this thing wraps up just saying these concepts are not descriptive of a rigid offensive doctrine, but one that is both mobile and flexible. So there's a little something from the, from the Soviet Army. And, and obviously, like I said, the principles of warfare.

• 1:32:31Jocko Willink?

  While they're nuanced and they're stated differently, they're the same. I mean, you see the same patterns over and over again, and they apply to war and they apply to life. And so I think it's important to see them from different angles so that you can understand them, because if you understand them broadly, well, then you can see them in all things. And if you see them in all things, then you can actually apply them in all things, which is important, because that's what's gonna make you better. It's gonna make your jujitsu better, it's gonna make your business better, it's gonna make your team better, it's gonna make you a better leader, it's gonna make you better, and it's gonna make your life better.

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  And these, these principles have been around for a long, long time. So, that's the,

• 1:33:14Jocko Willink?

  that's the Soviet maneuver warfare doctrine. And, you know, I also recently had to do some maneuvering myself.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:33:27Jocko Willink?

  A little bit of maneuvering and I, I wanted to, uh, bring it up because it's interesting. Little bit of aggression, little bit of maneuver warfare. So I wrote another book.

• 1:33:39Jocko Willink?

  And the book is called Mikey and the Dragons, right? It's another kid's book. It's for younger kids, maybe a tad younger than the Warrior Kid crowd, right? So we're talking like four, five, six, seven, eight ish, something like that. However, like the Warrior Kid books, there's lessons for everyone in there.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Yes, there is.

• 1:34:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so what's interesting, so I wrote this book. I had, I had like a vision. Does that sound too much?

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, when you say it, but you know, I dig it.

• 1:34:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay. I, I had a vision of this book, what the story was, right? And I wrote it. I wrote the first half. The original idea just like hit me and I just wrote it.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:22Jocko Willink?

  Like the first half of the book. And then a couple of weeks went by, is I wasn't quite sure about the ending exactly. And then one night I woke up for three thirty in the morning. I had the whole thing, the rest of it. And I sat down and I just wrote the rest of it.

• 1:34:38Jocko Willink?

  It was like overflowing from my brain. And I just, literally, I just woke up and I wrote it. It took me like two hours to finish it.

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Overflowing from your brain and your heart and your soul. Yeah.

• 1:34:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know about all that.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Come on, bro. Wake up three thirty in the morning. Come on. That's like, uh, what do you call it? Like an inspired creative genius type scenario.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  I don't know about all that.

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Come on, bro. Come on, come on.

• 1:34:58Jocko Willink?

  But when I got done, I was, I could, I realized, I liked it. Like I realized it was something, right? I knew it wasn't nothing. And as soon as my wife and kid, my wife and my youngest daughter woke up that day. And I was like, hey, let me read this to you. And I read it to him. And I could tell, because as soon as I got done reading it, my daughter was like, read it again. But what was even funnier was my wife was looking at me and the look on her face.

• 1:35:29Jocko Willink?

  Was basically a look of like, I can't believe that you actually wrote that. She looked real suspect.

• 1:35:37Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, you know, I was waiting for it to say, oh, you, where'd you find that?

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:35:43Jocko Willink?

  And I saw it was like, no, I actually did write it and I, and I, I read it to one of my SEAL buddies. Who's got a like really monotone voice, but he's got young kids and I'm awesome friends with him. And I got done with it. And I was like looking at it as I was looking, I'm as I'm reading, I'm not looking at him, I'm looking at it, right? And I get done and he's got this like classic monotone voice and he's like, How did you even do that?

• 1:36:09Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, okay, so that's kind of, you know, he was stoked on it.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:13Jocko Willink?

  And then I read it to you. And well, you heard it, Mikey and the Dragons.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  When I first read it to you.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  Well, you read me when it wasn't even done yet.

• 1:36:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  And it was like, I was like, dang, I was in first, I kind of on a superficial level. I was impressed with your ability to like actually rhyme stuff.

• 1:36:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right, because it rhymes.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you know how some, you know, one time like, I don't know me, I'm going to bust out some rhyme I made up. It's going to be so far fetched. It's like, right, just do better with that, you know, but yours is like, it all fits. It's like, yeah, I understand how your friend was like, like, how did you do that? Or whatever, you know, because it's just that you can't just throw words together that rhyme. But um, yeah, so here the first version without the be, without the ending kind of thing.

• 1:36:54Jocko Willink?

  I read that to you, just the beginning?

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you were like, hey, there's more and there's an ending or whatever that I didn't quite, you know? I was like, dang, that's, that's good. That is real good, actually, because and you, you, because you always have this little message. That's like real deep, you know, that kind of applies to like.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  That's not a little message.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  A huge message. And it like, it applies to kids directly and then it applies to adults directly though. That's the thing. So you know how like, okay, so I read kids book, I got kids, we all know that. And there's kids book, but the, the message is this real simple mess. I don't know, there's like a, I don't know, whatever, the, the little kid message. But it's like, as an adult, I'm not going to read that and be, I, I learned that a long time ago. I learned that when I was a kid. But these ones, even all the Warrior Kid books or whatever, but these are adult messages for kids.

• 1:37:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  So that's what, that's another thing. I was like, dang, I was thinking that too, bro. How do you, how do you do that? You know? And then I'm thinking, you know what happened? You were like scared of some, like bugs or something when you were, that's just what I was thinking in my head. I don't know. Maybe we're maybe. Anyway, so yeah, so the finished one.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  I think I told you this here. When you read the finished one, I was like, holy cow, that is, that is gold on so many levels. So what I did was I stole the story, borrowed it, put it, I borrowed it.

• 1:38:08Jocko Willink?

  This is what you do.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but it works. So I borrow the story. Obviously I can't memorize the rhyming parts of it, but I understand the story.

• 1:38:15Jocko Willink?

  Told the story.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I told the story to my daughter as a bedtime story. And like, she's like, oh, she's like, oh, there's all these questions, you know, because she thinks it's real. But man, the lesson is so good.

• 1:38:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:38:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, from your reaction, from my, and I actually read it to all of my older kids as well. And got the same thing, super just like stoked on it and a little bit of like, did you actually write that? You know, that kind of attitude. And when I, when I, when everyone kind of had the same reaction, I was like, okay, I need to get this into kids' hands as quickly as possible. Cause you know, it's the archetypical story of a, of a kid that as you said, needs to overcome some fears. And it's also a story within a story. Right? So basically the fundamental thing is there's a, there's a boy, his name is Mikey. He's scared of everything. That's his basic situation. And here's how he gets introduced in the book.

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  It goes like this. There once was a little boy named Mike. And there were many things in the world that he didn't like. He was scared of spiders and beetles and bugs and always thought they hid under the rugs. They were creepy and crawly and nasty and mean, and he ran from every bug he'd ever seen. But it wasn't only insects that gave Mikey a scare. There were many other things for which Mike didn't care. And that's sort of the opening. So you learn a little bit about Mikey. He's scared, scared of some stuff.

• 1:39:43Jocko Willink?

  And eventually after you learn about all the things that Mikey's scared of and how he kind of is.

• 1:39:50Jocko Willink?

  Sad? That he's scared of so many things.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  He didn't like it.

• 1:39:54Jocko Willink?

  And he kind of wonders why is he so scared of everything? And eventually he stumbles upon this book and the book is that there's a book that Mikey calls the dragon book.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Even though the book itself is called The Dragon Prince, but he flips this book open for a second and he sees pictures of dragons and the dragons are all crazy. And so he's a little bit scared, but there's also pictures of like a young boy in there that kind of looks like he knows what's up.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  And so Mikey decides that he's gonna read it. And so this is where you get the story within the story. Cause then you you turn the page and you see the cover to this other book.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:30Jocko Willink?

  Different font, different voice, different situation.

• 1:40:36Jocko Willink?

  The pictures look a little bit different.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  That's cool. Cause I saw I only saw some, I didn't see the completed book. I saw like just some of the pictures and you know, Bozak, you know, knows what he's doing in there.

• 1:40:47Jocko Willink?

  And anyways, the story that's within the story is it turns out that there's this little prince that lives in a kingdom. Where the king, who was the prince's dad, has died. And of course, everyone's all sad because of that. But even more than being sad, they're actually scared because it was the king that always protected the kingdom from the dragons who lived over the hill. In the dragon cave. And with the king gone, there's no one to protect the kingdom. The knights are scared, the guards are scared. The only one that everyone is looking to to protect the kingdom is this young prince. And here's how you get introduced to that to that. But now that the king had died and was gone, there was only one person to fight and carry on.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  And that person wasn't big or mighty or strong. In fact, he hadn't been alive that long. Now, the person who had dragons to chase was just a little boy with a smiling face. Yes, the person that now must stand up and be bold was just a little prince who was only seven years old.

• 1:41:52Jocko Willink?

  So, the boy eventually realizes he's gonna have to stand up and face the dragons. He goes to his father's war chest. And opens it up. And of course, the shield's super heavy and the sword is massive. He can barely pick him up. And now he's even more scared, but then he sees at the bottom of the war chest, he sees a little note. Little note from his dad, the king, the mighty king. And the mighty king explains to the son what he has to do to stand up and face the dragons.

• 1:42:27Jocko Willink?

  And the note's pretty powerful, in my opinion.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:42:32Jocko Willink?

  And the prince goes forth into the fray and through those lessons from his dad. And he faces the dragons and we get a result from that. And then, the original character in the story, right?

• 1:42:46Jocko Willink?

  Mikey, he learns also how to face his fears. So that's the basic fundamental story. And the way it came together was pretty cool and then the reactions from everyone was pretty cool. So like I said, I wanted to get it into people's hands as quickly as possible. So I talked to my publisher about this and I told him about it. And I was in the middle of negotiating some other books with them. And they, of course, were like, hey, we've already got these books that we're looking at. So, you know, we'll put this one on the back burner and maybe we'll put it out in a year. And it was actually, was it 14 months?

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Dang, you didn't like it?

• 1:43:22Jocko Willink?

  I didn't like that. I didn't like that. So I said, no, you know, hey, it's all cool, but I really want to get this one out very quickly. I want to get this one out. This was in the summertime. I said, I want to get this one out by...

• 1:43:32Jocko Willink?

  I want to get this one out by, let's get it to kids by Christmas, right? This is an important lesson for kids to learn. Let's get it to them by Christmas. Get it out in November. Kids can get it for Christmas and learn.

• 1:43:43Jocko Willink?

  And they're like, no, and finally go back and forth. And finally, the message I get is I get message from my children's publisher because they're focused on other things. It's the way it is. They come back and say, look, there's no scenario. No scenario where this book comes out in November. There's no scenario where that happens.

• 1:44:08Jocko Willink?

  And I said, Roger that. And then I immediately formed my own publishing company called Jocko Publishing. I talked to John Bozak, who did the art for the Warrior Kid books. And he was like, okay, we're going. This is due now. And he went into hyper creation mode. And the images are a lot different than Warrior Kid because they're full color and they're take up full pages and they're dragons and just awesomeness. And he laid out the entire book and did the art and colored it in about a month and a half. And now the book is in fact coming out in November.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  So in the past, when I would talk about pre-ordering book, you know, so you could get the first edition, whatnot. And I would always say the publisher doesn't know, needs to know how many books to print, which is true. Now, the person, the publisher, the person that needs to know how many books to print is actually me.

• 1:45:05Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to get some, you need to order it. People might think that this is dumb on my part, which is fine to do this. It's like a lot of taking on a lot of extra work, probably won't make as much money. Should have done it on the normal publishing release cycle so you can get more. Like they have a whole cycle, the way they average, there's a whole thing.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole thing to make the book more popular and all this stuff, right?

• 1:45:34Jocko Willink?

  And I just had to look about it. The bottom line is, is I don't really care about that. And I'll tell you what, after doing book signings and you see what the Warrior Kid book does for kids,

• 1:45:45Jocko Willink?

  I don't care about anything but trying to get this book into as many kids' hands as possible. If I make less money, whatever. If it doesn't make the New York Times Bestseller list, whatever. Because this isn't about making money, or it isn't about making the list, or whatever. It's, it's about these kids. It's about teaching kids a core lesson at a young age so that they can have a better life. Pretty straight, pretty straightforward. Aim, goal, mission.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:46:18Jocko Willink?

  So if you got a kid, or you know a kid, or you just want to get after it and support the, the cause over here of discipline and of justice and strength and of overcoming fears, because that's what the book is about.

• 1:46:35Jocko Willink?

  Then jump on Amazon, order this book. It's called Mikey and the Dragons.

• 1:46:41Jocko Willink?

  And I appreciate that, because it'll help a lot of kids out. And that is no matter what, a good thing to do in this world. No matter what kind of judgment you want to put, if you can help out a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, a four-year-old, little kid. Man.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  That's worthwhile, to me. So, Mikey and the Dragons.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Take it.

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Now, obviously, we're gonna help some kids get on the path with that one.

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Maybe Echo, you could recommend some ways to get the, you know, basically the masses.

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Jocko Willink?

  A little bit tighter on the path.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:31Jocko Willink?

  You tell me.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  And keep us on the path, really. When it comes down to it.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yes, so, obviously, well, it is obvious, like I said last time. We're gonna talk about origin. You know why? Because what, when you think of path, we're thinking what?

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Fitness, or how should I say capability? I don't want to see fitness or whatever.

• 1:47:53Jocko Willink?

  If it's not just fitness.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's like capability. That's what it is. Capability, jujitsu, which is essentially under the umbrella of capability.

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  Somebody asked me today, another interview.

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:48:06Jocko Willink?

  How do you recommend men? It was like one of those men centric interviews.

• 1:48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  How do you recommend men increase their confidence?

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:17Jocko Willink?

  And I thought about it for a second. And

• 1:48:22Jocko Willink?

  I, I was, at first I was kind of like, um, you know, I don't know that I need to answer this question. This is kind of one of those things. And then I just thought to myself, okay, realistically, how do you increase someone's confidence? Cause it's kind of a throwaway question in a way, right? Isn't it a little bit of a throwaway question? It's like, hey, what magic pill do you have to increase confidence? Right, that, that's the, that's the answer that I think was, was being hoped for.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's hear Chaco's version of this.

• 1:48:49Jocko Willink?

  How do you increase your confidence? And let's put that as a, as a damn bullet point on the clickbait, right? Navy SEAL tells you how to increase your confidence, right? Right? It's a clickbait all day long. So I don't like those kinds of things, but

• 1:49:04Jocko Willink?

  I thought about it for a second. I thought to myself, okay, where does confidence come from? And then I rattled off, I was like, well, first of all, if you want to be confident, then you should do things like exercise and be physically fit. If you're physically fit, your confidence will increase. You tell me, Echo Charles, is that factual or, or wrong?

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  That is factual.

• 1:49:30Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so if you increase your physical capability, you'll be more confident. If you learn how to fight, if you learn jujitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, you will become more confident. Hey, does that sound like I'm a meathead? Maybe, guess what? It's actually true.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Jocko Willink?

  It's actually a hundred percent true. If you're physically capable and you actually know what to do with your physical capability in a confrontational situation, you will become more confident. Okay, so there's next. What else? Okay, how about? We learn to articulate ourselves. Well, okay, yes, will you be more confident if you can speak clearly and concisely and people can understand it? Yes, you will become more confident. How do you do that? You practice, you rehearse, you carry on conversations, you read a lot. So that you have a better vocabulary. Once you're done with that, what comes next? Well.

• 1:50:27Jocko Willink?

  Do we lack confidence if we are in the unknown? The answer is yes. How do you get more knowledge? You study, you read, you, you, you do your best to learn as much as you can possibly learn. And that will increase your confidence because you'll be more comfortable in more different situations because you have more knowledge. And the final thing is if you, one way of getting, this is like a, a self licking ice cream going, what am I about to say? But if you have the confidence to say, I don't know, your confidence will increase.

• 1:51:07Jocko Willink?

  So I can go and get interviewed by anybody because worst case scenario, I'll say, you know, I don't know about that. I'm not, I'm not, I don't actually don't know anything about that. I'm going to have to pass on that question because I'm not sure. Am I, is everyone in the world supposed to think that Jocko knows everything in the world?

• 1:51:25Jocko Willink?

  Or am I, can I keep, can I, am I humble enough to admit? That you know what? If you quiz me about every subject in the world, I may not know it. Is that okay? It's fine. No one expects me to be an expert in anything and definitely not everything. Like I'm pretty good at a couple of things, but not an expert in anything.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  And so if you do those things, you will become more confident.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  I thought that was pretty straightforward.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  I, I think so too. I think that's very, uh, how should I say, informative. It kinda, that kinda makes it less impactful if I say informative, but yeah.

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  There's a, there's also another aspect, and I guess this is covered by the other ones, but like, just stepping up and leading sometimes.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:10Jocko Willink?

  Will get you better at it.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Jocko Willink?

  Stepping up and talking to a group of people, you'll get better at it.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, when you say, like, basically like practice stuff.

• 1:52:19Jocko Willink?

  Rehearsal.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  So, yeah, rehearsal.

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:52:21Speaker 01

  So, the, the talking to people, that's a big one. Like, you know how someone will, you'll have, like, I don't know, social anxiety, and there's, there's, it's a spectrum. Some people have massive social anxiety. Some people just prefer not a lot of people be there, you know, kinda thing.

• 1:52:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  And it's a spectrum. And, and obviously real common, right? So, yeah, if you wanna increase confidence, you say, okay, in regards to the talking part, right, articulation, practice talking to people. Like, if you go to, like, the store, this is kinda a little mental exercise I do.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Do you get a lot done in the grocery store? Let's hear the mental exercise.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  One of the few things I actually do.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  In the grocery store. How do we increase confidence as a drill in the grocery store?

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, okay, so, and I kinda got it from, like, being in, like, Oregon and sometimes in Hawaii, where, so, in Oregon, right, okay, so, we'll, we'll compare the two scenarios. In, in San Diego compared to Oregon. In San Diego, if, if I go in, in the, I don't know, frozen food aisle, and someone else is there kinda in front of the peas, whatever I'm getting, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna politely, hopefully politely, wait for them to finish and leave.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  But put bluntly, that's like, I'm gonna wait for them to get out of my way, and so I can do what I have to do, and then I'm gonna, you know, in Oregon, you go to the frozen food section, and someone else is there, they're gonna look at you, but hey, it's almost like an attitude, like, hey, you're here too? Shoot, what do you get? You're getting peas too? Right on, like, kinda like, it's like they acknowledge and, for lack of a better term, celebrate the fact that you're sharing space, you know, like, we're both at the grocery store, you know, kinda thing. Yeah, it's, put it, this is my interpretation of the feel, right? So, I kinda got that lesson, and I'm quite like that too, but it's more because everyone kinda knows each other, you know? Or, you know, you seen the guy, you're like, hey, at least say hi, you know?

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  That's the, yeah, so, what I did was kinda try to bring that, um, I really liked it, by the way.

• 1:54:09Jocko Willink?

  The aloha spirit.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  The aloha. The Allah's spirit, yes. So now you go in the store and you're kind of sharing the same space. So I'm not saying every single person you pass, you're bothering them and hey, how's your, you know, that stuff. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you're sharing their space, say something to them, acknowledge them politely. Right? Where you have to actively expend energy to say something. Yes, but it's not.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  Straight from Dalton.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. What I'm saying, like actively like engage in their, their world right there, you know? So, and that goes for like kind of everyone who's sharing space with you. Where they go, you know how like you're standing there in line and you guys are just sort of, well, you avoid eye contact because you're just on your, your thing and they're on their thing and we're going to stay out of each other's way. It's not, like, don't play it like that. Play it like, hey, hey, like, you make eye contact, say hi, you know, kind of thing. And try to do as genuine as possible, obviously, because you don't want them to think you're going to like catch them outside and sell them something or something like that. And then same thing goes for like the cashier, especially if you see them all the time. You, you, you don't say the generic, hey, how are you? Like that kind? I don't know. Like make it for real. Like you care about like, hey, so how was it today? You know, because you know, when you're a cashier, you're seeing people after people.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  If it gets crowded, that's something. If it's real dead, that's something. So you can say, hey, how was it tonight?

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, you know what I like to do? I do that more than just the random people. I don't, I usually leave people alone because I want to be left alone, right? And so like when you see me in the store, don't, don't approach.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Don't mess with you. Yeah. Stay out of your way, bro. Stay out of your way. No.

• 1:55:37Jocko Willink?

  But the cash register, the, you know, the waitress, the person behind the whatever coffee thing or, you know, like, I always try and just be nice to them because I know that they're probably having a not nice day. Because when you're the cash register, people are mad at you already just because there was a line and you couldn't find the, the chocolate chip discounted coupon thing. And so, you know, I like to give them a little acknowledgement that's all good and that there's actually humans out here that are in the world and.

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  Well, it's the same concept and I'm and my point is that that's just where it kind of came from.

• 1:56:12Jocko Willink?

  So the whole point of this is just to increase your confidence in communicating with other humans.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when when when you do that, the more and more you do that, uh, the more just, I would say, comfortable you get just talking to random people.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  You know, like just people, it doesn't have to be your best friend to start opening up a little bit. Not everything, obviously, not everything, but just just a little bit.

• 1:56:30Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  So now you go into a public place, you're no stranger to talking to strangers anymore. You know, and the more and more you do it. So yeah, you get more confident, kind of like, oh, if this guy rolls up to me, yeah, I have no problem talking to this guy. I don't have social anxiety. Yeah, what up, bro? You wanna know how my day's going, bro? I'll tell you. How's that? You know, so it's that feeling and it helps.

• 1:56:49Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, I'm over here, why are you looking at me?

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  All in my way. Yeah, bro, spread the aloha spirit.

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cool, cool. And speaking of aloha spirit, what were you talking about? Jiu Jitsu? We were talking about confidence because in order to increase your confidence, one absolute 100% way to increase your confidence is to train Jiu Jitsu.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  All ages, all genders.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Let's just say to say safe for age four and up.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  Age four and up, yes, correct. Age four and up.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  Below that is like you, there's exceptions for sure.

• 1:57:21Jocko Willink?

  Below, it's playtime.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, which is part of Jiu Jitsu, too, by the way, as a kid.

• 1:57:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. It should be fun.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Right. Think about this as Jiu Jitsu, right? And you'll be up to relate to this. So, you know, like with your friends when you're young, right? You're a kid, I don't know, maybe eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

• 1:57:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  When you 18, 19, 20, 23, whatever, when you're drunk at a party with your friends, it's all the same deal. You guys get in little friendly arguments and it's go time, you wrestle in the or in the living room, then your parents say.

• 1:57:51Jocko Willink?

  In a SEAL platoon.

• 1:57:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you understand. Exactly right. And your parents say, hey, take it outside. It's all this thing. You guys fight outside in the grass or the dirt, whatever.

• 1:58:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  And, you know, who gets usually, sometimes, yeah, usually the bigger brother or, you know, your friend who's bigger, usually he's gonna get you.

• 1:58:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Right? But it's fun. That's how it always, it's all fun and maybe you lose your temper, maybe you fight, whatever.

• 1:58:14Jocko Willink?

  There's always the little brother that can't take it.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, can't take it or, yeah, exactly.

• 1:58:18Jocko Willink?

  And he tries to like kick you in the nuts. Like, you know what I mean? You know what I mean, that kid?

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do know.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  He gets all red in the face, bad temper, gotta look out for himself.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:26Jocko Willink?

  Wants to project the power, even though he's smaller than everyone else, because he's younger.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Sure, that happens occasionally and which actually fits into what I'm about to say. So what jujitsu is, it's basically that, but the skill that that that's required to win at that, you know? So we still have that need, like me and you right now.

• 1:58:45Jocko Willink?

  Your whole point is to say that jujitsu is fun.

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 1:58:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so now you gotta you gotta unpack it because it's like you can see, there's a lot of things that are fun.

• 1:58:52Jocko Willink?

  You could've just said jujitsu is fun.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  No, I couldn't have said that, no.

• 1:58:54Jocko Willink?

  Everyone knows it's fun.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  I know, the thing is, but they don't know what kind of fun, you know, so if I say, hey, um, you know.

• 1:59:01Jocko Willink?

  Actually, it's more fun than that.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  It's fun, it's fun on a whole different level.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  Right, well, here's this though.

• 1:59:07Jocko Willink?

  Because it's fun because you're connecting things together that are part of a like grand. It's like being a musician. It's like hitting a riff well.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Yes, there, yes, there's that hundred percent, but I think just as a fundamental kind of, I don't wanna say need, but a want is like, bro, like, see how you're even looking at me right now, like, bro, I kinda wanna fight you right now.

• 1:59:28Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  In a like, I don't wanna like, fight you like, but I kinda wanna fight you. As a friend, like, do you wanna take it on the match right now, kinda kinda thing? Like, if we were like ten years old, you'd be like, what, you wanna take it outside and see what up? Yeah, uh, as friends, but that's all jujitsu really is, that's really what it is. It's like, yeah, let's go on the mat and let's basically fight. In a way that we don't burn each other's bridges and and not be friends anymore. And then, but on top of that, it's like they teach you the skill to do that.

• 2:00:00Jocko Willink?

  That can literally save your life.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, literally, yeah.

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  At a minimum, it will increase your confidence as a human.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  As a human being, yes, sir.

• 2:00:08Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it gives you too much confidence.

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  Too much, yes, especially early on.

• 2:00:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, especially if you're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  Twenty-one.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, twenty-one, you start thinking you can just smash.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, kill everybody nonetheless.

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  So if you're training jujitsu.

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  When you train jujitsu? Well, if you're on the path in that way.

• 2:00:25Jocko Willink?

  It might be good to, if you need jujitsu gear, which you do need some jujitsu gear. You need what's called a gi. If you need a gi, you can get a gi from our company, which is based here in America, and we make gees. All American from the ground up.

• 2:00:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  From the dirt.

• 2:00:46Speaker 01

  Dirt.

• 2:00:46Jocko Willink?

  It's called Origin Maine best gees ever.

• 2:00:49Speaker 01

  In the world too.

• 2:00:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, ever.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Ever. In the history of gees.

• 2:00:53Jocko Willink?

  And if you need rash guards, which you can use for jujitsu, you can also use them for weightlifting. You can use them for.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  Running and cycling.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  Running, cycling, surfing, uh guitar playing. It might not, it might not be necessary. I do not wear rash guard when I play guitar.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:01:10Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I should.

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:01:12Jocko Willink?

  And those are also made here in America along with what else?

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  Just regular clothes too, like shirts and you know, some athletic wear, but the shorts that I wear, I only wear, well, I have one pair of like random camo shorts.

• 2:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, by the way, I gotta get you some, we got some new shorts coming and you're gonna be very excited about these shorts.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Well, I already am because every, even the, the error, the mistake shorts that they made, they were my favorite shirts. Literally ever. And then they came out with deliberate shorts that they can actually sell now, now those are my favorite shorts. So yeah, you say origin, cause you know what, Pete, he cares. Like you don't care about the fashion stuff, but they fashion subtleties. It has to do with fit, fit, style, but there's, it's subtle though.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  Anyway, they got a bunch of stuff on there, uh clothing wise as well, like joggers and, and you like the jogger.

• 2:01:58Jocko Willink?

  And then they got supplements, we got supplements.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  We got supplements, we got joint warfare. We got, joint warfare is good if you're working out, if you're on the path, your joints are gonna take a beating. Joint warfare will protect them.

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:12Jocko Willink?

  And heal them. Uh krill oil, another good one, discipline, good pre-operational, get some.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Get your mind right, real quick, get your body right. And then of course, we have a little something called Molk.

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, we do.

• 2:02:29Jocko Willink?

  What is Molk? Really simple, it's Molk.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Molk, yeah. So you know, um, you know, Cole the kid.

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:39Speaker 01

  Happens to be my cousin.

• 2:02:40Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  He's on the path.

• 2:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  The beginnings of the path.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking the first step.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  Interestingly, got on the milk train as the first step.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  That's an interesting first step.

• 2:02:51Speaker 01

  It is a first interesting, but here's why though. When you're not really technically on the path and you just drink milk, you just think you're drinking a milkshake. See what I'm saying?

• 2:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  He's drinking it for the taste.

• 2:03:01Jocko Willink?

  That's a good point.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  Which is good though, because it'll keep you on the path in in regards to that additional protein that you're gonna get.

• 2:03:07Jocko Willink?

  The original flavor was mint chocolate, my favorite. We went to peanut butter from there. Available, then vanilla gorilla. I don't like plain vanilla. I don't, I just don't like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna eat vanilla anything like you, unless, unless I'm eating it with some damn chocolate cake. I'm not gonna order vanilla ice cream ever.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  The other day when you had a cake situation.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Cake scenario.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  And some ice cream, what kind of ice cream was it?

• 2:03:35Jocko Willink?

  It was vanilla.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:03:37Jocko Willink?

  And that whole scenario just unfolded wrong. It really did. I just rationalized the whole thing, lied to myself, just again, just got after it.

• 2:03:49Jocko Willink?

  But what, well, here's what bummed me out, as soon as I was done, I was like, well, I was on the road, no milk. So when you don't have dessert, sometimes you get that little, oh, I'd like a little something that tastes good to, to wash down the steak. It's a good steak. And then, and then there's no milk, because I'm on the road, I gotta figure that out. I gotta figure that out. People give me good suggestions, I know I can put a little baggie in the thing and just grab some milk somewhere and mix it up, no factor. So I need to start doing that.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, you don't like vanilla.

• 2:04:17Jocko Willink?

  So no, vanilla is not my favorite flavor. The vanilla tastes good. I, I, I was not the judge on the vanilla, you know? Pete and Brian were like, hey, the vanilla is awesome. I said, I'll try it, it tastes fine, I'm not the judge, because I don't wanna judge something that I don't fully comprehend. I'm not deserving of being a vanilla judge, so therefore I didn't do it. And, but the darkness, which is chocolate, the darkness, that is also freaking delicious. And when you're getting this stuff, you'll be getting it from Origin Maine. You got Cindy up there, you met Cindy?

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  She's fired up. So when you're getting your stuff packed, it's not just being. It's not just being randomly placed in a box by a robot. Yeah. No, Cindy's up there. She's getting after it. And I'm gonna say one more thing. Little announce, announcement? Sure. Little announcement. So you, you remember when you were a little kid? Yes. And you loved chocolate milk. Yes. And you loved strawberry milk. You loved it so much. Whatever, whatever little brand name that you got, and there was a couple of them that were prominent. Sure. And they tasted delicious. And it was like dessert. And for some reason, you didn't really understand why, but your parents would actually allow you to drink it all the time.

• 2:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Because your parents thought, well, you know, it's got milk in it, so it's gotta be good to go. Yeah. It's got milk, it's got, it's got, it'll make their bones strong. And there's a little protein in there, so we'll just let them drink it. What they didn't realize is that little chocolate and strawberry milk that you were drinking as a kid is completely filled with sugar and high fructose corn syrup and a bunch of other chemicals that they couldn't even pronounce. And so the milk that your parents, my parents, were allowing me to drink was actually a freaking net loss. Overall to my health, because it was filled with poison. But it tasted good and you loved it. It was like a dessert you could have all the time.

• 2:06:18Jocko Willink?

  But it was filled with poison. So you know what we did? We fixed it. We fixed it. And we now have available at this time Warrior Kid Milk.

• 2:06:31Jocko Willink?

  Yes, Warrior Kid Milk. We made chocolate and we made strawberry, just like you remember when you were a kid, only instead of having a bunch of garbage in it, it's got protein, extra protein, 12 grams. It's got vitamins that you need. It's got probiotics. Because kids are getting told all the time, they, their parents are getting told they need to take probiotics and here, take this pill and that pill. No, take Warrior Kid Milk. And there's no sugar in it. And it tastes freaking amazing. So it's better than any other of these flavored, whatever chocolate milk you grew up on. This tastes better. So now your warrior kid

• 2:07:13Jocko Willink?

  out there can get on the milk train. It's awesome. And again, for me to see kids and be able to help out kids that are four years old, six years old, eight years old, to give them something that's healthy, that tastes good, that's gonna make them stronger and healthier. I mean, this is what it's all about. So order up some Warrior Kid Milk for your children.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:42Jocko Willink?

  Available now.

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  My kid's going straight on the milk.

• 2:07:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. One speed, one way ticket. Does that apply? One way ticket on the milk? Yeah.

• 2:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:51Speaker 01

  You understand what I'm saying?

• 2:07:51Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:53Jocko Willink?

  Fully.

• 2:07:53Speaker 01

  The vanilla, speaking of which, my son, two years old, by the way, liked the vanilla. Asked for more.

• 2:07:59Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  I didn't know. I'm like, should I give my son that much additional protein? You know?

• 2:08:07Jocko Willink?

  You even question that?

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  You know, I just don't know a lot of things, you know, as far in regards. Either way. So, okay, yes, kids on milk train, on the path. Kids are on the path.

• 2:08:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:08:17Speaker 01

  Straight up.

• 2:08:18Jocko Willink?

  They wanna be.

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  At that book signing, there wasn't, there weren't many kids there.

• 2:08:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The ones that I did on the East Coast, lots of kids, tons of kids, all of them on the path, fired up, man. It was, it was amazing.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  Every kid there last night was on the path. Huge time.

• 2:08:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  One kid literally tried to challenge me to a jujitsu match on more than one occasion, and I'm not even joking, like, for real, wanted to, which I dug, by the way. I mean, I couldn't engage him, because, you know, you know, I mean, you're in all this stuff.

• 2:08:46Jocko Willink?

  Challenge me, you'd be getting that double leg.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  Straight up. Either way, okay, kids on the path. So which brings me to our store, Jocko has a store. It's called? Jocko Store, right? Pretty straightforward. Anyway, there is, there are Warrior Kid rash guards for when they join Jiu Jitsu. No gi part of it. Rash guards on there, there's obviously Warrior Kid shirts.

• 2:09:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if they're in the gi part of it, that's cool. You go to originmaine.com and you get them, you get them the Warrior Gi. Get some.

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  Boom. And also, new addition for Warrior Kids patches on there right now. If you went literally right now.

• 2:09:23Jocko Willink?

  Live.

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  Yep, live patches. Yeah, Warrior Gi, Warrior Backpack, you know, obviously wherever you want to put them. But yeah, the little round one and a long kind of Jiu Jitsu one made kind of for Jiu Jitsu, but you can put it wherever you want. Anyway, yeah. It's on jacostore.com. Also on jacostore.com is where you can get your shirts. Disciplining equals freedom.

• 2:09:44Jocko Willink?

  That's one of the things about shirts is everyone wears shirts. Even if you don't want to wear one, which I don't like wearing a shirt.

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  Hell no.

• 2:09:50Jocko Willink?

  But I, you, sometimes you gotta wear a shirt.

• 2:09:53Speaker 01

  You kinda gotta wear a shirt, bro.

• 2:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Everyone needs a shirt, might as well be a kind of a cool one.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Might as well represent. Yeah, big time.

• 2:10:00Jocko Willink?

  And truckers hats.

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  Truckers hats on there.

• 2:10:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm completely stoked on my Disciplining Equals Freedom hat. Are the DefCore hats out yet?

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  The DefCore hats are, should be done. Are they live? I don't know.

• 2:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  I gotta take, there was a, there was a technical thing where like the logo and, you know, cause hats have panels, a certain amount of panels. And you know, the logo, does it fit on this, this, does it go on the seam?

• 2:10:24Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  Or, or do we need a different panel hat now? So anyway, it's very technical.

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's hope the DefCore hat is out soon.

• 2:10:32Speaker 01

  That's deep representing right there.

• 2:10:34Jocko Willink?

  What about the DefCore shirt? Is there a pure DefCore shirt?

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  Black Ops.

• 2:10:38Jocko Willink?

  Ah, yes.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  And then I was gonna, I was thinking of one called DefCore Declassified. It's just white on white. You know, whatever, Black Ops. You see what I'm saying? Anyway, um, well, you know, yeah. You know, I'm gonna have to ask that we all kind of just kind of check back on that one. Maybe it's live, maybe it's not. Nonetheless, if you go there and you want to represent hardcore, that's where you can get your shirt. Or hoodie. New hoodie on the way, by the way.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, duty, heavy duty?

• 2:11:07Speaker 01

  Heavy duty, technically.

• 2:11:11Jocko Willink?

  This better be good, my brother.

• 2:11:12Speaker 01

  Technically, that's the thing. Anyway, hoodies on there. A lot of cool stuff on there. Oh, and I did the research. Who, what, what's better? What do people, literally, what do people like better? Flex fit hat or trucker hat?

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  Which one?

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Even, even Steven.

• 2:11:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  Actually, there's like, I think, two more people, historically speaking, like the snapback. So technically, you're right.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:11:34Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, we've got some rash guards on there as well.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  All right. Also, we got the podcast. Subscribe to it wherever. Uh, don't forget the Warrior Kid Podcast. A lot of people don't know about that yet, so spread the word on the Warrior Kid Podcast. Little questions from Uncle Jake for Uncle Jake and little stories from Uncle Jake about how he developed his sort of values in the world. That's the Warrior Kid Podcast. The Warrior Kid Soap. From IrishOaksRanch.com, Young Aiden the Warrior Kid. Milking goats, making soap, getting after it. Order some of that so you can stay clean. Also YouTube. Check out Echo's legit enhanced videos.

• 2:12:22Jocko Willink?

  Which some people like, some people like them. Most people I'd say like them. You don't get a lot of thumbs down on your videos.

• 2:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:30Jocko Willink?

  And what I like is when someone thumbs down your video. There's, there's multiple people in the comments that'll be like, who the hell? Calm down this, a communist.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good.

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  So that's good. And we're, we've got some plans for the YouTubey. We're gonna step it up a little bit.

• 2:12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more, I should say, because you've stepped it up a little bit.

• 2:12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  We stepped it up a little bit more.

• 2:12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think videos just in general are like fun to watch. Yeah, it could be just speaking for myself, but.

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, I would tend to agree with you. And also Psychological Warfare, working on album number two, Psychological Warfare. We're aiming for a Christmas release. If you have any suggestions, hit me up on Twitter. In the meantime, you got the Psychological Warfare one album, which can help you get through whatever little moments of weakness. I wish I had it the other day before that cake got all over my brain with ice cream.

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:21Jocko Willink?

  So watch out for that one.

• 2:13:22Speaker 01

  What was good about that? You learned, it seemed like, anyway, according to your post, that you learned a little lesson. And you're open about it, too.

• 2:13:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:30Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 2:13:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  You can't be like hiding your failures and then acting like.

• 2:13:34Jocko Willink?

  No, cuz. Cuz I'm human.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  Anyone that thinks I'm not human, you're wrong. I'm all too human. I get tapped out in jujitsu. I get what, you know what I mean? I mean, it's like.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:50Jocko Willink?

  Hey.

• 2:13:50Speaker 01

  And you pound huge pieces of cake.

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Every once in a while, cake with ice cream. Ugh. So disappointed in myself.

• 2:13:57Speaker 01

  Anyway, stay on the path, is what I'm saying. Um, also, if you're, if you're incorporating kettlebell workouts in various ring workouts, I'll tell you where you can get them, get them from on it, on it dot com slash Jaco, by the way. I incorporate rings every single day, every single day.

• 2:14:15Jocko Willink?

  You're on the ring.

• 2:14:16Speaker 01

  For ads in corporate, it's good. And I can't quite, I can almost do pull ups again with my bicep or whatever, but.

• 2:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Muscle ups coming soon.

• 2:14:23Speaker 01

  Muscle ups coming.

• 2:14:24Jocko Willink?

  Actually, my shoulder's getting back up to speed.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Cuz it went through a little down period. Then it got, then it got healed now that I tweaked it again, doing something stupid. You know what I did?

• 2:14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, eat ice cream.

• 2:14:37Jocko Willink?

  No, I didn't do that. I added massive numbers of weighted dips, super deep.

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  And it messed up your shoulder.

• 2:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Messed up my shoulder.

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:14:46Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was like six months ago or something. It was a long time ago. I've been dealing with it, but finally it's coming back around.

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, shoulder's pain in the ass, man.

• 2:14:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta ma- do the maintenance, man. You gotta do the maintenance, and I don't do enough of it. Need to do more of it.

• 2:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, yeah, but yeah, on it, go there. That's the, you can get some cool workout stuff. And actually, good travel workout stuff, too. Like those, well, you always said this, I know, but, you know, I'm slowly coming to the realization that you, when you travel with rings, that opens up your whole travel.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Game changer.

• 2:15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:14Jocko Willink?

  Game changer. Check. Hey, if you're working out too, and you're working on that deadlift, one thing you can do is if you probably, if you're stuck at like a four thousand pound deadlift plateau, we can't accept that. Get Jocko White Tea, and it comes with a guarantee. I don't know what kind of guarantee. So you can deadlift eight thousand pounds immediately. Probably take you like four sips.

• 2:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:37Jocko Willink?

  If you can't diff, if you can't deadlift eight thousand pounds after drinking Jocko White Tea, either the ones in a can or the ones in a tea bag.

• 2:15:47Jocko Willink?

  Uh, that you can get them on Amazon. If you can't, if your deadlift isn't eight thousand pounds after that, just drink more and you'll get there.

• 2:15:53Speaker 01

  Just keep drinking until, yeah.

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Also got some books, obviously the way the warrior kid books, that the first one's way the warrior kid. The second one is Mark's mission.

• 2:16:03Speaker 01

  Which is the best book and I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it. It's a bold statement. In fact, I was debating whether or not to actually say it out loud. If it, that's the best book in the world, straight up. Mark's mission, the second one.

• 2:16:16Speaker 01

  You, okay, so I'm reading it to, we just finished it a week ago.

• 2:16:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this is your first time finishing it?

• 2:16:22Speaker 01

  Finishing it, yes. A week ago.

• 2:16:23Jocko Willink?

  Interesting, interesting.

• 2:16:24Speaker 01

  So, um, well, cause we jumped around to another book. It's a long story, but nonetheless, yeah. So finished it, right? So you, you know why though? Now that I'm searching my feelings.

• 2:16:34Jocko Willink?

  God, do you want to talk about this right now, please?

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  It starts to address a little bit more sophisticated issues that you can go through, you know? Even though when you think you got it figured out, you know, you're taking jujitsu now and you can do pull ups and all this stuff. Where you can sort of address those a little bit more advanced issues, sophisticated. But like the depth of which like these issues go and the way you gotta solve them are like, the way it's simplified and broken down to kids or to whoever's reading it, cause quite frankly, it's broken down to me in this case. Is like, it's pretty, we'll just say it's pretty interesting, but at the same time, you, it, you glorify things like hard work, right? In a way that it actually makes the kid wanna work hard. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's like, yeah, getting a job, like go mow lawns and pull weeds, by the way.

• 2:17:22Speaker 01

  Which if we, you know, we all know that when you did that as a kid, you're like, no, bro, we don't wanna do that.

• 2:17:26Jocko Willink?

  Pulling weeds is a form of punishment in my, in my house.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right.

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  At this time.

• 2:17:31Speaker 01

  After reading that part, um, my daughter, by the way.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  She wants to pull weeds.

• 2:17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's, she's salty cause she doesn't have a job mowing lawns and pulling weeds, you know? And he makes like, he's like, he's like forty dollars. I made forty dollars, right? Like exclamation point. She's like, oh my gosh, you made forty dollars? I wanna make forty dollars, you know? Just the way it's laid out, how simple, but you know, I'm re, I'm getting into it and it's, I see it affecting it. My daughter. So then it moves on to the jujitsu part and this part affected me. You know, it's like, well, let's face it, like that's why when you get nervous in jujitsu with tournaments or whatever, like there was, I remember when I was competing and strangely, I was competing a lot too. Like every, like maybe two, three weeks, there was a tournament back then. Wasn't as often as now, but.

• 2:18:16Speaker 01

  And I would be competing, but every single one seems like we're driving there. And if like my wife, who's I think my girlfriend at the time, um, and my brother, whoever's driving, if they're talking about other stuff, I'm like getting mad at them. Cause I'm like, don't you realize I have a tournament? It's like that idea, you know? And I'm like, I don't behave that way, but that's what's going on in my mind. And a tangible, small, but tangible part of my mind is like hoping that like the gym burnt down when we got there. Like I just don't want to, you know, it's like that, it's weird. But then the way like you lay out, cause Mark didn't want to compete in tournament, right? And the way you lay out and you really, it's a call out is what it is. It's like you're calling out, you're like, I'm afraid, but it's like, you're not afraid of jujitsu. You do jujitsu every day, full speed, by the way.

• 2:19:01Speaker 01

  And you're not afraid of jujitsu, you're afraid of losing. And guess what? Losing is okay.

• 2:19:07Speaker 01

  It really hit me anyways. And then from there to me, from then on, it was like, and how it culminates is good, man. It's, it's straight up the best book in the world. I'll give it to you. Don't want to, but.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Never mind Cormac McCarthy, never mind About Face. Way the Warrior Kid. They also got the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. How to Get After It for Adults. And actually a lot of kids read this book. That's where they graduate. They graduate from Warrior Kid. I talked to a lot of parents and they're like, oh yeah. Once, you know, now he's 14, he, he just read Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. So that's the, that's the graduate. Can you imagine if you had that book when you were 14? Game changer.

• 2:19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:45Jocko Willink?

  Game changer.

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  Right, any one of the, I'll tell you right now, the Warrior Kid one. That one, yeah. That one is.

• 2:19:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, the feedback that I get, but the, it's the same kind of feedback I get from the kids from the field manual. Of people that are like, hey, I read this every day. I read two pages of this every day so I can keep my mind right.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, and that's how that works. Like that's the one you refer back to every day or you know, every other day or whatever.

• 2:20:14Jocko Willink?

  The guy hit me up on Twitter, remember that story I told about being at Yosemite?

• 2:20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:17Jocko Willink?

  And the dude was in the river.

• 2:20:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  And he's like, I was like, oh, he recognized me and I was getting all fired up with him. And he was like, I'm here to get my mind right. I was like, yeah. Anyways, the guy's friend hit me up on Twitter. And that dude's name is Meth. That's his name, his name is Meth.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  Meth?

• 2:20:35Jocko Willink?

  Meth, M E T H, like the drug.

• 2:20:38Speaker 01

  Straight up, yeah, got it.

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  But he was not a meth user, that just happens to be his name.

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 2:20:46Jocko Willink?

  Okay, then also Extreme Ownership, obviously, that's the first book, wrote with my brother Leif Babin, and we followed that book up very recently with a book called The Dichotomy of Leadership. There's a million interviews on it, we talked about on this podcast. That book is going to really help leaders finish out strong. And then, of course, coming out in November, order it now, Mikey and the Dragons. Echelon Front, that's my leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. It's me, it's Leif Babin, it's JP Denell, it's Dave Burke, it's Flynn Cochrane, Mike Sorelli, and Mike Bahama. Don't call a speaking agency.

• 2:21:28Jocko Willink?

  If you want us to come and talk to you or your company, email us, [email protected]. Muster006 in San Francisco, October 17th and 18th, sold out, sorry. Last thing, we've got EF Overwatch, which is connecting spec ops veterans and companies that need experienced leaders, ready to go. If you're a company that needs leadership, leadership that understands and operates within the principles of Extreme Ownership, go to efoverwatch.com.

• 2:22:06Jocko Willink?

  If you're a spec ops vet, if you're a former combat aviator, go to efoverwatch.com and we will connect you two together. And if anyone out there has questions or answers for us, you can find us out there on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on that faceable. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all military, police, law enforcement, correctional officers, firefighters, Border Patrol, paramedics, all first responders, it was great meeting so many of you at Roll Call. It was just awesome to meet you all.

• 2:22:50Jocko Willink?

  And at a bunch of the other events I've done in the past couple of weeks, the book signings and whatnot. Knowing that you all are out there, holding the line and watching our six and protecting our flanks is awesome. And I'll tell you what, I do not take it for granted. I do not take it for granted that you're there, and no one should. So thanks to you all for doing what you do and for everyone else that is out there.

• 2:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Remember the way. And remember that you can use it everywhere in everything that you do. So find the enemy's weak points, attack the enemy violently, be bold and decisive, seize and hold the initiative, keep the enemy under constant pressure and off balance, and be fully prepared to accomplish the mission regardless of the conditions under which the war begins.

• 2:23:50Jocko Willink?

  And of course, you do all those things by stepping out into the fray.

• 2:23:58Jocko Willink?

  And getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.

• 2:24:06Jocko Willink?

  Out.