406: Refer To The Things That Ground You As A Person. With JP Dinnell.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe JP Dinnell is a former U. S. Navy SEAL and now a Leadership Instructor, Speaker and Strategic Advisor with Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Training Officer. J. P. is also a pro team athlete and spokesperson for Origin Maine and Jocko Fuel, an American clothing and supplement company. J. P. has a signature Energy Drink flavor “Sour Apple Sniper” https://originmaine.com/nutrition/jocko-fuel/jocko-go-drink-sour-apple-sniper-pack-of-12/ with Jocko Fuel. Jeremiah spent nearly a decade in the SEAL Teams with three combat deployments. Sent to the violent terrorist stronghold of Ar Ramadi, Iraq in 2006 with SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, J. P. served as point man, machine gunner, and lead sniper for Delta Platoon opposite the American Sniper, Chris Kyle, who was in Charlie Platoon. For his leadership and courage under fire, JP was awarded a Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars with Valor and the Army Commendation Medal with Valor helping Task Unit Bruiser to become the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War. He worked closely with SEAL Officers Jocko Willink, his Task Unit Commander, and Leif Babin, and was the driving force on many of the daring combat operations Jocko and Leif wrote about in Extreme Ownership https://echelonfront.com/books/extreme-ownership/. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 406 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. Also, joining us tonight is JP Dino.

• 0:10JP Dinnell?

  What's up y'all?

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  Good evening JP.

• 0:16Jocko Willink?

  SEAL, point man, lead sniper in Delta Platoon Task Unit, Bruiser, close quarters and urban combat instructor at Trade at Chief Training Officer at Echelon Front and of course, my brother JP. Thanks for coming down.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  We are going to talk today about a book. Well, a new, a new book and expanded edition of a book, a book that I wrote called Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. This is the second edition, the new edition, the expanded edition that's out there. And there was a time actually when this book wasn't out yet, but someone at Echelon Front had found the file for the book on our shared drive like where I was writing it and had shared it. That's when I knew that the book was going to resonate with people because the team was reading it and like teaching it and using it and implementing it. So that's Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  It's

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  the reason it's a field manual is it's something that you can just refer back to like in the military, you have field manuals and you get to a operation that you haven't done in a long time or you haven't done in a while. You can just go to a field manual and look up, okay, what am I supposed to do here? Or you're having a problem with a weapon system, you can go to the field manual and figure out what that problem is and you can get it fixed. And that's kind of the way that I wrote this Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. So there you go. JP, what do you think of this book?

• 1:45JP Dinnell?

  I think it's great. It's a great resource and tool. I know I've used this book many times over the years. Just, um, you know, working through some problem that I had as just a human and, um, you know, it's, it's, I mean, that like you were just saying, the field manual, it's a resource for you to be able to go back to and, and, and look up and see what's going on. And there's be times where I'm working through something personally where somebody would reach out to me and say, hey, I have this going on and I would use it as a reference to what I think the answer was. And I go back and I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah, I align with that. And there's other times I go back and like, Man, I was, my perspective was off on this and I'd have to actually think about it and say, okay, you know, this is what's in the training manual. How was I off based on this and kind of evaluated, but it's a great resource and tool.

• 2:30JP Dinnell?

  Because at the end of the day, leadership is a solution to every problem that we have. That's one of the things that we teach at Echelon Front. It's one of our core, core values and beliefs is leadership is a skillset and leadership is the solution. So I look at the, the training manual as a tool and a resource. It's helped me with my skillsets as a leader, as an instructor and as a member of the Echelon Front team. But it's also a great resource for not only developing my skillset, but finding the answers and then broadly being able to expand my horizon in regards to my, my thoughts on leadership and different scenarios and understanding like, hey, my perspective is flawed. Let me look at this from a different perspective and it's, it's really helped, I would say, probably open up the way I look at things in life.

• 3:14JP Dinnell?

  And man, I, I can't tell you the amount of people I have referred to this book. I usually have a few of these on hand. I order 10 of them at a time from Amazon and just have in my house and I give them to people. And I mean, we had a guy come and do some maintenance at our new house and some stuff. And you know, we just talked to him a little bit about some stuff and went and grabbed the book, signed it, gave it to him. I said, hey, you know, my boss wrote this book, this is gonna help you. I mean, I give out this book regularly and the reason why I give it out is because it has value. And I know it's going to provide value to somebody's life, no matter what they have going on in their life. They will be able to use the book and I'm excited for this new expanded version.

• 3:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. And that's definitely the feedback that I get is people like, yeah, this is what I, this is what I have on my desk. This is what I have on my nightstand. This is what I keep in my locker. Like this is the book that people can go, oh, what's going on? Why am I thinking this way right now? What's this problem? What's my boss's problem? What's my subordinate's problem? What's my buddy's problem? What's my wife's problems? What's my husband's problem? Why are they so messed up? And they pull out the book and they're like, oh, hold on a second.

• 4:18JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, one, one of my buddies from church, he, you know, he was in the air force and now he works for Lockheed Martin. And, um, and he just got a promotion and I was talking to Brian about some stuff.

• 4:31JP Dinnell?

  And this was the first thing I said to him. It was like, hey, I know you've read Extreme Ownership. I know you know the principles. Have you read the field manual? Leadership Strategy and Tactics. He's like, no, not yet. I'm like, order the book right now. And then I saw him. I don't know. I think maybe it was like a week later and I brought him like a copy of it and he had already ordered it, I think. But I didn't care. Like, hey, cool. Two is one. One is none. Like, or go give it away. Like, I didn't care if he already had one. Um, and it's just the value. That's the value I see in this book and everybody that's read the book. They say the same thing. Like, man, that book was, was incredible. And obviously, the base and foundation of what we do at Ashwin Front is out of Extreme Ownership and Academy Leadership. And this just gives different perspectives and ideas and, and ways to handle those problems.

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's very pragmatic. It literally, there's sections of this book that actually tells you what you should say here. It's like, oh, you're in this scenario. Here's, don't say this, blah, blah, blah, blah. Say this, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Like, at least give you an example of, oh yeah, you're talking this way. That's not good. You should do it this way. That's going to be better. So it's very pragmatic and very

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  implementable. Is that a word? Echo Charles, check with you. In Echo Charles' dictionary, it's a word. It's a word. You know, that's why I get some leeway with your, your approval over there. So I appreciate it. Very implementable.

• 5:51JP Dinnell?

  The book. Whether that's a word or not, I know I'm going to start using it. And you know who will correct this? Leif Babin.

• 5:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, is he coming hot?

• 5:58JP Dinnell?

  No, he'll know. I mean, well, you know, I grew up with a speech impediment and sometimes I mix up my words and I'll make up words.

• 6:04Jocko Willink?

  And I have heard you make up words before.

• 6:09Jocko Willink?

  The cool thing is, well, there's two things. Number one, I like, I went to school, uh, and studied, studied English in college, right? The, the English language is made up of made up words. There's words that just get developed out of whether it's convenience, like people blur two words together, or they're trying to describe something that really hasn't been existed in existence before. But they know what it means. So whenever you use some weird word that I know doesn't exist, everyone in the audience nods their head.

• 6:38JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  Because they understand what you're talking about, even though this word has never been used before.

• 6:45JP Dinnell?

  And it's funny because sometimes I'll do it and I'll pause or somebody will kind of look at me and I'll just stop and be like, that wasn't a real word, was it? And everyone, it's funny because of the position I'm on the stage and I'm speaking to them. Like people feel like they need to like back me up on, I'm like, no, it's okay. I, you know, I, I make up words sometimes. It's a really cool gift to have when you speak for a living and everyone will laugh. And I've had a few people go, well, hey, it's a real world. It's a real word now. It makes sense. But Leif and I were doing a workshop one time and um, he pulls me aside on break. He's like, hey, you keep saying this. He goes, that's not an actual word.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  Did you remember what the word was?

• 7:22JP Dinnell?

  No, I feel like we talked about this on one of the other podcasts. I have like tried to just remove it from um, man, there's an actual video. I was speaking at an event and I used the word and they had captioning of it and they typed out the word. On the captioning, um, man, I'll, I'll, I'll think about it.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  We have to figure that out.

• 7:42JP Dinnell?

  No, it was awesome. But in, in, in like good, true leadership form like Leif, like he just pulled me aside and he's like, hey, man, just, he goes, it's not a big deal. I've, nobody notices. He's like, I'm just giving the feedback so that you can correct it uh, if you want. And I'm like, well, if it's not an actual word, I actually want to correct this. So your, your word um,

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  Implementable. Implementable. That's kind of sounds like a word, doesn't it? It flies. Well, we're going with it. Well, all right. I wanted to uh, jump into this book a little bit and so, so there's additional material. I added a bunch of information into this book and I want to go into some of that right now. Read this excerpt, which it's gonna, this is gonna give you some background on kind of the way things develop in my head and then kind of go out into the world a little bit. Uh, so I'm going to read a little, one of the new sections in the book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Here we go. This section is called Developing Leadership Instincts.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  Shortly after the release of Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, I was at the council, an exclusive event where several members of the instructor staff of Echelon Front, my leadership consulting company, were joined by about 20 successful leaders from around the world who work in a broad spectrum of industries. We do these events one or two times a year, spending three days at a remote site in the mountains discussing leadership issues, challenges, and solutions. Because the group is small, we are able to drill down, get very granular, and spend time on aspects of leadership we may not have previously explored in depth. The conversations are generally based around stories from our collective experiences. We explain specific situations we've been in, the problems we've faced, and how we've worked through them.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  On the second day, during our afternoon session, Leif Babin, my co-author on Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership, told a combat story from our time together at SEAL Team Three, where I had made a decision that kept our troops from getting into a potential crisis. Soon after, Andrew Paul, another former SEAL Team Three officer, who is now a leadership instructor at Echelon Front, told a story where my decision allowed our SEALs to get out of a bad situation unscathed. Finally, Jamie Cochrane, our chief operating officer at Echelon Front, recalled a business decision I had made that saved us a significant amount of money and simultaneously helped our client.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  To me, these stories reinforced the fact that everyone on the team knew that decision-making was the crucial function of leadership, and that, just as we teach at Echelon Front, leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield, in business, and in life.

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  But after this session, two of the attendees pulled me aside. They wanted to talk to me, or more accurately, they wanted to compliment me. They retold the stories they had just heard and emphasized the decisions I had made. They flattered me, noting my decisiveness in each situation and commending the inherent leadership ability they thought I was so clearly born with. I was a bit taken aback at first, but as they continued to commend my leadership acumen, I simply nodded and thanked them for their kind words. My ego could not have been more delighted. And as I walked back to my cabin, my ego smiled with satisfaction and whispered kind words into my brain. "You are such an incredible leader.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  Your leadership skills are unmatched. You truly are a great natural leader. This is what it's like to be born a leader."

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  I almost started to believe it. As my ego, like most egos, is very persuasive, but it didn't last long. I know my ego is a liar. So I pushed back. I knew that I had not always been decisive and I knew that I had made many bad decisions as a leader. And I knew that I was absolutely not simply born with the ability to make consequential decisions. It was something that I had learned through trial and error. Decision-making was a process I had developed, a mental checklist that over time had become so automatic that I was barely cognizant of it anymore. So I pulled out my notebook and reviewed the exact steps I work through when I need to make a decision. After a few minutes, I'd written down my methodology in a checklist that I run through

• 11:58Jocko Willink?

  over and over again as I think through a decision. So the checklist is not a static, one-time process, but is actually a loop that I repeat over and over again. An hour later, we reconvened the group and I explained this thought process I used to make decisions, which is the backbone of how I lead. Making decisions and then steering, as subtly as a situation allows, those decisions into execution is what leadership consists of. I call this process the extreme ownership leadership loop. While most of the components of this checklist should certainly be familiar from my books and podcasts, assembling them together into a checklist protocol that guides decision-making

• 12:42Jocko Willink?

  is something people have found very useful. It forces leaders to continually analyze the decisions they are making, constantly considering if the decision makes sense in a comprehensive way that is in keeping with the principles of extreme ownership. Here are the components of the loop. Time. The laws of combat leadership, cover, move, simple, prioritize, and execute decentralized command. Ego. And humility. Emotions. Perspective. Mission, tactical and strategic. Relationships. And then repeat. These are my primary considerations when making a leadership decision.

• 13:29Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  That's a. A kind of an interesting story.

• 13:34JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Um, that happened, it was actually two years ago, I think, at the council of this, it wasn't this past council, it was the one before, and it was so weird. The other thing that I didn't write about was. When these guys were talking to me.

• 13:46JP Dinnell?

  You sure it wasn't at the first council?

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  It might have been at the first.

• 13:48JP Dinnell?

  That was at the first one.

• 13:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 13:50JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, so it's three years ago.

• 13:51JP Dinnell?

  Three years ago.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  The other thing that after, when I got back to my cabin and I was kind of like thinking how awesome I was. I was also, you know, as my ego, I started putting my ego in check, I'm also like, hey, wait a second, if all this stuff is just a natural capability.

• 14:06JP Dinnell?

  Then we can't teach.

• 14:06Jocko Willink?

  Then you can't teach it. And I know I've taught it, I know we've taught it.

• 14:10JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 14:10Jocko Willink?

  To thousands and thousands of people. It's not like being tall. Right? Like, I can't help you be tall, Echo. Like, you just.

• 14:18JP Dinnell?

  Thank you.

• 14:18Jocko Willink?

  You just are what you are, bro. You're just gonna have to deal with it.

• 14:21JP Dinnell?

  Yes, sir.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  But it's true. And it's the same thing with leadership. It's leadership is not just, you're not just born with it. And that was another component that made me think, hold on, there's, there was another inflection point in my head that I said, hey, this isn't just your ego. Look at this, if this, if this was really what you were born with, you can't teach it. So what good are you and why have you been able to teach this to so many people? So. That's kind of where it came from.

• 14:47JP Dinnell?

  That's awesome.

• 14:50Jocko Willink?

  Before we get into the loop, we're gonna go through the components of the loop. I want to make, take a minute to talk about these lines in the book. It says, I explained this thought process I used to make decisions, which is the backbone of how I lead. Making decisions. And then steering. And it's in parentheses here, it says, as subtly as the situation allows. End parentheses. Those decisions into execution is what leadership consists of. And this is a part.

• 15:19Jocko Willink?

  It's in parentheses. And I think a lot of people have this not even in parentheses, that thought's not even there. This idea of, of leading as subtly as the situation appears. I often use and we often use the phrase minimum force required, right? So from a leadership perspective, if you gotta be barking orders, that's a problem. It doesn't land right. And what does it mean if you have to bark at them, tell them what to do? That's just not good. Leading with the, as subtly as the situation allows, with the minimum force required, that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. And I know, so JP, look, are there times where you, when, when you as a leader have to step up?

• 16:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, this is what we're doing and you gotta make that perfectly clear? Yes, there are. But you've seen me all, in all kinds of situations over the years. For how long? What, since 2015?

• 16:14JP Dinnell?

  No, it's been since 2004.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  2005, 2004? 2005? Cause we didn't.

• 16:20JP Dinnell?

  No, yeah, I'm sorry, sorry, 2005, April. I was thinking of the fourth month of the year.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 16:24JP Dinnell?

  April, see if I remember.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 16:26JP Dinnell?

  April of 2005 is when I first met you. That's when you came in to be our task unit commander.

• 16:31Jocko Willink?

  And so you've seen me through all that and then at Trade It and then at Echelon Front. And you've, you've seen that this is what I do. You've seen me do things where I've had to be like, hey, everyone be quiet. This is what we're doing. You've seen that?

• 16:42JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Jocko Willink?

  You've also seen like, like, looked around and been like, hold on a second. We're actually doing something that I thought I thought of, but this is actually Jocko's idea like two months ago. And now we're doing it. He never said a word about it. You've seen all that stuff.

• 16:57JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  As you've grown up, as you've gotten older, as you've been in more and more senior leadership positions, how have you developed?

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  More subtle leadership. How have you noticed it? What part does it play in your day to day life?

• 17:14JP Dinnell?

  Um, you know, for, for me, it's just, it's, it's the reminder that the indirect approach wins.

• 17:22JP Dinnell?

  And, and, and for me, um, seeing that from you and then over the years, seeing that from Leif and Seth and other, and then just especially with what we do at Echelon Front, like I, it's, you never said the indirect approach back when I was working for you and the teams. Like you didn't use that verbiage. At least I don't remember us ever having a conversation or me hearing you talk about it. But you did it. And so it's one of those things where that's what you saw. So you're like, all right, cool. I should maybe try to emulate that. And I remember you did, you did pull me aside, you and one of the other senior chiefs that was, that was running training and you're like, hey man, when you're like yelling and screaming at these guys, like I, you're like, I get it. Like I understand why you're mad and frustrated.

• 18:03JP Dinnell?

  But like, that doesn't work. That doesn't work at the level that it could work, you know? And you also have to remember like, these guys are your bros and these are your teammates. So how you talk to them. And for me, that was just like, oh, okay. Like I don't need to be yelling and screaming at people because what we, what we look at because of movies and or like, you know, coaches and teachers and people over the years, like people think like a, the, the good leader is a guy that's sitting up front or the gal that's sitting in front of the guy. Hey, listen up, I'm in charge. And everyone's like, okay, cool. Yep. Echo's in charge and they're going to go run over there. But that's actually not what good leadership is. And what I've seen over the years and I try to do is the indirect approach and just asking questions and asking people what they're thinking and getting their insights and their opinions.

• 18:48JP Dinnell?

  And you know, you can use questions to guide people to, to get where they need to be to where they see the answer themselves. And they're like, oh yeah, that actually this is how we should do it. And then when you've done that with me over the years, it's, then it's one of those things where it's now my idea and I'm going to have ownership over it. And you know, my wife and I, we do that with our kids and it's like, hey, do you think, you know, boom, boom, boom. And they're like, well, you know, and it's like, okay, there's going to be a little bit of pushback and that's fine. It's not because they're being defiant, but. You're dealing with other humans and they think their ideas are the good way to do it and their ego's getting evolved. And so you're just massaging that ego by saying, no, I'm not, I'm not saying this is a horrible idea. Like, what are your thoughts if we did it this way or hey, what about this? And then you slowly guide them towards that.

• 19:33JP Dinnell?

  And so the indirect approach always wins. And it's something that I've been trying to be more mindful of. Cody's really good at that. You know, the guys that, all the guys and gals that we work at Echelon Front are, are good at implementing it and using it. And sometimes like it can be to the point where like Meg and I were doing an event the other day. And it was like this back and forth and she goes, okay, we can do this for the next 40 minutes. She goes, let's, you know, what do you think about this? I'm like, I like it, let's go. And it was just, you know.

• 20:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, the, the kids thing, and I just got done with an event and I ended up with some of the families actually from this, this group. And it was interesting because the kids were in the room, kids probably between the ages of, let's call it seven and maybe all the way up to like 20 year old kids. So it was, and then the parents were in there and they were asking me questions. And, you know, I was, I was telling them this, I said, listen, the more you empower your kids, the, the better human being you're making. And you want your kids, look, do you, I use the old, uh, let your kids brush up against the guardrail as a failure? Oh, your kids want to stay up all night and play video games? Okay, cool. You still have to get up in the morning. You still have to do your chores in the morning.

• 20:48Jocko Willink?

  Like you can stay up all night if you want to, but that doesn't mean you get to sleep all day. That means you function as a human being. Treating your kids as adults. And look, I'm not getting crazy, don't go extreme with this, but oh, your kids don't want to help clean up? Cool, they don't get to eat. Like, what is wrong with you? Like, no, well, your kids, first of all, your kids are not going to starve to death in one day. Yeah. And believe me, after they miss lunch because they didn't want to clean up, they'll be cleaning up for dinner and they'll get to eat.

• 21:15JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  But just, just setting up some consequences, some life consequences. And hey, this is what's going on, like, you know, your mom is not. A slave that is here to just clean up after you.

• 21:27JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  And so you either help clean up or you don't get to eat. Okay, whatever. Okay, cool. Let's see how that works out for you. Those kids get hungry.

• 21:35JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. We, it's very rare, it's very rare that Amanda and I will actually have to have to tell our kids, hey, go to sleep now. Very rare. Most of the times like, hey, this is what time it is. Do you think it's time that we start getting ready for bed? And they're like, well, you know, and I'm like, hey, like this is when you have to get up and they do the math and they'll be like, oh yeah, I need to go to bed.

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:57JP Dinnell?

  Because there's been a few times like we're like, all right, cool. You want to stay up? Awesome.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:01JP Dinnell?

  You're still waking up the next day and like having a struggle throughout the day and you know, Amanda's really good at how she handles that. Because I'm gone all the time. And so she has to deal with this all the time without me. And the way Amanda does this indirect approach with our kids is it's incredible.

• 22:17Jocko Willink?

  That's like the old trick with like, oh, your kid, you know, is smoking a cigarette. And so you make them smoke a whole pack of cigarettes and like crazy. Well, in Bud's for me, somebody's, I didn't chew tobacco and somebody brought chewing tobacco to San Clemente Island, which you weren't allowed to do. Like, and they brought like a full month's supply for probably two or three people. And they got us out on the grinder and they started making us do eight count bodybuilders. And then the instructors put dip, like packed our mouths full of chewing tobacco. And yeah, I was doing eight count bodybuilders and I'd never done, never done chewing tobacco.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  And it was absolutely freaking horrible and disgusting. And I didn't puke, but I never ever had the urge to do chewing tobacco again. That's an extreme example, but.

• 23:17JP Dinnell?

  I, I know. I think Cody's dad made him do that. Like he like, I think something along with cigarette. He's like, all right, cool. Took the filter off and made him smoke like a full cigarette or a full pack without the filter. And he's like, bro, I was so sick. Never, never again. And it's just like.

• 23:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a, that's, that's the powerful thing about the indirect approach. And the other thing, when you were talking about.

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  People being in charge and like you, the, the stereotype is like, oh, they're up in there telling everyone to do. When someone's a really good leader, they don't even say, they, they never have to say that they're in a leadership position.

• 23:55JP Dinnell?

  Cause everybody knows.

• 23:55Jocko Willink?

  Everybody just knows. They're not like, hey, listen up, I'm in charge here. Or, hey, as the CEO, you know, like, when you hear people say that, you're like, uh oh, this is a problem. Like there's problems, there's problems going on.

• 24:07JP Dinnell?

  And if you feel yourself wanting to say that, or you catch yourself saying, just know that you failed. And the best thing that you can do is immediately apologize, say, hey, you know, guys, I'm sorry. I should never have to use my position like for that.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then why are you having to do that?

• 24:25JP Dinnell?

  Cause you're insecure.

• 24:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're insecure, but there's also something wrong with your idea.

• 24:27JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  If I'm like, listen JP, I'm the OIC, I'm the officer in charge, this is the plan we're gonna use. If I have to do that, what's wrong with my plan? Because it's not like JP wants to use a plan that sucks. It's not like you're like, no, I want us to get in, you know, contact with the enemy and get killed. No, you're not thinking that. So if I'm saying, no, this is the way we're gonna do it. And the only way for me to flex that on you is to use my rank, there's something wrong with my idea.

• 24:51JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Jocko Willink?

  So, or there's something, or like you said, there's nothing wrong with my ego.

• 24:55JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. Well, I, and I believe those literally feed into each other because if I know there's something wrong with my idea, but I still wanna run it, I'm insecure about my idea getting exposed. Because if, if we start talking about my idea and thinking about it, and you start asking questions and expose my bad plan. It's just easier for me to impose my authority. So we just go execute it. And you're secretly hoping it works and you're hoping your people are smart enough to adapt and and it's just, that's the horrible, I mean, that's what's just, we talk about it all the time, like your ego is. Now, our ego drives us for sure, but when you can't control and subordinate your ego, that's when bad things happen.

• 25:35Jocko Willink?

  It's a problem.

• 25:35JP Dinnell?

  Yes, it's a big problem.

• 25:37Jocko Willink?

  All right. Um, I think that covers what I wanted to touch on there. All right, let's get into this, the, the leadership loop here. And starting off with this section, time.

• 25:48Jocko Willink?

  Time is the first thing I consider when making a decision because it's the one thing I have almost no control over. There is no getting back time once it is lost. Time is also the key driver of the need for many decisions, whether or not to act and how. Time makes some situations get worse, time makes other situations get better. This is, this makes time a double edged sword. Sometimes it helps me, but sometimes it hurts me. So I need to consider what impact time will have on my decision and its outcome. Some people have an objectively good sense of time and I'm lucky to be one of those people. I constantly hear the clock ticking and I profoundly understand the incessant nature of time.

• 26:31Jocko Willink?

  I know that things tend to take longer than it seems they will. I know that wasted time cannot be recovered. I know that time creates pressure. And I know what can happen when pressure builds unchecked and explosion. So I am always, so I am and always have been acutely aware of time. Contrarily, some people do not have an accurate assessment of time. They don't feel the clock ticking. They are often late, late to meetings, late to events, late to complete tasks and projects. They repeatedly misjudge how long things will take, estimating something will take 10 minutes when it will take an hour, or that it will take one month when it will take three. They end up in scenarios where the clock applies the kind of pressure that causes things to break.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  These leaders seldom succeed without having people on their team who under, who do understand the impact of time. Left on their own, they will lose the battle with time over and over again. I go on to talk about, this is something that I learned, right? Like, I hate the feeling of fighting against time because you can't stop it. And the only way to, to, to not have that feeling, because there's not, there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing you can do about it. The only way you can overcome that is to be ahead of it. That's why when it comes to decision making, time is always the first thing that I think about. Like, do I need to make this decision now? How much time do we have? That's the first thing I think about because once it goes, it's gone.

• 27:58JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  That idea of the power curve, I talked about it with Dave Burke.

• 28:03JP Dinnell?

  Good deal, Dave.

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, good deal, Dave Burke. It's a thing from flying, right? And it's like at a certain speed, you have to, you have to be going a certain speed with an aircraft in order for that thing to fly.

• 28:15JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Jocko Willink?

  And not fall out of the sky. And your engine can also hold you up like by applying power so that you're moving forward enough. But at a certain point, you're not going fast enough. There's not enough movement over the wings and they call that the power curve. And if you get behind the power curve, you can't recover. You crash. So you can't get behind the power curve. And I first heard that, I didn't know that it came from aviation, but in the SEAL teams when I was young, they use that expression a lot, like, oh, you're behind the power curve. And once you get behind the power curve, bro, it's like you can't catch up.

• 28:47JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  It's like when you're doing jujitsu and you get behind the, like someone's initiating offense on you and you're trying to, and you just all of a sudden, you're just behind and you can't catch up. You're going down.

• 28:58JP Dinnell?

  I feel triggered right now. I feel like you're exposing my jujitsu game.

• 29:04Jocko Willink?

  And some people might take a little bit of a issue with me saying you can't control time. Cause of course, I can say like, well, you know, we, you know, I get up early and I'm going to get this done ahead of time. And you can, you can, but you're still not controlling time. That clock is still freaking ticking.

• 29:21JP Dinnell?

  You can't.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

• 29:23JP Dinnell?

  Like you said, the only thing you can do is try to get ahead of it. The only thing you can truly do with time is make the most of it.

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 29:29JP Dinnell?

  Is just understand, hey, this is what I have. I'm going to make the most of it. And if that's, you know, just understanding what the priorities are in your life, like that's what you can do with time. But you actually can't control it. And people that get offended by that are the ones that understand that they've been wasting time and that they're not willing to be disciplined enough to make the most of that time. Those are the only people that are going to get offended by saying, oh, you can't control time. Well, I'm sorry, but that's factual.

• 29:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. Wasted time.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  Is like a sin. It really is.

• 30:01JP Dinnell?

  It actually is. It's in Proverbs. I don't know the exact like chapter and verse, but it it's in the Bible like wasting time. He says, you lazy bones. He talks about how how ants prepare, even though like it it's gonna drive me crazy, but yes, it is. It is a biblical principle.

• 30:21Jocko Willink?

  So it is a sin.

• 30:22JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  To waste time.

• 30:23JP Dinnell?

  Because think about it. This is a gift that God's giving you.

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 30:26JP Dinnell?

  Like God's saying, hey, I'm giving you this time. I'm giving this opportunity. Go. And you're just like, I don't know. I'm just gonna, huh. That's it's ridiculous. That's why one of our mindsets for victory is default aggressive because our natural tendency is delayed action. Our natural tendency is delayed action. However, if we're being default aggressive, making the most of the time that we have with us, like that's what we need to be doing.

• 30:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we were on the Academy Call the other day and the topic on the Academy Call is how to stay focused at work. And we got on this tangent where people were asking questions like, well, you know, you know, it was kind of funny because it's on a call with a bunch of people that believe in the principles of extreme ownership.

• 31:03JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Jocko Willink?

  And everyone kind of started saying like, well, you know, the thing is with the phones these days and it's the email chimes and they got so many and the collective, there was a collective blame on the phone.

• 31:16JP Dinnell?

  Zero ownership.

• 31:18Jocko Willink?

  Zero ownership. And I was and this one guy was like, you know, we put apps on and I said, finally, I was like, hey, everybody. We're all sitting here saying that the phone is the problem. Not the not the phone's problem. It's your problem. It's my problem. It's our problem. And that phone is going to keep doing what that phone does. And if you keep listening to that phone, then you keep looking at that phone, guess what's going to happen? All your time is going to be wasted. That's what's going down. So don't waste any time. That's what I got. I also quoted B C.

• 31:48JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Do it and it'll be done.

• 31:50JP Dinnell?

  Do it and it'll be.

• 31:51Jocko Willink?

  Because for me, one of the things that is in for the way my personality is, if I have to do something tomorrow, like if something is due tomorrow, I have to get it done tonight. Like I won't like preparing for a podcast if we're recording. A podcast tomorrow in the afternoon. I can't go to sleep mentally until it's ready today. I just can't.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  There was another thing right that you brought, uh, what you looming.

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't like looming.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Bro, I never forgot that. And it's true. It's just another version of do it and it'll be done. It's kind of like they're, you know, kind of related, you know, in that way. But that goes deep. Do it and it'll be done. It goes deep. Cause like the feeling I always got was be like, when it really landed, be like, oh yeah, it is done. When you already did it, you know?

• 32:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  So glad I did that. Big one daily is like working out, right? Working out in the morning, which I try to do. I try to work out before lunch. I don't do the 4:30. Sometimes I do, but anytime it's early, brother, the feeling later, like after we record, after we do the stuff you do during the day. And you're like, holy, I already did my workout. I don't have to work out right now.

• 32:59Jocko Willink?

  Such a good reward.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Do it and it'll be done. And that's, yeah, huge massive payout.

• 33:02Jocko Willink?

  B C.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  B C all day.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  B C all day coming in hot.

• 33:05JP Dinnell?

  All right. There's in Ephesians, Ephesians 5 15. So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Verse 16. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourself and making music to the Lord of your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God, the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it just talks about more like spirit guided relationships with his wives and husbands. But in Ephesians, it talks about it, but I know they're in Proverbs. It does talk about.

• 33:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, I got Ephesians right here. Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busy work, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It's a scandal when people, it's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one else will see.

• 34:03JP Dinnell?

  That was Ephesians 5 11. Ephesians 5 11.

• 34:05Jocko Willink?

  All right. All right. So we're gonna have to take this from the top and you're gonna have to read. Yeah. Read, read 5 11 through 16.

• 34:11JP Dinnell?

  Okay.

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  So I'm gonna go, uh.

• 34:15JP Dinnell?

  Cool.

• 34:18Jocko Willink?

  You good? You got it prepped? You can actually just say, uh, here it is.

• 34:22JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, here it is. Ephesians, um.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  Hold on. All right. Let's go on to the next one, but before, did you, did you pull up that?

• 34:29JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Jocko Willink?

  That biblical quote?

• 34:30JP Dinnell?

  Yep. So I'm going to find the one from Proverbs, but we found in Ephesians 5 11. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness, instead expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret, but their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them. For the light makes everything visible. That is why it is said, awake, oh sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will give you light. So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don't act thoughtless, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

• 35:12Jocko Willink?

  Here's a modern version of that. Imagine if you were being filmed and watched all the time, like, uh, what's this Jim Carrey movie? Dude. Truman Show? Yeah, Truman Show, right? If the, imagine if everything that you were doing, people were watching and judging. Like the show Big Brother. What made me think about, no, what made me think about that is if you're doing things in the darkness, right? The things you do in the darkness, the things that you don't want people to know you're doing. It's probably wasting a bunch of time. Probably. Right? Yes. Look, some of it might just be downright freaking, you shouldn't be doing that stuff. Right? Downright nefarious.

• 35:49JP Dinnell?

  I found it. Proverbs, Proverbs six.

• 35:54JP Dinnell?

  Oh, Proverbs six is great, but here it is. Proverbs 6 6. Take a lesson from ants, you lazy bones. Learn from their ways and become wise, though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work. They labor hard all summer gathering food for the winter. But you lazy bones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? In a little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit. Scarcity will attack you like an unarmed, like an armed robber. What are worthless and wicked people like? They are constant liars, signaling their deceit with a wink of an eye, a nudge of the foot, or a wiggle of the finger.

• 36:36JP Dinnell?

  Their perverted hearts plot evil and they constantly stir up trouble. Trouble, but they will be destroyed suddenly, broken in an instant beyond all hope and healing. And then it just keeps going on. I mean, it's awesome. Like Proverbs, Proverbs is great. If you don't even know where to start in the Bible, just whatever day of the month it is, read that Proverbs. Today's the 29th. I'm going to read Proverbs 29 later today. So.

• 37:01Jocko Willink?

  That right there, they weren't playing around when they wrote that one. It starts off saying like, hey, you should work hard and then it's saying you're perverted and evil. Like it goes straight down, right?

• 37:09JP Dinnell?

  And it's all factual because that's, as humans, yeah.

• 37:13Jocko Willink?

  This is where it's going. All right. So, don't waste time. Uh, when making a decision, going back to the book, when making a decision, consider time and ask yourself, how much time do I have? When is the deadline? Is there any way to buy more time? How does time impact the situation? What will happen when time runs out? There's, you know, again, is there, can I buy more time? Well, how do you do that? You just said you can't control time, but there's times where you can buy more time. You can push out a decision. You can make some small adjustments. You can hang on a little bit longer in the current situation. Like there's things you can do to buy more time, but you just have to be cognizant of it. All right.

• 37:53Jocko Willink?

  The next whole section is very familiar to those of us that study and live by the laws of combat leadership. The first one is cover and move. And I read about cover and move in here. Everyone knows what cover and move is now, but when I'm making a decision, I need to make sure that my decision is not going to leave any part or parts of any team unsupported. To leave teams unsupported is all but guaranteeing they will fail. Cover and move also ensures that the team comes first. If I am making a decision that only benefits me, I am clearly not covering the rest of my team. A good leader puts the team above themselves. The team comes first.

• 38:37Jocko Willink?

  That is the essence of cover and move. Making sure that your decision allows people and teams to support each other is critical for success. And this is one of those things that.

• 38:51Jocko Willink?

  I think it was Leif was telling the story. He was listening. I was on a podcast with Jordan Peterson. And Leif, I think it was Leif was telling me he's listening to it and I think Jordan asked me, like, what's a good SEAL? And he was kind of thinking like, oh, what's Shocking say, you know, like, because we never really talked about like, what makes a good SEAL? And finally, I said, oh, you know, I said, it's not the best shot. It's not the fastest, not the strongest. What makes someone a good SEAL is when they put the team above themselves.

• 39:16JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 39:17Jocko Willink?

  When they don't leave you hanging. When they cover for you, like when they cover for the team. That's what makes a good SEAL. It's number one law of combat leadership. And this is something that, man, when I recognize this, and this is thanks to, well, I mean, I guess Roger Hayden, Vietnam SEAL, who was like, he didn't make some big deal out of it. Like, I was doing something and he's like, we weren't covering and moving. I wasn't covering for somebody. He's like, you've got to cover for that guy. And I was kind of like, and for some reason, it just hit me that, oh, that's, that's what you're doing. That's what this whole thing, that's what everything we do is. Like all of our immediate action drills, moving down the hallway and seeking, everything that we're doing, entering a room, everything is based on you got to cover for your friend.

• 40:00Jocko Willink?

  That's what it's all based on. When you're going through basic SEAL training, you have a swim buddy. You never leave them. No matter what happens. You support them. You cover for them. So when I'm making a decision, and then it, then it carries out into squads and platoons and teams. And that's the way the world works. And then even when we're working with the army or working the Marine Corps, it's like, oh, are we doing everything we can to make sure we don't leave them hanging?

• 40:29JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  I mean, there's operations that we did where it was like,

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  you know what? We got, we, we got to do this because the army needs, the Marine Corps needs us out there. We're, are we going to tell the Marine Corps like, hey, sorry, you guys can cover your own? No, no, we're not doing that. Zero chance. So it's a very, it's a very important thing to consider when you're making a decision. And there's so many decisions that you can go, oh yeah, I'm going to leave JP hanging. Can't do it. Think about that. I'm going to leave JP hanging on this situation. Yep. Can't do, I can't do that. It's not a good decision. Oh, I'm going to provide support to this part of the company, but not that part. Oh, no, that's not good. We can't do that. So thinking about this is

• 41:09Jocko Willink?

  That's why it's high up in the in the pecking order.

• 41:12JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, and I think as as humans, we need to be very intentional with implementing this into who we are. You know, as you're saying this, like one of the guys that helps us out at Echelon Front regularly, Josh Strasburger, he helps out with all the musters. He's there at every muster helping out. He helps out at every FTX. This is like, as you're saying, I'm like, this is Josh. Now, I have a lot of friends, a lot of people I could add to this list, but as you're saying, I'm like, this is Josh to his core. And it was just as you're talking about this, as I'm listening, I'm thinking, he does what a lot of us as humans need to be more mindful of is he's very intentional about this principle about taking care of around all the people around us.

• 41:55JP Dinnell?

  The the men's event that I went to, I've talked to you about it called Pursuit. I've gone back and served and Josh went through and he was serving and part of that was he's like, hey, I'll pick up people along the way that need to get there because he just, you know, that's part of like some of these guys maybe not want to go last minute. It's like, but you know that if I'm picking you up, you're going to be ready. And so it's, he's picking these guys up. And while he was driving, it was last winter when we had some pretty bad storms in Texas. He totaled his truck, like a semi truck almost hit him. He went to move out of the way. It caught ice, spun out of control, totaled his truck. So he gets towed, he takes an Uber to get a minivan rental. He goes and gets a rental vehicle

• 42:36JP Dinnell?

  and still picks up everybody and shows up to the event, serves, gets everybody dropped off back home. And then he's like, all right, I gotta figure out what I gotta do next. Like, you know how many people would have just been like, I'm done, man. Hey, hey, I totaled my truck. I go, I can't pick you up. And you would have been like, all right, man. Okay, cool. Is everything okay? But instead, he's still got the job done. And I think if if we as humans now, everything on this list, we need to be intentional about everything on the list. But if we're not one, obviously, the time one is, I hope, very apparent. But if we miss cover and move, all these other things fall apart. And that's why you said it's the it's the tactic that we use all of the time.

• 43:15Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 43:15JP Dinnell?

  All of the time.

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  And I would have loved to have put cover, move, simple prioritize next to decentralized command as number one. I would have loved to have done that.

• 43:21JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 43:21Jocko Willink?

  Here's the problem. You have to think about time first because you might have to, that's the most important thing that you gotta handle right now. I might have time to make a decision. I might have time to decide between what I'm do this or I'm gonna do that.

• 43:32JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Jocko Willink?

  So you have to think about time first, but immediately after that, it's like, am I providing support for the people around me?

• 43:39JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  And if I'm not doing that, this is probably not a good decision.

• 43:42JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  There's a probably, there's probably an issue with this decision that I'm about to make.

• 43:46JP Dinnell?

  And if you move forward with that decision, you are wasting time.

• 43:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:50JP Dinnell?

  Which is the limited resource that we don't have enough of, so.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  So often, like you, like when we were running trade at, um, you know, a fire team ends up on their own. They're gonna die. Like, they're just gonna die. If, if they lose support, they're gonna die. It's in the business world too. Oh, we, we got this project going and we really can't support this element because they're doing this project that no one really cares about. Cool. You might as well just cut them off and just put them out of their misery. Because when people are alone, or when a team's unsupported, they, they cannot be successful. So, cover. Cover so people can move. Uh, going back to the book here, when making a decision, consider, cover, move, and ask yourself, am I putting the team before myself? Are the teams able to support each other? So in a leadership position, you sometimes like I, I might be saying, Echo, you do this, JP, you do that.

• 44:40Jocko Willink?

  But I'm putting you both in isolated areas. That's also, that's a mistake. You, if you, look, it's not necessarily I can't cover for you, but maybe you can't cover for each other. So that's a problem. And then finally, is any person, team, or element being left alone?

• 44:59Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Cover and move. Remember that. Next one is simple. The next check I am going to do when making a decision is for simplicity. Complexity is a killer on the battlefield, in business, and in any leadership situation. So I almost always want to choose the simplest course of action.

• 45:20Jocko Willink?

  And this really plays a huge role in the fact that when things go wrong and you have a complicated plan, it's gonna be 10 times worse, or 50 times worse, or 1,000 times worse. You, you have to keep things simple. And if you're starting to veer into a complicated decision, well, there's gonna be issues.

• 45:43JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 45:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I break it down in the book here.

• 45:48Jocko Willink?

  When making a decision, consider the complexity of the situation and ask yourself, and again, I'm, I'm fast forwarding, I forgot to say this, I'm fast forwarding through a bunch of other information here about these topics, but how can I simplify this plan? Is there a simpler solution? Imagine that, you're about to make a decision, you just ask yourself, hold on a second, is there a simpler solution? I can just about guarantee you, the simpler solution is better. I can just about guarantee you.

• 46:11Jocko Willink?

  You're looking at three different options, which one is the simplest option?

• 46:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next one, if this is a complex problem, how can I break it into simple components? Cause there are things in the world that are complex. We work with companies that do some incredibly complex things.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you gotta take complex things and break them into simple components. Um, next one, am I conveying the plan in a simple, clear, concise manner? And how can I make sure my team understands?

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  So there you go, simple.

• 46:42JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 46:44Jocko Willink?

  Next one, prioritize and execute, third law of combat leadership. I'll fast forward a little bit here, trying to solve all problems at once leads to a lack of focus, resources being spread too thin, and too many things happening at the same time. I do not allow that to happen. I prioritize and then execute according to those priorities.

• 47:04Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Pretty straightforward. This is an easy one to get, to lose your mind on. Because we're distracted, you know, we talked about your phone distract, your phone distracts you, right? But guess what else distracts you? Nine different problems that you got going on.

• 47:17JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Jocko Willink?

  And they're all pulling at you. And if you try and solve them all, it's not gonna work.

• 47:24Jocko Willink?

  So, get your focus together, prioritize and execute.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  When deciding how to solve a series of problems, consider them all and ask yourself, what is the highest priority problem I have? Is solving that problem going to have the biggest impact in bringing the team's success? You ever seen somebody get sidetracked on a problem that really, it's a complicated problem? Yeah. But it's really not gonna have a huge impact? Yep. It's like a breacher at a door and it's a really crazy door to get through and it's gonna take 15 minutes and meanwhile, you could have taken two steps to the left and gone through a window in three seconds? Yeah. That happens in life, bro. Like, I'm one of those people that will like, watch for a little bit as people are trying to solve some big crazy problem and then be like, hey, why don't we just not do that? You know what I mean? Hey, let's just go around that.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Let's not, let's just not engage with that client or let's not produce that thing. You know how many times we've been gonna make something and, oh my gosh, this big giant freaking problem. It's gonna take so many resources and so much effort, so much time. And it's like, hey, I gotta, let's not make that. That thing, which by the way, was gonna have a tiny amount of revenue, which very niche group of people actually want and need that thing. So why are we putting all this time and effort into something that doesn't really matter? So just because something is a big problem, doesn't mean it's an important problem. Yeah. So that's why I put that in there. Is solving that problem going to have the biggest impact in bringing the team's success? It's a good question to ask.

• 49:00Jocko Willink?

  And then is my decision going to focus the team's resources to get the problem solved? So, think about that from a leadership perspective. When you make a decision on something, is that decision going to focus the team? Cause that's, or is it gonna scatterbrain them? Is it gonna send them in a bunch of different directions? It should be focusing them.

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  Now, I also made a note here, other methods. Because we always talk about and the primary methodology of prioritizing execute is to take the biggest problem and get that problem solved. You have to tie to that, is it going to have the biggest impact on the situation? Because like I just said, the biggest problem isn't necessarily going to have the biggest impact, but there are times where solving some of the little problems and just getting them off the off the plate, right? Let's get that thing out of the way. There's times where that's a beneficial methodology. Sometimes I do that depending on what the scenario is, but I'll look at all the issues and be like, hold on a second, we could get this thing done in 15 minutes. Let's just get that thing done. Let's get it off the plate and then we'll have this other thing that's going to take nine minutes.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  Let's get that thing done and then we'll be able to focus 100% on this big thing that's going to take three hours.

• 50:12JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, there's a guy I know, he is a billionaire with the B, right? Legit billionaire. And one of his rules is if I can get it done in between less than three to five minutes, I do it right now. It's just boom, execute, get it done, get it done. And it gives him the freedom to think strategically for the bigger problems that he knows he's going to have to attack throughout the day. And, um, and then, so that just reminded me of that and I try to remind myself of that as like, hey, if it can take, if this is going to be three to five minutes, like let's just go get it done. The cool thing with, you know, the next law of combat that you're getting ready to talk about decentralized command is, hey, can my team be doing some of these things? Can I delegate these smaller tasks that I know my team is more than capable of getting done?

• 50:57JP Dinnell?

  So that allows me to look at these bigger pictures more strategically, which feeds back into prioritizing executive like, okay, hey, what's going to have the biggest impact to the overall accomplishment of the team, which feeds into cover move because then if I'm taking care of my people, my people are number one, then I know I have to get the job done. So, yeah.

• 51:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  Here's something else when it comes to priorities. This is like on a daily basis kind of scenario.

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  Thinking about doing the long-term strategic things first.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  And this is a very difficult thing to do because the easier thing to do and what seems like the biggest thing to focus on is what's due right now, what I gotta do right now. So let me give you an example.

• 51:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm writing a book and I'm getting ready for a podcast, right? So I have to write a certain amount a day. I gotta write an hour a day, right? Gotta write a thousand words a day. Cool. Takes me about an hour. And I've got a podcast that I'm gonna do with Echo Charles tomorrow and I gotta get a book, finish reading a book and taking the notes on the book. Okay, cool. And then do the like actual prep. That's gonna take me four hours, five hours, something like that.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  What, but the podcast is due tomorrow.

• 52:17JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  So that's the bigger, bigger priority, right? Clearly. What do I do first?

• 52:24Jocko Willink?

  What do you think I do first, Echo Charles?

• 52:27JP Dinnell?

  Podcast?

• 52:28Jocko Willink?

  Nope.

• 52:28JP Dinnell?

  Nope. You're doing that book. You're writing.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  I'm doing that book. And here's why. I'm gonna, the freaking podcast is gonna be done.

• 52:36JP Dinnell?

  No matter what.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be done. I'm not, I'm not gonna like, have I ever rolled in here, Echo, and been like, hey, bro, I'm not quite ready?

• 52:41JP Dinnell?

  No.

• 52:41Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's not happening. It's gonna get done.

• 52:43JP Dinnell?

  You're putting yourself against the wall, knowing that you will perform based off of your capabilities.

• 52:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep. I know that I can also like, yeah, you know, the podcast is the priority for today. So then guess what? Now, instead of taking four or five hours to prep that podcast, I'm like, maybe I'll check some emails in there. Maybe I'm looking at like, oh, I'd like to do some little exploration about the freaking whatever. And I start doing some weird tangential thing. And all of a sudden it takes seven hours. And then I get done, well, you know, I can just, the other book's not due for another few months, so I don't have to worry about that. I'll work extra later. Oh, yeah. You freaking liar.

• 53:18JP Dinnell?

  No, you're not. Discipline is rooted in the truth that we tell ourselves.

• 53:20Jocko Willink?

  You're a freaking liar. Because now it's like 10 o'clock at night and you're like, okay, yep, you said you were gonna do this. No. Well, you know, actually I need sleep too. And I gotta get up in the morning. I gotta have tomorrow's leg day. Like you're just running excuses. So what do I do? I do the freaking long-term thing first. I do the strategic thing first. It's kind of like when uh, when people talk about saving money, right? They're like, they look at, they make their budget. The first thing you're supposed to do is what they call pay yourself, but it's really pay your future. Like it's put the money in savings first, right? You don't say like, hey, I'm gonna buy that new freaking uh, surfboard that I wanted.

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna take my wife out for dinner. I'm gonna make sure that whatever, blah, blah, blah, this other crap. And then whatever's left over, I'm gonna put in savings. And if I don't quite have enough, I'll just double it next month, which is a lie. No, so you don't do that. You put the long-term stuff first and you get it done. That's how you roll. So, just, just some of the other methodologies that you can use with prioritize and execute. The, the thing is that you have to prioritize and execute. You have to look at what's actually happening and to use your word of the day. Intentional. You've got to be intentional about what you are going to focus on and focusing on things in the proper order that actually makes sense. Is what you need to do.

• 54:45Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 54:48JP Dinnell?

  I just smiled when you said it takes you about an hour to type right up a thousand words. Cause I, I just started doing that the other day. And I was like talking about that and it's funny. It took me right at an hour for a thousand words as well.

• 55:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And you know what? I just, I mean, I'm writing right now and I wrote a thousand words the other day and my estimation is 750 of them were junk. They were just like, I don't even know. It was like I lost my train of thought and I was just being stupid and I was tired and I was playing and whatever. And it was like, and I was like, you know, this, and in my mind, I was like, oh, you know what? You're, you're not even, this isn't even worth it right now. That's what my liar. My little lying uh, Loser self was like, dude, this isn't even worth it right now. I was like, oh, check liar week. And then I just wrote and 250 words were good. 250 words that didn't exist before now exist. That's good. Cause I gutted through it.

• 55:44JP Dinnell?

  I hope 250 of mine are good too. Cause it was for my podcast, not just to write for, I'm not writing a book. And I know someone heard that like, yes, no, but then as I was talking to you, they're like, write the damn book. Yeah. Dang it. Yeah. I don't like it when he says that to me. Anyways, I just thought it was funny. It's like the timing and, and just, um, going back to like you said, my word of the day is like, I had to be intentional. When I was writing, like I had to be very intentional when I was typing up and thinking about these things.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  Putting your long-term goals at the top of your priority. This is the same thing when we talk about strategic thing. You gotta think strategic all the time. Yep. You absolutely do. You have to think strategic all the time. You have to do, you have to execute on your long-term goals. If you're always executing on the short-term stuff that do today or do tomorrow, that, that stuff is not get you where you want to go. So think strategic, act strategic, prioritize the strategic things in your life. Prioritize your decisions properly. When you're making a decision, look at your priorities.

• 56:47Jocko Willink?

  Right? So even when I'm deciding, should I do, should I prep podcasts or should I write? I have to, I have to think through that decision. What is the priority? Oh, sure. The immediate priority is I got the podcast due tomorrow. The long-term strategic goal is to complete this book, which needs to take hundreds of hours to do.

• 57:07Jocko Willink?

  So therefore I need to prioritize the long-term goal, the strategic goal, and I do that first. That's decision-making. That's why that's in this loop. Uh, next one decentralized command to the book. My goal when making a decision, whenever possible to is, is whenever possible to delegate that the action of solving the problem to one of my subordinate leaders. I know if, that if I take direct charge of implementing the solution, I become directly engaged. And when I am directly engaged, I am likely, I am likely too close to the problem and might have a hard time seeing the bigger picture.

• 57:48Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 57:51Jocko Willink?

  When I'm making a decision, part of my decision making is can I, can I, can someone else on my team do this? Like, oh, we gotta take down another building. We hadn't planned it. Oh, okay. Sure, I can go take down that building. I can be like, hey, squad, come with me. Or I can be like JP, go take down the building. You're like, cool, got it. The minute I go and start trying to take down that building, guess what I'm doing? I'm taking down a building. Now who's looking up and out? Now who's tracking the aircraft? Now who's tracking the other friendly forces? So the minute that you get focused on actually executing something yourself, you've pulled yourself down out of seeing the big picture. So as I'm making a decision, I'm like, okay. Can I decentralize this? Can I delegate this?

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  JP, you've had some issues freaking getting out of the weeds. I remember like you're running the entire FTX program at Echelon Front and you're like setting up the battery charges for the weapons in your room. And I was like, and you're like, ah.

• 58:51JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, I like, I like to work. I like to do the work and that's, that's a good thing. That's a good characteristic to have. You know, I've learned to work really hard for my parents. But I also realize that when I'm in a leadership position, if I'm doing all the work, I'm not able to lead and I have a hard time with that. It's funny that you just brought that up because I was literally sitting here thinking as you're talking about like an indicator, you know, so as, as leaders, we also need to be detached and thinking and assessing ourselves. We have to be doing honest self-assessments of ourself. And yesterday an indicator to me was,

• 59:28JP Dinnell?

  you know, I was texting with Justin who works for us full-time at Echelon Front. He's, you know, acting as an executive assistant for me, but also running the, all the logistics and the operations for the field training exercises that we run and, and supporting Cody and all that stuff. And him and I were just texting about just some upcoming FTXs and stuff that was going on. And he said, he was like, man, I feel bad. I didn't, he's like, let me read through the text message where I screwed this up and I didn't communicate this to you. And I said, no, no, no, like you don't have to like, I just, I, I was literally talking with one of the other guys randomly about some stuff and then they made a comment. And we just were talking and I, and him and I were bringing it up. And so for me,

• 1:00:10JP Dinnell?

  Just his reaction to that told me that I'm still a little too hands on with the guys in regards to the program, or I have, they still feel like they have to feed me all this information and they, and I just reiterated back to him, like, hey, man, dude, I trust you 100%. I trust Cody and Danny and you guys 100%. You guys run great training. This was just more of a casual conversation. And for me, I was like, okay, cool. Like if that was their reaction, that they should have run it through me, then I've actually caused a problem that I need to fix of just resetting expectations and letting these guys know like, hey, dude, like, these are, oh, by the way, and that's why I told him, my,

• 1:00:55JP Dinnell?

  hey, this isn't something you gotta run past me. This is more of a, hey, oh, by the way, conversation. You're just letting me know because I still do, I as a leader at Echelon Front, I need to have information as to what's going on so that I can communicate to you and Leif and have understanding for strategic reasons. But I don't need to be in the weeds in regards to all the decisions and the gear. Yeah, for a long time, I was super hands on with all the gear and literally charging all the taggers and doing all the battle maps and flying the drone and doing all those things, literally every single thing. And until I had Cody and we hired Cody Gandy full time and he started taking stuff off my plate. And Cody's a great example of a good leader who leads up the chain of command because

• 1:01:39JP Dinnell?

  he knew I was hands on, not because I didn't trust him, not because I didn't think anybody else could get it done like I did. It's just because I felt like I needed to be doing that work. And he was like, hey, boom. And he would constantly just take things off my plate. And Cody did a really good job at leading up the chain of command of just saying, hey, JP, I got this. Like, hey, I need you to be focused on getting us more clients. Hey, go and, go and sit and talk with the client. We'll do all this setup and prep. Like, we don't need you doing any of this stuff. The most important thing that you can be doing is building the relationship with the client so that they want follow on work, or we can get some workshops or some LDAPs from these FTXs to further grow and expand Echelon Front.

• 1:02:22JP Dinnell?

  And so as Cody and Danny and Justin and the guys have been doing that, they have a rule. There's like this internal rule in the FTX team that I'm not allowed to do anything when I show up to training. I'm not like, it's like, They're a little like they've got this like, hey, JP's not allowed to do anything. Because they know that if I'm able to sit and talk with a client and build a relationship and and just listen to what they have to say and and kind of have a better understanding of the issues their client that that client is dealing with, then we can modify and tweak our scenarios to deliver greater impact to them to further solve their problems, which at the end of the day, that's what we want. We want to provide value to our clients. I can't do that if I'm tweaking the gear and unloading the gear or putting ice in the coolers or, you know, picking

• 1:03:07JP Dinnell?

  up trash or taking a trash out because it's overflowing, you know. And so the culture that we have in the FTX program is is incredible. And, you know, like, we we just got down with a week long, it was a full week. We did three of them. It was one day field training exercises that we provide Echelon Front. So we have the two day individuals, and now we have a one day individual option. And it was awesome because, you know, a different price point, you know, a little bit cheaper than the two day. And also, it's just a commitment of one full day with travel. More people could do it. And it was awesome to see the impact that Cody and his program has has created these guys. And I didn't do anything. I think one time I took the trash out just because I was like, I come on, man, like, I want to go, you know,

• 1:03:49JP Dinnell?

  I was. And even then, like, I hear footsteps and I got sprinting after me to grab the trash. And it was a good reminder that, you know, the culture that Cody has developed with that program is awesome. But for me, it's like, hey, strategic, strategic, strategic. And, you know, I I struggle with that because I was never in that high position. I was never in a high leadership position in the military. I was at, you know, when we deployed to Ramadi, I was an E5. I was one of our youngest guys and one of the most junior ranking guys. And then when I was at Trade, I was still an E5. And then I made E6, and I was an E6, you know, petty officer, first class petty officer. So I was never in that chief, senior chief, master chief role, you know, I was never in the officer role. So I never experienced

• 1:04:34JP Dinnell?

  that high leadership position. So for me to fully detach and delegate was very hard for me. And it's, it's still a struggle that I have because my whole life, it's been do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work. And I'm, I've always been fine with that. I like that. Like, hey, you're my boss. Hey, just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll go do it. And I would take pride. And I still take pride in like, in thinking, I'm not saying I do this, but thinking that I that I'm going to work harder than everybody else. And I'm fine with like, hey, you know, you need me to Get this gear to an FTS call. I'll drive 18 hours straight to make sure we're there.

• 1:05:07Jocko Willink?

  I know you will.

• 1:05:08JP Dinnell?

  All the gear set up. I had to do that one time, you know? You remember that first one, the first big one? And so while that, while the characteristic and trait that my father and my mother have instilled into me and my brother and my sister, that's a great thing. There also needs to be a balance because if I'm always just doing the work, then I'm failing my people. Because I'm not leading them. And if I'm not leading my team, I'm actually failing you in life. And when I really think about that, that bothers me because I don't want to, I don't ever want to be viewed as like, hey JP, like, you're not actually leading your people, therefore you're failing echelon front.

• 1:05:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, my, my wake up call came when I was, uh, had was just become an officer and I went from SEAL Team one to SEAL Team two. And I'm a SEAL Team two and um, now an assistant platoon commander, which makes me the number two guy in the platoon.

• 1:06:03JP Dinnell?

  Let's go.

• 1:06:04Jocko Willink?

  And I was still like 100% like an E5 in my head, especially when it came to working like,

• 1:06:10JP Dinnell?

  sled dog.

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like we're going to make shit happen. And we were building a pallet. And as we were building this pallet, I was also like, you know, kind of had the pride of ownership. You know, when it comes to building a pallet, you want that thing to be squared away and you kind of know what should go where. And I'd built a million pallets in my life and blah, blah, blah. And so now my platoon at Team two, we're building a pallet. And I start with like, hey, get that box over here. Like, no, push that one. Hey, put the engines. And all of a sudden my LPO, who's a great dude, unfortunately he passed away. Uh, Scotty Neal, just freaking, just a great guy to work with. And uh, we had an awesome relationship. But he just like walked over to me and he was like, hey, sir.

• 1:06:56Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead and let me do my job. And I was like, I was a hundred percent. I was like, check. And I shut my mouth and I just did what he told me to do. And that was like such a great wake up call for me. Because that was, I realized a hundred percent. Thankfully, I had enough self-awareness to be like, oh, a hundred percent. He's right. I should not, I should not be doing this. I should be working. It's cool. Like you get your hands dirty. Like you, you, you, you do hard manual labor, yep, all day long, but that's not my job. And if I'm doing this, if I'm down here, not only I'm just interfering with undermining him, he's the LPO, dude, he's running shit. He's supposed to be. And now I'm down here freaking gonna start trying to hone in on things that he's supposed to be responsible for.

• 1:07:42Jocko Willink?

  That's bad. So you hurt the people below you. Like you talk about, oh, you want you, you're letting me and Leif down? Never mind that. When you are micromanaging and you're getting the weeds, the people below you in the chain of command can't develop. Yeah. You know, when we were in tasking a bruiser, you know, Leif and I talk about this all the time. I could have directed every single like planning thing like this is what we're doing. I had been doing this for 15 years at that point. Leif and Seth were two years deep in the teams. They didn't know shit. Right? But if I would have done that, all I would have actually done was hinder their growth.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  And they wouldn't have become freaking capable leaders. Because I would have been doing it the whole time. And so that's just terrible. So not only that, but what was I doing instead? Well, I was talking to our commanding officer, talking to the brigade commander, talking to the battalion commanders, developing those relationships, figuring out what the plans were, figuring out where we're going next, figuring out what the strategy is, doing things that I actually should be doing. Instead of looking down and in and focused on what's going on with the platoons. So this idea of decentralized command and putting it in your decision loop. If you don't think about it that way, you're gonna, most people are going to drag themselves back down into what they're used to, what they're comfortable with and what they've been doing their whole life.

• 1:09:08JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Jocko Willink?

  And that's another part of it is even if you're not a hard worker, even if you're lazy bones. You, we, people have tendency to do what we know. We like, well, I know, I know how to build a pallet. Like that's, I'm comfortable with that. You're like, hey, I know how to freaking charge the batteries on. I know how to drive 18 hours to get this done. You know how to do that. It's very comfortable. Like you're, you're actually awesome at that. Think about that. You're awesome at getting all that stuff set up. And when that happened, that was like five years ago, whatever. It was a long time ago, but, but even at that time I was like, yo, JP's got all the battery packs and shit in his room, in his hotel room.

• 1:09:46JP Dinnell?

  I got 45 minutes of sleep that night because I was doing everything.

• 1:09:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep. It was terrible.

• 1:09:51JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. Uh, but you let it happen because actually that was the one situation where I almost had to do most of it because it was our very first FTX. Nobody knew how to do anything. I barely knew how to do what I need to do with the taggers because we just learned it. And you gave me the feedback on the next FTX. You're like, hey, you need to boom. And then Jamie Cocker and also was like, hey, on this FTX, you don't need to be going and doing all this stuff. Like one of the times I went and ran and grabbed ice. Bro, what the heck was I thinking? Like we had a whole team of people that could go run to the gas station and get, grab ice.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  And, and also it's important to remember that, like you just said, there's a lot of people that can go grab ice. Only you can work that new scenario that you want to put in, that's developed for a client that you had spoken to on the phone that was having this issue. You're the only person that can do that. Well, there's one person that had talked to that client that understood their issue and knew the scenario, uh, scenarios that we had the options for and how we could adjust. There's only one person could do that and that's you.

• 1:10:53JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  And here you are going to get ice or whatever. So. Don't let that happen, right? The FTX is, when you guys do the one day FTX is, the individual FTX is, what's the protocol for that? What does that day look like? If I'm, if I'm showing up for one day, what does it look before I come and when I get there?

• 1:11:10JP Dinnell?

  So it, it, so one day, the day before people are, we do a little check in registration thing. And then we have some time allotted for like a brief, like introduction class. So let me back it up. They sign up for it. They get emails sent to them and they have videos that Cody did. And we're working on some more videos that Cody and I are going to do. Where it's all the leadership principles that we teach at Echelon Front. So we don't have to do that class in the morning. It's like, hey, watch this video. They understand all the principles that we teach at Echelon Front. I believe we're working into where they'll also have access to some of the videos. On a stream ownership academy, so they can get prepped on some of the courses, the free courses that we offer on, on the academy. Uh, and then so they check in on Sunday, let's say it's a Sunday night, they're checking in,

• 1:11:53JP Dinnell?

  do the registration, get their swag bag that we have set up for them, all their gear. Uh, and then we have about an hour, hour and a half of like, hey, here's the weapon systems that we use, the gear and, and just kind of just working through some stuff. And then in the morning, uh, on the shuttle ride to it, which this was a forced detachment for Cody and I, we ride in with the client on the shuttle. So instead of us being there early, like we normally were, like getting everything set up, dude, Justin, Danny, Cowie, Jesse, Josh, James, all those guys, they are more than capable. And they have everything set up. Justin and his guys have everything set up when we showed up. So Cody and I rode the shuttle in with them and we literally just talked through these principles and these thoughts and got them ready for the day. And hey, here's the purpose of the training.

• 1:12:39JP Dinnell?

  And we show, we arrived there at like 6:45 ish. We have breakfast out there for them, coffee, and then boom, 7:00 AM, we're starting and we're kicking off the day. Give some brief classes on patrolling gear, prisoner handling, just some basic, basic things. It's not focused on tactics. We're not teaching tactics. We don't really care about your tactics. You know, we have Jesse Rembert, who's a former Green Beret, who is a full-time Denver PD SWAT officer, who takes time from work to come help, and he's teaching some of these classes. He, he literally looks like The Rock. He's like, I think he's bigger than The Rock. Oh, he's definitely bigger than The Rock. Yeah, absolutely bigger. And he's cooler than The Rock. And a legitimate badass. Like The Rock plays who Jesse really is in life. Think about that. The Rock would play who Jesse Rembert really is in life.

• 1:13:24JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. Which is incredible. So shout out to Denver SWAT. Those guys are insane what they have to deal with. So that would be another podcast to talk about like. For sure. I didn't know this. This year, him and his guys have been in five intense hostage situations. Damn. Five. I was talking to another police officer about that. They're like, you know, like getting one of those in a career is like crazy. And this is five this year so far and we're in September. So anyways, these are the guys that we bring out that are helping with the scenarios and teaching the classes. And then boom, right into, right into runs. And we go, we go until like five, five thirty and we're getting seven, eight runs in in a day.

• 1:14:03JP Dinnell?

  So everyone is in all different leadership positions. And it's cool because we explained to everybody like, hey, everybody's not going to be the officer in charge or the assistant officer in charge. And that's actually a good thing. And that's by design because the most impactful position, and we always refer back to, hey, you listen to Jocko's podcast, the squad leader makes a difference. Everybody will be a fire team leader and a squad leader. And that's that position in the training that is truly the hardest position because you're leading up, you're leading down, and you're leading across. And that for most humans is their actual real life. Most people aren't that CEO position that literally, all they have to do is, most people aren't in that role.

• 1:14:44JP Dinnell?

  The people that come to our training are that squad leader, that fire team leader that are trying to lead up the chain of command. They're trying to lead down the chain of command. They're trying to lead across the chain of command with their peers. So that's where the, the bulk of our people get those positions. And while we do have some CEOs and higher executives that come, it's really cool because their feedback is, man.

• 1:15:05JP Dinnell?

  Now I know how my people feel. Now I know how my people feel and they go back and they're like, man, I've been failing my people. I need to actually drive more ownership. I need to be more intentional with my communication and it's a really cool day of training. It's the hands-on application of all the leadership principles that we teach here at Echelon Front. And so, um, yeah, I mean, we're actually, we have an opportunity, uh, you know, we have the muster coming up in January. And, uh, for muster attendees only, they're going to have the ability to attend a full day FTX on the backend. I know we'll work out those details later and then we'll have that schedule for next year coming out as well. But it's, it's a great day of training. We'll also have the two day option and we also do this with companies where,

• 1:15:48JP Dinnell?

  you know, we have a few clients that are now bringing us out to their companies to do a full day or two or three days of all this scenario-based leadership training to help ingrain the principles into the culture. Uh, I'm sorry, to ingrain the culture of our principles and extreme ownership into their organization.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. One thing I don't know if I've done the best job of communicating about this program is that this is not, this is not a physically challenging program at all. It's not intended to that in any way. We don't, we don't actually, honestly, we don't offer a physically, we don't offer physically challenging training at Echelon Front. That's not what we do. Maybe if someone requested us, if they want to do something physically challenged, we could do it. But that's just not what we do. We focus on leadership training. And what happens at the FTX isn't the stress and it is extremely stressful.

• 1:16:43JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 1:16:45Jocko Willink?

  None of that stress comes from physical exertion.

• 1:16:47JP Dinnell?

  Nope.

• 1:16:47Jocko Willink?

  Literally none of it comes from physical exertion and you will likely be the most stressed you've ever been in your life. And you won't be, you won't be breathing hard. You might be breathing a little bit hard, but that'll be from, come your, because of your mentality is panicking.

• 1:16:59JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 1:17:00Jocko Willink?

  It is mental stress. It is making decisions, everything that we're talking about right now in a very intense environment. And what's awesome about it is you'll be going through this loop in your head. You'll be trying to go through this loop in your head. You're going to fail at it. You're going to forget things. You're going to mess things up. You're going to be like, oh, I didn't realize I was, yeah, I just made a decision. I didn't realize we left those guys hanging or I didn't, that seemed like the priority at the time. All these things that we're talking about are going to come into play. But what's awesome is imagine if you are doing jujitsu and you're going against a guy that's a high level black belt. And you're like a white belt or a blue belt. You're just getting murdered, right? And then you go and you train with somebody that doesn't know anything.

• 1:17:44Jocko Willink?

  The whole world slows down. It makes it easy. So what happens, you go in this stressful environment and the pressure is so high that you formulate some good habits from it. But when you put those good habits that you formed into a normal scenario of life, bro, you are like seeing things in slow motion.

• 1:18:04JP Dinnell?

  What I, what I love about the FTX, um, it's, it shows you who you are. Cause that's what stress does. In a stressful situation, there's no hiding. You can't hide who you are.

• 1:18:16Jocko Willink?

  It shows everybody else who you are too.

• 1:18:18JP Dinnell?

  Exactly. Good and bad. And what's cool about the FTX program that, uh, that we run at Echelon Front. And again, that stands for field training exercise. We call it the leadership laboratory. It's, we call it multiple things because we want to make sure it's very apparent. This is not a tactical training thing. This is not a physical beat down type of session.

• 1:18:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If you want to learn, if you want to learn how to shoot out of a car while you're tired, we'll do that. We, we can do it or you can go to field craft survival, or you can go to sheepdog response. Those guys are all doing it. Those guys are our friends. Those guys are awesome. That's what they're doing. Uh, great. If you want us to do it, we can do it too. We also did that stuff our whole lives.

• 1:18:54JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Jocko Willink?

  But that's not what we're focused on. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to learn how to lead. In order to learn how to lead, you have to learn how to think under stressful situations, which you most certainly will be in.

• 1:19:05JP Dinnell?

  And it's, it's the, it's a, the awareness that you get as a human about how. You need to be more intentional about these things that you're literally talking about right now. It's you will live this leadership loop all day long. And I still always think to the very first individual FTX that we did that we did in Dallas, you and Leifert there, we had the team there. And I just remember that that couple that came through the training. And I remember this guy, when you look at him, he looks like a big grizzly bear. He's a diesel mechanic, awesome guy, Kevin, right? He was there with his wife and I just remember him reflecting at the end of the day when we said, you know, what were your takeaways? What are you going to learn from this training? And he stands up and he's just this massive human.

• 1:19:49JP Dinnell?

  And he, he gets super emotional and he looks at his wife and he said, I'm so sorry because I had been failing you. Or, you know, he just goes into, and for him, he had a lot of takeaways from the business. But for this guy, it was the understanding that how he had been failing his wife and his marriage and their family. And just to see that, I remember we're all like, I was like, I couldn't look at you. I couldn't make eye contact with anybody because I would, I was gonna, I am an emotional person. You know that about me. But it was just this awesome, like, wow, this is an exposure to your strengths and weaknesses. And like anything in life, you have the choice. You have the choice to take that information on board. Knowledge is not power. The application of knowledge is power. That's what can make you a great leader.

• 1:20:34JP Dinnell?

  You can have all the knowledge and you can have all the knowledge in the world. It doesn't make you a good leader. It's when you decide to apply these principles, when you decide to apply this leadership loop, when you read leadership, strategy and tactics and you have that knowledge and then you apply it, that's what makes you a good leader. That's what makes you to have the power to help and to serve the people around you.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep. There's not physical stress, but there is screaming, mostly from the people that are attending, not from the instructors, the people, you start screaming at each other. There's explosions, there's smoke, there's gunfire, there's mayhem. It is absolutely, it happens. And we've had all kinds, there's, there's a, a couple guys, two guys, we were running FTX program and I was watching these two guys and they were like totally professional, totally cool. And I finally started talking to him and it turns out they're from a. Very high level, the highest level special operations in their country. And they had traveled here to do this FTX. And I was like, oh, cool. And they, and of course, they also made mistakes and learned.

• 1:21:40Jocko Willink?

  For sure. But, but I could tell like, these guys have been in, and they'd served a lot of time fighting in Afghanistan. So, but even those guys had a litany of lessons learned. Yep. So, yeah, there is, it is stressful. It's not physical stress. It's mental stress. And it will absolutely make the rest of your leadership life. You'll seem, it'll seem like things are moving in slow motion. You'll be able to make decisions much clearer. Yeah. Much more efficient, efficiently. And if you bring a team with you, or if you have us run this at your company, you're just gonna get that times however many people you put through. Yeah. And you're gonna start to get, you're also gonna get some of that bonding, right? Yeah. You go through stressful situations together with a team.

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you become closer as a team. You start to learn about each other. You start to know each other better. Your trust increases. So, that's the FTX program. That's decentralized command. And continuing on with the book here, I said, when making a decision, consider decentralized command and ask yourself, should I be the one executing granular tasks, or should I be leading from an elevated position?

• 1:22:48Jocko Willink?

  That's a really good question to ask yourself. Can I delegate the action connected with this decision? Will this decision allow me to detach and look up and out instead of down and in? Straight up. Man, these principles, they are functional.

• 1:23:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next one. Ego slash humility. One of the most disruptive aspects of our lives and our decision-making processes, ego. We might think that the ego is not strong enough to actually cause any problems. That is wrong. Each one of us has an incredibly powerful ego that can certainly impact decision, decisions. In fact, there are countless military examples throughout history where ego drove leaders to make decisions that cost people their lives and in some cases, cost the leaders their own lives. So if ego can lead to a decision makers getting their troop, troops and themselves killed, it can certainly lead to bad decisions in less consequential environments.

• 1:23:55Jocko Willink?

  So people make decisions that they stick to because their ego and they destroy their business. They destroy their family. They destroy their troops.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  That, that actually happens all the time. It's crazy to think about. It's crazy to think about. That's why I bring up, people like, well, I wouldn't let my ego make, oh, yeah, okay.

• 1:24:16JP Dinnell?

  Okay, okay, pal.

• 1:24:21Jocko Willink?

  I say this in a book. Our egos are addicted to glory. They want agency. They want us in charge to use our plan to get the credit. To achieve these goals, they will lie to us. Reframe circumstances in unrealistic ways and even completely ignore reality. They might dismiss information, discredit sources, or paint inaccurate pictures. You ever had your ego tell you like, yeah, Echo doesn't know what he's talking about? You ever had your, you know, your ego's like, like discredit, discredit, discrediting sources around you?

• 1:24:59JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 1:24:59Jocko Willink?

  That's what your ego does.

• 1:25:02Jocko Willink?

  Dismisses information. That won't happen. Like, oh, JP, JP comes and tells me like, hey, the market's turning the other way. I'm like, that's not happening. This is just like, my ego's just ignoring it.

• 1:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Or paint totally inaccurate pictures. This is just common. Just, but your ego is like a Vincent Van Gogh artist in there. Is that a good example? Vincent Van Gogh, he's like the only artist I could think of. He chopped his ear off, right? Yeah, Van Gogh chopped his ear off. My ego might push me to undermine another team in my organization so I can win.

• 1:25:39Jocko Willink?

  It might make me overbearing so that I get to be in charge. My ego might also ignore suggestions from others so that I can implement my own plan. It might diminish other people's efforts so that I can take the credit.

• 1:25:55Jocko Willink?

  Man, that ego's a evil, evil thing.

• 1:26:01Jocko Willink?

  The ego is also, this is, this is an interesting perspective. The ego is also driven by short-term gratification. It wants to look good now, not sometime in the distant future. This means that, like any addict, ego can be very challenging to reason with and is not reliable help for maneuvering through nuances. It's weird. I never really thought about that until I was writing this book. Is that your ego is like a short-term, immediate gratification thing. It's like an addict. It's addicted to glory. That's what I wrote. It's addicted to glory. It's like, dude, you need to be, you need to be like getting this credit right now. You need full gratification right now. That's the way that thing works.

• 1:26:49Jocko Willink?

  And then I say, to keep your ego in check while making decisions, ask yourself, what role is my ego playing in this decision?

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Is my ego in check? What is the root of my thought process? I actually, that, that, that question, what is the root of my thought process? I put that in there because that's like a double tap. The first one is what is my, what role is my ego playing in this decision? I'm like, well, my ego's playing no role.

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Cause you just lied to yourself. So I had to ask another question. Be like, what's the root of your thought process? Because you gotta start thinking like, well, it's not my ego. So what's the root? And you start thinking, wait a second. You have to like double confirm that it's not, that it's not your ego in there. Here's one. Why am I having a hard time agreeing with other people?

• 1:27:40Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that interesting? Because if JP and I work at the same business, we have the same company, we have the same goals. We both want to take care of our client. We want to take care of our team and we want to be a profitable organization. So we can stay in business. Why are we having a hard time agreeing on something? Why can't I agree with JP? Just a good question to ask yourself because does JP want the money to the the organization to lose money? Nope, he doesn't want that. Does he not want to take care of our team? Nope, he doesn't want that. Does he not want to take care of our clients? Nope, he doesn't want that. So why can't I agree with him on something? Hmm. Could it be? Could it be?

• 1:28:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what'd you do for ego control?

• 1:28:23JP Dinnell?

  What did I do? Or do I do?

• 1:28:25Jocko Willink?

  What do you do?

• 1:28:27JP Dinnell?

  Just that reminder of what you're talking about. I mean, this book has helped me. I mean, and obviously working for you and Leif. You know, it's crazy is this. So this will come out next Wednesday, which will be the month of October. It's been seven years, you know, at the end of October, October, I believe it was 20th and 21st is was the first muster that you guys did. That was seven years ago. So just the, uh, just working for you guys and being in this environment has been just a good reminder. And, um, you know, um, I mean, I have on my wrist tattooed, this too shall pass as a reminder of like, hey, when times are bad, like try it, keep your head up, they'll get better. But also when times

• 1:29:08JP Dinnell?

  are good, remain humble because things can quickly change. And I mean, we've talked about this on previous podcasts. We don't need to dive into it. But I mean, six and a half, seven years ago, I was delivering pizzas and making ends meet. And I still have my hat from Marco's Pizza that sits in my closet. So my wife and I just bought it at home. And when I walk into my closet, my that hat is right there eye level. So I see that every time I'm leaving for a work trip, I see that. When I come home from a work trip, I see that when I'm home. And it says, I see it every single day. It's just a good reminder that.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna get a Marco's Pizza tattoo?

• 1:29:41JP Dinnell?

  No, I'm not gonna get a Marco's Pizza tattoo.

• 1:29:46JP Dinnell?

  But yeah, it was just for me, it's just like putting things, you know, as a reminder. I mean, like the names that I have engraved on this bracelet, that's a good reminder to stay to stay humble because it's a reminder of that time that time is fleeting. And so I put little things in my life as as reminders. But for me, um, you know, doing doing hard things that are gonna humble me like a hard workout where you're just like, okay. I am, I'm actually not in that good of shape. I'm not that strong. I'm not that good at jujitsu. I'm not, you know, just having the ability to do hard things that remind me because fatigue makes cowards of us all. And when we're tired and exhausted, we, we do stupid things and, you know, fatigue makes cowards of us all is a good reminder to me of like, hey, I need,

• 1:30:31JP Dinnell?

  if I'm not taking care of myself and taking care of my team and taking care of my family, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna do stupid things. And I've done a lot of stupid things over the years. And I think me being able to be detached and look and assess and, and humble and transparent and share my lessons with people like when I'm on this podcast, like I, I would, I don't know, like, I think I'm pretty transparent and just, I don't have a problem like sharing, you know, the mistakes I've made. And that's, I started my own podcast, you know, like it came out today. And it's, you know, just to share like the lessons that I've learned in my life, like growing up and in the SEAL teams and working for you and Leif and like what I've learned from other people is like, and to also share the mistakes that I've made. And I think for me, for me, when I share

• 1:31:16JP Dinnell?

  the mistakes that I've made with others to try to help them learn those lessons and to talk through those things, it reminds me of just what I did that allowed me to make those mistakes so that I don't make them again. And the, the, the awesome part would be to where if somebody that I'm sharing these lessons with, uh, whether it's through Echelon Front or me being on your podcast or somebody listening to my podcast or another podcast I'm a part of, like if they can hear these stories and say, hey, you know what, JP made this mistake in his marriage because he violated every law of combat. He allowed complacency to creep in and his wife searched him divorce papers because he stopped doing the things that he was doing initially in that marriage. Like if somebody can hear that story and go,

• 1:32:02JP Dinnell?

  Man, you know, when's the last time I took my wife out on a date? When's the last time I told my wife, thank you for everything that you do for our family? And I know I'm gone a lot, and I know that because of you doing all these things, it allows me to do these things. If somebody can go do that and it saves their marriage, it's worth it. If somebody can listen to you and I talking about, you know, time is fleeting and they realize, you know what? I need to be more intentional with my time when I'm at home with my kids. And that allows them to create a core memory that their kids like hold on to. It's worth it. If somebody can go back to their team and say, hey, you know what? I'm sorry. I've been way too hands on. I've been in the weeds and it's actually taken away from me being able to lead you guys.

• 1:32:47JP Dinnell?

  And I trust you guys. And I'm, you know what? Here's what I'm gonna do moving forward. Boom, boom, boom. And then they can implement something that allows them to be more detached, allows them to drive more ownership to their people. Then cool, it's worth it. So for me, it's just sharing. It's just being open and transparent. And, and just sharing the mistakes that I've made and, and trying to just help provide value to other people. And because I also remember, man, man, life is humbling. I mean, I've been where like, we had seventeen cents in our bank account. I've been where I've had my bank account negative.

• 1:33:19Jocko Willink?

  And you sent me a, you sent me a image the other day, and I think your balance was zero.

• 1:33:24JP Dinnell?

  It was zero.

• 1:33:25Jocko Willink?

  Like, I don't even know how you get a bank, a bank account to zero.

• 1:33:28JP Dinnell?

  It's when you spend all your money.

• 1:33:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. But it was like, I don't know, it was two thousand, whatever. It was like five years ago, seven years ago. I guess well now.

• 1:33:35JP Dinnell?

  No, it wasn't five years ago. It was, yeah.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So seven or eight years ago, before we were working together, you sent me like a text of like, hey, bro, just FYI, this is eight years old or whatever. And it says your bank account is zero point zero zero. That means you had to go in there and like withdraw your last like seventeen dollars and thirty-two cents. You're like, no, I need it all. They're like, sir, you have to have a minimum balance of one dollar. You like to close the account. I need that dollar thirty-two.

• 1:34:07JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  So that's a lot different than where you are now with a brand new freaking awesome house and.

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  When I think about ego, okay, this is Echo Charles.

• 1:34:22JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 1:34:23Jocko Willink?

  Star Wars fan?

• 1:34:26JP Dinnell?

  I get down with some Star Wars.

• 1:34:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  I love that response.

• 1:34:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, you know, and I, I don't know if this is like a main theory of it, but you know how I think Yoda?

• 1:34:39JP Dinnell?

  Yoda, hell yeah.

• 1:34:40Jocko Willink?

  Yoda says there's a disturbance in the force, or maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi says that.

• 1:34:45JP Dinnell?

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:34:46Jocko Willink?

  There's a disturbance in the force?

• 1:34:47JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Jocko Willink?

  For me, like when I feel there's something like doesn't feel right.

• 1:34:57Jocko Willink?

  Like there's some kind of disturbance in the force.

• 1:34:58JP Dinnell?

  Oh, like in you?

• 1:34:59Jocko Willink?

  Like, like, oh, I'm, I'm, something's frustrating me or something like, like there's some disturbance in the force. Right? The, that immediately is like, oh, just, I just need to go, okay, yep. Oh, well, let's go find this because I know what it is. The disturbance isn't the force, isn't some other problem. Cause all other problems I can handle, right? What's going on? Oh, there's a problem with this, there's a problem with that. Okay, cool. The only thing that causes the disturbance in the force is, oh, your ego is involved here. This is your ego talking.

• 1:35:29JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, and one of the things I've learned from, from you over the years and your podcast and, and working for you and Leif and, and Dave, I don't remember who said it or how it was said, but I started and I, you were just talking about this in the book is,

• 1:35:43JP Dinnell?

  not that if it's driven by my ego, because factual 100% my ego is in play for everything that I do in my life. But how is my ego driving this response? That's something I've been trying to be more mindful of because I have to recognize, and I know we've talked about this before on this podcast, and on Extreme Ownership Academy sessions that we do is my perspective is flawed. I know that because it's only my perspective. And so I have to be mindful that my ego is coming into play and my ego is, like, I gotta be careful because that ego is gonna lie to me.

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:36:16JP Dinnell?

  And, you know, I have to understand that my, one, my perspective is flawed and then just assess and say, okay, how is my ego driving my response? And I have to detach from my emotions. That's why detachment is a superpower and allows me to pull back and go and get different perspectives to see the big picture so that I can try to respond with all that information instead of just one little bit.

• 1:36:41Jocko Willink?

  Oddly enough, the next section and the next topic on the leadership loop is emotions.

• 1:36:51Jocko Willink?

  And I write this, emotions such as anger, frustration, sadness and joy can all impact our ability to lead and make good decisions. Ego, as you just pointed out, is often the driver of our emotions, especially our negative emotions. When our egos are offended, we, we get angry. When our egos are impatient, we get frustrated. When our egos feel lost, we get sad. Isn't that interesting? So often those things, those negative, I, my immediate check on negative emotions is ego. I'm like a hundred percent, I'm feeling negative about something. I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feeling impatient. I'm feeling angry. I'm immediately like, this is an ego. That's the first check I'm gonna make and there's a 99% chance that, that, that cause of that emotion, that negative emotion is ego.

• 1:37:36Jocko Willink?

  99% chance. 1% it's like, oh, you know, some freaking guy hit my car, you know, in the parking lot. And I'm frustrated because now I gotta like go get his insurance. Just, this is a whole thing. It's just gonna be a pain.

• 1:37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  I just don't like any of it, right? This inconvenience. I don't like inconvenience. You know, it's one of those things where I'm like, so when something gets thrown at me like now I got, think of all the stuff that just got added into your day, into your life. When someone like hits you in the parking lot and now your front quarter panel is all bent up.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:38:10Jocko Willink?

  Your, your whole, there's a whole series of things that are now gonna just be inconvenient in your life.

• 1:38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wait, so you're saying your ego doesn't play a part in that part of it? Like that's the exception kind of a thing?

• 1:38:22Jocko Willink?

  For me?

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  That's not an ego thing. Like me, like somebody hits me in the parking lot, like let's say we, we get done with the podcast and I walk over to the parking lot and my front quarter panel is all scraped up. That's not an ego reaction to be like, oh damn it. You know, like to me, I, I could be wrong. You think I'm wrong? You're, oh, you think that's ego?

• 1:38:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, how is that ego?

• 1:38:41Speaker 02

  But well, and I didn't come, just come up with this right now. Cause at one, at one point I went down deep the ego rabbit hole. And bro, I, I discovered a bunch of egos everywhere. So that is like, okay, so do you, and here's the questions I was asking myself. So I'm just gonna ask you so, cause I could be wrong.

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  So, okay, you, someone bumps into your car, quarter panel, jammed up, whatever. Super inconvenient.

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:39:05Speaker 02

  Super, right?

• 1:39:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Do you live in a world that inconveniences don't exist?

• 1:39:13Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you want me to be honest with you?

• 1:39:15Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, please.

• 1:39:17Jocko Willink?

  My life is very mitigated when it comes to inconveniences.

• 1:39:21Speaker 02

  Of course, of course it is. Hell, yeah, it is.

• 1:39:23Jocko Willink?

  I can see where he's going with it there.

• 1:39:25Speaker 02

  Okay, right there. I'm just saying, hey, you make a good point. You know, your life, hell, yeah. So therefore, therefore, in a world with inconveniences every single day, when they affect you, let's face it, that's a problem.

• 1:39:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying?

• 1:39:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  The rest of the world, ah, you know, whatever, it's all, you accept that part of it, right? Don't we? But when it happens to you, it's unacceptable. Sounds like ego to me. I don't know, I could be wrong.

• 1:39:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're in there.

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  So, yeah, so at the end of the day, again, like, and that was the question I kept asking, like, okay, do I believe in a world that this never happens under any circumstances? And then it's like, okay, no, probably not. And then you kind of, you know, you go deeper and deeper and then it always arrives that, okay, so I think I'm special, therefore I'm allowed to react like this.

• 1:40:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, well, when you go into that mode of, yeah, you're actually right, yeah, right? Um, when you go into the mode of, I'm allowed to react, you know what my reaction is? It's not like I actually react in any way. I go, well, now I gotta go and freaking, you know, it's like, I don't get mad, I don't yell at anybody. I just kind of carry on.

• 1:40:26Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  But, uh, I suppose there's a, a completely ego-free world where, you know, I look at that Brent quarter panel and I say, this is great. I'm going to add to the economy. I'm going to get this thing fixed. Some people are going to make a little extra money.

• 1:40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Jocko Willink?

  I get to experience, I get to exercise my patience in the world. So basically what we're saying is good, my front quarter panel got smashed, good.

• 1:40:53Speaker 02

  Good.

• 1:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Life, life gives you the opportunity to train.

• 1:40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:56Jocko Willink?

  Gives me the opportunity to be patient.

• 1:40:58Speaker 02

  All that stuff. But in obviously, you know, that's, that's funny and everything. And, and I don't think that that's kind of the expectation for you to just automatic. And in fact, you have an ego, we all, JP, we all have an ego, just like how you just said, right? It, the, the key isn't to not have an ego, the key is to control your ego, sub, subordinate your ego, that. So in an incident, or in, when an incident happens. Where your ego has to be subordinated, what's it gonna look like right away? Like right off the bat, what's it gonna look like? That ego is gonna at least open its eyes at the very least. That's that feeling.

• 1:41:30Jocko Willink?

  He's probably taking a breath through because he's getting ready to lash out.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, getting ready. Especially if you got a good, healthy one. He's ready. And when he go, go right before he springs into action as far as behavior goes. That's what it looks like. Behavior. Right before that, then you can quote unquote, check your ego, subordinate your ego. Then your behavior will follow suit. So yes, quarter panel smashed. And you're about to be like, Tim, I can't believe this happened to me. And on this day of all days, you see him saying, I'm busy or whatever. Before that goes down.

• 1:42:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:01Speaker 02

  Your ego goes, it's about to make it happen. Then you go subordinate your, it's okay.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:42:05Speaker 02

  It's okay. This happens to every, it happens.

• 1:42:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Speaker 02

  You gotta expect this kind of stuff that, you know, and then the ego gets subordinate.

• 1:42:11Jocko Willink?

  So even the quarter panel. So I guess we could trace from what you're saying. Basically, it's not 99% of negative emotions. It's 100% of negative. Let's throw 99.9. Give me 0.01.

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  Put it this way, the only reason why you can't really say 100, because it's like, that's a bold statement to be like, there are no exceptions ever. Under no circum, you know, so I don't know, but put it this way. The rabbit hole I went down.

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what was the rabbit hole? Just exploration of ego?

• 1:42:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, it just came to mind as you were telling that whole thing is there's the, one of the worst possible like violations is, is a, do you know who I am?

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:51Jocko Willink?

  Right, because where what you just said, like the way that leads, like that would be the worst case is like, oh, I go out there in my front quarter. But some guy is backed into my front quarter panel. Like the ultimate like violation and my ego comes flying out. What does my ego say? My ego says, do you know who I am? Right? Whenever like a movie star says that, or like a rich person says that, we just are disgusted by them.

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you get caught on camera, like you're a movie star and you're trying to get into the club or you're, maybe it's something stupid like I'm trying to. Yeah, speeding ticket. Yeah, the politician that's like, do you even know who I am? Do you know who I am? That's like the worst violation of ego. So this is gonna be one of my, I'm gonna try and incorporate this. Is, I'm gonna ask myself that, like when shit's going sideways, I'm gonna say, do you even know who I am? And I'm like, that's right, you're not anybody. And your front quarter panel is no more precious than Joe Schmo's quarter panel. And this happened, good, you could exercise your patience.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  Yep. And look, by no means is, does anyone expect you, even yourself, I think, anyway, expect you to be literally happy that it happened.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  You know, good things happen that make you happy, you know, right away, then things happen that make you less happy. And not happy, unhappy, straight up. Oh, yeah. And I'm not saying I would like it. In fact, I would straight up dislike it. Straight up dislike. But at the end of the day, you know, the old question, like, okay, I understand your feeling, but how are you gonna behave now? You see what I'm saying?

• 1:44:22Jocko Willink?

  So, this section is about emotions, though. And what's interesting is so many emotions, whether it's 99%, whether it's 100%, whether it's 98%, so many of them are tied to your, to your ego. It's freaking actually ridiculous. And I think a lot of times, like, I am a relatively, like, I don't get super emotional about stuff, and I think it's because I am running through a little check before I get freaking mad, or before I get angry, or before I get frustrated. I'm going, dude, I know what this, I know where this is coming from. You don't want to be wrong, you don't want to be shown up, you don't want someone else's plan, you think you already thought, you don't want to look like all those things. All those things, that's what's going on. So that's why, when making a decision, you go through this checklist. And you go, hold on a second, am I being emotional?

• 1:45:08Jocko Willink?

  I, I added joy into this, because you know people make dumb decisions when they're happy, right? Like, I've made dumb decisions where I was super happy and stoked, and like, yeah, let's go ahead and buy that thing.

• 1:45:22Jocko Willink?

  Because you're happy. You're like, oh, yeah, dude, this is going great, go ahead, order another round, like that kind of thing.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  Never done that before.

• 1:45:34Jocko Willink?

  So, to avoid letting emotions drive your decision making, ask yourself, am I being emotional? Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling? Is this decision based on logic? If I were a robot, would I make the same decision?

• 1:45:53Jocko Willink?

  So some good things to think about from the emotional perspective. And I'm not saying you gotta be devoid of emotions. In fact, what I've been saying for the last couple of years, I say it in the book too. You gotta put, you gotta put the emotions in the calculus of your decision. Right? If you're in a, if you're in a leadership position and you know that this decision is gonna make everyone mad, you better put that in your calculus. You can't just be like, hey, you can be mad, but we're not counting your emotions in this decision. That whole team's mad now. Or the whole team's frustrated now. That's not a good decision.

• 1:46:25JP Dinnell?

  It's crazy that some leaders, they know that and they don't care. Cause again, that goes back to the ego thing. Like you've heard this before, like, hey, you might be mad.

• 1:46:36JP Dinnell?

  And that's okay, but it doesn't matter.

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:46:39JP Dinnell?

  Do you hear what you're saying? There are people that are just, and what's sad is that skillset. It's a bad skillset, but that skillset is actually been taught. Because they saw it from somebody else. They saw.

• 1:46:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the skillset to not, to ignore the emotions of the team.

• 1:46:57JP Dinnell?

  And I'm saying skills, it's a bad skillset. I'm sorry, let me.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  The habit.

• 1:47:01JP Dinnell?

  Trait. That trait, that habit is, that's a bad trait, that's a bad habit that's been taught. Because they saw somebody else do it and they thought, man, that's, yeah, man, that's cool. Or hey, I'm gonna do that one day. Or hey, it actually worked.

• 1:47:15Jocko Willink?

  And by, when I say it worked, means the team went and executed this thing, they were all mad.

• 1:47:20JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, because the people we think about, the people that work for us. They're good people. They're hard workers. They're smart. They like to win. And they wanna get the job done. And those people will do, they'll, they'll, they'll. They'll allow that, um, that environment, that they'll allow that culture.

• 1:47:38Jocko Willink?

  For a little while.

• 1:47:39JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. And, and yeah, most for a little while, some for a very long time, but here's the deal. Like if, if you thought. That the best way for you to provide for your family was to stay in the current, let's just say you had a regular job. And you're the average person and you have this good job, it provides for your family. You know, it has some stability. Are you going to tolerate bad leadership? Yes. Most, most, 100% people will tolerate bad leadership. Because what's more important to them is their family. And they'll go endure that.

• 1:48:15Jocko Willink?

  They will be keeping their ear open for another job.

• 1:48:18JP Dinnell?

  100%, 100% absolutely. I agree, not arguing that at all. But there's a lot of people out there that just tolerate bad leadership in a hostile work environment because they want to take care of their family. But as soon as that good environment and that good opportunity comes up, boom, gone, done. Cause they have no loyalty. Well, guess what their loyalty is to their family. And if they can be happier and be in a better environment, bye.

• 1:48:42Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, who performs better as a team? So if I make my team do something and they're mad about it and I don't address it. Cause look, my team can be frustrated and mad and I go, hey, listen, I understand why you're frustrated. Here's why I had to make this decision. I know it's going to be a real shock to our system in the short term for the next three weeks while we work through this, it's going to be longer. If I explain that to them and we talk through it, okay, cool. We made a hard decision, we had to suck it up. But, and the team is going to work harder, like when they're happy.

• 1:49:15JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. And they have ownership and buy in.

• 1:49:19Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Don't make emotional decisions.

• 1:49:23JP Dinnell?

  But that's what's cool. Sorry to interrupt, but that's what's cool about is when you drive ownership, you're actually, it's calculated into this, into this step of the emotions. Not just your emotions, but the emotions of your people. And I'm building up the emotions in a positive manner of my people when I give them ownership. People like to have ownership. They like to have control. And now that they are in a good emotional place, it's a better work environment, which affects all these other things in a positive manner.

• 1:49:48Jocko Willink?

  So they do a better job.

• 1:49:49JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 1:49:50Jocko Willink?

  Period, end of story.

• 1:49:53Jocko Willink?

  All right, check. Uh, fast forward a little bit. Perspective. In the SEAL Teams, when performing reconnaissance of a target building, we observe the target from as many possible angles as we can. We do this so that we can better understand all aspects of the target. If we only observed the north side of a building, we wouldn't comprehend what was on the south side, where there might be an enemy fighting position. If we only observed the west side of a target building, we wouldn't understand the east side. So we endeavor to observe the target from the north, south, east, and west. We want to understand every different perspective and its possibilities. Similarly, when making business decisions, we have to understand the problem we are faced with from as many angles as possible.

• 1:50:35Jocko Willink?

  We do this by collecting inputs from the people involved with the problem. So, listening to other people, finding out what's going on, understanding their perspective. It's everything we just talked about. If I see that my team is angry, look, what's their perspective? Why are they mad about this? They should be happy. Like, we got a new client. There's more work to do. Everyone's gonna make more money. Oh, they're mad because they haven't had a break in nine weeks. Right? You can, and it still doesn't cash out with as much money as they're making compared to how hard they're gonna have to work. So, understanding other people's perspectives, absolutely critical. And I say this, to ensure you see the fullest possible picture when making a decision, ask yourself,

• 1:51:21Jocko Willink?

  what can I do to see and understand more? What do my subordinates see? What do my peers see? What does my boss see? What does my competition see? Have I asked enough questions? What am I not seeing?

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  Just asking yourself, like when you said earlier, your perspective's flawed. Of course, your perspective's flawed. You only have your perspective.

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  We have to ask questions and try and understand other people's perspectives so we can make better decisions.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  Next one.

• 1:51:54Jocko Willink?

  Mission, tactical and strategic. The term "mission creep" originated in the military but has morphed into civilian vernacular. It refers to situations where organizations expand the scope of their goals beyond their originally intended mission. As the mission objectives expand over time, there is less and less focus on the original intent of the mission, often causing a failure to achieve the original mission. So, when making a leadership decision, it is critical to assess the original mission objective and ensure that the decision supports the original intent and that it will not squander resources required to achieve the actual mission.

• 1:52:34Jocko Willink?

  So again, if you're making a decision, you've got to think about that decision. Is this helping us get to our long-term strategic goal? Is it what we're supposed to be focused on right now?

• 1:52:44Jocko Willink?

  And this is something that throws off all kinds of people.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  It wrecks companies sometimes. It wrecks families sometimes. Because we're thinking short-term or we're doing things that we shouldn't be doing.

• 1:53:00Jocko Willink?

  So you've got to always ask yourself, is this our mission? This is another one, we were talking earlier about like,

• 1:53:07Jocko Willink?

  "Hey, we're going to build this thing and it's going to take all these resources." And I'm like, "Hey, I got an idea, why don't we just not build that?" You know? Or like, "Hey, instead of like trying to hammer on this door for the next 30 minutes, why don't we just walk through the window or, you know, go through the window in 30 seconds?" This is another one, it's like, people will start talking about something. And I'll be like, "Hey, is this even our mission?

• 1:53:26Jocko Willink?

  Is this even our mission to do this? Like, is this what we want to do? Do we want to focus on this right now? Because we, we, obviously, we can do it, but is this what we are doing? Is this what our mission is? Because if it's not our mission, why are we doing it?

• 1:53:42Jocko Willink?

  And oftentimes, like, well, we just kind of, you get a little target fixation, right? There's some niche product to make. There's some niche need in the market. And you're like, "Oh, I think we could do that." And you probably could, but is it your mission?

• 1:53:58Jocko Willink?

  So thinking about that intentionally thinking like, okay, is this actually my mission? I have a construction company that builds, you know, uh, I have a roofing company. Cool. And all of a sudden you get someone that's like, hey, when you get done with our roof, can you do our gutters?

• 1:54:15Jocko Willink?

  And you can.

• 1:54:16JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:17Jocko Willink?

  And you can say, you know what? We can do that. And maybe that's an expansion that you make, but maybe you run the numbers. And maybe you say, look, gutters is kind of a, a little bit more niche market. We live in Arizona. There's not a lot of rain here. Gutters last a long time. Hmm. You know what? Why don't we subcontract out this gutter system? Right? And instead of now investing in a bunch of equipment and research and people and training to get the guys up to speed where they can do. No. It was a waste. So let's not do that. Let's not allow mission creep in.

• 1:55:00JP Dinnell?

  Brad Kabner was really good at reminding guys that trade at that.

• 1:55:04Jocko Willink?

  In what way?

• 1:55:05JP Dinnell?

  He would just say, hey, is this what we need to be focused on? Like it was just a very simple and uh, I mean, he's out and he's retired now, but I'll use his nickname wink. He, he would literally do the same thing. But hey, is this what we need to be focused on right now? And guys would be like, oh, okay. I remember they set up a breaching scenario one time and guys were just having the hard, like they were so focused on like this section of the door, getting through the problem.

• 1:55:31JP Dinnell?

  18 inches away. Like a little bit over. So at an angle up on the wall was the key on a little thumb tack. The key that unlocked the door. It was right there. And I remember they, they put together that scenario and I was just like, man, this is awesome. And guys were like just fighting on trying to get the door unlocked and they can't get it and they're trying to kick it and they're trying to do all this stuff and they're getting ready to call up the breacher, but they had the breachers focused on some other bigger problems. So they couldn't get those resources over and right there. And I remember wink and day and, and Brad just pointing at the key and these guys were like. And it was just a good reminder from, hey, detach, step back and, and just look at the big picture. And it was just, I just remember Brad when, you know, running trading, just, just

• 1:56:16JP Dinnell?

  reminded like, hey, is this what we need to be focused on? Hey, what are we working on right now, guys? And it was just, and that's what good leaders do. It's okay to say that to your people. Hey, guys, what, is this what we need to be focused on? Is this what we need to be focused? Like, what are we supposed to be working on right now?

• 1:56:32JP Dinnell?

  You're not being direct. You're not saying, hey, this is what you need to be focused on. It's, it's that indirect approach again. Hey, guys, what do we need to be focused on right now? And you're like, well, clearly not this right now.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:56:42JP Dinnell?

  I always know, like, if you and Leif are asking me questions, I'm probably not doing the right thing. Or you don't know why I'm working on something, which means I have failed to communicate to you guys what, why we're working on something. I know it's one of those. You're asking questions because you don't have information.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I might not understand.

• 1:56:59JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, you don't understand it. You truly don't understand, like, because in your mind, it's like, one, you don't have enough information, or two, you don't, you don't understand, why would I be doing this? And so instead of going direct and saying, hey, that's stupid, why would you be doing that? You're like, hey, what, what does JP know that I don't know? And so you're asking me questions. So anytime you guys, or anybody, Jamie, Dave, any, anybody in my life has asked me questions, I'm like, oh, they, they don't have enough information. We don't have alignment. We are not aligned, and that's my fault.

• 1:57:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, and, and another thing, talking about like that key on the thumbtack,

• 1:57:35Jocko Willink?

  that will get nine out of 10 people that they won't see that thing. This is, this is one of those situations where being, you, in, in, if you're in a SEAL platoon, you can literally afford to be, you, if you, you can be, afford to be detached the entire time because no one else is. Like, like.

• 1:57:54JP Dinnell?

  Bunch of sled dogs.

• 1:57:55Jocko Willink?

  Everyone, if they see that freaking door with a bunch of freaking, with a lock on it, and there's noise behind the door, they know something going on, they want to get in there, nine out of 10 guys are gonna just, they're gonna, how do we get through this door? How do we breach this thing? Get the sledgehammer up? What kind of charge am I gonna put on this thing? You can afford to be the guy that's just like constantly at high port looking around because no one else is going to see that key. Yeah. And it's so weird to be in that situation. You'll see, you'll see so much that other guys aren't going to see. So it's the same thing in your company. Chances are in your company, when you've got some product that everyone's all of a sudden like, hey, you think we could make this? You think we could? Well, do we have the right tools for this? Yeah, we have the right tools. Hey, where do we need to order from? What, what, how is it built? How long will it take? And everyone's going to focus on that problem.

• 1:58:41Jocko Willink?

  And they're going to start working on it. And they're going to start moving down that path. And the next thing you know, you've created a product with a bunch of expenses and a bunch of time and a bunch of effort that seven people in the world need. And it's freaking worthless. And if you would have just took a step back and like five minutes into this, pulled a Brad Cavanagh and been like, hey, is this what we should be focused on right now?

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  And everyone look at each other? And as soon as people look at each other, they're like, oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, but as soon as they, as soon as Brad points up the key and you're like, oh, I'm an idiot. You don't think like, that's trickery. No, you think like, I'm an idiot. Yeah. I'm an idiot.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, check. Rest in peace.

• 1:59:23Jocko Willink?

  Next section here.

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  Relationships. This is the last thing I consider when making a decision, but it is the most heavily weighted of all the items in this leadership loop checklist. I know this might seem strange. After all, the stereotypical priorities of a leader are things like accomplishing the mission, managing resources, and ensuring timely execution. But for me, building and maintaining relationships is the most important thing a leader does because relationships are the force that holds the team together. The stronger the relationships, the stronger the team. The stronger the team, the better the results the team achieves.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  Because of that, it is important to remember that every decision a leader makes either builds or denigrates relationships. I want every interaction I have with anyone on my team, up, down, or across the chain of command, to build our relationship. This is not to say I'm always able to do that, but I absolutely always try.

• 2:00:30Jocko Willink?

  So this is one of those things that I think is counterintuitive for people. That when you're in a leadership position and you're making a decision, you can, should, and must weigh how this is going to impact the relationships that you have with the people on the team. And it's sort of like the person that we just talked about that might be like, I don't care what, you know, I don't care if you're mad or not. This is what we're doing.

• 2:00:54Jocko Willink?

  There's some people that are like, hell yeah, bro, that's what a leader does. You know, it's like a leader makes those hard decisions, right? They hear that shit all the time. Like, no, a leader's not going to freaking just kowtow because someone's frustrated. It's like, hmm, okay, okay, I get you. Here, are there times where you're going to make decisions as a leader that are going to make, that's going to make the team mad? Yep. Are there times where that relationship's going to get sacrificed a little bit? Yep, there are, there are. I have made decisions in my life that I know negatively impacted my relationship with somebody, and I had to work through to build it back up. I've been through that countless times, we all have. But to not recognize that and not be intentional about saying, hold on a second.

• 2:01:36Jocko Willink?

  There's six in one, half dozen the other, but if I choose six, Echo's going to be frustrated. Or JP's going to be angry. Or our relationship is going to be negatively impacted. Why don't I just go with a dozen? Or half dozen? Why don't I just do that? People make decisions all the time without considering how it's going to impact relationships. And this is the biggest mistake you can make.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  So what is a relationship? Again, in the book, I talk about it, trust, listen, respect, influence, and care. What's interesting about to build these, and I'll fast forward a little bit. To build relationships with these attributes, one must take a slightly counterintuitive approach and proactively give first. If you want someone to trust you, you must first put some trust in them. If to get someone to listen to you, you have to listen to them. The more you talk, the less people listen. Respect must be given to be received. Trying to demand respect does not work. In fact, it backfires, by the way. You better freaking respect me.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  To become influential over someone, the first step is allowing that individual to influence you. And obviously, if you want someone to care about you, you must first display how you care about them. And then I go on to talk about your ego stifled, can stifle these efforts. It's so interesting, right?

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  If I don't want to, I don't want to put any trust in JP, well, why not? Well, because I don't think he can do it as good as me. That's ego.

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  JP should be listening to me since I've been doing this longer because I have more experience because I've been in this position. He should be listening to me. That's ego, by the way. JP better treat me with respect. I've earned it. Okay, that's your ego. Your ego thinks it's earned all kinds of shit that it hasn't earned.

• 2:03:36Jocko Willink?

  Why should I be influenced by JP? He should be influenced by me. That's ego. And obviously, I'm supposed to put JP's needs above of my own? Which is a weird thing to think about, right? Think about that. There's a whole like road we could go down of, what's that saying? Got to look out for number one, right? You know what I'm saying? Who's number one? Hey, man, look, I gotta look out for number one. So that's my ego. So when I say, look, you know, JP's gonna kind of get screwed on this deal, but you know, I gotta take care of me.

• 2:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay. How's that gonna work out? How's that relationship looking? How's that trust going? Like, it's just a disaster and it's all ego.

• 2:04:21JP Dinnell?

  Well, and that's where, that's where people will twist what you said earlier because they hear from other people like pay yourself first. And that's a mistake that people will make is like, well, I gotta make sure, hey, I gotta get mine. I gotta get mine. And they they take that the wrong way and it's they don't understand the the major leadership withdrawals that they're making and just how bad that actually is ruining relationships. Cause people see that and they know they know exactly what you do. As you said, hundreds of thousands of times, your intent has a smell.

• 2:04:54Jocko Willink?

  And if it stinks, none of us like it.

• 2:04:57JP Dinnell?

  No, it's like that sweaty gee sitting in the back of your car in the summer. Texas summer.

• 2:05:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's probably nothing worse than a gee that like got left somewhere.

• 2:05:11JP Dinnell?

  Burn it and just order a new one from origin USA.

• 2:05:14Jocko Willink?

  That's what we gotta do.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  I go on to say this, to ensure you are protecting and building relationships instead of diminishing them, ask yourself, how will this decision impact my relationships? Again, I say this is the most heavily weighted thing, which I think throws people off, right? Because as a leader, it's like, no, I'm gonna get the job done, right? We're gonna save, we're gonna get the resources. That's what everyone thinks. It's like, no, actually, make your priority. Let's make sure we're building that relationship. Cause if we're not building relationships, what do we have?

• 2:05:47Jocko Willink?

  What do we have? We have a shitty team. If the impact is negative, are there any options that will more positively impact relationships? If the impact is negative, is it worth the return on investment? Like I said, I've made decisions that have hurt relationships that I've had with people, where I've been like, look, dude, Echo, I know that like, the the video, look, the video that you made, it's a really good video and I appreciate it, but we're gonna use Kerry's video. Like, there's some times where I've got to think that's gonna hurt our relationship. Like Echo's mad, you know, like our relationship just took a step back. But like, let's face it, his video wasn't as good as Kerry's in this whatever situation. And that's gonna hurt

• 2:06:31Jocko Willink?

  our relationship. But for the business.

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  That's what we gotta do and that's the way it is. So I've had to make decisions. I've had to make a lot of decisions like that. But I only do it. What's the ROI? Cause you know what? If Echo made a video and it was pretty good and Kerry made one that was better. But I knew that Echo was like super emotional and attached to this video that he made and like the difference wasn't that big of a deal. I'd be like, yeah, Echo man, your video is good. Let's launch that thing. And there's some people right now that are like, yeah, but if your ROI would have been better. It's like, okay, but we have to think strategically. Cause if my ROI was a little bit better with Kerry's video than it was with Echo's and so we, we, we did a little bit better. We did 4% better. But now, now Echo, he's, he's a little bit pissed off. How much effort is he putting in his next video?

• 2:07:21Jocko Willink?

  It's getting worse, right? Matter of fact, he probably, he might not even make it. You'll, you'll echo. This is after Echo made 10 videos. And they were all better than Kerry's and Kerry's videos like, we're just like, hey, that's good. We'll throw it on the back burner. Finally Kerry comes out with the big win. And but we, so we, we use his video and I'm like, Echo, sorry dude. This is not, this is not the time. Echo's frustrated, man. That relationship just got hurt. What are we doing? Is it worth it? Long-term, is it worth it? So is it sometimes worth it? Yes. Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes you have to make those decisions. Most of the time it's like, I'm going to protect the relationship. That's my number. That's like I said, it's the heaviest weighted thing I have.

• 2:08:04Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you, like, this is the way you have to operate. If you're not operating like this, look, you, look, you're going to be successful for a while. You can leave a scorched earth policy and everywhere you go, everyone hates you and you have no true friends. And it's just a nightmare and a disaster. And, and by the way, where that ends up, you make some money along the way or you'll build your business or you'll get promoted or whatever it is you're looking for, you'll get it. Short-term and then you look up in three, four, five years and it's just scorched earth and there's nothing else to burn, right? There's nothing else to burn.

• 2:08:35JP Dinnell?

  Well, you'll always be chasing that fulfillment that you can't actually achieve. Cause when you do what you're talking about, there's fulfillment.

• 2:08:44Jocko Willink?

  When you do what? When you?

• 2:08:45JP Dinnell?

  All these things you're talking about. Everything in this loop. When you do those things, when you're an actual leader, and again, you don't, a title doesn't make you a leader. Doing these things is what makes you a leader. You know, building trust, you know, listening to your people, showing them respect, like influence on them. That's what, that's what makes you a leader is your ability to build the relationships with people around you, instill belief into them, belief in the mission and, and actually go inspire them to take action. That's what makes you a leader. And, you know, when you do all these principles that you're talking about, that brings you fulfillment. When you violate all these things, you're going to be chasing fulfillment until the day that you die. And it doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't, all these things will not matter.

• 2:09:31JP Dinnell?

  But you can also get all of these other things that some people like that matters to them, while also being a good leader. And, and what we've seen is the people that have good intentions, that are taking care of their people and they're, they're out there serving people. They tend to get what they need and want in life. And like, that's the true thing is like the happiness comes from peace. Not from all the, like, the things that people are chasing, like that. The happiness comes from peace of being a good leader and, and serving and, and taking care of people.

• 2:10:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And if you prioritize your relationships and part of inherent in relationships is caring about other people.

• 2:10:08JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 2:10:08Jocko Willink?

  If that's what your focus is, I'm gonna promise you, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, you will end up better in the long term.

• 2:10:15JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 2:10:16Jocko Willink?

  Period, end of story.

• 2:10:17JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 2:10:18Jocko Willink?

  When you sacrifice relationships, when you don't listen to people, when you hurt, when you don't care about people, when you do those things in your life, I, I'm gonna tell you, like I said, you're gonna get some short-term wins, sure. You know, I freaking came out better with the business deal and, you know, JP was building this thing for me and I kinda like pushed back on what he wanted to charge. And he came in and finally he got it done and I didn't pay him what he really wanted. Okay. Dude, I won, right? You built my deck for me. You built the deck on my house and you wanted five grand and I got you to do it for forty-two-hundred. I won, right? You know what I'm saying? I won, short term, right? I saved eight-hundred bucks. You know? What happens? What happens?

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, my roof's leaking one day and I need some help. And I called JP. What does he say? "Sorry, man, I'm busy." Or, you know, "This is the way life works." You know, I sacrificed the relationship for me, right? I sacrifice, I make a decision that's good for me, not good for you.

• 2:11:24JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:25Jocko Willink?

  And it's not gonna work out good. Now, you could also be saying, "You know, Jocko, I'll do it, but I can only do your deck for, you know, six-thousand dollars." And I go, "Man, I mean, we ran the numbers and I looked at the labor and the cost of the stuff. It's like, five grand is really fair." And you're like, "I can only do it for six grand, sorry." Okay, so I pay you six grand, you know? And yet, you and I both know that's not fair. We don't have the same relationship that we did an hour ago, before we shook hands on this deal. So now, who's building my, you know, my next house? In three years? When I've become wealthy? And I'm like, "Actually, I need a whole house built."

• 2:12:09Jocko Willink?

  Guess who's not getting the job? JP's not. Tried to get that extra little bit of something out of me. So, if you make decisions and you consider relationships and you weight that heavily... Again, dude, are there times? Yes, there's absolutely times, I get it. All you people that are right now like, "That's not good leadership." Sometimes you gotta just freaking close the door. You're on the ship and the ship gets hit with a torpedo and there's guys in the engine room and you seal that freaking door and those guys are gonna die now.

• 2:12:41Jocko Willink?

  That's a decision that gets made. And you do that to save the ship. I get it. And some of the guys on the ship are gonna be filled with hatred.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  You made that decision. There are times when you have to put those things aside. We get it. We understand that. But I'm telling you, when you're running this decision loop in normal life, prioritize these relationships.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it works.

• 2:13:12Speaker 02

  There is a few times where you'd be in this situation, obviously on a very small scale, but what I did notice that Jocko would do, JP, and you'll probably vouch for this as well. Anytime where like there's a decision that maybe I wouldn't necessarily agreed with or be like right on board with, you'd always explain the bigger picture. Kind of like, um, like, okay, you know, hey, look, this is what we're doing. This is what we're doing. Hey, follow me. This is why. And because of this, and the more you explain kind of the big picture, the more acceptable it starts to become. And it's like, okay. And just like I said, yeah, yeah, they won't.

• 2:13:48Speaker 02

  You said they might not like you for it, but I would say, in my experience, it's not that they don't. I wouldn't like you, or I'd like you less. It would be that I wouldn't like it necessarily.

• 2:13:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's good.

• 2:13:59Speaker 02

  So the relationship is essentially maintained. But even though I'm doing something that I really don't want to do, but I know why I'm doing it. So it's kind of like, okay, I get it. It's kind of like telling your kids to clean the room, right? Hey, we're gonna go to Disneyland today. But before you go, you gotta clean your room. They'll be like, what? Like, oh my gosh, I was excited for the day. No, no, no. Clean the room. If they understand, hey, you gotta clean your room. Clean room's good, all this stuff. And they understand. They're like, okay, they don't like cleaning their room all of a sudden. But at least they'll suck it up. They'll do it, get it done, do it, it'll be done. And then boom, Disneyland time. See what I'm saying?

• 2:14:31JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, it's, that's why communication is the number one skill set of a good leader. Like you have to have the ability to communicate. And if, like you were saying, like when you do those, you explain the why, and you can clearly articulate that to your people. They may not like what has to be done, but they understand it. And then they can actually get on board. And then if you can drive ownership down to them in regards to what we're doing and why we're doing it, then there's gonna be less pushback, more buying.

• 2:15:00Jocko Willink?

  And a great example of that is like, hey, here's what we gotta do. Here's why we gotta do it. How do you guys want to get it done? Right? I mean, that's something that I use almost. A hundred percent of the time.

• 2:15:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:10Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, look, I know there's a lot of debate about us doing this thing. Here's why we gotta do this thing. Let me know how you guys want to do it. But we gotta get it done. Like, that's just, that's just good leadership right there.

• 2:15:22Speaker 02

  And, and the point is there that the, the relationship part of it gets maintained. Even though they're doing stuff they don't want to do, you told them to do stuff they don't want to do, they gotta suck it up. Like even with like kids, for example, like, you know, dessert, right? You're the dad who says no to dessert. Man, they're not gonna like you, you know? Yeah. So you think all these kids, they're not gonna like me, I'm gonna say no to their dessert on the weekend? Oh, my gosh, you know? But if you explain to them, here's one little hack, you can borrow, I mean, I'm sure you're a little bit more advanced than me, but for anyone listening who might want to use this one, this works. Be like, hey, um, I don't know, what's unhealthy? Freaking.

• 2:16:00Jocko Willink?

  Sugar cookies, donuts for sure, but donuts aren't for dessert.

• 2:16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:16:04Jocko Willink?

  People have them for breakfast.

• 2:16:05Speaker 02

  Cupcakes.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cupcakes.

• 2:16:06Speaker 02

  So cupcakes, um, you know, for, oh, what? No cupcake, it'd be like, why, oh, why are you not gonna let us have cupcakes? That's what they're focused on, right? You didn't let me have this pleasure, cupcakes. Be like, hey, we, hey, we know how bad cupcakes are. You know, nobody's perfect, I get it, but we know how bad cupcakes are. Would I be a good dad if I just willingly gave you these unhealthy cupcakes? Would that make me a good dad? It's very hard to refute that for little kids. Little bit older kids, they might be more clever, they might think up some stuff, but little kids, it works.

• 2:16:36Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I've, here's a mistake I made with my kids, it's just like, good one to remember too, it's a little hint. Is I've done the like, I'm taking ownership.

• 2:16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:16:44Jocko Willink?

  And been like, listen, obviously I haven't done a good job explaining to you why this is important or something like that. And like my, my oldest daughter, when she was younger, she'd be like, I'm not a bad person, like, as if, I'd be like, I'd be like, you know, hey, obviously I haven't done a good job explaining the importance of whatever. And she'd be like, dad, I'm not like a bad person. Like, you don't have to say that as if you have failed as a father, because that's the way I would make it sound.

• 2:17:10Speaker 02

  That makes sense to me completely.

• 2:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I, I get it.

• 2:17:13Speaker 02

  Didn't you get scolded for like the type two diabetes speech or something you'd give to your kids?

• 2:17:18Jocko Willink?

  Didn't I get scolded?

• 2:17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, like by your wife.

• 2:17:21Jocko Willink?

  Probably, uh, but I, I'll tell you, I would give the type two diabetes speech to my kids. Like, you know, oh, you want a cupcake? Cool. You want that type two diabetes too? Like I must've said that a lot when they were growing up.

• 2:17:32Speaker 02

  So, okay, so here in as funny as that is, like the serious part of that is, I mean, obviously that's partially joking. The way you always do it or whatever. You might go a little bit too hard for some people. I get it, but nonetheless, I recognize it. So.

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, earlier on this podcast, we were talking about, oh, you didn't clean your room? Cool. You don't eat or whatever. You don't help clean it up. You don't eat. We're going to get some shit on that one. I guarantee you, people are going to be like, you're the sick person.

• 2:17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, obviously there's more to it, you know, like some kids, they're kind of picky eaters and they'll just starve themselves. They'll be like, whatever, starve myself. Meanwhile, they're losing weight and look, it's nuanced.

• 2:18:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this isn't what. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about a kid losing weight because they didn't clean up the dishes at lunch and now they're not getting dinner. That's what. We're going into a whole different realm right now.

• 2:18:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no. The, the point I'm making is there's more to it than just like, okay, you don't eat, you know, there's, it's a process. Okay. So the, so you going.

• 2:18:20Jocko Willink?

  But just for the record, none of my kids have ever lost weight because I freaking guilt trip them.

• 2:18:27Speaker 02

  Yes, I understand fully, but and that's part of the point, like different families are different, different kids are different than your kids, but you know, specifically whatever. Yeah. You know, there's going to be adjustments.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, there's all, there are, you know, people out there that they need to do the opposite. They need to eat, right? They have like eating, eating disorders and stuff like that, which are really horrific. So.

• 2:18:49Speaker 02

  Exactly right.

• 2:18:49Jocko Willink?

  We have to be careful around the subject.

• 2:18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, but the point is as far as you, you know, halfway joking, you go hard, you know, all this stuff or whatever. And you say, oh yeah, you want type two diabetes, you know, every time, shoot, frick, man, we just wanted a little bit of that frozen yogurt, you know, to right now, whatever. And so, Brad, you don't have to go that hard. So if you go too hard for your kids, I could see, I'm not saying it will, but I could see how that could kind of jam up the relationship a little bit.

• 2:19:15Jocko Willink?

  Could jam up the relationship, could get rebellion. It's like, oh, we're just sugar addicts now.

• 2:19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm saying. And really wouldn't be focusing because this is what you're talking about is the relationship, right? That you're trying to maintain. That's why I came up with this clever one and be like, would I be a good dad? You know, like, cause I'm trying to be the best dad. Isn't that what you want? This is, it's hard. I mean, you get a smile, like, at a kid, cool. But the kid's not going to be like, no, I don't want you to be a good dad. So it's like they have no rebuttal, you know? So you say, would I be a good dad if I just fed you this terrible, unhealthy stuff? It's just really hard to refute, you know? And the, and the relationship gets maintained.

• 2:19:50Jocko Willink?

  Check this out. Here's a hole. Do you want to open up a can right now? Yes, sir. Here's. Check this out. Hey, you're supposed to be their dad or their mom, not their friend. Right? This is another one of those things. And look, I get the concept, right? I get the concept because people say the same thing about leadership too, like, hey, you're not, you're, you're supposed to be their leader, not their friend. You're supposed to be their platoon chief, not their friend. You're supposed to be their platoon commander, not their friend. You're supposed to be their CEO, not their friend. You're supposed to be their department head, not their friend. This is a very common, and there's a common theme of like, you're supposed to be their mom, not their friend, or their dad, not their friend.

• 2:20:30Jocko Willink?

  And I get it. I get what they're trying to say, right? What they're trying to say is like, hey, I'm not trying to make, you know, JP my buddy by being like, hey buddy. Like, I'm your boss, but you know, can I blah, blah, blah, can, let's, you, you can leave work early, like, like, oh, it doesn't. Oh, you're my son. Hey JP, son, uh, oh, you want your buddies to come over and have beer? Cool. I'll have some beers with you guys. That, that attitude, right? That, when people say, don't be their friend, that's what they're talking about. Like, oh, you, you guys wanna, you know, you guys wanna go see whatever, and I'll take, oh, guys are smoking pot, it's no big deal. You know, I'm like, cool with that. Like, that's what they're talking about.

• 2:21:13Jocko Willink?

  But to think that you wouldn't want to have a relationship with your kids, that isn't like, a being their friend is an aspect of it, to me is crazy. I'm friends with all my kids. Like, my kids are my friends, like, 100%. And I, I just want to warn people. And by, by the way, everyone that works for me, you know, everyone that's my employee, which I never say that. But everyone that works in the companies that I own, they're like my friends. There's not like, well, you know, you gotta remember I'm the boss. Never said, I've, I've ever said anything like that before. Like, that's a crazy thing.

• 2:21:55Jocko Willink?

  And for me to, so, so I would just keep that in mind. And again, I know that there's people right now that are like, I'm gonna be a, you know, I'm meant to be the dad, not the friend. It's like, I'm telling you, you can be both. And I would encourage you to be both. I would tell you that. There's things that your daughter or son may not tell their father, but they'll tell their friend.

• 2:22:20JP Dinnell?

  100%.

• 2:22:22Jocko Willink?

  And so when your kid might be going through some kind of trouble, and you know, whether they're getting picked on, whether they're having a hard time with something, whether they're like breaking up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever those things are. You're not, if you're not their friend and you're just their dad, you might not hear about it. So I'm saying there is a element of friendship as a leader. And it's a positive thing. It's not a negative thing. And it's part of relationships, right? The components that make up a relationship and a business relationship are the same components that make up a relationship in a friend relationship and the same things that make up a relationship

• 2:23:04Jocko Willink?

  in a father, mother, daughter, spouse relationship. Trust, listen, respect, influence and care. That's what a relationship is. Don't you want to have that with your kids? Don't you want your kids to trust you? Don't you want your kids to listen to you? Yep, you do. Guess what? You better listen to your kids then.

• 2:23:22Jocko Willink?

  But my kid's only nine. He doesn't know anything. Okay. Don't listen to him and see how that works out. When your nine-year-old kid has an issue about something, tell him, shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. You're too young. That doesn't matter. When your kid gets called a plate face in school and comes home and is a little bit teary eyed and you say, what's wrong? And you say, I got made fun of and you go, hey, shut up, sticks and stones, break your bones, names can never hurt you. Don't worry about it. And that's your reaction. I'm telling you, you're not listening to them. And therefore, guess what? They're not going to listen to you.

• 2:23:58Jocko Willink?

  So this relationship thing is universal. And the better relationships you have with people, the better things are going to be in your life. Period. End of story.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  And it also includes people that you may not necessarily.

• 2:24:14Jocko Willink?

  Like.

• 2:24:16Jocko Willink?

  So you might work for someone that you don't necessarily like. I work for JP, JP's arrogant, he goes flies off the handle, he yells at me and the rest of our employees.

• 2:24:29Jocko Willink?

  The rest of my peers. So what do I try and do? Well, I don't like him, so I'm not going to build a relationship to with him. Okay. So then where does that get us in life? Do things get better for me or worse for me? Do I have more influence over him or less influence? Can I get him to stop yelling at me when all I do is not listen to him and disrespect him? Nope, yelling is going to get louder and worse. If I treat him with respect, maybe, just maybe he'll start to treat me with respect. If I listen to him, he's yelling at me and I should get out my notebook and start taking notes. He's like, what the hell are you doing? I just want to write down what you're saying, boss. I want to make sure I got this. That's a, that's an attitude changer.

• 2:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Does this make me an ass kisser? Nope, doesn't. Means that I want to win. Means I want to improve my situation for me and for my team. That's what it means.

• 2:25:18Jocko Willink?

  So these relationship things, even when it's someone that you might not like. I have worked with a lot of people in my life that I didn't like.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  I've worked with a lot of people in my life that I didn't like. Jamie and Dave are always wondering if it's them.

• 2:25:35Jocko Willink?

  They joke about that. They're like, is it me? Is it me? No. It could be, but I'll never tell them.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  You might, you work with people that you don't like. What good is it if they know that? What good is it if you're not trying to build a relationship? The best thing to do is build that relationship and move things forward. You have no influence over people that you don't have a relationship with. They don't listen to a word that you say. So build relationships. This is a winning, this is a way to win. Or you can go through life like, I don't do that. I know who says I don't do that? My ego says I don't do that. My ego says JP yelled at me, I'm not going to listen to a damn thing he says. That's my ego. Instead of being like, oh, JP yelled at me. I wonder what kind of bosses he worked for that he thinks that's a good move. I wonder what kind of childhood he had where he loses his temper all the time.

• 2:26:23Jocko Willink?

  I wonder what's going on in his house with his wife and kids where he seems real short with the rest of the team.

• 2:26:31Jocko Willink?

  I wonder if everything's perfect in JP's life where he's coming into work late. He's mad, he's yelling at people. I wonder if he's just got a great thing going on right now. Like you think through these things and it's really easy to say, hmm, you know what? Maybe I can be a little bit better of a human being here.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  So prioritize those relationships.

• 2:26:56Jocko Willink?

  Last thing on this list. It's repeat. Once I have run through this checklist loop, I will make a decision and then run through the checklist checklist loop again and again. As a leader, I must continually assess these components over and over again and consider the feedback I receive with each decision and how the decisions affect the situation. To do this, I must do two things. Detach and keep an open mind. Detachment is a superpower as the failure or inability to detach causes a failure to see clearly. Don't get too absorbed in any one aspect of the decision. Take a step back and breathe to assess the components of your decision from a broad and unemotional vantage point.

• 2:27:38Jocko Willink?

  And to integrate your observations into your decision-making process, you have to keep an open mind. Keeping an open mind is always a challenge. Outside ideas feel threatening to our beliefs. Don't be intransigent or let those feeling close your mind. Invite those thoughts and recognize that challenges test your ideas and make them better.

• 2:28:07Jocko Willink?

  Open mind and detachment. Two very

• 2:28:14Jocko Willink?

  difficult things for human beings. It's very difficult to keep an open mind and it's very difficult to detach.

• 2:28:22Jocko Willink?

  And in order for this leadership loop, in order to get the feedback, you have to detach and you have to keep an open mind.

• 2:28:32Jocko Willink?

  New ideas, we don't like them. Challenging ideas, we don't like them. Differences of opinion, we don't like them. We literally surround ourselves with people that have the same opinions as us. Go on to social media, who are you following? I'm following a bunch of people that are the same as me. That's what we're doing. What news do I watch? I watch the news that has the same opinion as me.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  It's like, that's what we do. Because our, our mind wants to be closed. It wants to just not hear anyone else's opinion. Cause we think we're right. So, there you have it. That's a, a little section of this new addition that I added to Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Field Manual. Uh, pragmatic. It's a pragmatic book. Uh, and that's how the book's designed. And you know, you were saying this earlier. JP, talking about referring to books. And sometimes we gotta go back to the book. Sometimes we gotta go back to the book. The

• 2:29:39Jocko Willink?

  harshest example I have of that is the book Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual was coming out. And it was coming out like October 15th, 2017. And I had the book. It showed up at my house. I had boxes of the book and it was like, you know, was signing them or doing whatever. And Stoner died.

• 2:30:03Jocko Willink?

  And so it's like September 30th. And so I had a whole bunch of, you know, press and all this like trip to the East Coast and all this stuff. Were, that I was doing for, for promotion of Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And so, whatever, that's all happening or supposed to happen. And, uh, you know, Stoner dies. And kind of, maybe a day goes by. So, sort of like all these initial kind of like calls. You know, we're all, you know, we're all talking to each other. We're figuring out what's going on. We're starting to plan stuff and, and like that time had gone by. That first like day had gone by.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Of where you're kind of in the reaction mode of, we have administrative stuff that we've got to do. And then it was, so now like that was gone. And it was the first like time where I was left alone with my thoughts. And I remember I was in my room. I don't know where my wife and kids were gone or whatever. And I'm just in my room by myself and I'm laying on my bed at, in the afternoon, which I don't normally do. I'm laying in my bed in the afternoon. And I started to just freaking.

• 2:31:23Jocko Willink?

  Go down the, the, the spiral of anger and resentment and just unproductive, terrible darkness. And I literally felt the abyss like opening up like dude, I'm, this is,

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  it just, it's just all, this is all shit. It's all dark. It's all horrible. And I felt that I kind of like felt the draw of that.

• 2:32:06Jocko Willink?

  And I like stopped myself and I, I actually sat up and I had this big box of Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And there's a whole section in there about death. And I had to, I, I had to, I had to open that up and read that section to myself and get a freaking grip on reality. And that's the, that's the way life is. You are gonna need help. You're gonna need reminders. You're gonna need support.

• 2:32:43Jocko Willink?

  And for me to be able to refer back to a book, you know, for that terrible moment in my life.

• 2:32:52Jocko Willink?

  Um, that's kind of like what the, that's kind of what these books are for. And the, the, the Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, obviously a much more positive book because it's about positive things. It's about leadership. It's about moving forward.

• 2:33:10Jocko Willink?

  But over time, you can develop these instincts. And over time, you can learn to deal with tough situations, but

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  you might get into a scenario where you need some help, you need some support. And you know, from, from a leadership perspective, that's what that book Leadership Strategy and Tactics is about. You might get really good at that leadership loop. When I'm having trouble making a decision, I'll, I'll whip that thing open and be like, hold on a second. Let me think through these steps. If you think through those steps, you get to the end, you're going to have a pretty good idea of what to do.

• 2:33:48JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:50Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:33:54Jocko Willink?

  Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual.

• 2:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you gotta refer, you know, I mean, we refer to the Bible today. The book all many, many people refer to, right? There's, you, you can be rooted in things. We need reminders. You have a tattoo on your wrist to remind you of things. You have a hat in your closet from Marco's Pizza to remind you of things. We need to put those things in our lives. And when we stray, that's, that's what happens, right? We stray. We stray from what we know we should be doing. We stray from remembering where we came from. We stray from our humility.

• 2:34:41Jocko Willink?

  We stray from leadership principles that we've talked about or lived or read about over and over again.

• 2:34:50Jocko Willink?

  We stray from the understanding of life and death. We stray from these things. And we have to bring ourselves back to them. And it's, it's not easy, but this is another part where I think feeling that disturbance in the force.

• 2:35:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, what I talked about, if you have some, for me, if I have some sort of emotional disturbance in the force, I immediately know, okay, this is a, this is my ego. If I'm having trouble making a decision, if it's not clear to me. Okay, guess what? Maybe I need to get out the field manual and go through this leadership decision making loop.

• 2:35:37Jocko Willink?

  That, that just bring me back.

• 2:35:41Jocko Willink?

  So you've got to set these things up, but most important, if you don't reckon, if you don't detach, you won't be able to see what's happening and where you're straying or that you are straying in the first place. You know, when I was sitting there thinking about Stoner, I was straying from what I know is the right thing to do in that situation.

• 2:36:04Jocko Willink?

  And luckily, I was detached enough to go, hold on a second, you're not going to a good place right now. This is not good. You're straying from what you know is good. You're straying from the light and you're moving towards the dark. And this is not good.

• 2:36:22Jocko Willink?

  If you're not detached and when people aren't detached, when we watch people go down spiral into destruction, that could be from a leadership perspective, that could be from a personal perspective, that could be from a family perspective. Most of the time, they haven't had the ability to detach and take a look at themselves and go, what am I doing right now? You know, they always put in a movie scene like a guy looking at himself in the mirror, or a woman looking at themselves in the mirror, right? It's like that's where they see, oh God, what am I doing right now? What am I becoming? Or they catch the reflection.

• 2:36:57Jocko Willink?

  That, that, we have to do that. We have to look at ourselves and examine ourselves. And you have to detach to be able to do that. When, when you're not detached, you're just caught in the moment. You're doing, you're wasting time. You're doing evil things, right? You read that passage, it's like, that's disturbance in the force. We're doing things that we are hiding. We're doing things in the dark.

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of times, you're, you're lying to yourself. You're ignoring the fact that you're wasting time. You're ignoring the fact that you, you are doing something you shouldn't be doing.

• 2:37:36Jocko Willink?

  You're doing something you shouldn't be doing. And you're lying to yourself and you don't think anyone can see you.

• 2:37:44Jocko Willink?

  But it's having an impact. And the number one person that needs to see what's happening is you. And if you cover your eyes to it, you're not going to see it.

• 2:37:54Jocko Willink?

  So, keep those things in mind. Don't stray from the path.

• 2:38:01Jocko Willink?

  And be aware, I'm telling you, that's the thing is people, they don't make a right turn off the path. They don't, they're not like walking down the path and they take a right turn and then they're off. That's not what happens. They take like a three degree turn. And they can't really tell. And they're kind of like, well, you know, it's like, I'm still kind of on it. And then they travel more distance and they're not looking around, they're not paying attention. The next thing you know, they're totally off the path. And their life is going in the wrong direction. So find some ways to ground yourself.

• 2:38:34Jocko Willink?

  Find some things to, some references to refer to. Write things down, hang things up. Give yourself reminders, refer back, what'd you say, you read a Psalm or a proverb a day?

• 2:38:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:48Jocko Willink?

  That's a, a methodology, right?

• 2:38:52Jocko Willink?

  Here's a book with timeless information in it. And instruction and guidance. Open it up, read it. It takes you thirty-eight seconds. Okay? We just reminded ourselves where we're supposed to be going.

• 2:39:11Jocko Willink?

  Do that. Do those things.

• 2:39:16Jocko Willink?

  To keep yourself on the path. In all aspects of your life.

• 2:39:25Jocko Willink?

  Probably good on the books, uh, leadership strategy and tactics.

• 2:39:30Jocko Willink?

  Feel me, I got a brand new additions out. It's got a cooler cover too, by the way, Echo Charles.

• 2:39:35Speaker 02

  Black edition. Yeah, yeah, I like it.

• 2:39:37Jocko Willink?

  The original edition was olive drab, OD green. You know? And then this one, we went, we went, uh, black ops.

• 2:39:45Speaker 02

  Tactical.

• 2:39:46Jocko Willink?

  Tactical. The more, it's, you know, you know, black is not actually a good tactical color in most cases.

• 2:39:52Speaker 02

  Actually, you know where I got the year was Robocop, not the old school one, the newer one.

• 2:39:55Jocko Willink?

  I did not watch it.

• 2:39:56Speaker 02

  Michael Keaton, he was like.

• 2:39:59JP Dinnell?

  When they're formulating the Robocop suit, suit, which is classically silver or stainless steel, whatever. Uh, Michael Keaton was like, um, oh, uh, I, I mean, we need to change it from the silver. Is there anything a little bit more tactical?

• 2:40:13Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:40:14JP Dinnell?

  Boom, black. So that's where I got it.

• 2:40:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they went black, but it, it black stands out a lot.

• 2:40:19JP Dinnell?

  I got you. I understand. Yeah, I think this, to us, what do you call them? Normies, people not in the game or whatever, like, we just, we just feel like, oh, it's at night, black, you know, can't see you. It's more tactical. I don't know. Anyway, please continue.

• 2:40:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But this one is black. I can say tactical, maybe it's not the best tactical color, but it's the coolest color.

• 2:40:41JP Dinnell?

  It's dope.

• 2:40:41Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, that looks cool. And it's got the night vision green on it too, which actually looks really cool.

• 2:40:47JP Dinnell?

  I like that a lot.

• 2:40:48Jocko Willink?

  So that's the expanded edition. I always refer people to page 157, 158 in Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. It's like the 12, list of 12 things to do as leader. What's going on? What are you doing?

• 2:40:58JP Dinnell?

  No, no, no, these two are different.

• 2:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, okay, so the one that you have in your left hand is a fake copy.

• 2:41:03JP Dinnell?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 2:41:04Jocko Willink?

  It was a, it was like a, like a proof copy of what the cover was gonna look like.

• 2:41:08JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:41:08Jocko Willink?

  But you can see the, the fake one is glossy. The real one is a little bit more matte black.

• 2:41:12JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, that's dope.

• 2:41:14Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:41:14JP Dinnell?

  It's cool.

• 2:41:15Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Um, JP, you got other stuff going on right now. Obviously you got all your stuff at Echelon Front going on.

• 2:41:20JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 2:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, running the training, you're the chief, chief training officer there, which puts you, like you've already talked about the FTX, you've got the battlefield events, you've got the council.

• 2:41:31JP Dinnell?

  Building out a training facility. Leif and I have been talking about that recently and, you know, driving that, you know, Cody, Danny, Justin, I know Justin's working right now on building out like the specs for kind of what we want, trying to get an idea, you know, working with Mike and our, you know, our accounting department of, okay, hey, what is this training department gonna look like, like a, a training location where people can come and not just only have access to our, our, our field training exercise, but having a nice, awesome training facility with classrooms and being able to host and facilitate all aspects of the training that we do at Echelon Front. I mean, I guess the only thing that we couldn't replicate would be a battlefield review because, well, yeah, we're not gonna.

• 2:42:12Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be on the battlefield.

• 2:42:12JP Dinnell?

  You gotta be on the battlefield.

• 2:42:13Jocko Willink?

  But these days with some of the, uh, Technology that's out there.

• 2:42:18JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:19Jocko Willink?

  Being able to give really good briefs and vantage points and 360 degree like the camera that you have Echo Charles, we could walk someone around an entire battlefield. No problem, actually.

• 2:42:32JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:32Jocko Willink?

  And it'd be virtual, but dude, it'd be, so we got all kinds of stuff. We're working there. And then, so you, so you got, you mentioned it earlier, the JP Danelle podcast.

• 2:42:44JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. Yeah, started, it actually came out today. Today, it's really, you know, had it to where every Friday it's going to launch. We're on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube.

• 2:42:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:56JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. So if you guys want to check it out, you know, and, you know, and if you like it, like subscribe to it. You know, leave us a comment, leave us a review. But yeah, the, the purpose of me starting my own podcast was what we've been talking about today is just to provide value. It's just my perspective, my insight on what we do at Echelon Front. You know, to share the stories from me growing up as a kid, the lessons I learned from my childhood. And also like the lessons and stories and experiences I had from being in the military, specifically in the SEAL teams. You know, when I got out, you know, which I know we've covered a lot of those stories over your podcast.

• 2:43:37JP Dinnell?

  But just to be able to elaborate and just as we say, pull the thread on different stories that I have from my life. My perspective on, on things and the, again, just pulling it all back to what we teach at Echelon Front. My, my, my intention is to provide value to people through the lessons that I've learned, the experiences that I get to have because of what I get to do at Echelon Front, to share people's stories, pull the leadership lessons out of people's stories. And tie it back into what we do at Echelon Front and just, you know, also be able to share my faith and, and, and just have a.

• 2:44:14JP Dinnell?

  Have a different platform that it just hopefully reaches more people to provide value and bring them back to what we do at Echelon Front and you know my buddy Lucas is you know, producing and hosting and co-hosting it all with me. It's I met him because of the Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu Podcast that I do with my buddies, Steven, Isaac and Josh. And it's a, he literally does everything. And I remember when I saw like the place that we record it's in, they converted a room in their church, you know, he's a pastor of a small Baptist church in Denton, Texas. And he created this when COVID hit for, hey, it's a way for us to get the message out to different people and provide value to people. And anyways, the guy's awesome.

• 2:45:00JP Dinnell?

  If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see he doesn't, he does not look like your typical pastor. He's got long hair, beard. He looks like a biker, like, you know, and, and you know, it's just, it's a cool opportunity and I'm thankful that I have someone like Lucas to be able to do this because there's zero, zero percent chance I'm going to be able to do all the things that he does. Like, I mean, could I learn how to do it? Yeah. Could you learn how to do all the things Echo does? Yeah, but

• 2:45:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, obviously.

• 2:45:25JP Dinnell?

  But when we look at a priority

• 2:45:27Jocko Willink?

  He just presses record dude. Dude doesn't do jack.

• 2:45:30JP Dinnell?

  And it just magically is uploaded, right?

• 2:45:32Speaker 02

  Messed up while you said that so quickly. Immediately.

• 2:45:36JP Dinnell?

  But you act like you're shocked or surprised. It's like, I already knew.

• 2:45:40Speaker 02

  The quickness was pretty impressive.

• 2:45:41JP Dinnell?

  It was impressive. Yeah. So I

• 2:45:44Jocko Willink?

  You're impressed with how quickly I can insult you.

• 2:45:47Speaker 02

  You're just ready.

• 2:45:48Jocko Willink?

  And it's just good time.

• 2:45:50JP Dinnell?

  So yeah, I'm thankful for that. And then, you know, the other things that we've talked about before, LittleCattleCo launched a few weeks ago, Beef Company, I'm doing it with Steven Little. And that's been awesome. And then

• 2:46:02Jocko Willink?

  So where do people go to get that?

• 2:46:04JP Dinnell?

  LittleCattle.co. So LittleCattle.co. It's just our name as a way. So LittleCattleCo is the name of the company. So you can find us on Instagram, but if you want to order beef, it's LittleCattle.co. And what's cool is like, hey, if you just want to order two filets and five pounds of ground beef, you can do that. You want to order We, uh, we had somebody recently reach out and, you know, they wanted to order a bunch of ribeyes for, for the team.

• 2:46:29Jocko Willink?

  Was that person named Jocko?

• 2:46:30JP Dinnell?

  No, not yet. I have failed to get you any of the beef yet. We, uh,

• 2:46:35Jocko Willink?

  Hey, when you get an order for 27 ribeyes?

• 2:46:38JP Dinnell?

  I'll know.

• 2:46:39Jocko Willink?

  You'll know.

• 2:46:39JP Dinnell?

  Well, it's just crazy. I mean, it's only been a couple of weeks and we, we're getting everything, literally Stevens right now getting all of our, our resupply. I mean, we sold out of ribeyes and sirloins and tomahawks and brisket. And I mean, it, it just was, was pretty cool to see how that happened. We were able to, when we had the, the one day FTXs last week in, in Texas, um, you know, cause we wanted to provide, you know, as we do at Echelon Front. It's like, hey, you take care of the client, provide really good value. Part of it was like, you know, we realized on the FTXs, like we could increase the, the types of meals that we're providing to our clients.

• 2:47:15JP Dinnell?

  Now the hard part is how do we duplicate this? Because last week it was good because Steven was out there like cooking hamburgers and sirloin and ground beef for everybody. So everyone had a half pound hamburger from Little Cattle Co, uh, sirloin, even Leif was like, he's like, man, is that ribeye? And Steven's like, no, that's sirloin. He's like, there's no way. I mean, as you know, high quality beef is different than what people are, are used to. And so, uh, it's, you know, it's Texas black Angus that has no hormones, no antibiotics, no steroids. His uncle, uh, Uncle Rocky, he's been doing this for 30 years and that's how we have access to all the steers and, um, just good quality beef.

• 2:47:55JP Dinnell?

  I didn't know this. This is disgusting, but, uh, you know, according to some of the experts out there, when it comes to ground beef that you get from a grocery store or, you know, some of the higher, like the, the bigger names that prove like in the high volume that you buy in bulk, try not to say names. You can have up to a thousand different steers that you, that ground beef is being combined to make your ground beef, which that is increase the risk for cross contamination and all this other stuff. Our ground beef comes from one steer. It's not even mixed with the four steers that we slaughter at a time. It is all it's from that that Chuck roast and the fat like it's good quality, high quality ground beef.

• 2:48:38JP Dinnell?

  Big difference, like a big difference, as you can tell, as I know, you know, you're in the beef game, you know, and you understand the value of like that high quality beef. And, you know, Steven and his Uncle Rocky, you know, handling all the the business and, you know, of the of the steers and the beef and then Tyler and I, you know, we invested into the company and helping with the business aspect of it. And it's cool that all of our families are involved in the night before we, you know, started fulfilling orders, like all three of our families were up there and we prayed over the warehouse and we prayed over the orders and prayed over our customers because we also understand that this is an opportunity that we get to to serve other people through our products. And so I'm thankful

• 2:49:20JP Dinnell?

  for that. And man, it's, it's been really cool to see how it's, I mean, God's definitely blessed the business already, which has been great. And then the other thing that we talked about is, you know, the on the path printing that Josh and I've been doing and, you know, both of us, you know, we just it couldn't make it as a it wasn't a top priority. And that was hard for us because our ego wanted it to be, hey, done, done, done. But we really both had to step back and be like, okay, hey, what are the other priorities that we have going on in our life? And I also had to listen to people that were like, hey, man, you got a lot of stuff going on. I'm like, yeah, I know. And then I realized like, okay, are they saying that because they're envious? Or are they saying that because they care about me? And I realized that the people were saying it was because they cared about

• 2:50:02JP Dinnell?

  me and they were seeing something that I didn't see. And I Josh and I had to put on the path on the back burner because it wasn't, you know, could we have made it happen sooner? Yes, but it would have impacted other stuff. And as you said, hey, a lot of stuff going on, including what we do at Echelon Front. Echelon Front is my number one. It is my number one. And I had to reiterate that to most people. The reason why I'm doing my own podcast is to provide value and bring people into the ecosystem that we have with Echelon Front, Origin, Jocko Fuel, and yes, the other things that I do, the ministries I help out with, you know, my buddies, you know, walking in truth ministry, those pursuit events, Jesus and Jiu Jitsu. I'm trying to help, but my main focus is always going to

• 2:50:44JP Dinnell?

  be Echelon Front. And, and I think I share this with you, if not, well, I'm sharing with you now. I also realized if something was to happen to me.

• 2:50:59JP Dinnell?

  What's my family have? I mean, I know you and Leif would take care of my family.

• 2:51:04Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, you don't gotta worry about your family.

• 2:51:05JP Dinnell?

  I know, I know, but.

• 2:51:07Jocko Willink?

  But I hear you.

• 2:51:08JP Dinnell?

  The reality of that is, at what point? I mean, I know I have investments and Amanda and I, we've been good stewards with our money. God has blessed us. We tithe as an act of worship and we also are trying to be good stewards with our money in regards to investing and saving. But if something was to happen to me, what would my family have? Now, my, my wife, she's a rock star. She's a gangster. She'll make it happen. I don't want to put that burden on her and the kids. And so I, I looked at Little Cattle Co. as, because I knew the intent that Stephen and his wife Amanda had was it's a legacy play. You know, and they're not building it to be able to sell it. Now, we all say that and they could, hey, some company comes in and is like, hey, we're gonna give you a hundred million for it.

• 2:51:52JP Dinnell?

  I'm like, hey, Stephen, we need to have a conversation, dude.

• 2:51:54Jocko Willink?

  You could probably take care of your family with some of that money.

• 2:51:57JP Dinnell?

  Yes, yeah. My equity would probably turn out to be very well. But it was looking at it from a different perspective of like, hey, I love what I do at Echelon Front. I mean, you guys provide for me, you guys take care of me and you bless me for sure. And I know you guys would give me the opportunity to earn it, but I wanted to look at, you know, these different things as a, hey, if something was to happen to me, or let's just say I couldn't, like, something happened to me and I couldn't continue doing what I do at Echelon Front, how do I ensure, um, like, uh, stability for my family? Like, how do I provide stability for my family? And I was like, okay, well, Little Cattle Co. is an option. On the Path Printing is an option. The investment that I made into Jocko Fuel is an option.

• 2:52:41JP Dinnell?

  Other companies is an option. Uh, and so it's a lot of little different things that if something was to happen, my family still has stability to where I'm not a burden. Like, I never want to be a burden. And I've been a burden in the past because of stupid decisions. And I'll never, never. I don't ever want to put my family in that position again, ever.

• 2:53:03Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:53:04JP Dinnell?

  And so just trying to be diligent and a good steward of what God has given Amanda and I. And that was for me, Little Cattle Co. on the path.

• 2:53:14JP Dinnell?

  I mean, without, I hope it's very apparent, everything that you guys allowed me to do at Echelon Front, but then Origin and Jocko Fuel and other companies I've been able to put funds into. You know, for me, it's, I just want to be a good steward of what God's given me.

• 2:53:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that's frigging, of course, that's like, always got to be a priority. Well, actually, let me take that back. It's not always a priority because at a certain point, we are in life and we don't have the luxury of being able to think that way. And, you know, if you look at you eight years ago.

• 2:53:50JP Dinnell?

  Survival.

• 2:53:50Jocko Willink?

  You were in survival mode.

• 2:53:51JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's the way a lot of people live. And so it's awesome that you can now like, look up, look out and be like, okay.

• 2:54:01JP Dinnell?

  And it wasn't an overnight thing. And that's why I try to explain to other people who are in hard, like tough situations. Like I'll tell them, I'm like, hey, you're living my life that I was living. You're living the life that Amanda and I were living six and a half, seven years ago. Right now, I have friends right now that are just, it's tight. And I'm like, hey, man, keep the main thing, the main thing.

• 2:54:23Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:54:24JP Dinnell?

  Don't keep, don't get distracted, just keep like doing what you're doing. You're on the right path. You know, just, it takes time. Like the, what I've been able to do took time. And but it seems like this, it seems like this, because all, like my buddies, my friends that I'm talking about, they remember that. They were, they were a part of those times. And now it's like, hey, this, this took some time. And you and Leif both said that to Amanda and I. You're like, hey, this is, this is going to be, you know, three to five years grinding it out. We built a team and I built that team at the five year mark, like we kind of thought we were. And then it's like, hey, there's still going to be another three to five years of grinding it out after you build the team to get us where we need to be, to where we can be more strategic. And with that, with the whole discipline equals freedom.

• 2:55:10JP Dinnell?

  Mindset that you have in the manual that you gave Amanda and I were very disciplined with our finances. You know, we, we weren't in a rush to buy a house. The house that we bought, it was a, it was a blessing for sure. We did it over a handshake with this guy. And it's funny, like there's some things that are coming about that were like, ah, you know, we gotta work through these things with this new house, but it's like, hey, that's just part of owning a home. And we also understand that it's, hey, you know what? Because we've been diligent with our savings, we can, like, we're not

• 2:55:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like you got, you've got some, some surprises with the house?

• 2:55:42JP Dinnell?

  Surprise. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I'll tell you what, like, you know, what you're talking about is like that, like that, that feeling creeping in earlier and, and you know, it's everything that we deal with in life is spiritual warfare, man. And you know, I, I started to kind of go down this bad rabbit hole of thoughts towards this guy that bought our, that sold the house to us because I was like super frustrated with some of these things that were popping up. And then I had to, and then I had to remind myself of the conversations that I had with the guy. And when we walked through the house, they're praying, they're playing praise and worship music. And I noticed that I'm like, hey, I like the music that you're playing. He goes, yeah, it's my wife said, if somebody doesn't want to buy our house because the music, then they don't deserve to buy the house. And I'm like,

• 2:56:26JP Dinnell?

  okay, that's kind of cool. And then the fact that the guy honored, like when I, we, we got to the end of the house and I'm looking at, I'm like, man, it's a beautiful house. I've sent you pictures. You've seen it. Like, man, it's, it's amazing. And I remember looking at Amanda and well, cause I asked the guy, I'm like, hey, what's the next steps? And like, we're literally looking at, there's people outside the gate waiting to come look at it. We were the first people. And he said, well, you know, talk with your wife and if it's something that you guys think you like, just make an offer this weekend. Well, I knew the amount of people that'd be looking at this house and I look at Amanda and she is like tears in her eyes and I can't get my checkbook ready for this one. And you know, cause we had lost a lot of houses from being outbid and people coming in with cash deals. And I, I mean, I was

• 2:57:06JP Dinnell?

  talking to you constantly like, hey, what do I do now? And life, what do I do now? And every little black belt move that you guys had for real estate, it just, it just wasn't working. And I, Amanda and I both had to understand like, okay, then this isn't. This isn't the home that God has intended for us. And what I was able to do was, you know, look at Amanda and realize, okay, cool. She wants this house and we're talking and.

• 2:57:32Jocko Willink?

  I can picture Amanda just like tear, you're like, how do you like it? She's just like, can't even talk.

• 2:57:37JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, just tears in her eyes and she's like, it's, yeah. And so we, you know, talked back and forth and I just, it was cool. Cause I just looked at the guy and I said, sir, can I buy your house? Which I know is like in real estate, you don't do that anymore. Well, what was cool is he was a listing agent and it was his house. So I was able to have, it's just a unique, amazing opportunity. He puts his hand out, we shake hands, he goes, the house is yours.

• 2:57:59Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:58:00JP Dinnell?

  And now he knew that we had lost other deals and he said, the house is yours. And he goes, I just need to figure out what I'm gonna, you know, what I'm gonna tell these people waiting out there. I was like, oh, I can handle that one, like just joking. He's like, no, you know, I'm, you know, I'm gonna let them look at the house. He goes, I'm not gonna lose my integrity over a dollar. He goes, this house is yours. I'm, I'm looking forward to you like raising your family in this home. So I have to remind myself of that because if this wasn't the house that God wanted Amanda and I need to be in, he wouldn't have opened up all these doors. This wouldn't have happened. This guy easily could have been like, hey, place your offer, we'll see how it goes out. No, and, and I'll tell you what, the, the vehicles that were parked out front, if that was a representation of their livelihood and bank accounts, I wasn't playing in that.

• 2:58:40Jocko Willink?

  There was Bugattis out there.

• 2:58:42JP Dinnell?

  It wasn't happening. Have you seen the Lambo SUV?

• 2:58:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:58:47JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, that was parked out there. New, new Porsche SUV, a brand new Raptor truck. I'm like, who is this group of people? Couldn't have played that game. But I just have to remind myself, okay, these things happen for a reason. So while we're working through these little things, I, you know, it's cool. It's full circle. Amanda, today, uh, the people are coming to check out some of the stuff. It's one of the companies that Groundworks just acquired, one of our clients. They're gonna come check out our foundation and the broken retaining wall in front of the house. And we're gonna find some solutions and work through it. First world problems, because my worst day. Is somebody's dream.

• 2:59:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:22JP Dinnell?

  Think about what I'm talking about right now. There's a family listening. There's some guy listening who his family is living in an apartment, which there's nothing wrong with that. Been there, done that. Who's going, you know what JP, I'd love to be in that house. And I know that and I respect what you're doing, sir. I've been where you're at. I'm not saying any of this stuff to brag or anything else, but it's just, just to remind people like, hey man, just keep, keep pushing forward.

• 2:59:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:45JP Dinnell?

  And I, and also as a reminder to myself, hey, my worst day is somebody's dream. I've got a, I am, I am blessed beyond belief right now.

• 2:59:54Jocko Willink?

  Yo, what's that? What's the swimming apparatus at that thing? Like, it's like a pool, but it's not, what is that?

• 3:00:01JP Dinnell?

  It's a spool. It's not a spa and it's not a pool. This is what the guy called it.

• 3:00:05Jocko Willink?

  No, because I remember I was like, I was like, oh yeah, it was a pool. And you're like, no, it doesn't have a pool. And I was like, okay. The next thing I see is a picture of your kids in a pool. And I was like, yo, what are you?

• 3:00:13JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, I, I clearly didn't communicate that properly because actually our real, our realtor almost didn't Renee. Powers, shout out to Renee. She's phenomenal agent. She almost didn't show us the house because she knew how small that, the body of water was because we'd go look at other houses. Like, yes, our pool. And I'm like, no, that's a hot tub. Like, don't try to sell me that this is a pool. If I'll, hey, if I'm buying a house with a pool, I want a pool. I want it to be legit. And it's just one of my things. I wanted a space for a gym and a pool. I got the space for the gym.

• 3:00:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:41JP Dinnell?

  It's amazing.

• 3:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:43JP Dinnell?

  And it's attached to the guest house, which is crazy. It's about two acres. And but the guy, Dave, who sold us the house, he just had this like, authority when he said it. He goes, and this is my spool. I didn't want a pool. It's not a pool, but it's bigger than a spa. I call it a spool. And I'm like,

• 3:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Is the water hot or cold?

• 3:01:03JP Dinnell?

  Both. Whatever you choose.

• 3:01:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:01:06JP Dinnell?

  So it can be chilled or it can be heated?

• 3:01:08Jocko Willink?

  At the same time? Is it separate at all? It's just one temperature?

• 3:01:11JP Dinnell?

  It's whatever you want. Yeah.

• 3:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:01:13JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:13Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 3:01:14JP Dinnell?

  You had a couple 20 pound bags of ice from Buc-Ee's. It gets cold quick. It's awesome.

• 3:01:20Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:01:20JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, it's rad.

• 3:01:21Jocko Willink?

  I was shopping for a house years ago and there was a house that came up. And I was like, bro, this is like, I told my wife. My wife was like, you, you need to, like, same thing, like tears, like, you need to make this happen. I'm like, I will make this happen. So we go look at it and I'm like, yep. And I told the realtor, I'm like, hey, like, we don't need, she's like, well, you don't think about it? Like, nope, don't need to think about it. Like, we're ready to rock and roll.

• 3:01:47Jocko Willink?

  And they're like, well, you know, like, we're gonna show it this weekend and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll, you know, we'll put together an offer letter and blah, blah, blah. And, uh, so then like, I get home, I write a letter to the owner of the house, you know, I like, Google it, find out, blah, blah, blah. I write her this letter, you know, you know, ma'am, I just wanted to let you know, we came and looked at the house, it's incredible. And we're from here and we, you know, this is, I got the kids and we want to raise them here and they blah, blah, blah. Just this really nice, you know, kind of, uh, heartfelt letter. And just, you know, I would really appreciate your consideration. I'm, I, you know, I just retired from the military, blah, blah, blah, blah. The whole nine yards. And, uh, they took a cash offer from someone else.

• 3:02:31JP Dinnell?

  That happened to us literally the week of this, the week of, I wrote a letter, Amanda wrote a letter, our, all of our kids wrote letters, like just, I mean, uh, you know, my kids were like, this is a

• 3:02:41Jocko Willink?

  Dude, JP's got his kids writing letters. Next level.

• 3:02:44JP Dinnell?

  They had five letters that came, our, our daughters, Cora and Nola drew pictures of the house and like all this stuff. And I thought the same thing, like that house, I'm like, this is, and it's still, that place was gorgeous. Um, and it just, and even the owners.

• 3:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:02:59JP Dinnell?

  Owners told our realtor, they told Renee, like, hey, we really like this family, like, we want this fam. And then whoever it was that came in and got the house, they just came in with a cash deal and I'm like, congratulations to you.

• 3:03:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:10JP Dinnell?

  Congratulations.

• 3:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The, the moral of the story, well, not the moral, but the finishing, the story that I just told was that house that I, that we had written these letters and I was like, really wanted.

• 3:03:21JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:21Jocko Willink?

  We didn't get it. And then like, three weeks later, the house that I have.

• 3:03:26JP Dinnell?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:03:27Jocko Willink?

  So it was just like, and cra- it was, you know, crazy that, that it went the way it did. But it's the way things work, you know?

• 3:03:35JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. And, and I even told Amanda, I'm like, hey, like, how much over this asking price would, would you have wanted to go for us to get the house? And so we were talking about that. I'm like, okay, so even the repairs that we have to do, even if this stuff isn't covered by warranty, which the house is less than three years old. So foundation problems, guess what? Warranty, 10 year warranty on foundation. So we're not going to come out of pocket. When groundwork company that they acquired, whatever one in Dallas that we're working with, they come in and they have to do work. They deal with like whoever did it, like we don't have to pay. And I even told her, I'm like, okay, hey, because I thought I was like, oh, we're gonna have to pay all this stuff out of pocket. I'm like, good lord. And I told her, I'm like, hey, even if we go up to that amount, we're still good.

• 3:04:19JP Dinnell?

  And my mindset, I was talking, we had a bunch of guys over from church. We did a little frogman Friday workout at my house where we just crushed everybody. It was cool. They came over, they prayed over the house, the property and everything else like that. And we did this awesome workout and I was talking with one of my pastors, Pastor Drew. And I was just like, yeah, you know, like, I don't know what we're gonna do with this. I was explaining it. I mean, you pull up in the house, you see the broken wall. It's a, it's not cracked. It's a broken retaining wall. You see it. It's very obvious. And you know, a couple of guys.

• 3:04:46Jocko Willink?

  And it wasn't like that when you bought it?

• 3:04:48JP Dinnell?

  Nope.

• 3:04:48Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 3:04:49JP Dinnell?

  They stopped watering the month that they did the lease back. I'm not saying that this is what caused it. However, comma. Like if you don't water your, your property in Texas, it dries up quick and it's going to cause these issues. Like the retaining wall like cracked and broke and it just doesn't matter what we've done. Like it hasn't been fixed, but yeah, there was no issues when we bought it. The month that they did the lease back, they were there. They stopped watering. And then a lot of these foundation things started to happen, but whatever. I mean, they didn't do it on purpose, clearly. And I was, but I was talking with Pastor Drew and Pastor Tyron about it. I'm like, well, you know, worst case, like I have some like, dude, we got a great deal on the house. There's equity in it already.

• 3:05:28JP Dinnell?

  If I had to take out a loan, I'm just going to redo the whole retaining wall and the backyard and create the most epic backyard pool setup that I liked to where it's what we want and I never have to like, like, cool. Why would I take a vacation when I have this setup? You know, so.

• 3:05:43Jocko Willink?

  So good. Yeah.

• 3:05:44JP Dinnell?

  Retaining wall broke? Good.

• 3:05:46Jocko Willink?

  Good. Build the backyard you want. When you talk, when you're talking about how much money your wife is willing to spend, we kind of had, we were having this random conversation with my whole family. We're talking about like my dog. And look, well, how much we, cause one of our friends had a dog get sick, something boy, spent a bunch of money on it. And so the conversation starts getting fired up with my, well, what'd you spend? What would you spend?

• 3:06:05JP Dinnell?

  Don't ask me that question.

• 3:06:06Jocko Willink?

  So my wife, my, uh, like one of my kids, well, what about you, mom? And my wife's like, I consider Odin one of my children. I was like, oh no. I was like, oh no. It's like, that's, that's a big ass price tag, bro. Yeah. I consider Odin one of my children. I'm like, okay. So let's hope this, I hope this dog doesn't get too sick or I'm gonna be freaking broke. That's what's going down.

• 3:06:29JP Dinnell?

  Dude, that sucks. His mind's like, what's the price of a nine mil round?

• 3:06:37Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 3:06:37JP Dinnell?

  I'm just saying, like, it's a dog. I'm just kidding. Somebody's losing their mind over that comment, right? I'm kidding.

• 3:06:43Jocko Willink?

  Somebody definitely is. You're kidding. Check.

• 3:06:47JP Dinnell?

  Don't watch the YouTube right now. My facial reaction.

• 3:06:50Jocko Willink?

  Did we, what else? We cover everything? We up to speed? Um, we got the stuff done?

• 3:06:55JP Dinnell?

  Hey, if people are coming to the muster in, in October and they want to hang out, we're actually doing a Jesus and Jiu Jitsu event the Saturday after the muster. So October 21st.

• 3:07:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay. This is in Tejas?

• 3:07:05JP Dinnell?

  In Tejas. And it's gonna be no gi.

• 3:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:07:07JP Dinnell?

  We usually do gi. This will be no gi. So it'll be easy for people to travel with rash guards and shorts and Stefan Banta, who is the number one ranked brown belt in the world's now a black belt under Jocko Rocha. He's gonna be teaching this seminar, which is rad.

• 3:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Where's it gonna be? Is it gonna be where we do the muster stuff or is it gonna be somewhere else?

• 3:07:24JP Dinnell?

  No, that would have been cool, but that would have cost us a lot of money, you know, or ministry. We don't have a lot of money. Um, but it's gonna be at, uh, double five mid cities. So one of the affiliate gyms.

• 3:07:34Jocko Willink?

  How big is double five mid cities?

• 3:07:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm just thinking that when people hear this.

• 3:07:41JP Dinnell?

  I mean, if that's the problem.

• 3:07:42Jocko Willink?

  Is there a signup thing or?

• 3:07:44JP Dinnell?

  No, it's just all hands. All hands. Like, hey, just show up. It's free. I mean, cool. No, that would be, hey, if we had it to the point where there's so many people that we couldn't do Jiu Jitsu and we had to rotate people out. I mean, that's a great problem to have. Um, I just, I, you know, I did think about like, oh, maybe we could host it. Hey, here's the deal. If I get hundreds of messages on Instagram and our Jesus and Jiu Jitsu, uh, page gets hundreds of messages, then I'll do something to raise some money to where we can rent out Matt's space. Uh, we'll, we'll figure out something. I don't, I mean, who knows? If that happens, that's a good problem and we'll work through it.

• 3:08:20Jocko Willink?

  So free Jiu Jitsu and Jesus seminar?

• 3:08:23JP Dinnell?

  Yep.

• 3:08:24Speaker 02

  October 21st in Dallas, Fort Worth, that double five mid cities.

• 3:08:28Jocko Willink?

  Muster's already sold out. We have the San Diego muster coming up. We're selling out quick too. So just be advised of that. So cool. There you go. JP. What else we got? We got Jocko Fuel, obviously. We got Hydrate. We got Greens. We got Jocko Go, which I've drank in one and a half at this point in time. What else we also got?

• 3:08:46Speaker 02

  That new pre-workout.

• 3:08:48Jocko Willink?

  The new pre-workout. Look, I know you're a pre-workout guy, right?

• 3:08:52Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 3:08:53Jocko Willink?

  And I have now been toying with it, right? Cause it's crazy.

• 3:08:58Speaker 02

  Experimenting.

• 3:08:59Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy.

• 3:09:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09:00Jocko Willink?

  It it's crazy, but it's freaking damn dude.

• 3:09:04Speaker 02

  I only drank one go during this in case I was gonna get like a little dry scoop hitter of that pre-workout. I didn't know.

• 3:09:10Jocko Willink?

  It's it's no joke.

• 3:09:11Speaker 02

  It's so good.

• 3:09:13Jocko Willink?

  So that's the, we got, we got the pre-workout that's out. We got Molk, which is a godsend.

• 3:09:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:09:19Jocko Willink?

  Where else can you just get 30 grams of protein in less than 30 seconds?

• 3:09:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09:25Jocko Willink?

  Less than 30 seconds.

• 3:09:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. See, and I did notice that too recently where you know how like, you know, I mean, I'm sure you've downed the RTD ones, right? You've downed a whole one in one, one hit, right? Okay. So I've never done that with any other protein drink.

• 3:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:09:39Speaker 02

  I've done this probably 50% of the time with this one. For real. Cause it's a, and I was thinking, oh, maybe they're just smaller. I don't know. Maybe, but it's cause it tastes good. And here's another hack. I don't know if you'd call it a hack, but you know how like after Jiu-Jitsu, right? You know, you're drinking your water or whatever. You go home and you're like, oh, I'm kind of thirsty for like a water or cold ice, what something like this. Bro, try drink a Molk. It's actually kind of like on the refreshing side, but it's still that hitter.

• 3:10:09Jocko Willink?

  And I'm gonna put me little on blast in the Jocko Fuel team. Will there ever be a strawberry RTD? Uh, I think it's on the product roadmap, but you know what is coming?

• 3:10:21Jocko Willink?

  Coffee.

• 3:10:22JP Dinnell?

  Oh, that coffee one. I tried it when we went to the Origin Summit.

• 3:10:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:25JP Dinnell?

  They had it.

• 3:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:26JP Dinnell?

  I've told a few people. I'm glad you said it because I've been very cryptic.

• 3:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know. It's probably secret. I don't know. Sorry.

• 3:10:32JP Dinnell?

  If it is.

• 3:10:33Speaker 02

  Wait, is it coffee, coffee or coffee flavored?

• 3:10:35JP Dinnell?

  It's yes, coffee flavored with caffeine and protein.

• 3:10:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So it's like a freaking, okay.

• 3:10:42JP Dinnell?

  I'm okay with that coming before strawberry.

• 3:10:43Jocko Willink?

  So I don't drink coffee and I don't like coffee, but of course I had to try it just to see like what the deal is. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. It. Do you know what tiramisu is?

• 3:10:55JP Dinnell?

  Tiramisu, yeah. Tiramisu is good.

• 3:10:58Jocko Willink?

  Tiramisu has some kind of like coffee in it, right? If there's something in it that's coffee, it's, wait, what's that other small coffee called?

• 3:11:05JP Dinnell?

  Espresso.

• 3:11:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's got something like that in it, right? Tiramisu. This somehow tastes like tiramisu, like it tastes sweet, it's good. So anyways, we got that coming. Um, what else? Jocko Fuel.

• 3:11:19Speaker 02

  Hydrate. So hydrate, and I told you this, right? I told you my morning routine, daily, non-negotiable, hydrate creatine. If you're doing a workout first thing in the morning, you add the pre-workout.

• 3:11:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:30Speaker 02

  Boom, I report back with your success.

• 3:11:34JP Dinnell?

  So you're saying you mix hydrate, pre-workout and creatine all in one drink?

• 3:11:38Speaker 02

  If I'm working out first thing in the morning, if I'm not working out first thing in the morning, it's just the hydrate and the protein. Or sorry, hydrate and the creatine.

• 3:11:45JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 3:11:46Speaker 02

  Same saying, hydrate, creatine, boom, water, easy money.

• 3:11:49JP Dinnell?

  Aiden's been on the creatine milk train.

• 3:11:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:11:52JP Dinnell?

  That kid's getting big.

• 3:11:53Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 3:11:54JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, he is. You're fucking.

• 3:11:55Jocko Willink?

  Freaking legit.

• 3:11:57JP Dinnell?

  I can't wait. Senior wrestling season. I am so fired up.

• 3:12:01Jocko Willink?

  It's on. It is on.

• 3:12:02JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:03Jocko Willink?

  Uh, damn. Oh, yeah. Speaking of hydrate, so I was talking to my daughter, my oldest daughter the other day. And like, we're just talking and all of a sudden, and she was, she was coming home from that.

• 3:12:13Jocko Willink?

  She's coming home for jiu jitsu and all of a sudden, you know, I'm like saying to her, she goes, "Yes!" And I was like, "What?" She's like, "Oh, I had hydrate in my bag." And I was like, "Yo!" She's like, "They got that little... When you get done training, bruh, when you get done training and you're just, just sweat everywhere." So...

• 3:12:31JP Dinnell?

  I also travel with them because travel dehydrates me. I think it travel dehydrates most people. So I always have one in my backpack and my fanny pack. Like I have a few of those little individual hitters. And it's just, you mix that on the wa- with your water on the flight.

• 3:12:46Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and it's kind of a dessert thing too. Again, like I, it's sweet. It tastes sweet. And it's freaking good. And also it's got vitamin C. And it's got like a hundred milligrams of vitamin C in it too. So when you're traveling, it's like all good crossbar. Anyways, there we go. JacoFuel.com, go check it out. Go to Vitamin Shoppe, go to GNC, go to Military Commissaries, AFEES, HEB, down in Tejas. Thank you, Tejas people. Meyer, up in the, up in the Midwest. Thank you all. Crushing, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, Small Gims, Jiu Jitsu Gims, CrossFit Gims, Strength and Conditioning Gims, just gyms, just people, places where people get after it.

• 3:13:26Jocko Willink?

  If you own one of those, go, just email [email protected] and we'll set up a wholesale account for you. If you go to one of those places and you want it, tell your, tell the owner, let's make this happen. So there you go, Jocko Fuel. Get better, get stronger, get faster, get smarter, whole nine yards. OriginUSA.com. You need, need to get yourself some American-made gear, jeans, boots. I was just hunting, was unsuccessful on my hunt. I did not harvest, but I had an awesome time. I was so close to elk. Cam Haynes had, he killed an elk. The elk was two yards from him. Two yards. Cause it walked up and couldn't see him because he's in full Origin Raptor camo. Two yards.

• 3:14:09Jocko Willink?

  Two yards. It's on video. The video's not that great.

• 3:14:11JP Dinnell?

  That could have been an awesome hatchet kill.

• 3:14:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it could have been. It would have been, but it's an awesome kill anyways. Uh, just freaking epic. Yeah. The, the camera work Rihanna was doing, the camera, God bless her. She was doing multiple things. She was calling, she was filming, she had all kinds of things going on. But it is, it is a savage, uh, video. And anyways, Cam Haynes wrapped her camo, two yards elk screaming in his face kills that thing. Just, he, he said, he said, he goes, that was in self-defense, bro.

• 3:14:43Jocko Willink?

  I would be, just freaking frontal shot on an elk. Anyways, Origin USA, check out the hunt gear. Uh, jujitsu gear, obviously. We're doing jujitsu. Get your jujitsu on gi, no gi, rash guards, boots, jeans. Uh, that's what we're doing. All made in America. You're not going to support communism. You're not going to support the destruction of the environment. You're going to support freedom. You're going to support taking care of the environment. That's what you're going to do. That's what we're doing. OriginUSA.com. Go get it. RTX gear too, by the way. Oh yeah, you're wearing that, that, uh, thing right there.

• 3:15:19JP Dinnell?

  Yeah. Also, the t-shirt, oh, it's super comfortable, but also the RTX shirt I wear as my undershirt for travel for Echelon Front. So it's perfect. It's the black shirt under my Echelon Front polo. Um, you know, it's an anti-microbial.

• 3:15:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:36JP Dinnell?

  Did I say that right?

• 3:15:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You said something else, but we know what you're talking about.

• 3:15:40JP Dinnell?

  Anti-

• 3:15:40Jocko Willink?

  Microbial. Microbial.

• 3:15:42JP Dinnell?

  Anti-funk, right? Sure. So it's great because then after I get done, I could take off the polo, travel in it. It still looks professional enough, clean enough towards not, it doesn't look like unprofessional. I can get a workout in there with that same shirt later that night and it helps with my packing. Do the RTX line. The shorts, Anthony Crock, he was at immersion camp. He, he helped as an expert. One of my black belts under Formiga. I saw him the other day at the gym and they're no gi, because we got no gi pants today and tomorrow.

• 3:16:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:16:10JP Dinnell?

  In, in Dallas and he's like, bro, I haven't worn any other type of shorts since immersion camp. These RTX shorts are incredible. So.

• 3:16:19Jocko Willink?

  You know what's weird about the anti-microbial and anti-stink funk? Uh, with the first like set of RTX shirts. So Pete sends like two to me and two to Kip. And we get them and like three days later, four days later, like we're on, just three of us on like a call. And I was like, yo, my shirt freaking stinks. And Kip's like, yo, mine is heinous. And we were like, and Pete's like, I don't know. And anyways, it turns out the one their initial ones that they sent us were just sewn, but they didn't have like the treatment to it. And so they just reeked, bro. I threw it away. But that that anti smell, that anti funk, like material or the the treatment that goes through

• 3:17:02Jocko Willink?

  is like totally legit. And if you don't have it, you would have a problem. Luckily, we got it.

• 3:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:07Jocko Willink?

  So that's RTX line. Anyways, Jocko, uh, sorry, originusa.com. Get some Jocko store.com. Named and created by Echo Charles.

• 3:17:17Speaker 02

  Kinda, yeah, sure.

• 3:17:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay. What do we got there?

• 3:17:20Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know, we're all representing in our own way.

• 3:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, true.

• 3:17:23Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 3:17:24Jocko Willink?

  There we go.

• 3:17:25Speaker 02

  So if you want to represent the discipline equals freedom, which is the roots, the source, like JP is as well.

• 3:17:31Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 3:17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Oh, yeah, we got shirts and hats and hoodies and stuff like that. A lot of shirt locker. Reminder, shirt locker. New, new shirt every month.

• 3:17:41Jocko Willink?

  It's the, I think it's the only two shirts my father-in-law wears.

• 3:17:44Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:17:44Jocko Willink?

  My father-in-law Jeff, he, he loves all the design. I know I've said this before. Jamie's dad's the same way. Jamie's dad is a hundred percent. He's just, he's a shirt locker all day.

• 3:17:53Speaker 02

  Which is awesome.

• 3:17:54Jocko Willink?

  All day. Hey, is it, is the shirt that K-Dog was wearing today, was that shirt locker? It said the discipline will not allow this.

• 3:18:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, shirt locker.

• 3:18:02Jocko Willink?

  Is that brand new?

• 3:18:03Speaker 02

  Uh, no, two months ago.

• 3:18:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay, bro. Some people around here don't have that.

• 3:18:06Speaker 02

  Hey, hey, some people got it, some people don't, you know? But hey, hey, you determine your own involvement. You see what I'm saying?

• 3:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Yep, yep.

• 3:18:14Speaker 02

  So yeah, if you are involved, yeah, new shirt every month. Designs are good. Last one, yin yang.

• 3:18:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I haven't seen that one.

• 3:18:22Speaker 02

  This one freedom, yin yang. It's freaking pretty solid right there. Actually, it's not out yet. It's not the first yet. So yeah, actually, when this comes out, it'll be out. But anyway, we'll see. People seem to like the designs, is what I'm saying. So yes, it's on Jocko store.com. If you like something, go ahead, get something.

• 3:18:37Jocko Willink?

  Yo, if you need steak, by the way, you got some, we got some options for you. We got primalbeef.com. Freaking legit, awesome steak. I, I must have had nine of them in the past, like six days.

• 3:18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got mine too, by the way. So the kid, you know, you know how it comes with dry ice, right? You get a lot of time when you ship. So kids like, oh, bro, the kids love the dry ice. It's like a potion you put in the water. Anyway, that aside, the hot dogs. Bro, you can tell when it's like a sweatshop hot dog and like a.

• 3:19:09Jocko Willink?

  A primal beef.

• 3:19:10Speaker 02

  For real hot dog.

• 3:19:11Jocko Willink?

  A primalbeef.com.

• 3:19:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Bro, we chopped it up, put in the chili. Oh, man.

• 3:19:15Jocko Willink?

  So

• 3:19:15Speaker 02

  How they do it?

• 3:19:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I know how they do it.

• 3:19:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, the fruit finished.

• 3:19:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they got it going on.

• 3:19:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:19:21Jocko Willink?

  So we got primalbeef.com. That's in Virginia. We got Colorado Craft Beef, by the way, which is emerging onto the scene. Colorado Craft Beef, another just awesome, awesome ranch with awesome beef. And we got that working, so check out Colorado Craft Beef if you need beef. And then finally, obviously, Little Cattle Co. We got some options for steak. Look, you need steak. You need steak. So that's why you think I'm involved in some steak? I'm involved in some steak. We're eating steak. We eat a lot of steak. We're even eating beef hot dogs now. That's what's going down. Putting it in chili, apparently.

• 3:20:04Speaker 02

  Actually, bro, I'm not really that down for hot dogs in general. Not because, because, because, not because they taste bad.

• 3:20:10Jocko Willink?

  But just like the

• 3:20:11Speaker 02

  I don't mind.

• 3:20:12Jocko Willink?

  The thing.

• 3:20:12Speaker 02

  The whole thing, the whole idea, bro. You ever look, you know how, you know, when they say, see how the sausage is made? Bro, it should be, see how the hot dogs are made. Bro, it's like 10 times worse.

• 3:20:20JP Dinnell?

  And ground beef. That's what I've learned. Like, that's what Stevens educated me on. And, and since we launched Little Cattle Co. And, you know, all these primal beef and Colorado craft. Like, if you're not getting it from these companies, like, your ground beef, like, I would be just, bro, just do your research. And you know what? You talk about what's cool about this industry. When I first talked about Little Cattle Co., I think that was episode 376. Um, the guys from Colorado Craft reached out to me on Instagram. They said, hey, if there's anything we can, Jeff, he was like, hey, if there's anything we can do to help, let us know. And I was like, that's crazy. It just shows you their intent and how cool the agricultural, just beef industry is. Because it's like, hey, we're going to help out.

• 3:21:03JP Dinnell?

  And instead of having this scarcity mindset, it's like, no, why don't we have the mindset of growing and expanding? Like, our customer base and our reach and, and people's knowledge of like, hey, why? It's good to know what's going into your food and your bodies and you're helping Americans. You're helping the small, you know, the smaller companies like you order for our company. You know, right now, like Steven and his wife are picking it up and his family is at the warehouse right now stocking the freezers. Like you follow us on Instagram, you'll see like his son Brody is literally going to the freezers and pulling out the orders and filling them up. It's just, it's a really cool thing, you know, and Aiden's gonna be working there this, you know, in the evenings in the summer as well.

• 3:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Once wrestling season's over.

• 3:21:46JP Dinnell?

  Well, yes, that's his focus.

• 3:21:47Jocko Willink?

  During wrestling season, he's gonna be eating. He's gonna be consuming.

• 3:21:49JP Dinnell?

  Yes.

• 3:21:50Jocko Willink?

  What weight is he doing this year?

• 3:21:53JP Dinnell?

  I don't know, man. I think he's gonna try.

• 3:21:54Jocko Willink?

  What's he walking around at right now?

• 3:21:56JP Dinnell?

  In the 190s.

• 3:21:57Jocko Willink?

  Damn dude. What is he, 6'2"?

• 3:21:59JP Dinnell?

  I think he's 6'2", yes. Yeah. I don't think he's hit 6'3" yet.

• 3:22:03Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 3:22:03JP Dinnell?

  6'2". He wrestled at 175 last year.

• 3:22:05Jocko Willink?

  Hang him upside down.

• 3:22:08Jocko Willink?

  Let him decompress.

• 3:22:09JP Dinnell?

  Yeah, the industry's cool and those guys at Colorado Craft, I thought it was really cool how, how nice and helpful they were.

• 3:22:15Jocko Willink?

  Great companies, just great companies doing the right things.

• 3:22:17JP Dinnell?

  Same with Sean, since he launched and we launched, it's like, hey, like we're bouncing and stuff, stuff pass on each other and it's just, I just, I love it. It's awesome.

• 3:22:26Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So get your good steak from one of those places. Subscribe to the podcast under, to Jocko Underground. Check that out, jacoun underground.com. We, we control it. So that way no one can tell us what to do. And look, we don't, we, we don't cause them problems over here, but you don't know what's gonna happen. So jacoun underground.com, check that out. YouTube, subscribe to all the YouTube channels. Psychological Warfare, that's still in action, by the way. If you need a reminder, I talked about reminding yourself, there's a reminder for you. Check that one out. It's on iTunes, Google Play, or all MP3 platforms. What year did that come out? Do you remember?

• 3:23:02JP Dinnell?

  16, I think.

• 3:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Damn dude. I was saying I was gonna make another one of those, but I kinda stopped saying it, but I do owe the world. I owe some people.

• 3:23:10JP Dinnell?

  I feel like just generally speaking, you're, a lot of the stuff you say, I mean, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a hodgepodge for sure, but it's, it can be used for the same function as Psychological Warfare, I've found.

• 3:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay. Well, I like it. That's what we're doing. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making awesome stuff to hang on your wall, written a bunch of books. Obviously, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, expanded a dish. Black, cool looking cover. Get it. Order it.

• 3:23:38Jocko Willink?

  Get this information that we talked about today and then all the other books that I've written, especially the Warrior Kid books. Get your kids the Warrior Kid books, please. Get your neighbors' kids the Warrior Kid books. That is gonna help them so much. And all the things that you know you should tell your kids to do and that you tell them to do and they don't really listen to you, they will listen to Uncle Jake, proven fact. Proven fact. They don't want to listen to you. They will listen to Uncle Jake. So get those Warrior Kid books for all your kids. Ashlan Front, you've heard us talk about that today. We solve problems through leadership. All your problems are leadership problems. Go to ashlanfront.com. Come to one of our gigs. That's what we do. Bring us into your company. And also, we have an online training platform, extremeownership.com.

• 3:24:21Jocko Willink?

  You can learn these things that we talked about today. You can learn to utilize them in your daily life, in your family, with yourself, with your company, with your business, with your pickup basketball team. These principles are for everything that you do and you interact with other human beings. When you're trying to build the relationships that we talked about. So go to extremeownership.com and you can take these courses online. There's free courses on there, by the way. This isn't like, oh, a big money grab. No, we just want you to learn this stuff. It's gonna make your life better.

• 3:24:56JP Dinnell?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:57Jocko Willink?

  So check it out, extremeownership.com. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. Really helps out a lot of people that JP and I know personally. We've seen it transform them. Doing medical treatments that the government doesn't pay for. So Hyperbaric Chamber, just incredible support that she gives. So AmericasMightyWarriors.org, if you want to get involved in that. HeroesandHorses.org, Micah Fink, up there in the mountains. He's up there in the mountains right now.

• 3:25:42Jocko Willink?

  He just got done like skinning an elk that he killed with a freaking carved stick.

• 3:25:51Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's doing, but he just got out of the, he did just get out of the field. He took two, two groups this, this season. Takes veterans up there into the mountains where they can find themselves again. And it's, it's helped guys out so much. So check that out, heroesandhorses.org. Also Jimmy May has got that organization that he started behind, beyond the brotherhood.org. Jimmy May helping guys figure out what their next mission's gonna be and help them get into that next mission. So there you go, beyond the brotherhood.org. If you want to connect with us, JP is on Instagram. He's on Twitter at JP Danelle, two N's, two L's.

• 3:26:33Jocko Willink?

  And little story behind two N's, two L's, that's what Stoner told me.

• 3:26:38Jocko Willink?

  I was like, I was, I was about to write your name on something. And I was like, we got Danelle and he's like, two N's, two L's. And I, I don't know why I remember that, but I just remember him saying, he knew that I wouldn't know how to spell it. Yeah. And he's like, two N's, two L's, check. So that's why I've never misspelled your name. That's amazing. Echo is at Echo Charles, I'm at Jocko Willink on the social media things. But just be careful, cause the algorithm, the time waster, the, the dark pervert of wasted time is on there. It's in there, it's in Instagram, it's called an algorithm and it's got your name. And it knows what you're trying to think about and it's gonna intercede as much as it possibly can.

• 3:27:23Jocko Willink?

  And waste and destroy your life. If it, if you let it, if you let it, it will waste and destroy your life. That's what it'll do. It'll send you from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing. Dark, hey, have you ever gotten led out of an Instagram scroll session? Have you ever gotten led out where it's like, hey, this just took me to something that's less interesting than the last thing. So I don't want to look at it anymore. No, it doesn't do that.

• 3:27:48Jocko Willink?

  Every single thing is selected based on well, the way you look at that screen and how long you look at something. And then it figures out what can entice you and it shows you like an A B. Like it first shows it, well, maybe he's going in this direction. Oh, no, he's not, he's going, oh, give him four more of those. This thing is freaking evil.

• 3:28:07Jocko Willink?

  So just, just get off of it. You want to check in, check in, but I'd rather you don't, honestly. I'd rather you don't check in. I'd rather you just do more burpees. That's what I'd rather you do. JP, thanks for coming down. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for everything you've done for me, that you continue to do for me, everything you did for the teams, everything you did for our country, and everything that you're continuing to do now, with everything that you're doing, all the lessons that you teach, the principles, spreading the principles. Just, thank you. It's, uh, thank you. It'll, it'll always, it'll, it'll never cease to amaze me, everything that you've done for me, and I appreciate it. Also, thanks to all the men and women out there who are serving right now, and who have

• 3:28:52Jocko Willink?

  served. And if I might say so, we didn't talk about this much today, but I want to give a special and solemn appreciation to the snipers and machine gunners, right? Which JP was both a sniper and a machine gunner. And our machine gunners and our snipers kept so many Americans alive with their skills and their tenacity. So, special thanks tonight to all you pig gunners out there, and all you snipers in the military. Thanks for what you do. And also, thanks to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders. Thanks for what you do to keep us

• 3:29:33Jocko Willink?

  safe here at home. And everyone else out there. Leadership is hard. Life is hard. And making leadership decisions is one of the hardest aspects of leadership, but it doesn't have to be.

• 3:29:52Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't have to be. You can follow the protocol. You can check the list. You can go through the loop. You can go to the book. You can refer to the book. You can use the book. And this applies not just to leadership strategy and tactics, field manual. Set up those reminders, so you don't stray from the path. Refer back to the things that ground you as a person. And then detach, detach. Take a step back, so you can really see what's happening in the world. Don't get caught up inside your own head. You gotta take a step back.

• 3:30:30Jocko Willink?

  That's what you need to do and keep an open mind. Closed minds don't make good decisions. Closed minds don't see the mistakes that they're making. So detach, keep an open mind and lead.

• 3:30:46Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is JP and Echo and Jocko out.