161: Machiavellian Leadership: Myth VS Reality, with “The Prince”

0:00:00 – Opening: Richard III 0:09:04 – The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli 2:07:05 – Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:14:24 – Support: How to stay on THE PATH. 2:40:46 – Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 161 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  I do the wrong and first begin to brawl. The secret mischiefs that I set abroach, I lay unto the grievous charge of others. Clarence, whom I indeed have cast in darkness, I do beweep to many simple goals, namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham, and tell them, 'Tis the queen and her allies that stir the king against the duke, my brother.'

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Now they believe it and withal wet me to be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Gray.

• 0:59Jocko Willink?

  But then I sigh and with a piece of scripture tell them that God bids us do good for evil.

• 1:11Jocko Willink?

  And thus I clothe my naked villany with odd old ends stolen out of holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is a few lines from the play Richard III, written by good old William Shakespeare, The Bard. And clearly, Richard III is made out in this play to be an evil, like 100% evil political maneuverer. That's what he's made out to be, sort of the ultimate archetype of the Machiavellian.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  Leader.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  And there's people that say, and it's actually, it certainly seems that Shakespeare intentionally wrote him that way. And there's a bunch of things. I guess at some point we'll go over the whole play of Richard III, but.

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  Let's take a look at the lines that, you know, because Machiavellian, what we, what we think of it when we hear it now is.

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  We think that it means someone that is just completely devious and completely dishonest and completely deceitful in their quest for power.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49Jocko Willink?

  Right. That's what people think of when they think of. Machiavellian and.

• 2:56Jocko Willink?

  Definitely, I think Richard III is made to be and was written to be sort of the, the quintessential. Machiavellian character. Let's look at these lines a little bit. Because as I said, when we did Henry V on podcast number 15, you're not. Gonna know exactly what Shakespeare is talking about. Because he's writing in an almost in another language. So not quite, you can still understand it. It doesn't take much, but. There's some things going on in there. So it starts off, I do the wrong and first begin to brawl. So what is he saying there? I am the one that is doing something that is wrong. I'm the one that's starting the fights.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  That's what's going on here. I'm starting the fights. And then he says, the secret mischiefs that I set abroach. I lay unto the grievous charge of others. So these bad behaviors that he's undertaking. That he's secretly undertaking.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  He is blaming them on other people.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  He then goes on to say Clarence, whom I indeed have cast in darkness, and you wouldn't quite understand this, but. Unless you read it, but his brother Clarence, he put. His brother Clarence into prison.

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, I do beweep to many simple goals. So he, in front of other people, he cries and bemoans that, oh, poor Clarence, but he thinks those people are fools. Namely Derby, Hastings and Buckingham, which is what he says in the next line. And then he says that he tells those same people. He tells those people that it's the queen and her allies. And tell them tis the queen and her allies. He's, he's saying like, look, this isn't about me. It's about the queen. She's the one that's doing all this. She's the one that stir the king against the duke, my brother. So it's not, it's not my fault. It's the queen.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, now they believe it and with all wet me. Meaning they believe it and then they're egging him on. Like you need, you can't let that stay. Imagine that. Think of that twist right there. Like you're setting this up, but then you've got these people actually egging you to take vengeance. On the situation.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  Which is what they're egging him on to do. Back to the book, to be revenged on Rivers Dorset and Gray. But then, but then here's where, here's where it takes a little, a little switch. But then I sigh. And with a piece of scripture.

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  So he's gonna say, oh, and then he's gonna quote the Bible.

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  And he says, he tells them that God bids us do good for evil. You know, hey, the Bible says we should do good instead of evil. That's what's going on here. And then he says, and thus I clothe my naked villainy. That's a good line. You gotta be Shakespeare to write that one, right? Clove my naked villainy. This is how I dress up my evil plans.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  With odd old ends stolen out of holy writ. So he dresses up his naked villainy. He covers his evil plans with little parts of scripture from the Bible.

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  Then he closes it and seem a saint when most I play the devil.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  So like I said, that's, that's Richard the third and things don't really work out that well in the play for Richard the third and they don't, they didn't work out for him in real life either. He was actually hacked to death.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Which we generally consider to be a bad ending. He was hacked to death at the end of the battle of Bosworth after he fell off of his horse. Legit. And there's a famous line, which I'm sure everyone's heard, a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse, which is, he, he, he was losing everything because he fell off his horse and needed one. And like I said, perhaps, you know, at some point we'll, we'll cover the whole play. But today, what I wanted to dig into a little bit is this term of Machiavellian and we covered his Art of War book, which I had an interesting, um, I think it was a YouTube comment, because I said, you know, Art of War, Machiavelli, Niccolo Machiavelli. And

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  someone's like, that was written by Sun Tzu, idiot. And then some trooper came on and was like, actually, he's not talking about that Art of War. He covered that one here and covered this. Oh, and there's, by the way, there's a bunch of different Art of Wars and here's one of them. That was indeed written by Machiavelli. So we covered that, but that's not really, uh, Machiavelli's most famous work. His most famous work is this book, which we mentioned there, The Prince. And The Prince was thought to have been written around fifteen thirteen, not really widely published until fifteen thirty two, which was five years after Machiavelli's death. And it's, it's basically the forerunner

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  of kind of leadership books, right? It's the forerunner of self-improvement books.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's telling leaders how to lead their principalities. And it, and one thing, and I don't dive to, I don't dive too many of these, uh, we're not going to cover too many of these, but it gives real world instructions. So it's kind of like extreme ownership of the dichotomy of leadership. It gives real situations that happen. It gives the principle and then it's like, here's a situation where this actually unfolded this way. So it's, it's very thorough in that respect. And, you know, it's considered to be one of the uh, first works of modern political philosophy.

• 8:49Jocko Willink?

  And it, this is the thing, it has the reputation of advising people to do whatever it takes to gain and hold power. That's sort of the, that's where you hear, and in fact, the word, like I said, the word has really negative connotations. When someone says, oh, that guy's a Machiavellian leader, you don't think, oh, that's, that's cool. No, you think, oh, he's underhanded and he's going to stab people in the back to get, get where he wants. And there's definitely some parts, and we'll get to it, but the, it's not that. And the approach is much more balanced than people, than people, than he has, than, than people generally consider. It's just a much more balanced perspective. And like anything

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  that talks about leadership and human nature, we can learn from it. So, let's go to the book, The Prince by Machiavelli. Starts off here. Those who strive to, this is, this is an interesting, he's doing a little, he does some salesy stuff in here, too. And there's a couple of times where I have to, I had to call it, I'm not calling out all of them, but he does some salesy, salesy type stuff in here. So here's how he starts it off. Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him to take most delight. Whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes worthy of their greatness. So he's saying, hey, if you want to get in good, you know,

• 10:17Jocko Willink?

  good graces with a prince, you bring him stuff, horses and gold and whatever. Then he says, desiring therefore to present myself to your magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs and a continual study of antiquity, which having reflected upon, and which having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your magnificence.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty, that's pretty cool. He says, look, I, I could give you gold, but that's not really what's valuable to me. What's valuable to the most valuable thing I can give you is the knowledge that I have. The knowledge that I've had from studying and living through these things. And he continues, and although I may consider this work unworthy of your countenance, nevertheless, I trust much to your benignity that it may be acceptable, seeing that it is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time, all that I have learnt in so many years.

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  And with so many troubles and dangers, which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, nor stuffed with rounded periods. So he comes out of the gate, right? He's a pretty arrogant dude. He's saying, listen, you are so lucky that I went through all this stuff and I'm just gonna give it to you. I'm gonna give you this little, nice little volume. Very plainly written, which is almost like an excuse, right? Like there's no, no, there's no fancy words here. I'm just giving it to you straight. You know, I, I'm no Shakespeare. Well, Shakespeare wasn't even around yet, but he's saying it's very plainly written. And then he goes into it. So I think that's a pretty salesy opening, but hey, good, good on him. He's trying to make it happen.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  Starts off talking about the difficulties that occur in a new principality and principality is to use that word. That's the, what the, what the book is about. It's when you take over land from people.

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Here we go.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  Although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province, one has always need of the goodwill of the natives.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  That's a great statement. Think about that statement. Think about it from a military perspective. Think about it from a business perspective. And this is something that the US military should always pay attention to. Hey, you can be strong and your armed forces can be strong, but you need the goodwill of the natives. Boom. There you go. Let's think about, let's remember that one in the world. You, you, and we, we know, we do our best to do that. America does its best to do that, but we don't always do a good job. And then the other thing is, when you think about it from a business perspective, when you get an acquisition taking place, like it's cool, you go in there and you got all the money to buy some little company, but if they all hate you, hey, if you don't have the goodwill of the people that you just bought,

• 13:30Jocko Willink?

  you're gonna have some issues. I promise you, you're gonna have some issues.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  Next up, those dominions, which when acquired are added to an ancient state by him who acquires them, are either of the same country and language, or they are not. So he's saying, look, when you take someone over, they're either with the same language, or they don't have the same language. When they are, it is easier to hold them, especially when they have not been accustomed to self-government. So if you take someone over and they speak your language and they've, you know, you took them over from someone else that was controlling them, they'll be okay with that, because they're not used to controlling themselves anyways. And then he goes on, but when states acquired in a country differing language, customs, or laws, there are difficulties and good fortune and great energy are needed to hold them.

• 14:19Jocko Willink?

  And one of the greatest and most real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go reside there. So if they don't speak your language, if it's a different culture, guess what? You gotta go there and you gotta stay there.

• 14:34Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, it's gonna be a problem.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  So they gotta move there to, so they can gain more understanding?

• 14:41Jocko Willink?

  Gain more understanding.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  And learn the language and stuff like that.

• 14:44Jocko Willink?

  And also be there. Because you gotta, you gotta be able to pay attention to when rebellion is gonna form against you. If you're not there, and they speak a different language, and they have a different culture, and you're not in the game,

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  gonna have some issues. Yeah, you're gonna get blindsided. So you gotta go in there. Gotta get deep. You gotta occupy that territory.

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, men ought either to be well-treated or crushed.

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  Read that one again. Men ought either to be well treated or crushed because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries.

• 15:23Jocko Willink?

  Of more serious ones they cannot. Therefore, the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

• 15:34Jocko Willink?

  So there's kind of classic Machiavellian thought.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:38Jocko Willink?

  If you're gonna hurt someone, just completely annihilate them to the best of your ability. Don't give them the ability to come back at you again.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, on the other hand, treat them super good, right? So it's either treat them, there's no in-between kind of deal.

• 15:55Jocko Willink?

  Treat them good, or you crush them.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:02Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, it's a good statement, right?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:05Jocko Willink?

  And it takes, this is something that it takes, you know, the will to completely destroy someone. Takes a lot of gall, right? You have to have the stomach to be able to do that.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of people don't have the stomach to do that. So, that's why I would say in most cases, it's better to treat people well and have them come on board. And actually, he says that too, but we'll get there. Back to the book. In maintaining armed men, there in place of colonies, one spends much more having to consume on the garrison all of the income from the state so that the whole acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated because the whole state is injured. That's what he's saying. So when you do have to go in and you have to smash, and you have to keep people there to keep smashing, guess what? You're spending all this money, you're investing all these people, and it's so hard to keep it under control that

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  it's not even worth it. The acquisition turns into a loss. So, from a, from a business perspective, you go into a company, you buy them, but then they're rebellious, so you gotta fire everyone, you gotta bring people in and retrain them, and you gotta retake territory, you lost customers because you, because you didn't support during that time. And so you invest all this money, and guess what? Your acquisition ends up becoming a loss.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  Whereas, if you had a good relationship with these people, and you went in there, and they were able to kind of come on board with your culture and the way you were doing thing, all of a sudden, you move into a good scenario.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  Keep it, keep, keep it friendly if you can.

• 17:40Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, what all prudent princes ought to do, who have to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy. Because when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them. But if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time, because the maladies become incurable. There's some good stuff in this book, and this is one of them. This is kind of obvious. But hey, you need to look to the future. And when there's a problem coming, cut it off early. The earlier you solve the problem, the easier it's going to be. He continues.

• 18:20Jocko Willink?

  For it happens in this, as the physicians say, it happens in hectic fever. Then in the beginning of the malady, it is easy to cure, but difficult to detect. But in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect, but difficult to cure. It's like getting caught in an armlock, right? If you see it coming, it's easy. You just move your shoulder, you move your hips a little bit, whatever, you're out.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  The further it goes down that path, the worse the situation gets.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:56Jocko Willink?

  And it's the same thing. Also, you know, when I've talked about having hard conversations with people, the earlier you have that hard conversation, the easier the hard conversation is to have. The longer you let it go, not only is it a harder conversation, but it's a conversation that's going to disrupt and cause more problems. It's going to interfere with our relationship. If I'm, if I have to have a hard conversation with you, our relationship isn't getting better, right? It's getting worse. So the ease, the earlier you solve these problems, the better off you're going to be. It continues, this, it happens in affairs of state. For when the evils that arise have been foreseen, which it is only given to a wise man to see, they can be quickly redressed. But when, through not having been foreseen,

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  they have been permitted to grow in a way that everyone can see them, there is no longer a remedy. Keep your ears to the ground. So you gotta hear what's coming. Therefore, the Romans, for seeing troubles, dealt with them at once. And even to avoid a war, would not let them come to a head. For they knew that war is not to be avoided, but is only to be put off to the advantage of others. So every time you delay in getting that problem solved, you're not helping yourself. That's a good way to think about that. I haven't really thought about that way before. You know, I, I talk about the hard conversations happen earlier. They're going to be easier. The only, if you're putting those, those wars off, you're only helping the other person.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  You're only putting yourself into a worse situation.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Okay. So the other person meaning the enemy?

• 20:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. You're only helping the enemy.

• 20:35Jocko Willink?

  So attack those problems. Look, well, I think the first thing is pay attention, right? You gotta pay attention to these problems that could be arising.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Hard to detect.

• 20:43Jocko Willink?

  Hard to detect. And yeah, and then I like he says, when everyone can see him, it's too late. Yeah. So you gotta be gathering intelligence. You gotta be paying attention.

• 20:55Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the kingdom. For one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. So he's talking about when you're taking someone, when you're taking over like a kingdom.

• 21:11Jocko Willink?

  You, you can always find some people in the kingdom that are not happy with the situation. Like you can go into a company and you can say, it seems like you're, the way your processes work is real hard on you guys. Seems like they're not really in, you can always find some people that are mad inside of a kingdom.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's saying.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  He's saying to find them.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, he, here's, he goes on, he says, such men, for the reasons given, can open the way into a state and render victory easy. But if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, both from those you have assisted and those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you. And as you are unable to either satisfy or exterminate them, the state is lost whenever the time brings the opportunity. What you're dealing with there, if you're entering, if you find some people that are disloyal inside of a company, and then you go and become friends with them, and then you go in and take the company over,

• 22:15Jocko Willink?

  there's a chance, and what he's saying is like that disloyalty is a trait.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Jocko Willink?

  And they're gonna be disloyal to you too.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:22Jocko Willink?

  So you need to, and you can't, you can't crush them, you can't exterminate them because that you've developed a relationship with them, and at the same time, you can't trust them. So be careful with that.

• 22:41Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Whenever those states which have been, have been acquired as stated above, have been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are three courses for those who wish to hold them. So obviously I'm skipping big chunks of the book, but what he's talking about is when you've taken over somewhere that is used to having their own laws and used to living in freedom, there's three different, three different methods or approaches you can take. If you want to hang on to them. Here we go. The first is to ruin them.

• 23:19Jocko Willink?

  The next is to reside there in person. The third is to permit them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute and establishing within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Very clever. Very clever. Very smart too. And I see, again, I keep going back to business a lot because when you, when you're dealing with a company that acquires other companies, like this is very real. If you've got a company, let's say you acquire, if you acquire part of, let's say you acquire part of a company that's been run by some senior company, like a parent company, they're not used to making their own decisions.

• 24:02Jocko Willink?

  So when you come in and say, hey, now we're gonna help you out, we're, you know, you're gonna be kind of going along with us now. You're, you're under our command. If they're used to being commanded, they're like, okay, new boss, but we'll deal with it.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  But if they're, if they've been, if they, they were their own company, they were, they were on their own and they were doing whatever they wanted. They were living in total freedom.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  And now you come in and say, now you're gonna start listening to my rules.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:24Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a problem.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes.

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  Now, I don't agree with the fact that you have to crush them. I would prefer that you go in and form a relationship with them. But what he's saying is, look, if you go in there. So let's say I took over Echo's company. And you were used to freedom and I was just like, hey Echo, here's what's going on. Hey, here's some broad guidance, but I really like what you're doing. Keep doing it, man. Keep doing it. And then, you know, here's what you're gonna pay me because I'm giving you some support. And you'd be like,

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Now, what I will say, which he doesn't go into is, over time, I can start to get, first of all, build a relationship with you. Once I build a relationship with you, then I can start saying, hey Echo, have you thought about doing this a little bit different over here? And hey Echo, what do you about this? And hey Echo, this other company that we own does it this way and it's really efficient. Would you consider maybe seeing how that would work inside your, with your team?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  And so I would slowly move. But for me to come in and say, okay Echo, we just closed the deal. Here's the new rules. That's when you go, hey, you go to your troops and say, I don't know if this is a good call. And I don't know, these guys think they know everything. And now all of a sudden, we got a rebellion on our hands.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:28Jocko Willink?

  So now I might have to crush it.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  My, the whole idea of crushing seems pretty old school.

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and as he said, when, once you crush something, well, then you got to invest all kinds of things in it to, like, hey, so let's say, let's say I bought your company and then you, you know, you rebelled against me, so I fired you. Well, now I gotta bring someone on. I gotta find someone that understands your business and the intricacies of your business. And guess what? That's not easy. And guess what? Now I gotta invest all this time in myself and I gotta bring some, some contractors in there to help out. Next thing you know, I'm upside down.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if I'd have just done a good deal with you and, you know, kind of let you run things for a while and let, build a relationship so that you actually would want to listen to me, that's different. That's better.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:11Jocko Willink?

  So yes, the idea of crushing people generally.

• 26:16Jocko Willink?

  It's your, it's, it's not the preferred method. It's not ideal. Generally, sometimes is it required? Yes. Sometimes people need to get destroyed. That's, that's the way it is.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  And when that's the way, cool.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  That's how.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  Lock and load, destroy.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Did you used to watch football or do you watch football?

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  I don't watch much football.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Ronnie Lott is, he's old school.

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I do know Ronnie Lott is.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Forty Niners back in the day.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  I don't know if this is true, but it's a rumor. I don't know. This is what I heard when I was young. Where he would like, he broke his finger. His pinky or, I don't know, one of his fingers, he broke it and. You know, he's trying to, you know, play, you gotta play. He's a professional football player. So you can't just be out because your finger. So he'd play, you'd tape it up and it kept just getting jammed up. So he just cut it off.

• 26:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  So it's kind of one of those deals, you know, where. You know, yeah.

• 27:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Get rid of the finger, but you don't have a finger. But if the thing is like, you know. Jamming you up too much by being there, then you gotta crush it.

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  I heard a story, similar story about Valigi.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  Valigi Ismail, you know, the Jiu Jitsu player?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:18Jocko Willink?

  Crazy Jiu Jitsu player, great Jiu Jitsu player. But he had crazy cauliflower ears.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:24Jocko Willink?

  Like they just look like two, two half tennis, half baseballs on either side of his head.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:31Jocko Willink?

  And I heard a story about him that he was just asking the doctor, just cut him off.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Cut off my ears.

• 27:35Jocko Willink?

  Cut him off, just get rid of him. No use. All they do is cause me problems. Just get rid of them.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  So is that considered hardcore? Kind of.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Cause I'm sure that, well, then again, I guess it depends on the problems, right? I mean, cause that's what.

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, think about what your ears, what do your ears do for you? I guess, I guess they catch some sound and bring it into your ears.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  But if you're not hunting, right? And you don't necessarily need to hear super well. And by the way, once you have cauliflower ears and it starts going into your ear a little bit.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:07Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's not good either for your, for your hearing. So his hearing might improve. Just get rid of those things.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess it depends how bad his cough.

• 28:17Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do know what you're saying. Yeah, uh, you know, cutting off your ears is a lot more that goes into that than a finger, I think, because, you know,

• 28:25Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  I mean, on a social level, you know, you get a guy with his ears cut off on purpose, by the way. Um, it's kind of like, mm, okay, you know, I don't know.

• 28:32Jocko Willink?

  It's a little bit next level, huh?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Let's say you're a girl and you're like, hey, mom, daddy, my new boyfriend.

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  Have you never thought about like when, have you ever had cauliflower ear?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  No, not really.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. Sometimes when you get cauliflower ear and it's preventing you from training, there's, there's no doubt that the thought goes through your mind like, you know what? Hey, I'm in the game. You know, these things aren't doing me much good. Let me just get rid of these.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could see how that could be, I guess, but sorry, man, I can't get there. Not with the ears. Maybe the fingers. I dig the fingers for sure.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  To me, so you can't, there's certain things you can't do if you lose your fingers, i.e. play guitar.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:07Jocko Willink?

  So that'd be a problem. Yeah, so I keep, I keep the, uh, fingers more than the ears.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:13Jocko Willink?

  Given the choice.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  All right.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Ears or fingers? I don't, you know what? You're, you're more, um, sensitive to your appearance, I think, than I am.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Aesthetically conscious?

• 29:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I would agree with that. Sorry, yes.

• 29:27Jocko Willink?

  I think so. So you get your ears. I'm keeping my fingers. I can hammer on that gift box.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Deal.

• 29:33Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, that went off the rails a little bit.

• 29:39Jocko Willink?

  All right, going back to the book. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men and to imitate those who have been supreme. So that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, this is a good little statement. Let him act like the clever archers who, designed to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take, take aim much higher than the mark. Not to reach them by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able to,

• 30:21Jocko Willink?

  with the aid of so high an aim, hit the mark they wish, they wish to reach. Uh, that's a very clever way of putting it.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  Hey, look, if I don't think I can hit this mark. I'm just gonna aim a little bit higher and then even though I might not reach the highest mark, I'll at least hit the mark I was, I'll get where I want to be.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fully. That's a

• 30:44Jocko Willink?

  It's a good way to go through life.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of that. I mean, that's, you know, that's a tactic, technique, whatever, and like a lot of things like negotiation, they say that do the same thing, right? Okay, I want to get, you know, I don't know, you go job interview, whatever. I want to make hundred thousand, so I'm gonna ask for like 120, he's gonna negotiate down and I get my hundred.

• 31:04Jocko Willink?

  No, that's, that's true. Where this thing, I think sometimes people get this out of hand is it'll be like a sales organization and they'll say, you know, they want to bring in, they want to do $5 million worth of sales in the next month. And so they say, okay, guys, this is what we're gonna do 10 million. And they set an unrealistic goal. When you set an unrealistic goal that's not achievable, it's basically a meaningless goal. So you have to, you have to aim a little bit high, but it's got to be realistic.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And I would think anyway, I'm just going off how I felt right there when you said that. If, you know, someone sets this unrealistic goal, especially for you, that includes you, you know, where like the failure of reaching that goal is kind of your partly your failure. I think it kind of decreased my like enthusiasm.

• 31:54Jocko Willink?

  I've seen this happen, yeah. You need to, that's why people need to be very careful in how they set their goals, that they set them high enough that it, it, you try and get to it and maybe you don't quite get there. Cause let's face it, if you set a goal and you just easily make it, you should have set your goal a little bit higher, you know? If you set a goal and it's not even close, no one even tries.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:15Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta set a realistic goal.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, not gonna work well.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like people will be like solid, especially at work, when people start setting goals all crazy, like

• 32:28Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's what I was talking about.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but. Well, I was just watching the movie Major League. Remember that one, the old, the first one?

• 32:35Jocko Willink?

  I can't remember what it was about.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  And they were like.

• 32:37Jocko Willink?

  Baseball.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  It was this thing where they, they, the owner was trying to like sell the team or something, but for her to do that, they had to like lose all the games or something like that. And if they didn't lose, then she would just replace the players with other players who, who would lose, you know, kind of thing. So it was, uh, so everyone was all down about it. And the guy was like, well, there's only one thing to do, win the whole thing, you know, like that, right? Which is, I, I dig it, right? Um, but at like a regular job, well, it was for the movie too, obviously. So you gotta have an inspirational storyline. But anyway, at, at your job, you know, let's say there's numbers we gotta meet. And then it's like, okay, dang, you're making me meet these crazy numbers and they're unrealistic. They're above the, a normal good goal. They're way above.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  So it's like, okay, what does this mean now? Now I probably can't spend time with my family. Okay. Now you're gonna freaking drive us into the ground, working and do all this stuff or whatever, going against my interests, you know, as a human being. So I'm gonna feel junk about that. I'm not gonna like that.

• 33:36Jocko Willink?

  No, no one does. That's my point.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Does.

• 33:39Jocko Willink?

  Even, no one likes in the business world and no one liked it at Major League either.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Well, that was, you know, different. They did like it.

• 33:46Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. Moving on.

• 33:49Jocko Willink?

  Now, as the fact of becoming a prince from private station presupposes either ability or fortune, and he uses the word fortune a lot to mean like pretty much luck.

• 34:01Jocko Willink?

  It is clear that one or the other of these things will mitigate in some degree, many difficulties. Nevertheless, he was relied least on fortune is established the strongest. Makes sense. So when you, when, when you're in a leadership position, if you got there because you're lucky, it's gonna be harder for you to maintain a good position as a leader. If you got there because of your skill. And what's he, what's the other thing he says? Because of your ability, if you get there because of your ability, people are gonna respect you more than you just, you just got there by luck.

• 34:32Jocko Willink?

  Those who by valorous ways become princes acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it rise in part from the new rules and method, methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. So when you have a hard time getting into power and you do it by boldness, once you're there, it's going to be easier for you to do it because you had to make all these maneuvers. You had to figure things out in order to get there. Continuing, and it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult. Oh, this is a good one. There's nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain

• 35:13Jocko Willink?

  in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. So there's nothing harder than trying to come in and introduce a new order of things. Nothing harder than that. And here's the reasons. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions. And lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. So you got people that are entrenched that like, hey, man, we've been doing this for 20 years, I'm not changing it. And you got someone else saying, well, it could work better. That's like, it's, it's not a good comparison. It's not a, it's not a fair fight. Yeah. Cause those people that are already know it works, they know it works. And you got someone that I think the new thing will work. Yeah.

• 35:56Jocko Willink?

  It's a mismatch. Continuing on, this coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents who have the laws on their side and partly from the incredulity, incredulity of men who do not readily believe in new things until they have had long experience of them. So you got people that have been doing this forever. Like I just said, you got someone that's hasn't really figured out if this new thing's going to work and it's just a mismatch. So they're skeptical.

• 36:35Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, those who solely by good fortune become princes from being private citizens have little trouble in rising, but much trouble in keeping a top. They have not had any difficulties on the way up because they fly. But they have many when they reach the summit. This is a good one. The people that kind of get lucky and end up in a, in a senior position, in a leadership position, they got lucky. And so there's no trouble getting there. They got lucky. They flew there.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:07Jocko Willink?

  But then he says they have trouble when they reach the summit. Continuing on, such are those to whom some state is given either for money or by favor of, of him who bestows it. So

• 37:20Jocko Willink?

  that, you know, you see this going through buds, actually. There's some people that were like incredible athletes. And they never failed anything before in their life. And all of a sudden they show up and they start failing things and it breaks them.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:34Jocko Willink?

  Or they're great athletes going through buds and it's, because if you're a great athlete, well, in buds is kind of easy. And then you show up at a SEAL team, things aren't easy because it's not just athletics in the SEAL team. It's not an athletic game in the SEAL team. As a matter of fact, I was just talking about this the other day.

• 37:51Jocko Willink?

  The athletic capability of, of a SEAL or of a special operations. It's like, sure, you get some great athletes in there, but you put on a rucksack and hump, you know, 10 kilometers. That's not an athletically gifted, you, as an athletic, it's not an athletic skill test.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's, it's not like, yeah, you gotta be in good shape for sure. But whether this guy played college football and this guy didn't. You put on that rucksack and start, start humping, you can't tell who's who.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:27Jocko Willink?

  You know, occasionally you might be able to, you got to, you, you can make some assumptions at the, at the football player. You know, he's an athletic person, but. It's not an athletic game.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:39Jocko Willink?

  The uh, same with like shooting, like, okay, you get someone that's got great hand eye coordination. They're probably going to be a pretty good shot. Not necessarily though.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Jocko Willink?

  I knew some guys that were great athletes, weren't good shots.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:51Jocko Willink?

  And vice versa, you some guys that were great athletes and they were great shots, they had great hand eye coordination. So it's not really, there's not really this athletic challenge. So my point is you get someone that sails through buds. Because they're a great athlete, because, because buds is more of an athletic pursuit. I mean, it's like, okay, you gotta run. You gotta do pull ups, you gotta do the obstacle course, there's more athleticism involved in getting through buds. Once you get through buds, then it's like, oh, you have to think. You have to gut through hard things while you're thinking. So there's some guys that I went through with, they got a little tripped up when they got to the teams, even though they did not have a hard time at all with buds. They got to the teams, they got tripped up on things because

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  they just, they just kinda got in their own way, you know? Unfortunately, good, good guys, hard guys, but you just think, man, just, you need to think a little bit more.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, dealing with certain mental anguish while you do other things.

• 39:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Dealing with it.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You, you gotta make decisions when you're tired.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:56Jocko Willink?

  You gotta stay awake when you're tired, you gotta, yeah, like all those things, oh, there's stress going on and you're freaking out. Well, guess what, you still gotta decide that you gotta make something happen and you gotta go do it.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  Where it's easy to just go curl up in a ball, right?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Take a nap.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 40:16Jocko Willink?

  Continuing such, and he's talking about these people that were kinda given luck or, or bought their way into their position. Such stands simply elevated upon the goodwill and the fortune of him who has elevated them. Two most inconsistent and unstable things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position. Because unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having always lived in private condition. So you get somebody that gets thrown into a, to a leadership position and they haven't done anything to earn their position here, they're gonna be inexperienced, it's gonna be hard for them.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, same thing with uh, I mean, you, maybe you see it now, maybe you don't, but, or in jujitsu where, you know, the, you know, a young guy or whatever. He'll he'll develop or he'll have a certain body type or I don't know whatever he'll develop like this certain move. That'll be kind of new to everyone like no one's ever seen these this system or this move or whatever. And they'll get guys and get guys and and win tournaments and start winning tournaments and be like and instructs like dang this guy's killing these tournaments here. Let's give him his blue belt, brown belt, you know. All the way up he gets his like brown belt, black belt because he wins tournaments more so than because of like his.

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  His well rounded.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, skill set and knowledge. So which kind of makes sense, right? I mean, shoot, if he's if he's winning, if he's tapping everyone out in the tournament in, you know, all the lower belts, of course, he needs his belt. Makes sense. But later on, you know, as time goes on, and one of the things is like, okay, they'll just figure out the move. Figure out the the answer to that move. What else is left? Nothing.

• 41:53Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it crazy that if you know the move, like, isn't it crazy in Jiu Jitsu, first of all, that if you know how to defend something, you can stop some if you don't know it, you get tapped. If you know it, you can get out.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  That's so crazy.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:05Jocko Willink?

  And and what's really crazy is that's the way life is. That's the way leadership is. Like when I talk to companies and I'll be talking to some leader and I'm like, hey, here's what you need to say in a situation like this. And it's it's like they can now escape this position that they're in.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause they can, oh, oh, yeah, here's what you should say.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Jocko Willink?

  And they say, oh, you can see it look in their eyes and then they'll call me and say, dude, I I I did that.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  And you and the whole team turned around. It's like, oh, yeah, big shocker.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Man.

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  There's moves that you can make. There's tactical maneuvers that you can make.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:40Jocko Willink?

  And if you know them, you'll you'll escape the position.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:44Jocko Willink?

  If you don't know them, you'll get destroyed.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Jocko Willink?

  And so to to where you're going with this is sometimes somebody develops something or they get really good at something and as soon as soon as some people know it's coming.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:56Jocko Willink?

  They can just stop it. And then all of a sudden they start losing tournaments. They get to purple belt. They start losing tournaments.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Because of this.

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, see, it's unrealistic, in my opinion, that someone would be really good at a move and go all the way to black belt based on that move. That's not realistic.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:11Jocko Willink?

  They'll get somebody will the people will figure it out and they'll have to round out their game before they get brown belt, black belt.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:18Jocko Willink?

  Right? You're getting a little crazy there.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, more for the example, but there is this one and I don't know the girl's name, but it was um, it was. I don't know what girl's name, but she was a brown belt. But she had been a brown belt, like she, it took her like two years or so, something super fast.

• 43:33Jocko Willink?

  To get to brown belt.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  To get to brown belt because of, if I'm not mistaken, she would do like a reverse triangle all the time. Maybe a regular triangle, I'm not sure. And then, um, I don't know, then I think it, I could be getting the names wrong. But I think it was Penny Thomas and she ended up fighting Penny Thomas and Penny Thomas beat her. And you know, you know, the new hotness, the new girl coming up or whatever. And, um, I think it was Joel who mentioned like this exact thing that he's talking about where it's like, yeah, like to be a real brown belt and compete at the top level, you gotta have a well-rounded game essentially. You know, because you can't just, you can't, just like what you said, like you, you make it up to brown and black for a reason. Brown and black belt, you can't just do it with one move.

• 44:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Cause that's not what a brown belt really is.

• 44:20Jocko Willink?

  When you get someone that's really good, they know about all the different moves. You know, it's, it always surprises me, Dean will be able to answer a question about moves that he doesn't actually do on a normal basis.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:32Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, yeah, he knows exactly how to do it. He knows how to defend it. He knows how to set it up, but he doesn't actually do that move. And, and that's, that's how good you gotta be.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Jocko Willink?

  The other weird thing is you get, you catch someone like Dean in a position that's totally new. You know, just some random, and he actually knows like a thing to do to get out of it.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:54Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  And you think, how do you, like, how do you know that?

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, some weird like leg ride position. He's like, oh, if you turn your knee outward and then you pinch your ankles, you'll, you'll, it'll make them adjust and then you can come up on the arm and you can get out. And you're like, wait.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  How do you know that? I've never been in this position. I've been doing jujitsu for 25 years and I've never been in this position before. Now you're telling me that this is just, you, you know this?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  That's how he, and he probably, some of these positions, he's probably never been in. It's like codes, like writing code where. If you kind of know the certain like general rules to things, you can start figuring it figuring it out, you know? Like in someone like Dean who's like, I mean, Dean's an exceptional dude.

• 45:32Jocko Willink?

  No, but that's the thing. There's a difference between what I'm talking about because what I'm talking about is he actually knows specifically. He's not like, hey, here's what would work based on the general rules of grappling. He's like, no, here's what you do in this specific situation. That is weird.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  But that's just completely well rounded.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:53Jocko Willink?

  That's just completely well rounded.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  So you're saying that at some point, he he has had that experience with that move.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  In one way or another, yeah.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  Done it some way or another and he said, oh, or he's done a much narrower approach of what you're talking about. Like he is not maybe not that exact thing, but it's so close that he's like, here's what happens and here's what's going on.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, yeah.

• 46:13Jocko Willink?

  Similar, but not the same. Like he goes beyond just having the principles. It's like principles coupled with experience.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, yeah.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  Coupled with knowledge.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, Dean's mind for that is really, it's uncanny, you know, with that as far as like his knowledge and what he can sort of figure out or whatever. It's almost like while you're doing what you do during the day, he's like in a room just thinking about it.

• 46:36Jocko Willink?

  You would think, you would think that. You would think that he's sitting around with like four screens, like YouTube screens. And he's watching different things at once. And then he has some sort of like weird uh uh control where he can view different angles and comprehend them. But no, he has a weird, because I know he doesn't do that.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:58Jocko Willink?

  He used to do it though. But he has a weird, um, he he's got, his mind is just made to do that. His mind is just has a greater understanding of it than a normal person. And even an abnormal person.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. But yeah, that makes sense. Like, you know, if you're if you're thorough or thoroughly trained or have a lot of experience. And you've been through the pitfalls, ups, downs, you know, you kind of that that light is kind of on for you. But if you just sort of lock out.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, you know, we work with companies, we work with like startup companies where it's not that the people haven't scrapped to get where they are, but. You know, you get funded and you got 12 people on your team and then all of a sudden you get a massive funding and you're expecting to roll into production or something and and you look up and you got 180 people. You don't have any experience as a leader.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:50Jocko Willink?

  And you're expected to lead and that's, you know, a situation that Echelon Front gets involved in because the investors will come and say, hey, look, we got these guys over here. They're awesome guys. They're working hard. Guess what? They got propelled into this position. They're awesome at their job. They don't know how to lead yet. Can you help them? Yes, that's what we do. Roll in and make it happen.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 48:10Jocko Willink?

  You can't expect someone to know how to lead if they've never been in a leadership position before. Can some people pull it off? Yes. It's not a big number, though. It's not a big number.

• 48:21Jocko Willink?

  Continuing. Ooh, this is a good one. He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards. But they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  So lay a good foundation. This is another, another thing that's important when it comes to jiu jitsu. Don't be learning the go-go plada day four.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  But they're just so fun.

• 48:49Jocko Willink?

  I know, I know, but people want to learn that go-go plada. And they don't know how to do a straight arm lock.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:56Jocko Willink?

  That's a problem.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  And that's why though, right? I mean, even like this, that's why like people won't focus on the foundation because like that part's not as like fun. Short-term payoff types scenario.

• 49:07Jocko Willink?

  It's more fun. It's go-go plada is more fun. Well, look at that. It looks fancy. It looks cool.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, um, I think it was Dean was, he was teaching a class and he was teaching, uh, how to fall or something like that. Not for a long time, just a little bit. And then, uh, he was teaching like a position or whatever. This is actually a while ago. Uh, and then towards the end. He was like, alright, alright, alright. Kind of like, no one said anything like, hey, when are we gonna learn blah, blah, blah? No one said anything, but Dean said it as if people were saying, whoa, when are we gonna learn something fun? Kind of thing. So Dean was like, alright, alright, I'll teach you a submission. Kind of like that, you know, because he knew, he knows like, the submission hold is the fun part to learn in jujitsu. I mean, as far as the spectrum.

• 49:50Jocko Willink?

  Especially when you start.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:51Jocko Willink?

  When you start.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, fully, fully.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  Because, because you just, you know, you think, oh, I don't understand why it's good for me to lay it this way on some other.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, or shrimp across the room. Like, what the heck is that? It's boring.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  That's laying a good foundation. That's what that is.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 50:06Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, you gotta do it, and it's gonna be hard to do. Same thing with businesses. When you start a business, start it with a good foundation. So you don't have to go back in there afterwards and perform surgery on something that's already been constructed.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  Alright, now, this is Machiavellian in a pretty serious way. The name of this one is called, or this is, I would say, this is kind of what stems some of the reputation. Concerning those who have obtained a principality by wickedness. And I say this establishes, but this actually goes against sort of that standard.

• 50:43Jocko Willink?

  Machiavellian attitude.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  So here we go. This is one of the historical.

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  Examples that he gives that I'm actually gonna read because it's pretty, pretty cool. Agathocles, the Sicilian, became king of Syracuse not only from a private, but from a low and abject position. This man, the son of a potter, through all the changes in his fortunes, always led an infamous life. Nevertheless, he accompanied his infamies with so much ability of mind and body. Having devoted himself to the military profession, he rose through its ranks to be praetor of Syracuse. Being established in that position and having deliberately resolved to make himself prince

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  and to seize by violence without obligation to others, that which had been conceded to him by assent, he came to an understanding for this purpose with the, with Amicar the Carthian, who with his army was fighting in Sicily. One morning, he assembled the people and the senate of Syracuse, as if he had to discuss with them things relating to the Republic. And, at a given signal, the soldiers killed all the senators and the richest of the people. These dead, he seized and held the princedom of that city without any civil commotion. And although he was twice routed by the Carthaginians, and ultimately besieged,

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  yet not only was he able to defend his city, but leaving part of his men for its defense, with others, he attacked Africa, and in a short time raised the siege of Syracuse. The Carthaginians, reduced to extreme necessity, were compelled to come to terms with a Gothocles, and leaving Sicily to him, had to be content with the possession of Africa.

• 52:43Jocko Willink?

  So, this guy is, is, just gets after it and destroys people and kills people in order to get into a good position. Now, you might think that Machiavelli would say, "Hey, that's great." Here's what he actually says, back to the book. "Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion. Such methods may gain empire, but not glory. Still, if the courage of a Gothocles in entering into the end and extricating himself from the dangers be considered, together with his greatness of mind in enduring and overcoming hardships, it cannot be seen why he should be less esteemed than the most notable captain."

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that he is given a little credit.

• 53:31Jocko Willink?

  But then he goes back again, "Nevertheless, his barbarous cruelty and inhumanity with infinite wickedness do not permit him to be celebrated among the most excellent men. What he achieved cannot be attributed to either fortune or genius."

• 53:50Jocko Willink?

  So, and I'll go one step further, because this is what I think. I think that when you behave in that manner, it'll come back to you. It'll come back to you and I'm not saying it's gonna come back to you in a karmic way, dude. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying when you, when you inflict damage on people, they remember it. And there will be a time in some point when they will have the opportunity to rain down vengeance upon you. So if you act that way, you're gonna, you're gonna get yours. And so if you treat people with respect and you treat people as you would like to be treated, then it's fine. And when the opportunity arises for them to crush you, they'll remember how you treated them and you treated them well. And they say, okay, you know what, we're gonna give this guy a pass.

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  But when you screw people over, they're gonna screw you back at some point.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, it has to be remarked that in seizing a state, the usurper ought to examine closely all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict and do them all at one stroke so as to not have to repeat them daily. And thus by not unsettling men, he will be able to reassure them and win them to himself by benefits. This is a good one. If you're gonna, if you gotta cause damage, rip the Band-Aid off. That's what he said. Do it all at once. So if you're going into a business and you're like, okay, we're gonna have to eliminate some people.

• 55:18Jocko Willink?

  Don't eliminate two guys today and then two guys in a week and then three days, three guys in a month and then three people in two weeks. And you just, everyone, now everyone's walking around, they're scared of getting destroyed. They're scared of getting fired. They don't trust you. You go in, you go, okay, hey, here's sorry. Hey, there's some changes, there's some reductions we gotta make. Here it is, there's 28 people, they're going away. What's left, we're gonna go forward and we're gonna conquer.

• 55:44Jocko Willink?

  He who does otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to keep the knife in his hand.

• 55:56Jocko Willink?

  Neither can he rely on his subjects, nor can they attach themselves to him owing to their continued and repeated wrongs. So you keep stabbing people. Every once in a while, every two, three days, I cut someone's head off. These guys are just, you know, first of all, I gotta walk around with a knife all the time. And they're thinking, oh, I see what he's all about.

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  Continuing for injuries ought to be done all at one time so that being tasted less they offend less benefits ought to be given little by little so that the flavors of them may last longer. Oh, so you don't go and give everyone a yearly bonus at the beginning of the year. Hey, here's all this money. No, you go, hey, look, it was a good quarter or good month last month. Kyle something for you. That taste lasts longer. Yes, it does.

• 56:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I recommend that with children, by the way. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yes. You don't give them the big reward. You make them, you gotta earn it. Yeah. You gotta earn it. Yeah. Keep it going. Keep it going. Yeah.

• 57:05Jocko Willink?

  Continuing and above all things, a prince ought to live amongst his people in such a way that no unexpected circumstances, whether of good or evil, shall make him change.

• 57:19Jocko Willink?

  Because if the necessity for this comes in troubled times, you are too late for harsh measures and mild ones will not help you for they will be considered as forced from you and no one will be under any obligation to you for them. So what are you saying there's stay balanced. So if you're, if things are going well in your company and you're like, hey, bonuses all around. Yeah. And then all of a sudden things get lean and you're like, there's no more bonuses. Yeah. Or the other hand is like, oh, things are going rough and you're like, we're not giving anyone anything. What you need to do is stay balanced. Hey, here's the budget. Here's our projected budget. Here's what we're going to give out. Here's what we're planning to

• 58:00Jocko Willink?

  give out. It may vary a little bit on, you know, up or down from there depending on the market and depending on how we're doing and depending on what the future, like you want to be balanced. Don't go hardcore and want extreme or the other.

• 58:19Jocko Willink?

  Next. Where a leading citizen becomes the prince of his country, not by wickedness or any intolerable violence, but by the favor of his fellow citizens, this may be called a civil principality. Nor is genius or fortune altogether necessary to attain it, but rather a happy shrewdness. And this seems to be the most positive thing that he, this happy shrewdness, like, oh, you're making good shrewd decisions, and that's how you come into power, and people are happy with it. Like, that seems like the best possible way to take over, according to this. Continuing, "One cannot by fair dealing and without injury to others satisfy the nobles.

• 59:04Jocko Willink?

  But if you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, and the former only desire not to be oppressed." So who's more important, the nobles or the people? The people. That's not very Machiavellian.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:21Jocko Willink?

  Or it's not the tradish Machiavellian consideration.

• 59:27Jocko Willink?

  "It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself against a hostile people, because of their being too many, whilst from nobles he can secure himself as they are few in number." Hmm. Make a connection with your people. Continuing, "The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them, but from hostile nobles, he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him, for they, being in these affairs more far-seeing and astute, will always come forward in a time to save themselves and to obtain favors from him, whom they expect to prevail." And he goes on about these nobles a little bit more. "Nobles ought to be looked at mainly in two ways.

• 1:00:09Jocko Willink?

  They either shape their course in such a way as binds them entirely to your fortune, or they don't." So there's two different kinds of people you'll have with you. People that just get on board, or don't. They get on board, or they don't.

• 1:00:27Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, "When for their own ambitious ends, they shun binding themselves, it is a token that they are giving more thought to themselves than to you. And a prince ought to guard against such and to fear them as if they were open enemies. Because in adversity, they will always help to ruin you."

• 1:00:58Jocko Willink?

  Someone that's not on board, someone that's looking out for themselves. Someone that's looking out for themselves and not looking out for you? It's a problem, real problem. You treat them like an open enemy or view them, fear them as if they're an open enemy.

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  And then he continues, "But one who in opposition to the people becomes a prince by the favor of nobles ought above everything, seek to win the people over to himself. And this he may easily do if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when they receive good from him, of whom they were expecting evil, are more bound, are bound more closely than to their benefactor. Thus people quickly become more devoted to him." So, again, he's all about connecting with the troops. Connecting with the troops. And if they think you're gonna treat them like crap, and then you treat them well, they're like doubly devoted to you.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, feels better, that's why. It's the expectation thing. See, and I can explain that to you too, with comfort, you know? Like, you know, you can, if you're in bed, and then, you know, you hear, I don't know, a chicken outside or something, or like a chainsaw like a block away or something, you're like, "Oh, can't relax with that noise," or whatever. Because you expect to be real comfortable in your bed, kinda thing. But you go lay on some chair, or sit on a chair, and it's surprisingly comfortable. Right, you'll fall asleep real quick, you know what I'm saying? So it's kinda the same deal with the person, with the people though.

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Machiavellian naps, bro. That's what I'm talking about.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, when you, you know, yeah, like, "Oh, this guy's gonna be a dick," you know? And then, even like just on a normal social level, you know? You know, when you, "Oh, he's gonna be a dick," and you meet him up like a... Like, you know, movie stars, right? Let's say they always play a bad guy or something like that. And this goes both ways too. Uh, and you know, you meet the movie star in person and they're all nice, you know? But you're used to them playing the bad guy. So you have this weird subconscious expectation. Then you just love that guy or whatever.

• 1:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Whoever they play there, that's how they are.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like subconscious.

• 1:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And but do you think that those people that play a bad guy all the time? When in real life, they feel like everyone views me like I'm a jerk. So I'm going to be super nice.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe. But actually, you know what? I actually hear more about the opposite. Where it's like, it's the good guy, you know, he's always playing the good guy or maybe on some show or something like that.

• 1:03:25Jocko Willink?

  That guy's a jerk.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, you meet him in real life. He's not like that. Anyway, same deal.

• 1:03:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Expectations mean a lot is what you're getting at.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Including leadership perspective and napping perspective.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yes, and meeting movie stars or whatever. Yes.

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. A prince who can command and is a man of courage, undismayed in advert- in adversity, who does not fail in other qualifications and who by his resolution and energy keeps the whole people encouraged. Such a one will never find himself deceived in them. And it will be shown that he has laid his foundations well.

• 1:04:08Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is not what people think. Mackey, uh, Machiavelli was talking about. It's not what they think. He's saying, build a relationship, be strong, give to your people.

• 1:04:24Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always, in every sort and kind of circumstance, have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful. Well, that one's a little bit, that one's a little bit, hey, well, you know, you need, you need me here.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Jocko Willink?

  That one's a little bit Machiavelli tradish.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Jocko Willink?

  Continuing whoever shall fortify his town and shall have managed the other concerns of his subjects well and to be often repeated will never be attacked without great caution. For men are always adverse to enterprises where difficulties can be seen and it will be seen not to be an easy thing to attack one who has his town well fortified and is not hated by his people. Again, try and build relationships with your people. That's what he's saying. A prince who has a strong city and has not made himself odious will not be

• 1:05:28Jocko Willink?

  attacked. Or if anyone should attack, he will only be driven off with disgrace. Same thing. Like if you've got a good, if your people support you, you can get attacked and you're going to drive that person off that attacks you, drive them off in disgrace.

• 1:05:45Jocko Willink?

  Quick one here. That the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. And when he says auxiliaries, he's talking about how if you have an ally, you can use their troops, right? So if you and I are allies, and I'm like, hey, I'm going to be attacked over here, you can send me some troops. Those are my auxiliary troops. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous. And if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe, for they are disunited, ambitious, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies. They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity

• 1:06:28Jocko Willink?

  to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace, one is robbed by them and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of a stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are already enough, they are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war. But if war comes, they take themselves off or run from the foe. Yeah, I got a friend that does like a high level security. And they were go, he was going through like a high level briefing plan.

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink?

  If in, in like a serious disaster scenario with a high paying client. And he was basically had incorporated into the plan, his own family.

• 1:07:27Jocko Willink?

  So, okay, Echo is the high paying client, client, you come to me and say, hey, I want if there's a, if there's a

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  a, a complete catastrophe, we're talking chem bio breakout zombie apocalypse. What's the plan? And he goes, okay, here's the plan. He came up with a plan and he put, I said, okay, Echo, here's the plan. Here's what's gonna happen. Here's where my family is gonna be. And the guy's like, what do you mean? Like, your family, I'm not worried about your family.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  The security guy's family.

• 1:07:54Jocko Willink?

  Security guy said, hey, I'm not, you guys, sure, the guys, yes, I will be bringing my family. And the guy's like, wait, why, why are you bringing your family? He says, because if I'm not bringing my family, I'm not gonna be there to help you survive. And the guy says, okay, fair enough. Right?

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we've got a bunker to go to. I'll get you to the bunker, but I'm not gonna get, I'm not gonna leave my family. And then you think I'm gonna defend your bunker when my family's out with the zombies? No. The best thing you could possibly do is let me bring my family in the bunker, because then I will die before I give up the bunker. If it's just you, I love you. I appreciate you're giving me money, but I'm gonna take care of my family first.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Jocko Willink?

  So think about that. It's a squared away plan, right?

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Jocko Willink?

  You actually embed yourself inside my family and you're gonna be safe.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  I'll use some of your money to, to prepare for the situation, but then we'll be ready.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're all one team now.

• 1:08:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Jocko Willink?

  So that turns someone from a mercenary into, you know, part of the team.

• 1:08:57Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, the mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not. If they are, you cannot trust them because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions. But if the captain is not skillful, you are ruined the usual way.

• 1:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just the usual way of being ruined. You know what that is. That means you just get hacked to death on the battlefield. That's what it means.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, lose lose with the mercenaries.

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  Mercenaries are lose lose scenario.

• 1:09:33Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, a prince ought to have no, oh, let's get in the zone for this one. A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline.

• 1:09:51Jocko Willink?

  For this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules. And it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank.

• 1:10:09Jocko Willink?

  And on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms, they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  And what enables you to acquire a state is to be the master of the art.

• 1:10:34Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. That's general rules for everyone. Study nothing but war.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  And discipline, yes. Cool.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes. It is, it is interesting, isn't it?

• 1:10:51Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you don't have to go back that far to where the, the way things are gonna be is settled by war a hundred percent. And you could still say that's true today. I mean, when diplomacy fails, you go to war.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it works. You and I can have a conversation. If that conversation fails, what's gonna happen?

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Agree to disagree.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  If I'm not agreeing to that, it turns into a scrap. So I better study.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, if, if one of us knows that the other one is gonna win on the field of battle, that's gonna make that person a little bit more apt to agree, right?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:25Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or agree to disagree, whichever.

• 1:11:29Jocko Willink?

  No, well, the one person might have to agree.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, they're getting choked.

• 1:11:38Jocko Willink?

  All right. So now he talks about how, how you, continuing on. A prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought never therefore to have his thoughts, this, to have out of his thoughts, this subject of war. And in peace, he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war. This he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study. So he's saying that in peacetime, you can actually addict yourself more to exercising war than you can in war itself.

• 1:12:22Jocko Willink?

  So when it's time to prepare, you prepare. Even when there's not war going on, that's when you get ready. You don't wait until you're getting attacked to start training jiu-jitsu. You start now.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34Jocko Willink?

  I've had that argument with people that said, well, the thing is, it takes really long time to get good at jiu-jitsu.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  Hey, when are you gonna be attacked? Well, I don't know. If you get attacked tomorrow, that's a bummer, but you're probably not gonna get attacked tomorrow. You're getting attacked in six months. You're gonna, you might get attacked in a year. You might get attacked in four years.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Jocko Willink?

  You can be really good by that time.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there was an article, I think you even came across it, you might even have commented on it. Online.

• 1:13:01Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  And in the article, it was like some things that you shouldn't focus on or whatever. As a man or something like this and uh. Yeah, I thought it was a fake article and so I still think, I mean, I don't know if it was real or not, but whatever, let's just say it was real. Um, and it was like fighting, said fighting.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  That's the most wrong thing I've heard.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  I actually agree that, oh, I actually think that. This is so high up, I kind of agree that this with this statement, like you should focus on this, this be really high in your, in your focus in, in life.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it really comes down to a safety thing, really.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  And look. Yeah, it definitely comes down to a safety thing, I'm not, I'm not saying like, hey, just. Study jujitsu, just study MMA, I, I, I'm not saying that, right? Because those shouldn't be your primary interests unless you're a fighter, right? And there's some people that are so into whatever, they get so into jujitsu that the rest of their life falls apart.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm not recommending that, right? I want you to have a good, well-balanced life, but if you make jujitsu. A part of it, it's gonna be better.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:02Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be better, it's gonna adapt to everything else, it's gonna teach you about other things.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and that's not to mention you can fight if you want.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  And not to mention, Peter Attia, he's like, uh, he mentioned something about. What was it, it was something to do with golf, like basically he was saying, you have to put all this effort in and it's too frustrating. And I said, wait till you try jujitsu.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Jocko Willink?

  And then someone else said, and he said, that's why I'm not doing it, or something like that.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Jocko Willink?

  And, well, he said something along those lines, and then I said something like. Oh no, someone else chimed in, hey, golf doesn't teach you anything, like golf has, what transferable skills to life does golf have?

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I'm not hating on golf, if you like golf, cool, more power to you as far as I'm concerned, but.

• 1:14:49Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna be able to take the skills of a putt and bring them to now. Okay. Well, let's let's reach here. I guess you will because you know, you're gonna be able to relax. You're gonna learn how to get mental focus. So that's good. Good in that perspective. We'll give credit, but direct transferable, physical techniques, very limited.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Limited, especially when you start comparing them to Jiu Jitsu where.

• 1:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Cause golf can give you some of the same things that that like when I talk about shooting, like when you get good at shooting, it gives golf can give you some of those same things because you're you're under pressure. You gotta focus. You gotta put the last shot out of your mind. You gotta focus on what you're actually doing. You can't worry about the next shot. There's a lot of things that it can help there.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some motor skills stuff in there.

• 1:15:31Jocko Willink?

  Stuff for sure.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Legit, yeah.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  But I cut you off. What were you saying?

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  What was I saying? But.

• 1:15:37Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. Cause I was I was super hyped on whatever I was about to say.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Oh, the article, the the.

• 1:15:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  So it was like fighting. You shouldn't, you know, fight or whatever. And what made it even worse, like a lot worse, is the explanation as to why.

• 1:15:49Jocko Willink?

  What was the reason why?

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  So if I remember correctly, it was because you shouldn't be fighting. That's why. It's like, yeah, you only fight if you lose your temper, you know, like you shouldn't. It's in a nutshell, you say because you shouldn't be fighting. So you shouldn't focus on on on learning how to fight or whatever.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Here's here's the the ultimate dichotomy in this situation. The more the better you can fight, the less you're gonna have to fight.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And most of us, in fact, I I would, I'm almost tempted to say all of us, everybody, who is a trained fighter, unless you're talking about competition, you don't train to fight so you can go get into fights with people. That's not the way the reason, not even like a little bit of the reason.

• 1:16:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I can't think of anyone

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  that I've known in training Jiu Jitsu that their goal is like, hey, I'm doing this so I can go antagonize people and actually get in get myself into fights. There's no one that you're right. There's no one that change. I haven't. I mean, I'm sure there's a couple complete jerks somewhere out there that have done that, but like I haven't known any.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And even thinking about that, it'd be like, isn't that that'd be weird.

• 1:17:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  It seemed weird for someone to be like.

• 1:17:02Jocko Willink?

  Different when someone's like a bouncer, right? Oh, you're a bouncer, right? And it's like, oh, I want to know how to handle myself if I get into a fight.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:09Jocko Willink?

  But. You'd rather just be polite to people until it was was be polite, right?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Be nice, be nice until it's time to not be nice.

• 1:17:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's the way we used to do it right there.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Exactly right. But even then, even then, by no means, it's literally the opposite direction. It's not so I know how to go fight guys, you know? It's more so you know what to do in the event of a fight.

• 1:17:37Jocko Willink?

  Now, I will say this, I have to look at this from a perspective when I was younger, like before I joined the military.

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  There was times where we were getting in fights just to get into fights.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Jocko Willink?

  And if jujitsu would have been a thing, I probably would have been doing it.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  I was just young and stupid. So were all my friends.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Alright, so here and here's here's kind of the, I call it a dichotomy, but I think it's more like a, sure, I'll call it a dichotomy. It's like a catch 22. So like when you don't know how to fight, like before you take jujitsu, oh yeah, I'm same same boat, man. Where it's like getting in a fight seems more appealing. When you learn jujitsu, and here's the proof, by the way, when you learn jujitsu, you don't really want to do it. Maybe at first, maybe at first your white belt or whatever, sure. But think about this, blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, and this goes up and up the the more you advanced. Okay, you're a black belt. You've been a black belt for like, what, 13, 14 years or something like this?

• 1:18:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  One, a brand new white belt comes in. Do you want to roll with him or you want to roll with Andy?

• 1:18:42Jocko Willink?

  Andy?

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:18:43Jocko Willink?

  Andy's good.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So you want, you don't want to go test your skills against some weirdo on the street, you know? You want to go practice and learn and and prove that you're like good with other good people, you know? Other people who are trained. So it's like it makes no sense.

• 1:19:02Jocko Willink?

  I thought where you're going with that is when? You're good. Oh, no. Like, let's say I'm gonna go learn how to fight. The your first jujitsu class, you're like, okay, I'm not gonna get any fights. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's where I thought you were going, which is, I think, a very realistic thing. And I think if I was fifteen years old again, and jujitsu existed, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna go learn how to fight. I would have gone in there one class, and I'd be like, I'm not getting any fights. I'm gonna learn this stuff, because you never know who knows this stuff. Because you go into jujitsu class, and you get choked out by someone that is half yours, or maybe three quarters of your size.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Jocko Willink?

  That's a scary thing.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Very scary.

• 1:19:35Jocko Willink?

  And you saw someone start looking around going, wait, who knows this?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Jocko Willink?

  I'm not, your confidence goes way down when you, well, not your confidence, but your, yeah.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  That, that thing that you're talking about is, yeah, it's absolutely true. And I was in the, oh, man, I felt that. It was overwhelming, because I was in, like, like you said, I was a bouncer. So even at, like, when you get your blue belt, it's like, that's when you're kind of the most fiery, I think, in certain ways.

• 1:19:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  And so I'm looking around, and I'm like, yeah, you know, I could do this. You know, I could take that guy. He's bigger, but I could take him. Like, I know I can. But then you're like, wait, no, I don't. What, bro? Well, I don't know who that guy is, you know, kind of.

• 1:20:10Jocko Willink?

  D1 wrestler.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Bro, what if you caught yourself, or you found yourself in a rear naked choke in a real fight? Bro, you're, you're kind of done, man. You'd be in big, big, big, big trouble.

• 1:20:21Jocko Willink?

  Not even kinda.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when you think about that, you're like, man, yeah, just like you said, bro, I'm not getting into any fights. There is that for sure.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  This goes even further. So this article that you're talking about, that said you shouldn't learn how to fight, because you shouldn't be fighting.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I shouldn't get into fights.

• 1:20:36Jocko Willink?

  The actual, if you feel the urge to fight, the best thing you can do to quell that urge is to go learn how to fight.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think he said the best thing is to go learn meditation.

• 1:20:45Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Jocko Willink?

  Sam Harris, where are you at? That's not gonna help us.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  I'm not against meditation, but as a, as a replacement for learning how to fight, negative. Sorry, man.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know what? I've had Tim Ferriss and Peter and, I don't know if I've talked about this with Sam yet. That they think they they they impose meditation onto my jujitsu for me, right? They're like, that is, they're like, hey, Jocko, the things that people are trying to get from meditation is what you get when you go and you do jujitsu. Like, your mind gets emptied, you're focused but not focused. There's all these things, and I'm sure I'm, you know, people that are into meditation will say, no, you're missing it. I'm fine, that's fine, I know I am, whatever. But what I'm saying is there are some similarities between them. There has to be, because Tim and Sam, you know, they both do jujitsu and do meditation.

• 1:21:40Jocko Willink?

  And there's crossover there somewhere. Tim for sure has told me that. Tim for sure has told me that, even like, weightlifting. You know, even when you're trying to do a movement, right? You're trying to do a snatch, you're trying to do some movement that you have to focus on. That puts you, I mean, you know what it's like, when you go to jujitsu, you come home, you feel so good. But you don't feel good because of the physical workout. You feel good because your brain got emptied.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05Jocko Willink?

  You know, and I think that's part of what meditation is. I don't know, but.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I would think so too. Yeah, it's like an overlap, yeah. There's a bunch of overlap there. Because, yes, and certain.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  So to sum this up, learn how to fight, right?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Learn how to fight, a hundred percent. Brad, don't listen to that weirdo article, man. The thing is, there's a good chance that it was like a one of those parody, whatever.

• 1:22:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Um, I didn't, I forget what even it was on, like, what website?

• 1:22:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but it wasn't on like a parody website.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  I don't, I didn't recognize it as a parody website, but I don't remember the website, to be honest with you. I just saw these weird things to me. It was, it was the kind where all of the items on his little list were like, were wrong. Fighting was just the one that I felt the strongest about.

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  The whole thing was just wrong. It was a joke. A big joke, as Tony would say. Big joke. Okay, so as I was wrapping up that last one, he says that you can study war, you can exercise yourself in war, two different ways. He says, one by action, the other by study. Here we go. Here's the action part. As regards action, he ought above all things to keep his men well organized and drilled, to follow incessantly the chase, which is like hunting and patrolling, by which he accustoms his body to hardships and learns something of the

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  nature of the localities and gets to find out how the mountains rise, how the valleys open out, how the plains lie, and to understand the nature of rivers and marshes, and in all this to take the greatest care. Which knowledge is useful in two ways. Firstly, he learns to know his country and is better able to undertake its defense afterwards by means of knowledge and observation of that locality. He understands with ease any other which it may be necessary for him to study hereafter, because the hills, valleys, and plains, and rivers, and marshes that are, for instance, in Tuscany, have a certain resemblance to

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  those of other countries, so that with a knowledge of the aspect of one country, one can easily arrive at a knowledge of others. And the prince that lacks this skill, the essential which is desirable that a captain should possess, for it teaches him to surprise his enemy, to select quarters, to lead armies, to array the battle, to besiege towns, to his advantage. So boom, go out, train, train incessantly, train incessantly. Get out there. That's what you have to do. And now, so that's the action part. And the other part now here, now we

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  get to the study part. To exercise the intellect, the prince should read histories and study the actions of illustrious men to see how they have borne themselves in war, to examine the cause of their victories and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former.

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  Listen to this podcast.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  This is what we're saying.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Read. And if you don't got time to read, press play. Boom.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:25:29Jocko Willink?

  I wish I had this podcast.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  I wish I had this podcast to listen to when I was seventeen years old, when I was nineteen years old, when I was twenty-three years old, when I was thirty-three years old, when I was thirty-seven years old.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Jocko Willink?

  Are you kidding me?

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that practice part is. Uh, it seems like, oh yeah, that makes sense, you know, but I think that, I'm not sure if you read the whole thing, but it seems kind of even understated. Cause like even um, when you study something, right? You're like, okay, I know what to do.

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  What part seems understated? The study part?

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  No, the action.

• 1:26:03Jocko Willink?

  The action part?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  He says incessantly, he says addict yourself to exercise of war. I don't know if that's understated or not.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  You're probably right.

• 1:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Didn't read it well.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Yeah, maybe, you know, ma- maybe it was just me. Maybe I think it's just so important that that should be the whole book. I don't know.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Whatever, but either way, either way, then regardless of how.

• 1:26:25Jocko Willink?

  But training is so important to you is what you're saying.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  I think that actually doing it is because without it, you just lose, I think you lose more than half. If you consider study, action, right? And you don't do the action part, I think action is more than half. Or it feels like it anyway, because like if you um, let's say you haven't done jujitsu in a long time or eh, or anything.

• 1:26:45Jocko Willink?

  You are correct when it comes to sports, but he's talking about actual going to war.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Jocko Willink?

  And you can't take a nation to war, you can't even take a platoon to war, you can't take a company to war without going to war. So yes, you can do the training exercises in the field, but

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:01Jocko Willink?

  there is absolutely a massive benefit to studying what has happened in the past. And I'll tell you, from a leadership perspective, like if, if I was a business person, I'd be reading about business, business. Not so much business leadership books that this is how to lead.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:19Jocko Willink?

  But this is what happened in this situation. And the perfect example for me of that, from the war perspective is About Face by Hackworth. That book is not a leadership book, but when you read it from a leadership. Through a leadership lens, it's all about leadership. It's all about leadership. And so you can take books that are about business, not about like, hey, this is a leadership instructional manual. But hey, this is what happened in this, as this company fell apart or this. Like you study those books, read those books, then it gives you a little bit more of an advantage. But in both these, what you really should be looking for is the dynamics of human nature. And you can figure out like, okay, when people, when this happened inside this company or this happened in this battle,

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  people acted this way, people acted that way. And now I understand them better.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:07Jocko Willink?

  If you're seeing it for the first time, just like we talked earlier about, if you see, if you know an armlock is coming, if you, if you know how to defend an armlock, or you know it's coming, you at least know to pull your elbow in, right? If you read a book that explains what happened in a battle or in a business scenario and you go, okay, here's what happened right here. I recognize it, maybe not exactly, but it's close enough. And I can expect this response from the enemy or from the competitor or from my people.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:31Jocko Willink?

  I can make an adjustment. I'm at least not blind.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's kind of the part I was talking about where, where, yeah, that's right. And I think that's right, even the, the, the inverse where it's like, okay, you can, let's say you study this. I know this, you know, I know that this is how it works, but you've never been in the situation to recognize how it feels. You know, in, in, you know, so like training for war or whatever, like let's say in your guys' case where how you would always, you say you try your best to make the training as realistic as possible. So that's the actual action kind of stuff, even just something as, as simple as role, role playing, you know? Where it's like, you're trying to simulate, you're trying to introduce the action part of it more so than just, it's study, sure.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  Got it. I see what you're saying.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  You know, so, yeah, so when you find yourself in the real situation.

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I'll give you a case in point. You can read Extreme Ownership, you can read The Economy of Leadership. I'll have someone that's read and read and studied both those books, listened to every podcast and roll in and be like, hey, let's role play this right here. And be like, you know, put them in a scenario where, where the right answer would be to say, hey, like that's my fault. Here's what I'm gonna do. And they'll, they'll say, well, the team needs to do this. And you just think to yourself, so you're, you are correct. You have to put people in the action as much as you can because. The observation of a situation is not as effective a learning tool as the being

• 1:30:02Jocko Willink?

  involved in the situation.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  I do actually agree with you.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz just like in yours, in that scenario, you just kind of painted it's usually, well, I would imagine, you could tell me, is it because their feelings almost kind of blocked their knowledge at that point?

• 1:30:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if you're in the situation, you are now kind of familiar with the feelings that come along with it.

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  And for instance, you have to learn how to detach.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:27Jocko Willink?

  And so if you don't know how to detach, and I throw something at you, you don't know how to detach, cuz you know what the right answer is.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  But you don't do it.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  You can't do it.

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  You don't do it. So that's, that's, that's a problem. So yes, put yourself, put people, put your team, put yourself, not just study it. Okay, here's the, here's the, here's what you do. You study it, and then from the study, you try and formulate a simulation that you can put yourself into. There you go, there's the answer.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  There's the answer. Last little section about this. A wise prince ought never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity, so that if fortune chances, it may find him prepared to resist her blows.

• 1:31:20Jocko Willink?

  He's really into, in the peacetime, you work harder. And you know what? I'm gonna agree with him.

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  Next, every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  That's, again, this is not tradish. Machiavelli. But then he says, nevertheless, he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. So show mercy, but don't get crazy.

• 1:31:50Jocko Willink?

  There's a dichotomy.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Don't get crazy with the mercy.

• 1:31:52Jocko Willink?

  This is a dichotomy, like be very merciful, but don't be overly merciful. You gotta be balanced.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Can't be a softie.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Can't be a softie. A prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty. Because with a few examples, so he's saying, hey, you should, if, if you're considered cruel sometimes, that's okay. This is, this is tradish.

• 1:32:16Jocko Willink?

  Because with a few examples, he will be more and more sinful than those who through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies. For these are want to injure the whole people, whilst those executions, which originate with the prince, offend the individual only. So every once in a while, if somebody gets out of line, you gotta, you gotta kill them. You gotta execute them.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Sure, okay.

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink?

  And that is actually going to keep the people more under control, more, so they'll discipline, gives you more freedom.

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:50Jocko Willink?

  A little discipline and freedom there on that one.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  I think that's the old making an example.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  For sure, it's making an example, but what he's saying is, hey, the example only hurts one person.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's cool.

• 1:33:01Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah. Here's the famous section, when I'll read a pretty big chunk of it. Upon this, a question arises, whether it be better to be loved than feared, or feared than loved. It may be answered that one should wish to be both. But because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when of the two either must be dispensed with. So he's saying, the best thing you could do is balance your dichotomy. That's the best thing to do. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely.

• 1:33:45Jocko Willink?

  So he's saying, look, people are kind of dastardly, but as long as you're doing good, as long as you're successful, you're, you'll be fine. But, and then he says, when you're, when you're being successful, he says, they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant. So as long as I'm doing good, Echo's like, hey, yeah, I'll be, I'll be there for you, bro.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  But when it approaches, they turn against you. And that prince who relying entirely on their promises has neglected other precautions is ruined. Because friendship, this is a big critical differentiation. Because friendships that are obtained by payments and not by greatness or nobility of mind may indeed be earned, but they are not secured. And in time of need, they cannot be relied upon. And men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared. For love is preserved by the link of obligation, which owing to the baseness of men is broken at every opportunity for their advantage. But fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

• 1:34:49Jocko Willink?

  So I think one of the differences he's talking about. That when I, when I give you money, when I treat you well, when I, you know, am generous to you, you love me, but that's, that's different, you know, that's different. That's not like a respectful love.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  But then, and then he says this as well. Nevertheless, a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way if he does not win love, he avoids hatred.

• 1:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects from their women. So he said, look, you can't just run roughshod over people and take their women and take their property. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause. But above all things, he must keep his hands off the property of others. Because men more quickly forget the death of their father than loss of their patrimony.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  Firm but fair then, he's saying, right? Be firm but fair.

• 1:36:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Overly firm.

• 1:36:07Jocko Willink?

  He's saying firm when you have to be.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:09Jocko Willink?

  But fair is just as important. It's a dichotomy that you have to balance. That's what he's saying. He just didn't write it as cleverly.

• 1:36:21Jocko Willink?

  When a prince with his army and has under his control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty. Again, so again, he's saying, well, you gotta be cruel, you gotta be cruel. For without it, he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties. Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal, this one is enumerated, that having led an enormous army composed of various races of men to fight in foreign lands, no dissensions arose either among them or against the prince, whether in his bad or in his good fortune. This arose from nothing else than his inhuman cruelty,

• 1:37:00Jocko Willink?

  which with his boundless valor made him very revered and terrible in the sight of his soldiers. Revered and terrible, there's a dichotomy. He was revered and terrible. But without that cruelty, his virtues were not sufficient to produce this effect. Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I've come to the conclusion that men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of a prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others. He must endeavor only to avoid hatred, as is noted. So be balanced.

• 1:37:44Jocko Willink?

  And he said over and over again before this, that having the connection with the people and if the people are loyal, like that's the most important thing. If they hate you, or if they don't like you, or if they're just afraid of you, they don't have that. Then you think about it, when you're afraid of somebody and you have the chance to to rise up and smash them down, you don't want to live in fear.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  No, you don't.

• 1:38:04Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:38:07Jocko Willink?

  Next section, everyone admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith and to live with integrity and not with craft. And he used that word craft, meaning like guile and sort of.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Nevertheless, our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have had good faith of little account and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft. And have in the end overcome those who relied on their word. You must know there are two ways of contesting. One by law, the other by force. The first method is proper to men, the second to beasts. But because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. So look, we want to do things the nice way, but if we have to, you gotta get a little savage.

• 1:39:01Jocko Willink?

  There is, therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. Again, this is a dichotomy. You gotta know that sometimes you gotta get cri- get nuts. And sometimes you gotta not.

• 1:39:18Jocko Willink?

  It is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures. And that one without the other is not as durable. A prince therefore being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast ought to choose the fox and the lion. Because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about.

• 1:39:49Jocko Willink?

  He who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded the best. Oh, there you go. You know, can't just be the big brute.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:59Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have a little bit of that.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  But it is necessary to know, and this is it, this is where you get, this is going traditional Machiavellian attitude. It is necessary to know how well, to know well how to disguise this characteristic. And to be a great pretender and dissembler. And men are so simple and so subject to present necessities that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. There's a sucker born every minute. So he's saying you gotta act these ways, but you gotta cover it up.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Which is going back to Richard the third. Hey, I'm gonna cover this stuff and make it up, make it look like I'm a saint.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:36Jocko Willink?

  When really I'm the devil.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  A prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced in order to maintain the state to act contrary to fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion. So he's saying, look, those are the, those are the nice ways to act, but sometimes you can't, you can't keep it.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Therefore, it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortunes force it, yet, as I have said above, do not deserve, diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but if compelled, then to know how to set it about. So, hey, if you can, you gotta be, you maintain your fidelity and friendship and humanity and religion if you can.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:23Jocko Willink?

  If you can't, you gotta know how to get after it the other way. That's what he's saying.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:27Jocko Willink?

  And again, my personal belief is, if you do that, it's gonna come back.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna come back, and I'm not, again, like, I'm not talking about a spiritual karma that's gonna come back. I'm talking about real life will come back.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Jocko Willink?

  You screw someone over, their time will come.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Jocko Willink?

  You screw enough people over, everyone's time is gonna come.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, I mean, doesn't, maybe I got it wrong, but, so Jordan Peterson, for example, he'll talk about this too, right? Like, where you have to be a good person with the capability of being a bad person.

• 1:41:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's optimum.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  The optimum thing is, hey, you, you can get, you can, you can bring the thunder if you have to, but you shouldn't, you shouldn't have to.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Jocko Willink?

  This is not quite that. This is saying, sometimes, you gotta do some underhanded stuff.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Do it, yeah.

• 1:42:11Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's saying. He's saying, sometimes you gotta do some underhanded stuff.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:15Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you, back in these days, I mean, think about how much more communication there is today.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  You do something that's out of line, everyone's gonna know it.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're watching.

• 1:42:26Jocko Willink?

  And it's not gonna take them very long to know it.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's weird, man, like, when you see, you know, some people, they're just sorta like that, you know? And the, you know, it's almost like they can't see very far ahead of themselves or something like that. Like, they'll, like...

• 1:42:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just short-sighted, and they just screw this guy over and screw that person over, and next thing you know, they look up and they wonder why they didn't get hired, or they wonder why they didn't get the contract, or they wonder why they didn't get promoted. It's like, oh, guess what you did?

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's so, it's almost like a thought, like, well... Shoot, I didn't like, I didn't screw you over. Like, why are you acting like this? Kind of thing, or why are you treating me like this? Like I'm some, uh, you know, fox or clever, what craft person or whatever. But meanwhile, everyone's seen what you're doing. Just because you didn't do it to me. No, bro. We know what kind of person you are.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  One of the, one of the hardest things for some people is they think that they're a fox. They think that they can get one over on you. And, and, and they just, they just, it's so obvious. Like you said, it's so obvious. You're looking at him going, hey, man, everyone, not just me, everyone can see you. And you know what? Sometimes people, sometimes not everyone can see what they're doing. And if you're, and they think they're getting away with something and you're looking at them going, man, I can see right through what you're doing.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:49Jocko Willink?

  Why are you doing this?

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Jocko Willink?

  Cause I can see exactly what you're doing.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  You, and the fact that you're doing it and I, I, you don't think I can see that you're doing it? It proves two things. Number one, you don't think I'm very smart. And number two, you're underhanded.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Jocko Willink?

  Neither one of those is going to work out for you. Because this is not my first rodeo. And I'm watching what you're doing and this is going to come back in a very hard way on you. Don't do that.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's, there's varying levels of that too. Like it can be like real devious stuff, you know? It can be that, but it can be like little harmful things too. And the, and the point there is.

• 1:44:28Jocko Willink?

  Semi harm, you meant to say harmless, semi harmless things.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, semi harmless.

• 1:44:32Jocko Willink?

  Semi harmless things, but there's, but also sometimes, and I always try and get people to pay attention to this. If you're underhanded with me, if you try and sneak one by me, it's a trust violation.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Jocko Willink?

  That's a problem. That's a problem. And you know what? I'm not going to confront you.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:49Jocko Willink?

  But I know you.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:51Jocko Willink?

  And it's even worse. It'd be, it would be better off for you if I just came and said, hey, Echo.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, you tried to slide this one under on the expense account? And you bought, you know, whatever. You took your family out for dinner on the company credit card? And I saw that and you shouldn't do that. That would be better.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  For me, you mean?

• 1:45:10Jocko Willink?

  It'd be better for you.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  For my little plans.

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for your little plans than me not saying anything.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Jocko Willink?

  And just noting it. And now I'm tracking you.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's like, oh, my knowledge of that kind of gives me a foot to stand on so I can kind of maneuver. So I can continue to maneuver.

• 1:45:25Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't say anything.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:27Jocko Willink?

  And I won't say anything. I'll let you, I'll let you continue to reveal your dark arts.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  My cards.

• 1:45:34Jocko Willink?

  Yes, reveal your, reveal your nature.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:37Jocko Willink?

  Your nature is cheating. Your nature is stealing from me.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  Bro, you're all looking at me like, like I actually did that. I'm trying to think, shoot, did I do that right now?

• 1:45:45Jocko Willink?

  Think about it.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:45:49Jocko Willink?

  I'm just saying, think about it.

• 1:45:51Speaker 01

  But the point of, um, what you're saying, like whenever.

• 1:45:54Jocko Willink?

  Look at you, you're all this, you're all this, you're all discombobulated right now. Going through that expense report in your head, boy.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  When people can see you, but they can't see themselves, you know? You know how like, even with like small stuff, big stuff, small stuff, whatever, everyone, everyone can see what you're doing.

• 1:46:12Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can, and my point is though, not every, not, it's not always that everyone can see. Sometimes, not everyone can see. And that actually encourages a person to continue their little crafty ways that they think they're so good at. And it's so, when, when I see that happening, it's just so disappointing.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:46:34Jocko Willink?

  It's so disappointing because you're not even in a situation where you're with me because like, oh, I, you know, I brought you into my house. Basically, if someone's going to be able to do that to me, they're in my house. If you're in my house and you're trying to, you know, steal some milk from the drawer when I'm not looking.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Sure, without permission.

• 1:46:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:54Jocko Willink?

  Like you're trying to sneak that thing in your bag? You, if you would have asked me, you'd had, you'd had a case of milk.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  But you didn't ask. What you thought is I'm going to try and get this.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  That's a whole different way things shake out.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not even going to say anything to you. I'm not gonna say anything to you. You can have that mulk. That mulk, it was worth it. Cause now I know your nature.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Yep. So the torment is kind of the punishment. No, but okay. So back to-

• 1:47:20Jocko Willink?

  No, there won't be any punishment.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:22Jocko Willink?

  But, but, but in a year, you're gonna look up and be like, hey, I know that we got this opportunity. I'm saying, oh yeah, yeah. I took the opportunity. Unfortunately, I don't have room for you in the opportunity.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. There you go.

• 1:47:33Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  But when I-

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  And then you're surprised.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  When I say people can do-

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  And I just look at you and say, well.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  You know when they say harmless ways or semi harmless ways or whatever?

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  Even like the teeny, teeny tiny things. And we said this before, like name dropping, right? And that's not, and that goes be a, that's not, it doesn't go into devious. That's not necessarily a devious, a crafty thing or nothing like that. But I'm just saying the, the concept of someone doing something where we all see what you're doing kind of thing, you know? So you name drop someone is like, oh, that's just part of the story. But it's like, bro, we all see what you're doing right there, you know? But it's, I think it's hard for us sometimes.

• 1:48:11Jocko Willink?

  Like I just name dropped, uh, Sam Harris and Tim Ferriss?

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  No, it didn't feel like you did, you know? Then again, you did say their first and last name. So that's kind of a symptom.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  No, cause I think the opposite. If I would've said, oh, well, you know, I was talking to Tim last week. Me and Sam were having a quick conversation.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  That's true. I think you told me that before too. And you're right. Yeah. It seems more, I guess it depends, but yes, yes. You're- Tim? And then you're hoping in the back of your mind that ask him who? So you get to say, oh, just Tim Ferriss.

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  No big deal.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, but the point is people see what you're doing. But sometimes it's hard for us to see that they can see that, you know?

• 1:48:50Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yes, they're unaware.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  You gotta stop.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  And it's a sad thing. Assume that people can see what you're doing. There's a good lesson for the day. Assume that the little maneuvers that you think are all clandestine, assume that people can actually see. Assume that people are a little bit smarter than you think. Assume that you're maybe not as smart as you think you are.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:11Jocko Willink?

  Cause those little crafty moves that you think are fooling people, they don't. And they reveal you, your nature as being underhanded. People don't like underhanded people, especially me.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sure it's a common thing, but yeah.

• 1:49:28Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. Moving on.

• 1:49:34Jocko Willink?

  For this reason, again, we're talking about how sometimes you have to, you have to violate, you have to, according to this, sometimes people have to act a little underhanded. You have to act devious or whatever. And here's what he says about that. "For this reason, the prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that does not replete with the above-named five qualities that he may appear to him, who sees and hears him altogether: merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious." So again, this is Richard III. And there's a whole backstory I'll give on Richard III on why Shakespeare wrote it that way, but he definitely wrote it that way. And clearly from that opening, he's literally doing what it says in this book.

• 1:50:19Jocko Willink?

  "Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come to touch with you. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few do not dare oppose themselves to the opinion of many." So how you look is how you're going to be judged. "The prince must consider how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible." This is not traditional Machiavellian thought. "It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock.

• 1:51:01Jocko Willink?

  And he should endeavor to show his actions greatness, or show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude, and in his private dealings with his subjects, let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive or get around him." Good advice. And I guess one of my points is, everything, so check this out. Everything that we're saying about how people can see what you're doing.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  He's recommending that you act this way, but no one will know. And you just have to pretend like you're actually a good person. And what we're both saying is that doesn't work. And I agree that doesn't work.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:45Jocko Willink?

  So the idea that you're going to be all behind the scenes, you're going to be, you're going to be all crafty behind the scenes and no one's going to catch you. And you're just going to act with greatness and courage and act with gravity and fortitude. And that's how you're going to act, but you're not really not that way. My point is that doesn't work because people can see through it. And they will see through it and they might not see through it today or tomorrow, but they'll see it through it in a week or two weeks or a month or a year. And then you're going to be, you're going to be undone. That's a good word.

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  A prince ought to reckon conspiracies of little account when his people hold him in esteem. But when it's hostile to him and bears hatred toward him, he ought to fear, he ought to fear everything and everybody. So if your people support you, don't worry about conspiracies. If your people are hostile towards you, you better be, you better take note. And well-ordered states and wise princes have, have taken every care to drive the nobles to desperation and keep the people satisfied and contented. For this is one of the most important objects a prince can have is to keep people, keep your troops, keep the people in the game.

• 1:52:58Jocko Willink?

  There was never a new prince who has disarmed his subjects. Rather, when he has found them disarmed, he's always armed them. Because by arming them, those arms become yours. Those men who were distrusted become faithful and those who were faithful are kept so. And your subjects become adherents. Now, I think where this really plays into from a leadership perspective is when you get, when you, when you are in a leadership position and you empower people, you give them power, it builds faith, it builds trust, it builds, and, and the power that they, that you give to them becomes yours. The more powerful you make your subordinates, the more powerful you become.

• 1:53:40Jocko Willink?

  If you have the ego that you can put in check so that you don't mind giving some of that power away, because it'll come back to you tenfold.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  And here's what happens on the other end of the spectrum. When you disarm them at once, you offend them by showing that you distrust them either for cowardice or for want of loyalty. And either of these opinions breeds hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are a character, which are of a character already shown.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  So, once again, if I take your power from you, then that's offensive. So be careful. Give, try and give people power. Don't take it away from them. It takes a high level of security and confidence with your own leadership that you can give it away. The more you're, the more confident you are, the more you can give it away. The more paranoid you think people are gonna be better than you, the harder to give it away, the worse leader you are. The worst leader you become, the worst situation, the less power you have. You're trying to hold it all for yourself.

• 1:54:47Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, "The best possible fortress is not to be hated by the people."

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  Not traditional Machiavellian thought. "The best possible fortress is not to be hated by the people."

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, seems like a good start.

• 1:55:05Jocko Willink?

  It's a great start.

• 1:55:08Jocko Willink?

  Because although you may hold the fortress, yet they will not save you if the people hate you. The fortress isn't gonna, if the people hate you, the fortress isn't gonna help. Don't even bother. "Oh, you built up a great fortress. Cool. We're gonna, we're gonna seed you."

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz we hate you.

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  No water, no food. Huck and fire over the walls. Continuing, "Nothing makes a prince so much esteemed as great enterprises and setting a fine example."

• 1:55:38Jocko Willink?

  Set a good example. Not traditional Machiavellian thought. Ooh, good one. The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince and of his understanding is by observing the men he has around him. And when they are capable and faithful, he may always be considered wise because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise, one cannot form a good opinion of him for the prime error which he made wasn't choosing them. So people, your team, people look at you and they judge

• 1:56:20Jocko Willink?

  you by what your team is like. And if you surround yourself with people that are incompetent and incapable, that's what people are going to think of you. So use caution. Next, when you see the servant, when you see the servant thinking more of his own interests than of yours and seeking inwardly his own profit in everything, such a man will never make a good servant, nor will you ever be able to trust him because he who has the state of another in his hands ought never think of himself, but always of his prince and never pay any attention to matters in which the prince is not concerned.

• 1:57:04Jocko Willink?

  So if you've got someone that's thinking of himself, you cannot trust them.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  On the other hand, to keep his servant honest, the prince ought to study him, honoring him, enriching him, doing him kindness, sharing with him the honors and cares, and at the same time, let him see that he cannot stand alone. So that many honors may not make him desire more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make him dread chances. So what's the best way to have loyalty with someone? You treat them really, really well. You enrich them. You honor them. You share the honors that you get with that person. And then he has to throw in a little dig, which is you got to make sure they understand that they're not going to get that by themselves. He always throws a little dig in there. A

• 1:57:55Jocko Willink?

  little bit, he distrusts people. You know, he says it a bunch of times, people are scoundrels, basically.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, important section, how flatterers should be avoided. I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, for it is danger, for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless they are carefully, unless they are careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of those of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from the past, and if they wish to defend themselves, they run the danger of falling into contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers, except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you.

• 1:58:50Jocko Willink?

  You gotta make sure people understand that if you tell me the truth, I'm not gonna be offended. But when everyone may tell you the truth, respect for you abates. Hey, he throws him a little something. Little counter, right? He doesn't want people talking smack to him, but he wants them to tell the truth. Therefore, a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those things which he inquires, and of none others. So, you can talk the truth as long as I ask you for it. But he ought to question them upon everything, but even though I say, hey, well, you only to echo, you only tell me the truth when I ask you, but I'm gonna ask you everything, and listen to their opinions,

• 1:59:31Jocko Willink?

  and afterwards form his own conclusions. With these counsellors separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred. So the more you tell me the truth, the more I'm gonna like it, the more I'm gonna like you. Outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does not otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying his opinions, that he falls into contempt.

• 2:00:10Jocko Willink?

  He continues on with this thought, "A prince therefore ought always to take counsel, but only when he wishes and not when others wish. He ought to rather discourage everyone from offering advice unless he asks it. But however, he ought to be a constant enquirer and afterwards, a patient listener concerning the things which he has inquired. Also, on learning that anyone or on any consideration has not told him the truth, he should let his anger be felt." And if there is someone who think that a prince who conveys an impression of his wisdom is not through his own ability, but through good advisors that he has around him, beyond

• 2:00:51Jocko Willink?

  doubt, they are deceived. Because this is an axiom which never fails, that a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice. So if you look at someone and say, "Oh, that CEO is doing a good job, but that's because he's got these guys with him." That's actually wrong. The CEO's got that good person with him, those good people brought him in and then listens to him. They get credit. He gives them credit for that. And you know what's funny? That's good salesmanship. Listen to this. "Therefore, it must be inferred that good counsels whensoever they come are born of the wisdom of the prince and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsel." So he's saying, "If you're listening to what I'm saying right now, that makes you good. If you listen to this book, if you listen

• 2:01:36Jocko Willink?

  to the words I'm saying and you obey them, that makes you great. You're not giving credit to me. You're great if you do."

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. What, like you're smart because you're so smart to listen to this good stuff?

• 2:01:46Jocko Willink?

  That you taking this advice proves that you're brilliant.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 2:01:51Jocko Willink?

  You, it's like, hey, if you read this book, it proves that you're smart.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because only a smart person would read this stuff.

• 2:01:58Jocko Willink?

  Only a smart person would take the advice of someone else. That's how smart you are. That's like good salesmanship of the book.

• 2:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Do not let, do not let our princes accuse Fortune for the loss of their principalities after so many years' possession. Okay, so he's saying, don't let, don't blame luck, don't blame bad luck. When you lose your principality, don't blame bad luck, but rather their own sloth. Because in quiet times, they never thought there could be a change. It is a common defect in man not to make any provision in the calm against the tempest. So it's common that people, when things aren't going bad, they just kick back. They cruise.

• 2:02:40Jocko Willink?

  They cruise. Instead of working.

• 2:02:45Jocko Willink?

  And when afterwards the bad times came, they fought a fight and not of defending themselves. And they hoped that the people disgusted with the insolence of the conquerors, conquerors would recall them. That's a good plan. Hey, if I get overrun, I'll just hope that the conquerors are so bad that the people rebel and bring me back.

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And here he talks about what Fortune, and again, he uses Fortune like luck. What Fortune can affect in human affairs and how to withstand her.

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  I will hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of about one half of our actions. But that she still leaves us to direct the other half, perhaps a little less. So he's saying, look, luck has 50%. 50%. That's a big number. And you might go, well, if it's 50%, man, why even try? Well, that leaves you 50% in control. That's actually a lot.

• 2:03:40Jocko Willink?

  He goes on, I compare her, and he's hers that he's talking about as Fortune. I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood, overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, burying away the soil from place to place. Everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it. And yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that man, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defenses and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither

• 2:04:23Jocko Willink?

  so unrestrained, nor so dangerous. So floods are real bad, and they'll wipe you out. But when there's no flood, you can build walls, you can build barriers, you can build canals, and then you can control that, that danger, that flood. Continuing on. So what happens with Fortune, who shows her power where valor has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defenses have not been raised to constrain her. So that bad luck, if you don't work, that bad luck's coming at you. It's coming at you.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  Kind of like the weather, right? Remember like how you were saying?

• 2:05:04Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Like, it's kind of like extreme ownership, almost, situation where...

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  It's not kind of, it is.

• 2:05:09Speaker 01

  Straight up, huh?

• 2:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Straight up.

• 2:05:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, yeah, you know, let's say I put a TV outside, right?

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  TV outside would be cool. You know, it doesn't really rain much here, so it's, I don't really need to put on a cover every day, you know, kind of thing. And then, sure enough, the one day out of the year, it rains on your TV. No more TV. See what I'm saying?

• 2:05:29Jocko Willink?

  But if you were prepared properly.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, even though it's sunny, you just keep the cover on anyway, you know, just in case it rains.

• 2:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Good one.

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's, you know, to me, that was the perfect example.

• 2:05:41Jocko Willink?

  No, I think there's a majority of people will find that to be the perfect example. One last, last little thing to close this out. And he goes into some, some more kind of historical documentation and examples, but this was a good one. So I just wanted to close it out with this. A prince may be seen happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any change of disposition or character.

• 2:06:13Jocko Willink?

  And what that's saying is normal face. You just need to keep like regardless, things are going great, things are going bad. Guess what we're sticking with? Normal. That's how we're sticking.

• 2:06:26Jocko Willink?

  And that wraps up the book again, a ton to think about, a ton that does, there's, there's definitely parts of it that match. Kind of the traditional Machiavelli. Machiavellian.

• 2:06:42Jocko Willink?

  Common. Perception and there's plenty of it that goes against it. And I believe the right answer is balance. And it's more balanced than people think it is. But.

• 2:06:57Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of, you know, bolstering up our defenses against the whims of. Fortune or misfortune. You know, do you have any maybe suggestions on how we could?

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Bolster.

• 2:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  And prepare for that.

• 2:07:13Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah, a few ways, uh, well, back to the book real quick. And so let's say to sort of sum up what, what is? A way to sum up. Machiavellian ways.

• 2:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, like I said, the, the, the traditional understanding and meaning of the word Machiavellian is a negative. It means, hey, this person's underhanded, they're going to deceive, they're not going to care what kind of destruction they leave in their path. That's what people think of if you, like I said, if you say, hey, this person's a Machiavellian leader. Everyone thinks, oh, okay, they're going to be merciless. They're going to just run roughshod over everyone. They don't care who they step on to get to rise to power.

• 2:07:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:53Jocko Willink?

  That's the true, that's the true, that's what the word actually means. But. And we just gave example after example. It's not that cut and dry.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:03Jocko Willink?

  And he definitely introduces many dichotomies to.

• 2:08:08Jocko Willink?

  To that idea that you're just gonna do whatever it takes to get to the top. He talks a lot about these other more moderate and important things that you need to do as a leader. To not only to get in a position, but to stay in position. So being having good relationships with your people, making sure they understand where you're coming from. Like these things are not considered when you hear the word, or you don't know any better. You just take the word for what the word has become to mean. What the word means now Machiavellian is like, hey, I will stop at nothing to rise to the top.

• 2:08:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:40Jocko Willink?

  And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to cover this because even with that, even though he definitely leans in that direction and he, he, what he's saying is look, sometimes you gotta, sometimes you gotta stab your somebody in the back occasionally and then you gotta cover it up to the best of your ability. That's what he says. I don't believe that. I believe when you stab someone in the back, that person, they may die, but they got a, they got a friend. They got a brother. They got someone else. They got someone else that you don't know, you don't recognize. And at some point they're gonna come and get you.

• 2:09:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:09Jocko Willink?

  So you have to, you know, you have to try and balance these dichotomies. You have to try and, and that's not even balancing a dichotomy. That's just straight up like, hey, you gotta take, you gotta treat people. You gotta respect people. And you've gotta not always look out for your own good. And what I will tell you and what I know, the more you look out for your own good. And this is where, this is probably the biggest dichotomy with this Machiavellian attitude. The more you look out for your own good, the worse off you're gonna be.

• 2:09:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:41Jocko Willink?

  And the more you look out for the good of others and the more you look out for your team and the more you put the mission and your, and your people ahead of yourself, the better off you'll end up in the long run. So that's in complete contrast to what the Machiavellian, the, the common thought about being Machiavellian is. And I, and I will tell you, when I work with companies, the leaders that put their people ahead of them, the leaders that put their, that put the mission ahead of themselves, they're always respected. They're always.

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  They're always loved by the troops. They always have support of the troops and they always go forward and do a good job. The people that screw the people over, screw the team over, put themselves ahead, their egos, those people, those leaders never end up doing well. In the long run, sometimes you can do some short term stuff. Hey, I'm gonna screw Echo over, I'm gonna get promoted because I'm gonna, you know, fill out a report that he didn't, you know, I'm gonna rat him out on this thing. Okay, cool. I rat you out, but what I don't realize is that you have another friend that's with us. That's that, that's your peer. And now he's watching me. And there's gonna be a opportunity for him to rat me out.

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:51Jocko Willink?

  Because I missed something or I didn't do something. So if you form good relationships, if you put your team and your mission and you put others above yourself, you're gonna end up in a much better position than you will stabbing people in the back and stepping on people to try and rise to the top. And not only that, when you get to the top, you will be much more comfortable, not only when you look yourself in the mirror, but also when you get to the top and you know that the people below you in the chain of command actually want you there and actually will do anything to defend your position up there. That's a lot more comfortable than having to constantly look behind your back and see who's sneaking up behind you. So do the right thing.

• 2:11:33Speaker 01

  Do the right thing.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  Be a good leader.

• 2:11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Keyword is good.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  So kind of in a way, it kind of goes along, well, really does go along with kind of what you say where like, so, okay, Machiavellian way, traditionally, whatever could be put simply, maybe over simply, but simply, you know, looking out for yourself.

• 2:11:53Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  You know, kind of thing.

• 2:11:54Jocko Willink?

  Look out for me.

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  But what you say and what he ends up saying is the best way to look out for yourself is to look out for the people. Like always talking about the people, the people.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, the people. So man, it's kind of brings it full circle in a way.

• 2:12:08Jocko Willink?

  It does bring it full circle and the full circle answer is take care of your people, take care of your team. Look out for other people, don't put yourself first.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:16Jocko Willink?

  If you do that, you're gonna end up, you might, like I said, you might end up stepping up for a moment, but in the long run. Things aren't going to go your way. And even when you are on the top, you're going to be waiting to get stabbed in the back.

• 2:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:29Jocko Willink?

  Not fun.

• 2:12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, always. And the more, more I think about it, you kind of turned me on to the whole idea of the long game, you know? The more I kind of open my eyes to like, look at things, it kind of seems like playing the short game isn't the smart game.

• 2:12:44Jocko Willink?

  It's totally ignorant.

• 2:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:46Jocko Willink?

  The short game.

• 2:12:46Speaker 01

  So when you figure, and you can see it too, where.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  It's so obvious when people are playing the short game.

• 2:12:52Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, with everything.

• 2:12:53Jocko Willink?

  With everything.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. In fact, if you identify any one of your failures, or the failures of others, whatever, but try your own, if you identify any one of them, you'll probably trace it down to you're playing the short game in regards to that.

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Many times.

• 2:13:10Speaker 01

  Let's say you're overweight or whatever, you're playing the short game. As far as like what you eat, what you're doing physically, or whatever, you're playing short, you want the short term payoff rather than the big long term. Big, yeah. So if you can maintain that in your mind, I think.

• 2:13:24Jocko Willink?

  Play the long.

• 2:13:24Speaker 01

  Long game, you'd be doing some good stuff.

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:27Speaker 01

  My opinion.

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  It's a weird dichotomy that if you really want to do well yourself, the best thing you can do is take care of, you know, your people.

• 2:13:35Speaker 01

  Someone who's not yourself. Yeah, exactly.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  It's a dichotomy, but it's the reality. It's, it's a, it's a nice little blessing that you get at the end of the day for, for trying to take care of people. They'll take care of you. If you take care of people, they'll take care of you.

• 2:13:48Speaker 01

  Then to go one step further, if you take care of yourself and give yourself the capability to take care of more people. See what I'm saying? So it's like this never ending thing.

• 2:13:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you take care, if you look to this, this is the, no, this is the opposite of what I just said. The opposite of what I just said is if you take care of yourself as the primary, you will end up being in a worse position than if you try and take care of other people.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:12Jocko Willink?

  That's this, that's the reality. So if I'm, if I'm always looking out for me, if I, if I act in the traditional Machiavellian way, sure, I might get ahead right now. I might step on, I might get a short term win here and there. Long term, I will not be in a better position. Long term, I will be in a worse position.

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:31Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it is.

• 2:14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was thinking more, you know, the, the oxygen mask in the plane, you know, put it on yourself before your kids kind of thing. But you know, it's a whole thing. Never mind. But every once in a while, every once in a while, you can find something that has both a short term and a long term payoff. Jiu Jitsu is one of those things.

• 2:14:52Speaker 01

  Short term, long term.

• 2:14:53Jocko Willink?

  Indeed.

• 2:14:54Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 2:14:57Speaker 01

  Are there sacrifices you, why wouldn't you take jujitsu? And I'm not saying like, or you know, you, I'm just saying what are, what are some reasons?

• 2:15:05Jocko Willink?

  I don't have time, number one. Number two, there's all, then we, once you, once you get past that one, it's just a whole array of reasons. I might get hurt. I don't like, I, I feel claustrophobic, which by the way, isn't even more reason to do it because you should be trying to overcome that. Um, what, what other excuses?

• 2:15:26Speaker 01

  General intimidation, you know, it's like people fighting or whatever. Yeah.

• 2:15:31Jocko Willink?

  I don't.

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  Trying something new. That's kind of like a big thing.

• 2:15:35Jocko Willink?

  Scary. Yeah. Scary. I'm scared. Need to read Mikey and the Dragons, but go ahead.

• 2:15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nonetheless, if, when we see fit to start jujitsu, if we haven't started already, you're gonna need a gi and a rash guard.

• 2:15:52Speaker 01

  Maybe some other stuff. No, gi and rash guard, boom, perfect.

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Into school.

• 2:15:56Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, an academy.

• 2:15:58Jocko Willink?

  Or, or at least some mats and a friend, or at least a friend.

• 2:16:02Speaker 01

  At least, okay, okay. Yeah. Better than nothing, for sure. But when you get the gi and people, yes, people still ask, what kind of gi should I get? Just start it. What kind of gi? Origin gi from Origin, originmaine.com. This is where you can browse as many gi's as you want. Get more than one gi.

• 2:16:23Speaker 01

  Best gi's, factually the best gi's, made in America.

• 2:16:26Jocko Willink?

  From beginning to end, made in America.

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  Beginning to end of the whole process.

• 2:16:32Jocko Willink?

  Designed by people that do jujitsu. Not by a random person that doesn't train.

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:38Jocko Willink?

  Not by a person that looked in Aikido gi.

• 2:16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:41Jocko Willink?

  And said, okay, well, that's, you know, a gi.

• 2:16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:44Jocko Willink?

  But a person that says, oh, I do jujitsu.

• 2:16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:48Jocko Willink?

  Daily, and I need to make the best possible gi. I compete in jujitsu and I'm gonna make the best possible gi. That's where you get the, that's where you get the origin gi from.

• 2:16:56Speaker 01

  Boom, there you go. You're welcome.

• 2:16:58Jocko Willink?

  And, and then we're gonna make it in America.

• 2:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wish I knew that before I bought my first, my first gi I bought from the academy. Did I buy it from the academy? Yeah. I bought it from the academy, the boxing club. Yeah, it was the worst gi I ever had, ever. And here's the thing.

• 2:17:15Jocko Willink?

  And that's, that's what gis are like.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I didn't know. I didn't know. So then I bought like, I went and I saw one from a guy. A guy had one on and I was like, oh, that looks cool. The logo looks cool. Even when I felt it, I was like, oh, that looks, feels beefy.

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  I went and got mine and it was like, it shrunk a little bit too much and it was like, it didn't fit that good. It was like, there were some scenarios where it felt like a straitjacket.

• 2:17:39Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  And which, you know, it depends on who you are, whatever, but it was just so thick and maybe might have been too small. I don't know. But nonetheless, no one pointed me in the right direction. That's the point there. Yes.

• 2:17:51Jocko Willink?

  Now you're being told.

• 2:17:52Speaker 01

  So now.

• 2:17:53Jocko Willink?

  Now you are telling people.

• 2:17:54Speaker 01

  Doing the telling, yeah.

• 2:17:55Jocko Willink?

  You don't wanna be in a straitjacket.

• 2:17:57Speaker 01

  No, you don't.

• 2:17:57Jocko Willink?

  You wanna be in a very comfortable.

• 2:18:00Speaker 01

  Comfortable.

• 2:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Which you are highly skilled at assessing comfort levels.

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  Yes, big time. But here's the thing, in jujitsu, if the gi is comfortable, that's a good thing.

• 2:18:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:11Speaker 01

  I mean, hey, if you're some weirdo savage who's like, you know what, that's gonna be part of my training, to put on an uncomfortable gi and harden my mind.

• 2:18:20Jocko Willink?

  There was a dude that used to train with a wetsuit under his gi, just for discomfort level. D'Artagnan. He's still a jujitsu guy. He's out there. He was like Higgs, one of Higgs's training partners.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but he's still out there.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  So is that kinda like the, the guys who wear the, the restricted oxygen mask or whatever?

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, you don't put on a wetsuit very often, but wetsuits, wetsuits are slightly, especially this is, this is 20 years ago, that, that this guy was putting on a wetsuit in training. And wetsuits have come a long way. They're much more comfortable now and much more pliable.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  But back in the day, when you put on a three millimeter wetsuit, it was, it was, it was restricting your mobility. So just do that and train and be hot and sweaty and uncomfortable.

• 2:19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:05Jocko Willink?

  That's next level. Put the wetsuit on underneath your orange and gi. If you want more discomfort, there's your, there's your answer.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  Oh, right. If you're training for that. Yeah. I, I say 100% don't do that. That's what I would recommend.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  No, I know you wouldn't recommend that, but it is kind of hardcore.

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  It is hardcore. I, there's a certain legitimate level of respect to have for D'Artagnan for doing that. Dang, that's kind of.

• 2:19:27Jocko Willink?

  He's out there, man.

• 2:19:29Speaker 01

  They're doing it just strong as hell.

• 2:19:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just wearing a wet suit.

• 2:19:33Speaker 01

  Good. Hey, man. Legit, legit.

• 2:19:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there's other stuff at Origin too.

• 2:19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:39Jocko Willink?

  Like T-shirts and sweatshirts and, and by the way,

• 2:19:45Jocko Willink?

  we're gonna have jeans. We have jeans right now. Well, we do. Well, I do.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I, I, last time I looked, I don't have any jeans yet.

• 2:19:52Jocko Willink?

  You, you will get some soon. But anyways, just like the gi is

• 2:20:00Jocko Willink?

  awesome. Here's the problem with a gi. You can't wear a gi to the store. You can't wear a gi to the restaurant. I mean, you can technically, but you wouldn't do that. So, you know, talking to Pete, I'm like, Pete, I love, I love my Origin gees. I, I'll wear an Origin gi around the house, maybe a little bit, right? But I said, Pete, I can't go out. I need, I need, I need jeans. I need something. And jeans, guess what you can do in jeans?

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  Wear them to the restaurant.

• 2:20:29Jocko Willink?

  You can wear them anywhere. You can swing a hammer when you're wearing jeans. You can pour concrete when you're wearing jeans. You can go to a restaurant when you're wearing jeans.

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Origin jeans.

• 2:20:38Jocko Willink?

  Origin jeans coming.

• 2:20:41Jocko Willink?

  Very soon, we will have them available on the website.

• 2:20:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:20:48Jocko Willink?

  To pre, I think we're gonna do like a preorder thing, just cuz we wanna know how many to make, but yeah, then we'll just start making them as fast as we can. So.

• 2:20:56Speaker 01

  Made in America?

• 2:20:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what?

• 2:20:58Speaker 01

  The denim itself.

• 2:20:59Jocko Willink?

  Compromise.

• 2:21:00Speaker 01

  Made in America.

• 2:21:01Jocko Willink?

  The buttons.

• 2:21:02Speaker 01

  American.

• 2:21:03Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what are those things called that you, that you fasten at the top of the jeans?

• 2:21:06Speaker 01

  Buttons.

• 2:21:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the buttons. They will be, the brass are made in Amer- everything's made in America. And they're sewn up in Maine by. Serious craftsmen, legit crafts people.

• 2:21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, American denim, then straight up bringing it back.

• 2:21:25Jocko Willink?

  Bringing it back.

• 2:21:26Speaker 01

  Boom, origin main.

• 2:21:28Jocko Willink?

  Origin main dot com.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Also supplements, which I've been, man, I've been disciplined with the supplements, right?

• 2:21:34Jocko Willink?

  Because you're on the program right now?

• 2:21:35Speaker 01

  Back on the program, my arm, like I'm back in jiu jitsu, my arm is healed, but it's like really susceptible to tendonitis. You know, like this kind of, especially with the twisting stuff. I don't know if I'm ready for like any kind of legitimate gi situation, but so after training it gets stiff. Right, just palm joint warfare, krill oil, whatever. Next day I'm like, cool, but the day after that, good to go, man. It's like, yeah, it's good.

• 2:21:59Jocko Willink?

  Amazing.

• 2:22:00Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, but yes, joint warfare, joint warfare is what it is for your joints, keeps it together.

• 2:22:08Jocko Willink?

  Krill oil.

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  Same deal.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Discipline.

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  This, I've been on the discipline training a little bit.

• 2:22:13Jocko Willink?

  You, you said to me like, because yesterday I trained kind of hard in that jiu jitsu. And you said, you were asking me what kind of jiu jitsu training feels best? And then you named a couple of times, a couple of different types. And then one of them you said was like a three scoop of discipline day.

• 2:22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the level.

• 2:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Like a, the highest level, that was the highest level of good jiu jitsu day.

• 2:22:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  It was three scoops of discipline.

• 2:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  Which by the way, you can get in Tropic Thunder flavor now.

• 2:22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm on that.

• 2:22:39Jocko Willink?

  We're waiting for a cease and desist level for, letter from, uh, from Jack Black.

• 2:22:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:45Jocko Willink?

  Who is in Tropic Thunder.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  Robert Downey Jr.

• 2:22:48Jocko Willink?

  And Robert Downey Jr.

• 2:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:50Jocko Willink?

  And Ben Stiller.

• 2:22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Well, until then, I'm.

• 2:22:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, until then, we're just gonna keep making Tropic Thunder.

• 2:22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good. I actually like that flavor very much. And I like the, uh, you know, the cognitive enhancement, some start, I'm just do the three. I'm gonna try the three and back on the program and do the three.

• 2:23:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, three scoops of this one?

• 2:23:12Speaker 01

  Scoops, yeah. I did scoop, uh, two scoops the other day, one of it. It's good, liked it.

• 2:23:17Jocko Willink?

  What day?

• 2:23:17Speaker 01

  Paid off, Wednesday.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. What about Sunday?

• 2:23:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, Sunday, sorry.

• 2:23:21Jocko Willink?

  Sunday, Sunday.

• 2:23:22Speaker 01

  The other day, Sunday, yeah.

• 2:23:22Jocko Willink?

  A little bit of discipline in you.

• 2:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I sensed a little bit of urgency.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  You actually made me move. I was pretty impressed.

• 2:23:32Speaker 01

  That's actually the best I can hope for right now. But hey, we're doing it one step at a time, you know, we're moving forward. Also, if you want some additional protein.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  In addition to your steak.

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  Steak or sushi. Whatever your, you know, whatever your gig is, drink milk. Drink it every day if you have to.

• 2:23:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I have, I have talked about this before, but I stepped it up. Okay, so you can also get Warrior Kid Milk, which is for kids. It's got a, it's, it's the best possible thing you can feed a kid. They edited this out when Ty was down doing the, the, the week in the life of Jaco.

• 2:24:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:24:09Jocko Willink?

  I was like, I said something along the lines of, hey, when you're feeding your kids, when you're feeding your kids a soda, that's child abuse. I was going off. But so that's why I made Warrior Kid Milk. So Warrior Kid Milk, because I have a bunch of kids myself and it's really hard to get kids to eat good food. Because it's either you don't have time to prepare it or you're running late or you whatever. Or, so we made Warrior Kid Milk. Here's the thing, it tastes delicious. Here's what I did yesterday. My daughter, she was making her dessert strawberries.

• 2:24:49Jocko Willink?

  I said, here, let me, can she usually take strawberries? She puts whipped cream on it and then she sprinkles Warrior Kid Milk on the top like a little dusting. It's really good. We had no whipped cream yesterday. So I said, hey, we got some heavy whipping cream. And I've done this before, but I actually got the tool out, the proper mixing tool that spins real fast. What's it called?

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  I, well, there's a bunch of them, but the one that I am familiar with is called the Magic Wand.

• 2:25:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay, mine wasn't that.

• 2:25:16Speaker 01

  The electric one?

• 2:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh no, this is like an, oh yeah, it's electric. It wasn't gas powered, but it's just like the traditional thing that you saw in the 50s. A little, two little things that spin together.

• 2:25:26Speaker 01

  Oh, the egg beater?

• 2:25:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like an egg beater. So I'm sitting there with the egg beater. So I put in heavy whipping cream and then I put two scoops of strawberry Warrior Kid Milk, whipped it.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  Dude, it's ridiculous. It's completely ridiculous. And then, and then, and then put that on strawberry. Yeah, it's like a whipped cream. It's like whipped cream. Milk whipped cream. So this is a whole nother thing. This might start a whole nother sort of cultural revolution in this nation from our children. When they just are eating Warrior Kid whipped milk cream. It's amazing. So anyways, give that a try.

• 2:26:06Speaker 01

  Interesting that, um, yeah, the egg beater. Well, the ma- you know what the magic wand is? It's, it's not, it's like maybe from the eighties. It's like a, it looks like-

• 2:26:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. You just stick it in your drink.

• 2:26:16Speaker 01

  Yes. And it makes whipped. You can make like mayo with it or whatever. But from what I understand anyway, I don't know. Nonetheless. Yeah, it, it would have been interesting to imagine you with one of those because it is kind of a dainty, uh, apparatus.

• 2:26:30Jocko Willink?

  So get some of that. Get some of that milk for yourself or your children or both.

• 2:26:36Speaker 01

  All on originmaine.com. Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store. Jacostore.com. So this is where you can get more rash guards. Rash guards that represent the path. I'm putting a rash guard on there. Kind of obvious ones saying, uh, stand by to get some because it applies to jiu jitsu is what I'm saying. Anyway, some new stuff on there.

• 2:26:58Jocko Willink?

  I was wearing a rash guard when I was working out this morning.

• 2:27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:01Jocko Willink?

  When I was lifting. Yeah. When I do, uh, when I do a lot of ring work, when I'm using the rings.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you know you get the chafe going on.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  Right. Cause the straps.

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep. The straps. So sometimes on this particular day, and I did have a rash guard on this morning.

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  Good.

• 2:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Also, t-shirts.

• 2:27:21Speaker 01

  Shirts on there represent-

• 2:27:23Jocko Willink?

  Truckers hats.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  And flex fit, by the way.

• 2:27:26Jocko Willink?

  Or beanies.

• 2:27:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:27:29Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:27:31Speaker 01

  Patches on there. I know we were out of patches. We were.

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Sorry. I should have done a better job of paying attention to that.

• 2:27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no. And no, it was my fault. And, and no, no, no, completely my fault. And this is what I'm gonna do to rectify. I ordered more patches. We got more patches in. At this time, also some women's stuff on there, some hoodies on there. It's basically. If you want to represent the path that you're on, that we're on. Boom, that's where you can do it clothing wise, choco store.com. That's how I see it. Like, that's how I see it as a whole. That's what it is.

• 2:28:05Jocko Willink?

  And subtle representation of the path can also be done.

• 2:28:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:13Jocko Willink?

  On that store, you can check it out for yourself and see some subtle representation of the path.

• 2:28:18Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, deep. How should I say deep? Representation, you know?

• 2:28:24Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, choco store.com and choco white tea. What up with it?

• 2:28:31Jocko Willink?

  Tastes delicious, is completely good for you. Isn't it weird that people would make foods that are not completely good for you? But yet, most people make foods that are not completely good for you.

• 2:28:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:43Jocko Willink?

  Choco white tea is completely good for you.

• 2:28:45Speaker 01

  Well, it goes back to that. Yeah.

• 2:28:48Jocko Willink?

  Taste delicious, got a little caffeine, little hitter. It's not gonna get you crazy. It's not a, it's not an energy drink that makes you psychopath. Makes you addicted to caffeine.

• 2:29:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:29:01Jocko Willink?

  It's not that. It gives you a nice little hitter, a little caffeine hitter, Theo.

• 2:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I would even say this, the caffeine is significant. It's not nothing.

• 2:29:12Jocko Willink?

  No, it's 60 milligrams. That's, that's, that's lower than a cup of coffee, of two thirds of a cup of coffee.

• 2:29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's solid. It's good.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you feel it.

• 2:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but it's actually good for you.

• 2:29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the thing going back to, uh, you know, the short term, long term, or long game, short game. Yeah, that's the reason people sell food, drinks, whatever, that are not good for you. Cause they're selling to the short game players. The one that tastes good with all the, the sugars and whatnot.

• 2:29:43Jocko Willink?

  Don't get on that path.

• 2:29:44Speaker 01

  No. In fact, don't even play that game. We're not playing that game anymore.

• 2:29:49Jocko Willink?

  Jaco White Tea, you can get it with tea bags, or you can get it with, in a can.

• 2:29:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:29:54Jocko Willink?

  I have lots of cans and I just crack them open and get after it.

• 2:29:57Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, everyone already knows that you get an eight thousand pound dead left with that. So, check.

• 2:30:03Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 2:30:04Jocko Willink?

  Available on Amazon.

• 2:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:05Jocko Willink?

  And the store.

• 2:30:06Speaker 01

  Also, subscribe to the podcast, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Thank you. God, I've been waiting for you to do that. Also, check out the Warrior Kid Podcast. You might, you probably know about this podcast because you're listening to it. You don't know about the Warrior Kid Podcast. Warrior Kid Podcast is awesome. I think.

• 2:30:23Speaker 01

  I think so too.

• 2:30:24Jocko Willink?

  So, check out the Warrior Kid Podcast. Also, check out Warrior Kid Soap at IrishOaksRanch.com. Young Aiden, who's a warrior kid up there, making soap, building a business, creating a brand.

• 2:30:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:30:37Jocko Willink?

  But most of all, milking goats and turning it into something usable. That's what I like. Working hard.

• 2:30:43Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  Right? That's what I'm talking about. Don't forget about YouTube. We have a YouTube channel. It's called Jocko Podcast?

• 2:30:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it's called Jocko Podcast. This is where Echo puts all these videos, he puts them on there, including

• 2:31:01Jocko Willink?

  these full podcasts and including excerpts and including enhanced excerpts that he goes a little crazy with his little digital CGI stuff and makes things explode.

• 2:31:11Speaker 01

  Sure, sometimes. Also, psychological warfare. If you don't know what that is, I know we all know what that is. We're waiting for psychological warfare too. But in the unlikely event that you don't know what it is, this is what it is. It's an album with tracks, Jaco tracks. Jaco talking to you, telling you, telling us, really, how to get past these moments of weakness.

• 2:31:31Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  In our journey on the path, lifting, waking up, whatever we gotta do.

• 2:31:38Jocko Willink?

  I gave you, I let you talk about that one again.

• 2:31:40Speaker 01

  And you know what, you know what, I just figured out, I figured this out.

• 2:31:43Jocko Willink?

  Borderline.

• 2:31:43Speaker 01

  This is why you're like, yeah, like, yeah, that's what it is, boom, move on, kinda, kinda attitude. You know why?

• 2:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  Because you don't use that. You're not gonna put, you're not gonna play the MP3 of yourself telling yourself, well, I don't know, maybe you do, but I don't think you do. You already had that MP3 embedded in your brain already. In fact, that's what it is. It's literally what it is. But I do, so I know that.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know it more than me. Cause it's weird, cause sometimes I do. And it's sort of like.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  It's sort of like the the Disciplinless Freedom Field Manual.

• 2:32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:14Jocko Willink?

  I did write that book. But sometimes I have to refer to it.

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:17Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes I have to refer to it, and I'll tell you what. It's good.

• 2:32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:21Jocko Willink?

  It's good to be able to refer to something that actually states in no uncertain terms

• 2:32:30Jocko Willink?

  the direction of the path and where you need to walk, where you need to move.

• 2:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:34Jocko Willink?

  It's very, it is very, there's a lot of clarity in it.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:39Jocko Willink?

  And it's powerful to be able to refer to something back like that, you know?

• 2:32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:45Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully, and yeah.

• 2:32:47Jocko Willink?

  So psychological warfare, same thing.

• 2:32:49Speaker 01

  Same deal.

• 2:32:50Jocko Willink?

  When I listen to it, it definitely has an impact. There's no doubt about it.

• 2:32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:55Jocko Willink?

  When you get psychological warfare and you click it.

• 2:32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:59Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna get through to you.

• 2:33:01Speaker 01

  It almost like, and I'm trying to imagine this right now, like, let's say, okay, you know how the night before you might have this problem, might not, I don't know, but the end of the night before you're like, hey, I know you probably don't actually. Hey, this is what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'm gonna take care, take care of business. I'm gonna work out this at this time and I'm do some do this and then tomorrow come there like, dang, I'm kinda not in the mood for that. So I'm just gonna, I won't do that today. I'll skip that. I'll opt out of that today. Cause I'm not in the mood or whatever. But what if you, if you have like a audio file of yourself telling you, hey, this is why you should do this? Yeah, it would bring you back, I think.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:40Speaker 01

  Even if it's yourself.

• 2:33:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:41Speaker 01

  You know, huh, interesting, interesting little phenomenon. Never explored that. Nonetheless, good. Psychological Warfare, it's called Psychological Warfare. It's on, uh, you know, Amazon, iTunes, wherever you can get.

• 2:33:53Jocko Willink?

  The artist is Jocko Willink.

• 2:33:55Speaker 01

  Happens to be, yeah, the artist. Psychological Warfare 2 is.

• 2:34:01Speaker 01

  Gonna be released to, to be, to be decided.

• 2:34:05Jocko Willink?

  TBD. First track is gonna be, don't hesitate in making psychological warfare too.

• 2:34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  Second play to myself.

• 2:34:14Speaker 01

  Deal. Yeah. Anyway, also, your path, on the path we're working out, boom, go to onit.com/jaco. This is where you can get more, whether it be workout equipment, or you know, any, anything that you might need to add to your capability in workouts, health, knowledge, on the path, this is where you go. Go onit.com/jaco. Good stuff on there. Really good stuff. Just got some stuff the other.

• 2:34:44Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of stuff, we got Mikey and the Dragons book for kids, all ages between three and 300. So you can get that. You can get Way the Warrior Kid and Mark's Mission, two books, teaching kids how to be on the path. You got Discipline Equals Freedom, which I just talked about.

• 2:35:06Jocko Willink?

  It's teaching adults how to go on the path and stay on the path. The audio of that is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play. Extreme Ownership, the first book that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin. It's about leadership and that is followed up by the dichotomy of leadership, which actually goes granular on the nuances of extreme ownership. So check that one out. And real quick, back to Mikey and the Dragons, this, what's good about this book, and I was talking about Leif, talking with Leif about it this morning, it applies to everything for a kid.

• 2:35:46Jocko Willink?

  Cause kids have to, think about it, when you're a kid, what do you, when you're a kid facing the world, everything is hard. Everything is scary.

• 2:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:57Jocko Willink?

  And so you have all these fears to overcome and Mikey and the Dragons, Leif, Leif throws that at his son. Says, hey, gotta face these dragons and fire it up, you know? And that's what you do. You learn these lessons and it's a life lesson. So Mikey and the Dragons get some of that. What else? Echelon Front, speaking of Leif, this is our leadership consultancy. And what we do is solve problems through leadership. Me, Leif Babbin, JP Danelle, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Shirelli, Mike Biama. If you're having problems with your team, with your company, with your organization, with your business, and you want to turn those problems around, the problems are leadership problems. That's what they are.

• 2:36:42Jocko Willink?

  Every problem you have is a leadership problem. Go to echelonfront.com if you want us to come and help you solve those problems. We solve problems through leadership. The muster, speaking of leadership, this is a leadership conference event that we have. 2019, May 23rd and 24th, Chicago. September 19th and 20th, Denver. December 4th and 5th, Sydney, Australia. Go to extremeownership.com if you want to come to one of those events. They have all sold out. And these are going to sell out too. The last one we did in San Francisco, they've all sold out. But the one we just did in San Francisco, I had people calling me 10 days out, personal friends, like, hey, I just want to bring three people from my team. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. No, you can't come.

• 2:37:27Jocko Willink?

  We have a fire code. We cannot bring you into the building. Stop. Don't, don't come. Because you know, you know, some people just figure you like, oh, you can just squeeze me in there.

• 2:37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll just stand on the side.

• 2:37:37Jocko Willink?

  I actually can't do that.

• 2:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:39Jocko Willink?

  They're all, they all have sold out. They are all going to sell out. So go there and register as quick as you can. EF Online is live, is launched. What is that? I'll tell you what, if you can't make it to a muster, or you can't afford to go to the muster, or you can't afford to bring 12 people from your team to the muster, EF Online, that's what EF Online is. We, the, the original intent of EF Online was to be able to train people without having them have to come to the muster. Give them the same experience, give them the same knowledge without having to come to the muster. So we did it. And EFOnline.com, interactive, you get the briefs, you get to go through scenarios.

• 2:38:26Jocko Willink?

  It's it's powerful. It's way more powerful than I thought it was gonna be. And I thought it was gonna be good, but it's better than I thought it was gonna be.

• 2:38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's interesting too, cuz I went through, I went through it. And I was like, oh, yeah, you know, like, cool, this is like, just like what we talk about at the muster, or what you guys talk about at the muster, what I listen to. And then it's cool because at sort of at the end of of the sections or whatever, there's like a little quiz.

• 2:38:47Jocko Willink?

  I I think the way the thing came out, and we're continuing to to work on it, and we're continuing to upload new modules. So like, oh, and what's and the other, so so one of the reasons that we made it was to was to help people that weren't coming, that couldn't have come to the muster, whether they were overseas, or they couldn't afford it, or they didn't couldn't get time off. The other major demand signal was we work with giant companies that have a hundred thousand employees. And I one particular company with over a hundred thousand employees said to me, hey, well, we want you to train every employee we have. And this was two years ago. And I didn't have a good answer for him, and I don't like having not having a good answer, right? Oh, you want me to travel globally for the next six months to all your different factories?

• 2:39:32Jocko Willink?

  And it wasn't six months, it was probably gonna take three and a half months or something like that. That's not feasible. Like, I can't just go off the grid everywhere else, not recording podcasts, be traveling the world, training people, right? That's not gonna happen. So what are we gonna do? EF Online.

• 2:39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:48Jocko Willink?

  And so we got an enterprise with it too, where you can have your whole company trained. And it's awesome. It's awesome. So get your people aligned. That's EF Online. And of course, one last thing, EF Overwatch, this is us connecting proven lead combat leaders from special operations and from combat aviation. And we're bringing them into companies that need leadership

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  in their organization to get problems solved. Go to EFOverwatch.com. You want people that know and understand extreme ownership, know and understand the laws of combat, know and understand how to balance that economy of leadership. Go to EFOverwatch.com. Whether you're a person that's trying to hire, or a person that's trying to get hired, if you're one of those vets, go and sign up there. And if you have anything to communicate with us.

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  We can be found on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on the fish. Bookie. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And finally, thanks to all of our military personnel out there for training hard and for holding the line, as always, against evil around the globe. And also thanks to our uniformed personnel here on the home front. And that includes police and law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and correctional officers and Border Patrol and all first responders. Thank you and to everyone else out there.

• 2:41:26Jocko Willink?

  Like Machiavelli says in his book, not the one that you've heard about, but what he actually says, "Guard yourself from flattery by demanding the truth, especially the truth from yourself, and choose good people to be around you and set a good example by acting with courage and gravity and fortitude.

• 2:41:50Jocko Willink?

  And study the art of war.

• 2:41:54Jocko Willink?

  Its rules and its discipline and keep your body accustomed to the hardships.

• 2:42:03Jocko Willink?

  And exercise your intellect with reading and last but not least,

• 2:42:11Jocko Willink?

  even when the weather is fair.

• 2:42:15Jocko Willink?

  In fact, especially when the weather is fair, make provisions.

• 2:42:22Jocko Willink?

  Build defenses and barriers and dams and canals and protection, protections against the rising waters of misfortune. So even when things go wrong,

• 2:42:39Jocko Willink?

  you are ready to get out there

• 2:42:44Jocko Willink?

  and get after it.

• 2:42:47Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.