214: How to Overcome Our Natal Defects. Patton's General Instructions and Keys to Victory

0:00:00 - Opening 0:07:32 - Patton's General orders and Keys to victory. 1:41:50 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:16:45 - Closing Gratitude Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 214 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  Dear George.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  At 0700 this morning, the BBC announced that the German radio had just come out with an announcement of the landing of allied paratroops and of large numbers of assault craft near the shore. So that is it.

• 0:30Jocko Willink?

  This group of unconquerable heroes whom I command are not in yet, but we will be soon. I wish I was there now as it is a lovely sunny day for battle and I am fed up with just sitting. I have no immediate idea of being killed, but one can never tell and none of us can live forever. So if I should go, don't worry, but set yourself to do better than I have. All men are timid on entering any fight, whether it is the first fight or the last fight. All of us are timid.

• 1:06Jocko Willink?

  Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.

• 1:12Jocko Willink?

  You will never do that because of your bloodlines on both sides. I think I've told you the story of Marshal Taurine who fought under Louis XIV. On the morning of one of his last battles, he had been fighting for 40 years. He was mounting his horse when a young aide de camp who had just come from the court and had never missed a meal or heard a hostile shot said, Mr. Taurine, it amazes me that a man of your supposed courage should permit his knees to tremble as he walks out to mount.

• 1:48Jocko Willink?

  Taurine replied, my Lord Duke, I admit that my knees do tremble. But should they know where I shall this day take them, they would shake even more.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  That is it. Your knees may shake, but they will always take you toward the enemy.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, so much for that. There are apparently two types of successful soldiers. Those who get on by being unobtrusive and those who get on by being obtrusive. I am of the latter type and seem to be rare and unpopular, but it is my method. One has to choose a system and stick to it. People who are not themselves are nobody.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  To be a successful soldier, you must know history. Read it objectively. Dates and even the minute details of tactics are useless. What you must know is how man reacts.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  Weapons change, but man who uses them changes not at all.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  To win battles, you do not beat weapons, you beat the soul of man of the enemy.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  To do that, you have to destroy his weapons, but that is only incidental. You must read biography and especially autobiography. If you do that, it will, you will find that war is simple.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  Decide what will hurt the enemy most within the limits of your capabilities to harm him and then do it.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash. My personal belief is that if you have a 50% chance, take it. Because of the superior fighting qualities of American soldiers, lead me, led by me, will surely give you the extra 1% necessary.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  In Sicily, I decided as a result of my information, observations and a sixth sense that I have, that the enemy did not have another large scale attack in his system. I bet my shirt on that and I was right. You cannot make war safely, but no dead general has ever been criticized. So you have that way out always.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  I am sure that if every leader who goes into battle will promise himself that he will either come out a conqueror or a corpse, he is sure to win.

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  There is no doubt of that.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  Defeat is not due to losses, but to the destruction of the soul of the leaders.

• 4:41Jocko Willink?

  The most vital quality a soldier can possess is self-confidence, utter, complete, and bumptious. You can have doubts about your good looks, about your intelligence, about your self-control, but to win in war, you must have no doubts about your ability as a soldier.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  What success I have had results from the fact that I have always been certain that my military reactions were correct. Many people do not agree with me. They are wrong.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  The unerring jury of history written long after both of us are dead will prove me correct.

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  Note that I speak of military reactions. No one is born with them any more than anyone is born with muscles.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  You can be born with the soul capable of correct military reactions, or the body capable of having big muscles, but both qualities must be developed by hard work.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  The intensity of your desire to acquire any special ability depends on character, on ambition. I think that your decision to study this summer instead of enjoying yourself shows that you have character and ambition. And they are wonderful possessions. Soldiers, all men in fact, are natural hero worshippers. Officers with a flair for command realize this and emphasize in their conduct, dress, and deportment, the qualities they seek to produce in their men.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  When I was a second lieutenant, I had a captain who was very sloppy and usually late.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  He got after his men for just those faults. He was a failure.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  The troops I have commanded have always been well dressed, been smart saluters, been prompt and bold in action because I have personally set the example in these qualities. The influence one man can have on thousands is a never-ending source of wonder to me. You are always on parade.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  Officers who through laziness or a foolish desire to be popular fail to enforce discipline and the proper wearing of uniforms and equipment not in the presence of the enemy will also fail in battle.

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  And if they fail in battle, they are potential murderers.

• 7:17Jocko Willink?

  There is no such thing as a good field soldier. You are either a good soldier or a bad soldier.

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, this has been quite a sermon. But don't get the idea that it is my swan song because it is not.

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  I have not finished my job yet.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  Signed, your affectionate father.

• 7:47Jocko Willink?

  And that right there, if you haven't guessed, is a letter from General George S. Patton to his son George as the day unfolded.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  And

• 8:00Jocko Willink?

  as you can see from the letter and also if you know anything about Patton at all, he was well-known not only for his skill in battle and as a tactician and as a leader, but also well-known for his ego.

• 8:15Jocko Willink?

  Let me read this part again. The most vital quality a soldier can possess is self-confidence, utter, complete, and bumptious.

• 8:24Jocko Willink?

  And what bumptious means is, is proud to a degree where it's irritating. So it means what it sounds like, right? And he's saying that's how you need to be. He continues on. You can have doubts about your good looks, about your intelligence, about your self-control, but to win in war, you must have no doubts about your ability as a soldier. What success? I have had results from the fact that I have always been certain that my military reactions were correct. Many people do not agree with me. They are wrong. Now, that's obviously very contrary to what I think, which is the most important characteristic for a leader to have is humility.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  So we're actually saying the exact opposite things here. I mean, straight up the opposite things. He's saying the most important thing is self-confidence, but he doesn't say self-confidence. He says utter and complete and bumptious. That's what he says. That's not, that's not humility.

• 9:25Jocko Willink?

  So where does this wash out?

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  We have to remember that Patton's career was not unblemished. And this is the thing that I'm going to keep kind of tying this back to.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  A lot of the things that I think, you remember when we did Chairman Mao? And we talked about Chairman Mao and his methodology for winning in guerrilla war? And everything that he said, well, wasn't like aligned with what I say. And what are the key components of that? Maybe not everything, but a lot of what he was saying, and I'd have to review it again, but a lot of what he's saying. But one thing that he absolutely said, Chairman Mao.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  Father of Communist China said all throughout that, you know, the leaders in the field need to make decisions, they need to step up, they need to lead. And what he's talking about is decentralized command. And what puzzles me about that is because he recognized that you needed to have decentralized command for a military victory, right? To win. But then he never transposed that idea of decentralized command into his government. And we actually do know that centralized government doesn't work any better than centralized military command, than centralized business leadership. It doesn't work. So he never made that connection, apparently. And sometimes when I read about Patton, if you know about Patton,

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  and you know about his career, and you know what happened to him, sometimes you, it hurts a little bit to know that this guy, who was such a great patriot, who was such a great tactician, that if he could have applied some of his principles of leadership on the battlefield, if he could have applied those to his interactions with other people, he might have ended up in a much better position. And we'll get into some of that. Some of the, some of the things that he did. Uh, one, there was an attack on a place called Fort Driant in the fall of 1944. And I got this little, I wanted to kind of summarize it.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  And there's a thing called the Warfare History Network that summarized it very well. It said, "The entire operation gradually settled into a stalemate, with the Americans unable to achieve any further gains, and the men hanging on desperately to what had been won in the hard fighting. Food, water, and ammunition were running out, and the men holding positions underground were exposed to the dust and fumes of the tunnels. By October 9th, Patton's attitude about the attack had changed completely." He said, "The show is going sour, we will have to pull out." It had quickly become a no win situation for the Americans because both daylight and nocturnal assaults had failed.

• 12:22Jocko Willink?

  Daytime attacks were vulnerable to the deadly fire that rained down on Fort Driant from the adjacent forts. At night assaults were quickly quickly broken up and driven into confusion when the German squads emerged from their underground tunnels. The 3rd Army suffered 64 men killed, 547 wounded, 187 missing assumed captured. So, and not achieving the objective. So that's not good, right? So the idea to think that everything I think of is correct.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  And there you go. Even Patton, guess what he had to do? He had to go, okay, this isn't working. He might not like to admit that, but he had to say, this isn't working too well. Ahem, let's just not do this. Another thing he did, he orchestrated a raid on a POW camp called Old Flag 13B. It was in Poland. And there's, I'm not going to go into the details now, but he actually thought that perhaps his son-in-law was a prisoner there. And so he organized this, this raid and a guy named Abraham Baum conducted the raid.

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  300 men went on the mission, of which 32 were confirmed killed in action. And another 200, over 200 were missing or taken prisoner. And only 35 of the 300 made it back to friendly lines. So that is not good. And then on top of that, here's, here's where I look at and I say, if he would have had more humility. And, and once again, I gotta say this, right? Cause I talk about humility all the time. And there's a reason that I talk about humility all the time. Okay. And the dichotomy of leadership, can you be too humble? Echo Charles, can you be too humble?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you can. Can you have too much confidence? Yes, that becomes arrogance and ego. That's bad. The reason that I talk about humility so much is because it is the of the two leanings that people can make in the dichotomy. Most of the time, most of the time, it's they're too confident. That's most of the time, right? Because if you have someone that's moving into a leadership position, they have to have some confidence to get there. So therefore, a person in a leadership position is going to lean towards having confidence, which is going to lean them towards if they're going to be either not confident enough or too confident, they're going to lean towards too much confidence, right? Because the person that lacks confident, well, they're not in a leadership position. They didn't work to, they didn't maneuver to get there. They didn't believe in themselves. So they didn't really get there.

• 14:51Jocko Willink?

  Are there times where you have to talk to a leader about, hey, you need more confidence? You need to be less humble? Absolutely, there are times. But Patton clearly was an example of he leaned towards too much ego, too much confidence. So what I'm saying is, and that was part of his power too, right? You get around someone that's super confident about things and they're like, oh no, we're going to make this happen. And you go, yes, we are. I'm following this guy. So confidence and ego is a positive thing. It absolutely is. Too much of it and you can get yourself in trouble. Let's look at what happened at, towards the end of the war. Patton got relieved of command.

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  They moved him out of commanding combat troops and they moved him into a position, which was a, it was like a, what's that word? It was like a figurehead position. Okay, cool. They put him in this, he was, they put him in charge of the 15th Army, which sounds really cool, but they were actually just responsible for capturing the history of what was happening. So we're talking low impact job. No, and by the way, no command in the Pacific because they were still fighting and he wanted to go to the Pacific. He didn't go, didn't take over any major troops, didn't even go, didn't even go to the Pacific either.

• 16:14Jocko Willink?

  Not even in charge of like the occupation army in Germany, not even in charge of that. So think about that. Here's this guy and because of his tactical prowess, he did great on the battlefield, but as soon as they could, they shifted him over and put him out to pasture. Why is that? Because of his ego. So.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  That's what bums me out is because if he would have just had some humility to think, how am I going to play this game a little bit better? You know, how am I going to interact with my superiors? With my superior officers, how am I going to interact with them? He probably would have, if he absolutely, I shouldn't probably, but he absolutely could have ended up being the supreme allied commander for sure.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  But he didn't. So, that being said, of course, there's all kinds of things we can learn from Patton. And who knows, maybe he was writing this, maybe his son wasn't a very confident person. Maybe he was trying to bolster his son up in this particular letter. But there's a lot of things that he wrote. And I mean, there's a lot and it's awesome to read. But the last time we covered letter of instruction one and two to his troops. This is again, going back towards the, towards prior to D-Day. And we might as well just jump into letter of instruction number three. Now, this one was, was very, very tactical.

• 17:46Jocko Willink?

  And by that, I mean very, I shouldn't say, shouldn't even say tactical because tactics is good. Very specific, talking about, you know, types of armor and what to do in very specific situations. So I'm going to take a little bit less from this letter, but there is a bunch of things in here that are relevant, are powerful and things that anybody that's in a leadership situation can utilize. So, so this one's a little bit, I'm jumping around a bit. Uh, skip, I shouldn't say I'm jumping around, but I'm skipping more stuff in this letter. But you can find these online if you want to. So, one of the things he says, "To begin with, haste and speed are not synonymous.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  By this, I mean that hasty attacks do not produce speedy successes or speedy advances because hasty attacks are not coordinated attacks. Haste makes ways." So rushing to get something done, not effective. Haste, that's what he means by haste, which is weird because I, I think, when I think of the word haste, and I don't want to dive into like the etymology of the word haste, but. I think it has a little bit of a nowadays, I think it has a little bit of a positive connotation, right? Hey, we need to make haste. We need to move quick. Like it's a good thing. But I think even just this short time ago, it's more aligned with the idea of haste makes waste, right? Like if it's more like rushing.

• 19:09Jocko Willink?

  Cause rushing doesn't have a positive connotation, right? When you say, hey, you need to rush. Like no one says that. No one says, hey, rush with your homework to your kid. You don't say rush. No, you say hurry. You need to say move faster, but you don't say, you don't say rush. Cause that means you're gonna miss something.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, almost like rush means hurry with the, the, the note that it's like in a bet in a negative way. Or in a like

• 19:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and so I think this, at this time period haste had that

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:41Jocko Willink?

  Connotation as well. So he's saying haste makes waste. Continuing in an armored division, as in an infantry division, attacks must be coordinated. And the infantry and the tanks and the guns must work as a unit. Success depends upon the coordinated use of guns and the tanks. So what does that mean? Cover and move. That's what it means. Work together as a team. All your different elements in your company, in your team, in your business need to work together. Wouldn't that seem obvious?

• 20:13Jocko Willink?

  Wouldn't it seem obvious?

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:14Jocko Willink?

  It's not obvious. Well, it's, it's obvious. It's hard to do. People don't do it like they should.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the many things that seem obvious when you say it, or when you're not involved in it. But then, yeah, when you're inside it's like

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's why in leadership strategy and tactics, when I was talking about what to do as a new leader. And I, I say like, read this before you go into a meeting. Read this when you go to bed at night. Because, because you can't just read it. Oh, cool. This, okay. I read through them. Now I'm good. No, you need to embed it into your brain.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Read what? The laws of combat?

• 20:43Jocko Willink?

  No, the section on page 158 of leadership strategy and tactics. And the reason that I know that is because people, I, people said, I just answer, I go ahead, go to page 158 leadership strategy and tactics. But you can't just read it one time. Be like, okay, no, you need to embed those things into your brain.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of like this, right? How long does it take to embed in the brain that, oh, we need to work together?

• 21:07Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more cover and move here. When tanks are advancing, they must use their guns for what is known as reconnaissance by fire. That is, they must shoot at any terrestrial object behind which an anti-tank gun might be concealed and take these targets under fire at a range greater than the range at which an anti-tank gun is effective. In other words, at a range of greater than 2,000 yards. Actually, that's not even really a cover move. It's kind of a little bit of a cover move, but it's, that's being proactive. Right? Hey, there could be an anti-tank gun over there. The anti-tank gun is, has a range of whatever, 1,000 meters. At 2,000 meters, I'm hitting those targets. Somebody hit me up on Twitter and said there was, there's a name for that type of shooting and I can't remember what it is.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  But it's shooting where you think the enemy might be.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  In tank versus tank duels, the first round should be armor piercing. If this fails, the second round must be white phosphorus and short so as to give our tank a chance to maneuver. Because by keeping its gun laid on with smoke, it has a better chance of getting in the second telling shot than has the enemy. Who, when he emerges from the smoke, does not know the location of our vehicle. Armored infantry should make a violent attack using all its men and weapons. So that, that's a cool one.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  You fire your first shot, cool. The second shot, you gotta be, you gotta put some smoke out so they can't see what you're doing. You should have hit him on the first shot. If you don't, you're good because you put in some smoke where you still know where he is. But he has to look through this giant smoke. And so when he, when the smoke clears, he doesn't know where you are and you're, you're getting another round on him.

• 22:48Jocko Willink?

  We used to, uh, set up our magazines with something called a party mix. So do you have different types of rounds for your weapon? And so guys would put like armor piercing rounds, like the first couple rounds, armor piercing rounds. The second couple, I think everyone should do their own thing because like the second one would be, uh, like a... A more of a anti-personnel type round that's gonna and this is against the Geneva Convention. It's not, it's not called an expanding round because it doesn't expand, but there's rounds that we have that tumble when they hit. So it'd be some of those, then some tracers at the bottom, like all kinds of like you just got to set up a little party mix.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do that with shotgun shells.

• 23:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, we do, do we?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  We do, yeah.

• 23:30Jocko Willink?

  Look at this guy. Oh, tactical echo coming in hot with the shotgun shells.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  It's just anyway.

• 23:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Well, you know what I'm saying, all right? That makes sense.

• 23:40Jocko Willink?

  I do, indeed.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  You understand that I understand what you're talking about, is what I'm saying.

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  Tactical echo coming in hot. That's what we do with shotgun shells. What party mix do you use, my friend?

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Educate. Buckshot, birdshot, slug. You know how like you'll have one after the other, you know, so they're like different. You can see how they feel or whatever.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What, so what do you have in your home?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Like double.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the shotgun?

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Double that buck.

• 24:08Jocko Willink?

  That's where you're, that's where you're going with.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what we're going with.

• 24:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Both three inch and two and three quarter.

• 24:14Jocko Willink?

  The whole, the whole magazine is filled with those?

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Well, they're not. That's what I have, but yeah, that's what I would, yeah.

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  So you don't go like three deep, I've got a slug.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 24:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I think it's just for fun when you do the party mix.

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Or in my experience, you know, my vast.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  There we go.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no.

• 24:34Jocko Willink?

  The party mix is not for friend, for fun, Echo Charles.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  In my experience.

• 24:38Jocko Willink?

  There's a reason for it. You have to think through it. There's a bunch of different reasons why you could set things up a different way, right?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yes. I would think so, yes.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  You could.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  Check. Tactical echo. This is welcome to the podcast.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  I know, bitch.

• 24:52Jocko Willink?

  This guy got a gun and now it's on, bro.

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  Check. Tell, let me know. I'm standing by here. Tell Patton what's up.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh Chuck, I probably just shut down. You ever say anything about

• 25:09Speaker 01

  I know, bro. I'm over here trying to bond with you and Patton, but

• 25:12Jocko Willink?

  We're one.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 25:14Jocko Willink?

  It is more important to get, it is more important to get the information back fast than to get it back secretly. Therefore, use clear with a limited code for name only. This is interesting. So you have encrypted radios. You have codes that you can use. And what he's saying is like, listen, and sometimes, especially now, especially in the past, that would make transmitting information a lot harder. It takes power away from the signal. Sometimes it just takes time to encrypt the message. And what he's saying is like, listen, it's more important that we get the information back there than it is that we keep it all secret. It's just an interesting point to me because it shows the importance of fast communication of letting people know what's happening.

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  This is obviously something you have to be careful of, but it's an interesting point. Just the fact that you have to keep information flowing as quickly as possible. And at this time, keeping it moving fast would trump keeping it secure.

• 26:15Jocko Willink?

  In tactical situations, because obviously there's strategic situations. I mean, we broke the German Enigma code. We broke the Japanese code and that was massively important for us to win the wars.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  So continuing, whenever German anti-tank guns have gotten our tanks, it has almost always been our own fault.

• 26:41Jocko Willink?

  In spite of years of instruction, tanks will go up obvious tank lanes such as cart tracks, open river bottoms, small roads or path or long hedges, all of which any intelligent anti-tank gunner will have a range to cover. Isn't that brilliant?

• 26:59Jocko Willink?

  Like when you're looking at the terrain you can go on, oh, look at this path. If we go down that path, guess what? The German gunners are expecting you to go down that path and they're going to be waiting for you. It's also an interesting idea of ownership. When we lose a tank, it's almost always our fault.

• 27:17Jocko Willink?

  Next, the German anti-tank gunner is a good shot. We are better shots. He is unprotected. We are behind inches of steel. If we use our heads and our American ingenuity and initiative, we have nothing to fear from the German anti-tank guns. You know what's crazy? This just hit me. As I'm reading this, he's saying these things specifically because guys were scared of these German anti-tank guns. And I'm just thinking about it from a tanker's perspective. When you're in a tank, you're all claustrophobic, you're locked in this thing. And it's this weird. It's this weird. It's this weird dichotomy. Because in one sense, you feel really protected and in another sense, you feel completely vulnerable.

• 28:02Jocko Willink?

  You feel protected because like all these little bullets aren't going to hurt you. You know, some mines aren't going to hurt you. But then at the same time, you know, one big hit and there's nothing you can do about it. You're you're gonna die. And so that's an interesting thing. He's addressing that. That thought that can go through someone's head is like, okay, yeah, I feel protected, but also one hit and I'm dead. And the way that. The way that when your armor gets pierced by an anti-tank gun, like the picture being in a tank. And there's just hot metal spraying around and they're going to kill you. Like it's an awful thing to picture.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Is it hard like, okay, when you're in the tank, you said it's kind of claustrophobic. Is it, is like hard to get in and out of there? Like it takes a little while?

• 28:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Especially if they get hit with a mine and you know, these big giant steel doors. Imagine how hard it is when that thing gets bent a little bit.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:03Jocko Willink?

  You're not getting out.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Oh, man, you're gonna panic in there. Well. I'm gonna panic in there for sure. Yeah, or even like if you.

• 29:09Jocko Willink?

  It's a nightmare.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  And not that this would happen all the time or whatever. I don't know, but. Like if it just tips over or something and it's like, oh, we gotta get out of here and you're like kind of stuck.

• 29:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's horrible.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but at the same time, it's like just it is protected like from.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's dealing with here.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's talking about here. And it's the same thing, you know, with these big. IEDs that the enemy makes where you think, hey, I'm protected. I'm in a tank, but one of those big giant IEDs can. Can do some damage.

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  Next, armored battles against infantry and anti-tanks are short and violent. They take great strength of mind and both physical and moral courage because of this violence and the speed with which they are terminated. When once launched, tanks must close at their best speed, just the same as infantry, and also just the same as infantry, they must fire while closing.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  Next, every effort must be made to attack the flank, or preferably the rear of the enemy. In executing such an attack, we must use all means at our command to prevent the enemy from stopping these turning movements. So, this is exactly what I was talking about. Think about this, every effort must be made to attack the flank, or preferably the rear of the enemy. So that's brilliant. I talk about this all the time, you don't want to attack your enemy head-on, you want to attack them from the flank, right? Clearly, he understood that. However, you can look at his history and he would attack.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  He would attack his superiors, his people around, you know, his peers, he would attack them, instead of developing a relationship, instead of coming from the flank. And it ended up putting him in a position where he didn't get the final command that he wanted to get. So, yes, my, my goal is to think about Patton from a tactical perspective and then take it one step further and apply his battlefield tactics to leadership. And I wish he would have done that.

• 31:37Jocko Willink?

  Here he says to summarize, and here's where he kind of, I skipped a bunch of stuff, but to summarize, "We must take great and calculated risks in the use of armor, but we must not dive off the deep end without first determining whether the swimming pool is full of water." That's the dichotomy of leadership. Yes, you have to take risks, but no, you don't just jump in.

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  This is a good one. "You must never halt because some other unit is stuck. If you push on, you will release the pressure on the adjacent unit and it will accompany you." That is really smart, right? Someone next to you gets bogged down and you stop to help them? And now you're gonna get bogged down too. Yeah, so don't do that. This was Dean Ladd going into Tarawa and the order was for all the Marines, "If someone gets hit, keep going. That's what we need to do." And thankfully for Dean Ladd, his men didn't obey that order,

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  but if everyone didn't obey that order on that day, they never would have made it to the beach.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  So that's not just a one-on-one, that's the same with units as well. Next, "Troops are never defeated by casualties, but by lack of resolution of guts."

• 33:03Jocko Willink?

  "Battles are won by a few brave men who refuse to fear and push on." It should be our ambition, our ambition to be members of this heroic group. So you're never gonna lose a battle because of casualties, you're gonna lose because of lack of resolution of guts. "More casualties occur among those who halt or go to the rear than among those who advance and advance firing." That's default aggressive. "We're not gonna run back, we're not gonna stop, we're gonna be default aggressive and keep maneuvering." Finally, "All of us must have a desperate desire and determination to close with the enemy and to destroy him."

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  Desperate desire. I kind of just breezed through those words, but think about what those words mean. A desperate desire and determination to close with the enemy and to destroy him.

• 34:02Jocko Willink?

  Boom. He's got a little section here called common tactical faults. It is nearly always a mistake to occupy obvious cover. This is particularly true in sparsely wooded country because the woods are clearly marked on maps and in the enemy possession and they will almost invariably be subject of concentration. This, we used to see this when I was running training, we'd put guys out on reconnaissance and they're doing a reconnaissance of some target and if there was,

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  you look up at like a hillside and there's like one little group of shrubs. You can take your, your opposing force guys and go, hey, go check out those shrubs. And there was like a 60% chance, there's the little SEAL squad or a little SEAL fire team sitting in there with a camera. And you just walk up there and it's like, gee, big surprise. There was three outcroppings of brush and you're in one of them. What a, what a surprise. So that's what he's saying here.

• 35:10Jocko Willink?

  Don't, don't take the obvious cover. Uh, when the fire starts, bayonets should be fixed. They encourage our soldiers and discourage the enemy. When a platoon or any other commander moves to the front to reconnoitre during a firefight, he must not move to the rear to disseminate information he has acquired, but rather the unit must come up to him. The sight of officers moving to the rear has a disturbing effect on the troops and serves no useful purpose. That's a brilliant little thing to think about. Hey, I'm going to go out, I'm going to go up and find out what's going on. In 40 minutes, send someone to this location and I'll tell you what's going on. Or send this squad up after me and I'll tell you what's going on.

• 35:56Jocko Willink?

  Next, and again skipping a bunch, but these are the key points. There is a ridiculous and widespread fear among all our troops that they will run out of ammunition, particularly small arms ammunition. If my, in my experience, this has never happened. Troops should remember that if they save ammunition, which they could have effectively expended against the enemy for some unforeseen contingency, they will also save the lives of a number of enemy who will participate in the contingency. So, he's saying, get some. I can tell you that, uh, guys, Indramati ran out of ammunition. Even though he may not have experienced, it happened. It happens.

• 36:39Jocko Willink?

  The, uh, that little story I've told before about Mikey Monsour making this video.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  And me showing up and everyone saying, go, go watch Mikey's video. And I'm like, cool, I go watch Mikey's video and it's him going, and he shows it to me and of course, I'm Mr. Serious. And I, and I say, Mikey, there's a firefight going on. What are you doing? Taking a video? And he's like, I was Winchester, sir. And I was like, cool, you're out of ammo, right on. Guess, guess, guess makes a video. But yes, you can run out of enemy, out of ammunition. So, maybe not a hundred percent agree with Patton on that one.

• 37:21Jocko Willink?

  The necessity for using all weapons to their maximum fire capacity during our attacks cannot be too strongly impressed on the soldiers. Any gun that is not firing is not doing its job. In the assault where marching fire is used by the infantry, every gun, machine gun and mortar must fire. So, yeah, I mean, that's what he's talking about. I think even, even to the previous point. He's talking about these assaults where you have a massive logistics train right behind you. So you're not, you really shouldn't run out of ammunition, unlike, you know, what we were doing where you might not have logistics train right there behind you. You might have, you might be kind of stuck out in the city somewhere for a little while.

• 38:04Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, get some with the guns. At the close of a fight, it is very desirable that our own dead be removed from view as rapidly as possible. After this has been accomplished, the enemy dead should be removed with the same reverence we accord our own and given a proper burial.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  Next, there is a regrettable tendency on the part of company officers and non-commissioned officers to accompany the firing line as if they were members of a well-trained chorus, simply keeping position. This attitude of mind and the actions resulting from it is impossible in battle. Officers and non-commissioned officers are there for the purpose of seeing that all the weapons of their respective little commands are functioning. They cannot see this by simply accompanying the movement. They must direct it. This is...

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  The thing about this that I think of, and I've talked about this before with Stoner, Seth Stone, who was the Delta Platoon Commander in Task Unit Bruiser, and him wanting, him staying exactly where he was supposed to stay according to the standard operating procedures while executing maneuvers on the battlefield. There's like a predetermined place where everyone's supposed to be. And I was watching him, he'd be in like the perfect predetermined place, but the predetermined place that you're in doesn't always allow you to see what you need to see as the leader. So you actually, just because that's the standard operating procedure, there are deviations that you can make and that you need to make as the leader to make sure that you can see

• 39:44Jocko Willink?

  what's going on, you can see what the next maneuver is supposed to be. And that's sort of what he's talking about here. But what he's saying is you aren't just going along with the movement. You've got to make it happen. It's the same thing I was saying to Stoner, like, hey, once the call gets made, it's not just that they're going to execute it. You've got to direct it. You've got to get a control of it and make it go to the right place.

• 40:05Jocko Willink?

  And then he says this, key point, in this letter, as in those preceding it, "I am not laying down inflexible rules. I am simply giving you my ideas."

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  So even this guy who thinks that he's so smart and thinks that all of his military intuitions are 100% correct and will be proven out in history to be the right call. Even this guy is saying, listen, I'm not laying down like things that you can't adapt from. I'm just giving you what my ideas are. And then he says, I must and do trust your military experience, courage and loyalty to make these ideas tangible. There are many ways of fighting, all of which are good if they are successful. So even the great, what's that word, bumptious?

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  General Patton is saying, oh, you know, I know I told you like I'm right all the time, but do what you gotta do. These aren't, these aren't inflexible rules. Do what you gotta do.

• 41:09Jocko Willink?

  And he wraps this one up. We are now entering the final stage of a great war, of a great victory. This victory can be obtained by the maximum use of all weapons, both physical and spiritual. It is the duty of all commanders to see that their men are fully aware of the many vile deeds perpetrated upon civilian civilization by the Germans and that they attack with the utmost determination, ferocity and hate.

• 41:42Jocko Willink?

  I am sure that every man will do his duty and I'm therefore sure that victory is simply a question of when we find the enemy. So it's interesting that he's actually telling them, you, you need to attack with hate. It's a different level. This is total war. This isn't like, oh, well, you know, attack with some dislike.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:04Jocko Willink?

  We're going to attack with hate.

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  And that's how he wraps up. That was letter of instruction number three. This is letter of instruction number four. Now they're starting to make some adjustments. He says, the acute supply situation confronting us has caused the supreme commander to direct that until further orders, the third army with its supporting troops and those elements of the ninth army placed in the line will assume the defensive.

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  Which you know he doesn't really like very much, being undefensive. It is evident that the successful accomplishment of this mission will require particular concentration upon two points. First, this change in attitude on our part must be completely concealed from the enemy, who, should he learn of it, would certainly move troops to our front and oppose other allied armies. So he's saying, "Look, we can't let them know that we're going on the defensive, because then they'll just, you know, back off and go attack somewhere else." And he says, "Second, we must be in possession of a suitable line of departure so that we can move rapidly when the supreme commander directs us to resume the offensive." And then he says, "In order to carry out the requirements of paragraph 2A",

• 43:15Jocko Willink?

  which is the one I just read, "We will not dig in, wire, or mine, but we will utilize a thin outpost zone backed at suitable places by our powerful mobile reserves. We will further ensure that all possible avenues of tank attack are registered in all of our batteries, whose guns can bear counterattacks by our mobile reserves, should be planned and executed to secure a double envelopment of the hostile effort with the purpose of not only defeating it, but destroying it." So, so that's pretty... What he's saying is, it's kind of the same strategy that the Russians take when people attack Russia, which is, "Look, we got a little line of defense. When we get attacked, we're gonna back in a little bit, back off a little bit,

• 44:00Jocko Willink?

  and then, you know, back off a little bit more, and then they attack again, back off a little bit more, and then when the time is right, we'll, we'll surround them and destroy them all." That's what he's saying. But he's saying, "Look, that's why we, that's why we don't have to dig in. We're putting a thin line of defense out there, and then when we get attacked, we'll just back up. We got, we got strong defense further back, but we're just gonna back up. We're gonna lower the enemy in, and then we're gonna envelop them."

• 44:25Jocko Willink?

  Very simple. The other thing that's good about it is when you're not dug in, as soon as you get the order to attack, boom, we're going on the attack. Cause we're not dug in. Which is again, something I talked about leadership strategy and tactics. Which I wish Patton would have read my chapter. Sorry. Speaking of ego. There you go. Revealed. I wish Patton read my chapter about don't dig in. Because how often did Patton think, hey, this is how we should do something. And when he didn't, when, when he got told another way, instead of saying, oh, okay, I understand. Okay, we'll go for it.

• 45:07Jocko Willink?

  It was resistance. It was okay. Well, we'll do it, but he didn't like it and he let that be known.

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  Which again, look, I get it. Oh, I'm not gonna just do what somebody tells me to do if I don't agree with it. No, I'm not saying that. And there's time, if it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, cool. You know, then maybe there is a time we draw the line in the sand. But these were big giant operations where it's like, okay, we do it like this, we'll do it like that. No, we should do it my way. And so much resistance. And you're gonna end up doing it anyways, by the way. That he just didn't develop the kind of relationships that he needed. And he didn't gain the kind of trust that he needed up the chain of command where they put him in to senior positions where he could have had even more impact.

• 45:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't dig in. Don't dig in around your ideas. Don't dig in.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  Even on the defense sometimes. Which I hesitate to say, cause let me, let me tell you, let me just make this note.

• 46:06Jocko Willink?

  If you're in a truly defensive position. Dig in. Cause the enemy is going to attack you and you don't want to be, you want to have a place that you can get good covering. From the enemy attack. So. I'm not saying never dig in. I'm saying most of the time, don't dig in. All right, now this next section.

• 46:27Jocko Willink?

  Is from something that Patton wrote. I want to say he wrote it in nineteen twenty-four, twenty-six, something like that. But way before World War Two, but it was after he got done with World War One. And once again, I'm not reading, reading the whole thing, but. I think the name of this essay, we'll call it, by General Patton was The Secret of Victory.

• 46:58Jocko Willink?

  And he's got, and this is, this is where you kind of start to realize that Patton was a really smart and educated individual, because he's a very eloquent writer, especially for a guy that swore so much. But very eloquent writer.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  And we'll go to this here. Despite the years of thought and oceans of ink which have been devoted

• 47:24Jocko Willink?

  to the elicitation of war, its secrets still remain shrouded in mystery.

• 47:34Jocko Willink?

  Indeed, it is due largely to the very volume of available information that the veil is so thick. So everyone's been trying to figure out war for a long time. And because so many people have written about it, that's what makes it hard. It's one of the things that makes it hard to understand is that so much stuff has been written about it. And by the way, that whole opening, opening letter to George, like we could have just broken that entire thing down. Maybe we should have. But when he's talking about you need to read history.

• 48:05Jocko Willink?

  So he goes on here. War is an art and as such is not susceptible of explanation by fixed formulae. So war's this crazy thing and it's, you can't just say, okay, this is what war is. No, it's an art. It's like trying to explain art. Can you explain art? Can you explain why someone likes this painting, but not that painting, but, but the other person likes that painting, but not this painting? You can't explain that. You can't explain why universally, most people like this painting. Universally, most people like this song. Right? You can't explain that. Otherwise, guess what? People would just go, oh, cool. I need to make a hit song. I'll just produce one. Yeah, the formula. Yeah.

• 48:46Jocko Willink?

  No one can can describe what makes a good video because Echo Charles you're here.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 48:53Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is something you are cleared hot to talk about, right?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:56Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more than weapons load out.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 49:01Jocko Willink?

  So if it was, hey, we just need to make a good video and it'll go viral.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Right, that's yeah.

• 49:07Jocko Willink?

  Right, cool. Hey, hey Echo, go make a viral video. Do me a favor. Just go make a viral video. You can't.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:12Jocko Willink?

  You can't do, you literally can't do it.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, that's a good comparison because there's so, and especially now and probably more in the future where there's gonna be a lot of information. Or a lot of people start writing about it, you know, or write more about it, about what makes a viral video, you know?

• 49:26Jocko Willink?

  That's a perfect.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  End of the day.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a perfect thing because everybody wants to make a viral video.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:32Jocko Willink?

  But I mean, everybody wants to make a viral video, but you can't just open up the formula and say, okay, cool. Uh, what we need to do is it needs to be thirty eight seconds long and it needs to have this type of soundtrack and it needs to have this type of visuals and this type of voiceover. Good. Okay, produce it. Boom.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 49:47Jocko Willink?

  Gangnam Style or whatever that was. Gangnam Style. How did, right? Was that, how did that end up being? One of the most, it might be the most viewed video of all time, right?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 50:00Jocko Willink?

  But it's up there. We know that. I know for at least three months of time, my little kids between the ages of whatever they were, six and eight.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:10Jocko Willink?

  Were walking around the house singing Gangnam Style.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Yeah, that is.

• 50:15Jocko Willink?

  And I'm saying, have it, wait, hold on, let me play Black Sabbath for you, please.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah, and even when people do try to make the formula, it's like super ambiguous.

• 50:26Jocko Willink?

  And guess what? That same guy, they're, okay, well, we've made Gangnam Style, just make another one.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:33Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't even think there was another one.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, I mean, that's like a group, right? I think that's like a, a music group.

• 50:40Jocko Willink?

  See, it's, we don't even know.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the point.

• 50:43Jocko Willink?

  It's a guy. It's a one guy.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he's like a music artist. He's an artist or whatever. I don't think it's just some comedy dude. It's like.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, it's not a comedy guy. He was a legit, like a. Uh, pop guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he made that song, but then he tried to make another one. Hmm. And it wasn't, you know, you just can't, he didn't, there's no formula. No formula, just hit. Same thing with war. And here we go back to the book, away from Gangnam Style. We're going back to the book. Yet, from the earliest time, there has been an unending effort to subject its complex and emotional structure to dissection, to enunciate rules for its waging, to make tangible its intangibility. One might as well strive to isolate the soul by the dissection of the cadaver as to seek the essence of war by the analysis of its records.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  That's a pretty powerful, right? Yeah. You might as, in order to find out what makes war, war, you, it's like looking for the soul in a body. Yeah. And then he says, yet, despite the impossibility of physically detecting the soul, its existence is proven by its tangible reflection in acts and thoughts. So, we know we exist. It's there, but you can't open up the body and find it. Hmm. So, with war, beyond its physical aspect of armed hosts, there hovers an impalpable something which on occasion so dominates the material

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  as to induce victory under circumstances quite inexplicable. So, sometimes, things happen in war that victory is achieved and no one can really even understand how. Yeah. It's inexplicable. Yeah.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  He goes on, the great warriors were too busy and often too inept to write contemporaneously of their exploits, save in the form of propaganda, propaganda reports. While what they later put on paper as biographies were retrospects colored by their vain strivings for enhanced fame or political conditions then confronting them. So, when these great warriors wrote, it was afterwards, because they didn't have time to do it while they're fighting, so afterwards, and then they kind of got a little ego involved, which here's, here's you got General Patton calling everyone out on their ego. They or there's some political situation going on. That's why they wrote it a certain way.

• 53:18Jocko Willink?

  So you don't even get the truth from the warriors themselves because they don't have time and/or they do it afterwards. In which case it's colored. Or I should say miscolored by their ego or their political environment that they're in.

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  With the efforts of historians, the case is even worse. Those who write at the time are guilty of partisanship and the urge of hero worship. So even someone that's a historian writing, oh, they're they got those problems. In peace, the scholar flourishes. In war, the soldier dies. So it comes about that we view our soldiers through the eyes of scholars and attribute to them scholarly virtues.

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  So since it's the scholarly people telling it, they they paint these people to be, you know, scholarly. And that's not always the case.

• 54:10Jocko Willink?

  Seeking obvious reasons for the obscure, we analyze their conduct as told by historians and assign as reasons for their success apparent trivial things. So he's saying, look, we we look at someone in the past who was a great warrior or a great leader. And we say, OK, they were a great leader because of this or because of that. Because that's what some scholarly person wrote about trivial things.

• 54:33Jocko Willink?

  Music has a myriad. Music has its myriad of musicians, but only its dozen masters. So with painting, sculpture, literature, medicine, or trade, or videos. Many are called, but few are chosen. So that's what he's saying is that these leaders are the same way. Like there's there's there's people that make music. But these combat leaders, there's there's not too many of them that actually rate, you know, Beethoven. Or Tony Iommi.

• 55:14Jocko Willink?

  Nor can we concur wholly with the alluring stories in the advertising sections of our magazine, which point to the golden path of success to all and sundry who follow that particular phase of home education that they happen to advocate. So, just like the get rich quick scheme is not going to work, these little thinking, that these little leadership things that you learn, okay, they're not really going to help you as much.

• 55:42Jocko Willink?

  Knowledge is power, but to a degree only. Its possession per se will raise a man to mediocrity, but not to distinction. So you can be smart, you can learn a lot, but that doesn't mean it, doesn't get you there. In our, and the funny thing, as you read this, like there's a whole, this whole thing is like an egotistical writing, right? Cause he's saying, listen, there's normal people and then there's, there's, you can have knowledge that'll get you so far, but to truly be the master is pretty rare.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And is he implying that he is?

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm getting that implication a little bit, a little bit. In our opinion, indeed, the instruction obtained from such courses is of less moment to future success than is ambition, which prompted the study. That's interesting, right? So if you're a person that says, hey, I want to be a good leader, I'm going to reach out and start trying to learn how to lead. It's that ambition that's going to make you a good leader, or I want to make a lot of money, so I'm going to do this thing and that's going to make me more money. It's the ambition is more important in making you actually successful than the course that you bought.

• 56:51Jocko Willink?

  Interesting. In considering these matters, sight should not be lost of the fact that while there is much similarity, there is also a vast difference between the successful soldier and the successful man in other professions. Success due to knowledge and personality is the measure of ability in each case. But to all except the soldier, it has vital significance only to the individual and to a limited number of his family and associates. So, success is important. When you look at any other profession, it's important to be successful because the person can take care of his associates and his family, right? So that's very important to be successful for your family and for your associates.

• 57:32Jocko Willink?

  And then he continues on, "While the soldier, while with the soldier, success or failure means infinitely more as it must of necessity be measured, not in terms of personal honor or affluence, but in the life, happiness, and honor of his men and his country."

• 57:55Jocko Willink?

  Way heavier, right? And then let's face it, you know, that's kind of, we hold military people in high regards. Even though, I mean, you can find out, you can go, "Look, you know what the Admiral of the Navy makes? The Chief of Naval Operations makes?" You can go look it up. He's making whatever, he's making like $113,000 a year, you know what I mean? And he's in charge of billions of dollars worth of equipment. Whereas, somebody that's in charge of a medium-sized company is making probably 10, or 15, or 20, or even 100 times, that's probably 100 times more than what the Chief of Naval Operations makes. But we hold him in high regard.

• 58:37Jocko Willink?

  Why? Because this guy isn't just protecting or taking care of, you know, a company. He's taking care of his troops and he's taking care of the country. So, that's why being a military leader is held in high esteem. Rightfully so.

• 58:58Jocko Willink?

  You're not just judging someone based on their amount of money that they make. Continuing on, "Hence, the search for that elusive secret of military success, soul, genius, personality, call it what you will, is of vital interest to all of us."

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  Beyond question, personal knowledge is a fine thing, but unfortunately, it is too intimate. When, for example, we recall a railroad accident, the picture that most vividly presents itself to us is the severed blue-gray hand of some child victim, not the misread signals which precipitated the tragedy.

• 59:43Jocko Willink?

  So with war experiences, the choking gas that strangled us sticks in our memory to the more or less complete exclusion of the important fact that it was the roads and the consequent abundant mechanical transportation peculiar to the Western Europe, which permitted the accumulation of enough gas shells to do the strangling.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  So we get caught up looking at this one small outcome of the problem, but we don't look at it from a strategic view. We don't see the big picture.

• 1:00:18Jocko Willink?

  He says, "A British writer has said the characteristic of war", and by the way, I'm not reading this whole thing, I'm jumping through parts of it. So there might be, it might sound a little bit disjointed, but it's not as disjointed when you're actually reading it. He continues in another little part here. "A British writer has said the characteristic of war

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  is its constant change of characteristic.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  But as is ever the case with amorphisms, his remark needs explanation."

• 1:00:51Jocko Willink?

  And here's his explanation. "There is an incessant and constant change of means to attain the inevitable end, but we must take care not to let these inevitably sundry means, past or predicted, attain undue eminence in the perspective of our minds." So what is he saying there? He's saying, "You've got, you've got these things that change about how we're going to achieve some goal."

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  And those things, you can get caught up in those things. They can attain undue evidence, so you can believe that they're more important. And then he says, "Since the beginning, there has been an unending cycle of them, and for each, its advocates have claimed adoption as the sole means of successful war." So all the time, new war, this is the most important thing, this is the most important thing, this is the most important thing. And then he says, "Yet, the records of all time show that the unchanging ends have been, are, and probably ever shall be, the securing of predominant force of the right sort, at the right place, at the right time." That's the most important thing. You get the strongest force at the right place, at the right time, that's how you win. All these other things that we're talking about,

• 1:02:02Jocko Willink?

  they're fake, and again, this is according to Patton, and we could argue about those. I'm telling you what he's saying. Is that the most important thing is to be, to have the strongest force at the right place, at the right time. It's hard to argue with that.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, "In this scholarly avocation, soldiers of all important nations use at the present time what purports to be the best mode of instruction, the applicatory method. The characteristics of some concrete problem are first studied in the abstract, and then tested by applying them with the assumed forces and situations in solving analogous problems, either on the terrain or a map representation of it." So, what he's saying there is, the normal mode of instruction is you look at a map, you look at where you're gonna maneuver your forces, and then you figure out how you're going to apply your forces,

• 1:03:06Jocko Willink?

  and you play a little game of chess on a map, or on a terrain model. Or even walking the terrain, actually physically doing it. And then he says this, so that makes sense, right? We understand that. You're gonna look at this, see how you're gonna maneuver your pieces.

• 1:03:21Jocko Willink?

  This method not only familiarizes the student with all of the tools and technicalities of his trade, but also develops the aptitude for reaching decisions and the self-assurance derived from demonstrated achievement. Okay, cool. So by doing that, by looking at a map, by looking at terrain, by going out and walking through the terrain, by going out and simulating combat, you're gonna increase your, what does he say, your self-assurance, your aptitude for reaching decisions. That's gonna happen. It's gonna make you better. But then he says, "But at always, as always, there is a fly in the ointment." "High academic performance demands infinite intimate knowledge of details,

• 1:04:01Jocko Willink?

  and the qualities requisite to such attainments often inhabit bodies lacking personality." Man, that's a crazy thing to think about, right? That you got this people that are willing to study and willing to work, but what they miss is they don't have, they, they, they don't have the personality. They don't have the charisma. So they're smart, they're book smart, right? That's the term that gets used.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, book smart.

• 1:04:30Jocko Willink?

  And that's a thing that comes out as a negative, right? Someone says, "Oh, you know, he's really book smart." They don't say that like, "Oh, he's super book smart." No, that's who he's talking about. He's talking about people that are book smart.

• 1:04:44Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, "And also, the striving for such knowledge often engenders the fallacious notion that capacity depends on the power to acquire such details, not the ability to apply them." So you got someone over here that can memorize what's in the book, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can take what's in the book and apply it.

• 1:05:06Jocko Willink?

  You notice that in jujitsu, right? You get someone that understands the move, but you gotta learn, you gotta know how to, well, look, jujitsu is an interesting example, because you can take someone and teach them the move and they're gonna get it, and they can achieve a good level, but the people that can go next level are the people that can take those things and apply them in different ways, different situations, different scenarios, and then create things out of it. That's the difference between a war, not even, but this is, I think someone can be just a good applier and be a world champion in jujitsu. Like someone that studies and is great and knows the moves, they can be a world champion. But to be like... The elite of the elite.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have that next level. You gotta be able to take those things and apply, create next level.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and not to skew this thing towards making videos or nothing like that.

• 1:05:58Jocko Willink?

  That seems to be the topic of the day.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Well, you know. But you see the end with a lot of stuff like where.

• 1:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Do you see this with weapons as well?

• 1:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Sorry, bro.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 1:06:10Jocko Willink?

  Videos, go.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Anyway, well, you know, like sometimes and then, okay, so you run into this on YouTube where it's like, okay, you can look, you can look up videos on how to make videos. Right? So and then so after a while you can kind of discern, okay, this person just read the directions, you know? You know how you get that impression from somebody and it doesn't matter.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Necessarily video. It can be a lot of stuff when it's like you just get the impression that they read the directions and they did it good. They did it clean, perfect, but you can sort of tell versus the guy who's like maybe a little bit more creative with it or.

• 1:06:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  You can, you can tell they understand the whole comprehensive thing and then they can add their own personal little element.

• 1:06:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, the example that I use, which I've used before is you can take a flyer and put it up in a guitar center. And say, hey, I need someone that can play. You can pick the most complicated songs ever. And there's, you'll get 20 people that will call you up and they'll actually be able to play those songs. And yet they're all working regular jobs because they didn't have that thing, that creative thing. They learned the mechanics of the job, but they couldn't, they, they can't create something new.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Jocko Willink?

  No offense. I mean, I wish I could play guitar like that. I can't. But that's what separates, that's why, that's why there's people that ha- can are incredible musicians, guitarist, technicians. Maybe musicians is the start. Does musicians imply that they got that creative spark too?

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, to me, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, maybe.

• 1:07:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  Depends on who you ask, I guess on that one.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  I guess you got incredible, technical musicians that can play any song on whatever instrument.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  But they don't have that little thing. And that's what he's talking about. They're book smart.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. What about? You know, you get these, okay, you know, the old school art, right? That real valuable art, like Picasso and all these. Then you have these master forgers. Where are they on this whole thing? Maybe like a little of both.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  I, I mean, I think they're, they're like the technical guitarist that can lay down the riff exactly. You can't tell the difference, but it doesn't really matter because they can't create something new. So if you're a master forger, that's great. But you, you're not going to be remembered because you didn't create anything. So creativity is what we're talking about here. Which, which again, you know, when we went over the, the Marine Corps manual, uh, tactics with Dave Burke, like, think about how often they talked about creativity.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes, good deal, Dave. Think about how often they talked about creativity. And I've been talking about it since day one. I think it was on the first time I was on Tim Ferriss, I said, combat is an exercise in creativity and it is. And that's what he's saying.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the master forger essentially will always have that limitation, no matter how good, no matter.

• 1:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Unless he can break out, right? And, and you know where I thought you were going with this? Was like the, uh, modern art, you know, where it's just some random thing and, and you can look at it and go, well, my four-year-old could have created that, right? And then there's other people going, wait a second, you're missing something here. That this is why this is creative. This is why this is important, whatever. And what's interesting also is when people, when you, when you, uh, when you're that good of an artist at drawing things, you have to get that good at drawing things realistically before you can break out and see them from a different perspective, I think. I'm not a hundred percent sure.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know about that one. I mean, not to say that that's not true, but it's one of those things like you were saying earlier, there is no formulae. There, even in evaluation of art, really, I mean, we're all trained to understand that this is a, a well-known critic of art, but is there even such thing as a critic of art officially?

• 1:09:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, no. And it's, it's, it's weird too, because like with music. There's music that is so popular that I can't stand.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:05Jocko Willink?

  And most of the music that I like is not popular. So what does that mean?

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Means you're special, bro, obviously.

• 1:10:12Jocko Willink?

  I guess that art is in the eye of the beholder in many cases.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  One might say, yeah. Well, yeah, because some people, they don't. And maybe I misunderstood what you meant when you said that the artist has to be able to draw like

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  really good first.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  before they break up. But a lot of artists, I mean, from what I understand, they don't necessarily know how to like draw that good. It's more of just their like the idea behind the result kind of thing, you know.

• 1:10:41Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I'm not sure.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  I think people just go deep. And they just go deep in their head and they're like, hey, you know, the invoke like everything in them.

• 1:10:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess that's a good point too, because like with some of the old like punk rock bands that really like had a big impact. It wasn't because they were good musicians.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Jocko Willink?

  It's because they're emotion emotionally raw, right?

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  They just people heard it went, whoa, this is, this is a different thing. And so that's you could be, you could be totally right. And it's the same thing, right? You don't necessarily have to be a fine artist before you start drawing crazy stuff, right? Or drawing abstract stuff, let's say. Not necessarily true.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all everywhere. Even music, like, you know, the guy. Super impressive where these guys like they may or may not even be a homeless guy, but they're on the street all the time. They got a bucket.

• 1:11:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  And they're like tapping the bucket and they're like doing all this stuff and it sounds really like dope. But it's like, I don't know, like, is it reaching everybody?

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, definitely not reaching anybody. I posted up, there was some guy, there was like a bunch of of bums. I mean, bums in San Diego. I was out for dinner and they were playing bluegrass. You ever seen someone with the? It's like a, like a broom pole or whatever, a broom. Broomstick into like a upside down wash bin with a string on it and it's a bass.

• 1:12:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, it's like what you'd see in the olden days.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Jocko Willink?

  And then there's someone was plucking a banjo and someone else was playing guitar.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:24Jocko Willink?

  And these people were clearly, they were, they were homeless people, you know, and they were probably between the ages of, I would say maybe twenty to twenty to twenty-six. So they're pretty young.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  And, and I was walking and I just heard him and I was thinking, man, this band sounds good, right? And I get up and I see they're just completely homeless. And they were jamming. And I actually posted it on Instagram.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:50Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, when we got done and my son, I was with my son and my son was like, those guys were good. And I said, yeah, I know. That was impressive.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  And what does that mean? That means, well, your question was, are they reaching everybody? No, they're not reaching anybody. They're reaching literally four people. We're standing there watching them.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Right. So what's better? So is, um, so, okay, I was having this debate, this is a long time ago, with Tim, Tim Ford. So he was like saying, uh,

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Timbo?

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  Timbo Mania. He, he was making music or whatever and he goes deep, you know, with his music, like what he's saying, the lyrics, if you will. And so I'm like, whatever. And he, and so we're talking about it, like, what's better music, right? And he's like, oh, like, uh, I, I think basically his premise was underground rap is better than, you know, popular rap now. And, um, and I had no dog in the fight, but I, we, I was just kind of more just taunting him a little bit. And he was really emotionally dug in on this one. And, and so I was like, okay, I was like, well, how do you prove that? You know, just because you like it better doesn't mean overall it's better. You gotta be able to measure it. So I'm like, okay, so Lil Wayne with, uh, uh, it was the song Go DJ. You ever heard that song?

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Go DJ. Anyway, it's a real popular song at the time. And I happened to like it. And I was like, no, Go DJ is better than all your underground rap. I just said it to trigger him. I'm not saying that's a fact or nothing, but, but I used the measurement tool. I was like, okay, how many albums have, you know, you guys sold like, or how are we going to measure it, you know? And he, we couldn't really hit the nail, or he couldn't really hit the nail on the head as to why it was better. Why underground rap is better, you know? But I sort of had some, a leg to stand on because I had the measuring tool, you know? But at the end of the day, I think, which I didn't say in the argument because, you know, it would have been kind of a cop out, given what we're doing. There is no really way to tell.

• 1:14:46Jocko Willink?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  It's like, it's all art, just because it reaches, just because of a bunch of people. I don't love Go DJ. That's not a life-changing song, but if it's on, like, we're gonna enjoy it. Then there's, so there's that side of the spectrum, right? Like, I don't know, maybe, uh, what's her name, Britney Spears, something like this, you know? Some of us think Britney's pretty deep, but whatever. I'm just saying it's on this side of the spectrum. A lot of the time. And then, on the other side, it's like, I don't know, something like, super-deep that not many people know about, but the people who do know about it. It's like, man, that's my life song, kinda thing, you know? So it's a spectrum there, but who's to say what's better, you know?

• 1:15:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, it's, well, I think I'm to say what's better.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  No, of course you are, of course you are.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I guess the whole point of this entire divergence that we've just taken is that, just like in art and music, there's a spark that you have to have, and it's the same thing with leadership.

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink?

  And so now, he continues on with this thing, that the people, that the more that they learn, the more that they learn from the books, the better they're gonna do. And he says this, "Obsessed with this thought, students plunge deeper and even deeper. Their exertions enmeshing them more, until, like mired mastodons, they perish in a morass of knowledge where they first browsed for sustenance." Like I said, Patton's a good writer. So you picture these big, giant mastodons that, you know, fall into this giant pit of knowledge. It's just too much for them. And they die. That's what happens to this young leader that's just trying to read everything. And this is coming from a guy that tells you to read everything.

• 1:16:30Jocko Willink?

  And when I say that, I mean Patton's telling you, you need to read. But what he's saying is, like, you can go so far into that, you're, you just end up, well, perish in a morass of knowledge. And he continues on, "When the prying spade of the unbiased investigator has removed the muck of official reports and the mire of self-laudatory biographies from the swamp of the world war, then the skeletons of many such military mammoths will be discovered."

• 1:16:59Jocko Willink?

  And what I love about this is as I'm, as anyone knows from the books that we cover on this podcast, I've said since day one, oh, why don't you cover this book about the Great War, this book about World War II, or this, this that was written by this great historian. I'm like, oh, no, I like first person accounts. I actually like first person accounts as often as I can from like the frontline soldiers. Of course, I like the generals too and the colonels. That's great, but I like to hear what the frontline have to say. And that's, that's part of what I like about his idea that just reading from this, from this high altitude, doesn't necessarily give you the information you need. He continues on. "Beyond questions, no soldiers ever sought more diligently..." Oh, sorry.

• 1:17:44Jocko Willink?

  He says amidst their mighty remains will lurk the elusive secret of German failure. He's talking about World War I. "Beyond question, no soldiers ever sought more diligently for pre-war perfection. They built and tested and adjusted their mighty machine and became so engrossed in its visible perfection, in the accuracy of its bearings and the compression of its cylinders, that they neglected the battery.

• 1:18:14Jocko Willink?

  When the moment came, their masterpiece proved inefficient through lack of the divine athletus." Which is a divine inspiration, a divine thing. And that is the soul of a leader.

• 1:18:32Jocko Willink?

  So the Germans were really rigid in the way they prepared things. And again, this is his viewpoint, but it's a pretty good viewpoint that the Germans in World War I, coming out of that Prussian,

• 1:18:45Jocko Willink?

  coming out of that, that Prussian mentality, like this is the way we're going to do things, but they forgot that you gotta have a soul.

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have the soul of a leader. And that's what happened to him. That's what he means the battery. Like where's that energy come from? Yeah, guess what? The soul of the leader. And he says this truly in war, "Men are nothing. A man is everything."

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  In acquiring erudition, we must live on, not in, our studies. So in order to acquire great knowledge, you have to, you have to live on the studies, not in them. We must guard against becoming so engrossed in the specific nature of the roots and bark of the trees, of knowledge, as to miss the meaning and grandeur of the forest that they compose. That's a really complicated way of saying, don't miss the forest for the trees. He fails the simplicity there. As has been pointed out, the secret of victory lies not wholly in knowledge.

• 1:19:50Jocko Willink?

  It lurks invisible in that vitalizing spark, intangible, yet as evident as lightning, the warrior soul. That's where he's saying the victory lies, the warrior soul. We shall now seek to evaluate and place in their just ratio, the three essentials to victory, inspiration, knowledge, and force, which he also calls mass. We may therefore postulate that no one element, be it soul, knowledge, or mass, is dominant. That a combination of any two of these factors gives a strong presumption of success over an adversary relying on one alone,

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  and that the three combined are practically invincible against a combination of the other two. So here's the important things, inspiration, knowledge, and force, or mass. And he actually, I've not covered him now, but he gives some examples of where these things were important through history. I'm not going to cover them right now. But these three things are what you need for victory. He says, "Man cannot live by bread alone, and that as a man thinketh, so he is."

• 1:21:04Jocko Willink?

  Have been for generations droned from countless pulpits as the texts for prolix and unconvincing sermons until cognizant of the phrases has been somewhat dulled yet they contain an infinity of truth. And I think you say this a lot. It means like when you something that gets said all the time. Cliche. Yeah. There's a reason the cliche is a cliche, right? There's a reason people say it. Yeah. Cause there's some, what does he call it? There's some infinity of truth in there. Yeah. Right? So that's what he's saying. So these things, man cannot live by bread alone and as a man thinketh, so he is he. Those are cliches, but there's truth in them.

• 1:21:48Jocko Willink?

  War is conflict. Fighting is an elemental exposition of the age old effort to survive. It is the gold glitter of the attacker's eye, not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line. Oh, that's good. I'm gonna read that one again. It is the cold, I said gold, it is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye, not the point of the questioning bayonet that breaks the line. It is the fierce determination, determination of the driver to close with the enemy, not the mechanical perfection of the tank that conquers the trench.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  It is the cataclysmic ecstasy of conflict in the flyer, not the perfection of his machine gun, which drops the enemy in flaming ruin. Yet, volumes are devoted to armaments and only pages to inspiration. So these actual man, the human element is more important than the bayonet, than the tank, and then the aircraft, and then the machine gun. And yet, we talk about all these, all these books written about these different weapons of war, but not enough written about the soul of man.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, since by necessity, limitations of map problems, going back to this, this whole idea of figuring out things on a map, and we're doing a terrain walk, since by necessity, limitations of map problems inhibit the student from considering the effects of hunger, emotion, personality, fatigue, leadership, and many other imponderable yet vital factors, he first neglects and then forgets them.

• 1:23:42Jocko Willink?

  Crazy, right? You, you look at this map and you figure where to maneuver your people and you think what you've read about, but you forget about the thing that I try and talk about all the time, which is human nature, which is understanding people, understanding people, understanding hunger, emotion, personality, fatigue, leadership, and all these imponderable things. Those are what you need to be concerned about as a leader.

• 1:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Going on, obsessed with admiration for the intelligence which history has ascribed to leaders past, he forgets the inseparable connection between plans, the flower of the intellect, and execution, the fruit of the soul.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  He's getting an A+ in the English class right now, isn't he?

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  The inseparable connection between plans, which are the flower of the intellect, and execution, the fruit of the soul. You gotta have both. You gotta have both. Yes, you gotta have plans, but then you gotta be able to execute.

• 1:24:49Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, since the historian, through lack of experience and consequent appreciation of the inspirational qualities of generals, fails to stress them, he does emphasize their mental gifts, which, since he shares, he values. This guy was smart like me. This guy was educated like me. That's what made him so great, just like me.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Sometimes people will say that even if they aren't necessarily that, you know, well, like me and you're alike in this way. And then they'll say some cool quality that you have, you know, just sort of implying, yeah, I'm like that.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm like that too. And that's what this is, right? Oh, the historian says, oh, this guy was very educated like I am.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  And like you said, doesn't always necessarily, but he was well read.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:25:36Jocko Willink?

  And that's what they stress. Doesn't it, doesn't stress the inspirational qualities of the general, doesn't stress that. Cause he focuses on the fact that the guy was educated or the guy went to Oxford or the guy went to whatever, West Point.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Is that because it's, it's more concrete?

• 1:25:54Jocko Willink?

  It's definitely more concrete, but it's also, it's a shared value. It's like what you just said, you, you know, this guy was smart. Like when somebody does something, when, when, when another SEAL does something cool, I'm like, yeah, we know he was in the day.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Just like me, dude.

• 1:26:10Jocko Willink?

  And it continues on hugging the notion of intelligence. He pictures armies of incinerate pawns moving with the precision of machines and the rapidity of lights guided in their intricate and resistless evolutions over the battlefield by the cold effulgence of his emotionless celebrations as transmitted to them by wire and radio through the inspiring medium of coded messages.

• 1:26:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's just a get some, right? That's what they picture though. And you know, this happens today. This happens today with, um, I just was just responding to someone on social media that was implying this exact thing that, oh, well, you know, Jaco, you were on, you, you have only been in charge of elite teams of SEALs. And so guess what they are? Those are incinerate pawns moving with the precision of machines and the rapidity of light. Like, no, bro, actually.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  But that's what people think. They're wrong. Continuing, doubtlessly, he further assumes the same superhuman intelligence will translate those somber sentences into words of fire, which shall electrify his chessmen into frenzied heroes, who heedless of danger, shall dauntlessly translate this stillborn infants of his brain into heroic deeds. So if you think you can just put out the word, and now everyone's just gonna go execute it with undeniable tenacity and vigor, you're wrong.

• 1:27:54Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, shrewd critics have assigned to all manner of things. Oh, sorry. Shrewd critics have assigned success to all manner of things. And here are some of the things that they assign success to. Tactics, shape of frontiers, happily placed rivers, mountains, or woods, intellectual ability, or to the use of artillery. All in a measure, true, but none vital. So yeah, you can be successful from all these different things. And the shrewd critics say, oh, you were successful because of this, or you were successful because of that. You were successful because of your tactics, or your frontier, or the river, or the woods, or whatever.

• 1:28:34Jocko Willink?

  And it continues, nor is it even the speed of the operations that the secret lays. But in the inspiring spirit with which they so inoculated their soldiers as to lift weary, foot-sore men out of themselves, and to make them march forgetful of agony. That's the difference, according to Patton.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  In considering war, we must avoid that adoration of the material, as exemplified by scientists who deny the existence of aught they cannot cut or weigh. So the scientists look at it and go, well, if you can't see it, it doesn't exist. If you can't weigh it, it doesn't exist. So therefore, we're not gonna give any credit to these things that we can't exactly wrap our hand around. The magic spark.

• 1:29:31Jocko Willink?

  As a mirror shows us not ourselves, but our reflection.

• 1:29:37Jocko Willink?

  So it is with the soul and with leadership. We know them. But by acts they inspire or by the results they have achieved. So you don't see them. You only know them by the acts that they make happen or things that are achieved through them.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on like baguettes like in the armies of the great, we seek the reflection of themselves and we find self-confidence, enthusiasm, abnegation of self, loyalty and courage. So this is, this is big, right? And this is, this, this, and we'll get into it, but here's what you find self-confidence, right? Boom. This is what you find. Self-confidence, enthusiasm, abnegation of self. What is that? Right? Abnegation of self is denial of the self. This is like, this is, I'm not the most important thing.

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Loyalty and courage. Resolution, no matter how adamant, mated to knowledge, no matter how infinite, never begat such a progeny. So, being firm in your resolution and knowing a lot, no matter how much of those two you have, you never get as much as you get with self-confidence, enthusiasm, abnegation of self, loyalty and courage. Such offspring only arises from bloodlines as elemental as themselves. The leader must be incarnate of them. Now, this is where we like, that's a pretty bold statement, right?

• 1:31:11Jocko Willink?

  Hey, here I am, a leader in the army. My name is General Pat. My name is, well, he's probably like a captain or maybe a major at this point. When he's writing this. And he's saying that in order to be a really good leader, you have to be bloodline incarnate in you.

• 1:31:29Jocko Willink?

  But then he says this, which is awesome. This is where I get a little, you know, he's starting to move a little bit out of the box here. And he comes right back in the box. I had to paraphrase this one a little bit, but nor is the suggestion that birth is the only means of producing such a leader. There are certainly born leaders, but the soldier may still overcome his natal defects by unremitting effort and practice.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Imagine that.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  What's that, the old nature versus nature scenario?

• 1:32:02Jocko Willink?

  That's what it is. That's what it is. I've got a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. There's a, there's a chapter in there called Born or Made? And the answer is both.

• 1:32:13Jocko Willink?

  And that's the same thing that General Patton's saying here. You, you, look, you can be born a great leader, but you can still overcome your natal defects just by unremitting effort and practice. That's how you can get good.

• 1:32:30Jocko Willink?

  Self-confidence of the right. So I think this is where he's gonna start hammering through. Yeah, so he starts hammering through this list of things. So the first one is self-confidence. Self-confidence of the right sort, as differentiated from bumptious presumption based in ignorance,

• 1:32:46Jocko Willink?

  is the result of proven ability, the sense of conscious achievement. Its existence presupposes enthusiasm for without this quality, no one would endure the travail of acquiring self-confidence. So self-confidence takes time. In order to get self-confidence, you have to be enthusiastic and you ha- in order, because you have to be successful in things. Self-confidence, you can't just wake up and have it.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:11Jocko Willink?

  You have, you, it's, it's conscious achievement. It's proven ability. And the more you prove able, the more confident you're gonna get, which is interesting that in my new book, I talk about how do you get someone to increase their confidence? You give them tasks that they can achieve. That's exactly what he's saying. Over time, that's how you build up self-confidence. He continues on here, "The enthusiasm which permits the toil and promises the achievement is simply an all-absorbing preoccupation in the profession elected." So when you're fired up for something, when you're enthusiastic, that's what allows you to overcome the toil and the times that you drop the balls that you're learning how to juggle. You just keep picking them up. And this is the next one. "Endurance too is linked with self-confidence.

• 1:33:53Jocko Willink?

  Mentally, it is the ability to subvert the means to an end, to hitch a wagon to a star and to attain it. Physically, it presupposes sufficient enthusiasm to force on nature, no matter how reluctant, the obligation of constant bodily fitness through exercise."

• 1:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Then he says, "The expanding waistline means the contracting heart line, both in length and vigor." And then he says, "Witness Napoleon at and after Jena."

• 1:34:30Jocko Willink?

  The Battle of Jena, which is where the Prussians figured out that they needed to use maneuver warfare and decentralized command, but because that's because they got crushed by Napoleon.

• 1:34:40Jocko Willink?

  And I didn't, I don't, apparently Napoleon at Jena was in good shape and Napoleon after Jena, maybe he let it go.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  So, constant bodily fitness through exercise. Mental ability to hitch a wagon to a star and attain it, right? That's endurance. Next up, "Abnegation of self seems perhaps incongruous when applied to such selfish persons as Frederick or Napoleon." But this is not the case. So this is kind of funny too, because right, it'd be Patton too. It's Patton too, right? I mean Patton has at least a big of an ego as Napoleon or Frederick.

• 1:35:27Jocko Willink?

  But this is not the case, he says. Self can be subordinated to self.

• 1:35:35Jocko Willink?

  "The Corsican leading his grenadiers at Lodi subordinated the life of Bonaparte to the glory of Napoleon."

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  So, once again, even Patton, you know, this is a form of humility, right? That's what it is. It's like everyone else is more important than me. That's what it is.

• 1:35:59Jocko Willink?

  Next one is loyalty. Loyalty is frequently only considered as faithfulness from the bottom up. It has another and equally important application that is from the top down. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of the great, who remain great, is the unforgetfulness and of loyalty to their subordinates. It is this characteristic which binds with hoops of iron their juniors to them.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  A man who is truly and unselfishly loyal to his superiors is of necessity so to his juniors and they to him. So, this is great, right? Loyalty up and down the chain of command.

• 1:36:45Jocko Willink?

  You're just not loyal to the people above you, you're loyal to the people below you, you take care of them. And if you take care of them, they're gonna take care of you. Once again, it's in the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  Next. Courage.

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  Moral and physical is almost a synonym of all foregoing traits. It fosters the resolution to combat and cherishes the ability to assume responsibility. The ability to assume responsibility, be it for successes or failures.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  We call that extreme ownership.

• 1:37:28Jocko Willink?

  He says, "But as with biblical candle, these traits..." And now he's, that was the last trait, now he's talking about all these traits. "These traits are of no military value if concealed." "A man of diffident manner will never inspire confidence. A cold reserve cannot beget enthusiasm. And so with the others, there must be an outward visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace."

• 1:37:59Jocko Willink?

  It then appears that the leader must be an actor, and such is the fact.

• 1:38:05Jocko Willink?

  But with him, as with his bewigged compere, he is unconvincing unless he lives the part. So yes, the leader has to be an actor, but guess what? If the leader doesn't actually believe what he's doing, everyone's gonna see through it. Just like an actor, a bewigged actor.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Bewigged, that's like a...

• 1:38:26Jocko Willink?

  Person wearing a wig.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  Okay, so, because I thought when you said an actor, meaning someone who takes action, but...

• 1:38:33Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  He said straight up actor.

• 1:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Stage, a person on the stage. The person on the stage has to act. And he's unconvincing unless he lives the part, and that's the way a leader's gotta be. You gotta live it, you gotta think it, you gotta believe it.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Stay in character?

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't believe it, then everyone's gonna see through it.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda true with everybody, huh? You know, people like...

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  We back in the day when I was a personal trainer and you get a personal trainer who's like an out kinda out of shape, you know, but they, you know, according to them, they know everything kinda thing. It's like, bro, I can kind of, I mean, we can see it on you, obviously, but yeah, if you feel that, you know, so yeah, you're not gonna follow them.

• 1:39:15Jocko Willink?

  You're you're way more apt to follow, uh, you know, some if someone's a fitness instructor, someone that's in good shape. Yes. But more more importantly for me is if you don't really believe in what you're saying as a leader, everyone can see it and where this really comes into play. And this is such an incredible thing and I've talked about it over and over again. And I I put it, there's an edition of dichotomy of leadership that I talk about this. Uh, I think it was the Barnes and Noble edition. They put like a section in there that I had written this article about.

• 1:39:56Jocko Willink?

  And I talk about it in leadership, strategy and tactics. And that's this. If if your goal is to take care of yourself, everyone can see it and you're gonna fail. That's the way it is. Like if your goal, if you're if you're willing to step on people and crush them in order to move up the chain of command, everyone's gonna see it and you're gonna fail. Now, look, you might get a couple wins here and there. I get it. But long term, you're gonna fail.

• 1:40:20Jocko Willink?

  If your goal is to take care of your team and accomplish the mission, that's what your true goal is. Number one, you're gonna be successful in taking care of the team and successful in accomplishing the mission. And then guess what a byproduct is? You will be successful as well. But the minute you say, well, wait a second, maybe I'll just focus on myself for a second. It's the wrong move. It's the wrong move. What you want to do is say, how can I best take care of my people? That's what you want to say. That's what you want to believe. That's what you want to do. And if you do that, you take care of your people and you take care of your mission. And that's where the way you're operating, everyone can see it up and down the chain of command, by the way. And eventually, that will play out correctly.

• 1:41:03Jocko Willink?

  If you're looking to take care of you.

• 1:41:07Jocko Willink?

  People will see that up and down the chain of command and eventually that will play out incorrectly. Yes, sir. And then he says, "Can a man acquire and demonstrate these characteristics?" That's these characteristics: self-confidence, endurance, abnegation of self, loyalty, and courage. Can a man then acquire and demonstrate these characteristics? The answer is, they have, they can. For, as a man thinketh, so is he.

• 1:41:49Jocko Willink?

  So, all these things, if you think this way, you can become that way. And he finishes this out by saying this, "The fixed determination to acquire the warrior soul, and have acquired it to either conquer or perish with honor, is the secret to victory." George S. Patton Jr. Major, March 26, 1926.

• 1:42:28Jocko Willink?

  So, this guy's got a lot of, a lot of things to talk about. We might be rolling into a third session next time. Delivering knowledge. And I think it's just so important to think about these things, especially a guy that's controversial like Patton. You know, there's, there's, there's another quote about Patton, you know, because they called Patton "old blood and guts."

• 1:43:01Jocko Willink?

  And there's, there's a quote about Patton that someone else said, uh, it was our blood, his guts. You know, so there's some like, that's, that's, that's a rough statement, right? That's a rough statement.

• 1:43:13Jocko Willink?

  So there's controversy, you know, around Patton. There's controversy about some of the things that he did, you know? There's the whole episode of him, uh, slapping around some of the guys that had left the front lines for various reasons that were not, hey, I'm physically wounded. So some of the guys had some tra- uh, mental trauma. You know, whether they were shell shocked. And what's interesting about this is, this is, this is one I'm sure we can get into. But I'm reading another book, uh, written by a, by a leader in World War II. And he's, I was just reading this section where these guys are coming to him crying.

• 1:43:52Jocko Willink?

  We need, you, you, I can't take it anymore.

• 1:43:56Jocko Willink?

  And one guy does it and he's like, you know, talks to him and, you know, says, get back on the line. The next guy comes and, you know, he's crying and he's distraught. He's like, I need to get offline. I can't take it anymore. And the guy says, you know, uh, Smith just came to me with these problems. He did a much better job acting than you're doing.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  So my point, and the guy eventually broke down and just said, yeah, but I mean, I just, it's really hard. And he says, look, I know it's hard. Everyone's having a hard time. You can do this. My point is when you had, there was people that were shirking their duty. There were people that were, look, everyone was scared. Patton says it a thousand times. Everyone was scared. Whether someone actually had, you know, shell shock, who knows?

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  Certainly when you talk about caring about your people and you get somebody in a bad situation. I mean, Dick Winters talked about this when these guys were freaking out on the front lines, how he would handle it. Certainly wasn't by slapping them around. But that, alls I'm saying is that there's controversy around Patton. And yet he's got great, you take that controversy as part of what you can learn. At least I do. And definitely a ton of perspective that he has. So we'll, we'll look at, we'll keep looking at Patton, I believe. Maybe not next episode, but who knows? You never know what that next episode is going to bring.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  I do know this. I did some live gigs around America.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  They're, they're over now when this podcast comes out. The last two were Seattle and San Francisco, which both sold out, which was awesome. So to everyone that went to the Jaco Live shows around the country, thank you. And for everyone that's asked for more,

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  looks like I'm gonna do some more. So Jaco Live, we'll, we'll put that out soon on when these next ones will happen. And the, and the other thing is the Leadership Strategy Tactics and Field Manual that I talked about today, a couple of times. And just, just want to say thanks to everybody. It's, uh, it's been crazy that the sales have been great. And I know that's all because you all are out there getting after it, spreading the word, made it number one in a bunch, bunch of different, a bunch of different outlets that actually measure this stuff. So believe me that every time I, I think about that, I think about everyone that, that listens to this podcast and that spread the word and, you know, bought yourself

• 1:46:30Jocko Willink?

  a first edition. And by the way, there was some controversy. Someone sent a picture on social media and, and the cover was different and said, you know, I waited too long and I got the second edition. And I said, no, you're in Europe or you're in England. I think England, New Zealand, Europe and, and basically outside America, there's a different cover. It's still first edition as of right now.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Cool. Why is there a different cover?

• 1:46:54Jocko Willink?

  You know what?

• 1:46:57Jocko Willink?

  I guess they have different styles or, or something that, hey, this is, they, they just said, hey, this is the, this is not the way books look over here. And, you know, I just said, I said, Roger that. I'm not from New Zealand. I'm not from Australia. I'm not from England. I'm not from Germany. I'm from America. And if you're telling me that this is, like in the book, it's not that much different, but it's different. But apparently that's normal, you know, and

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense. Oh, yeah, makes sense.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  I don't, you know, I, I try and keep my ego in check, right?

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  I'm not George S. Patton saying, I'm right and history will prove it.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  I'm not thinking that. When somebody tells me something that's a professional in another arena, I go, okay, well, maybe explain it to me, you know? And actually, I did say that to them. And they sent me a bunch of other books and said, hey, here's like, this is what books like, look like over here. Your book will not look like a book even.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:58Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I'm wrong. You know, I could have been wrong. I could have said, you know what? Let's hold the line. And maybe people would be looking at it going, oh, yeah, this, I'm getting this book. I don't know.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it kind of makes sense if you consider the concept, right? You know, like, you know, some cars here, like if they're super exotic, they'll have the steering wheel on the other side of the road, or the other side of the car. It'll be on the right side.

• 1:48:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  I wouldn't call that super exotic. That's just a car that was built in a foreign country.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Right, but so, yeah, okay, period. Okay, so. Let's say you're shopping for a car. And then you see like the steering wheel on the other side. Really? It shouldn't really matter. Hey, I'm not really used to that.

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  You know, and you could say ergonomically or whatever, but you know, if you, it's pretty quick to get used to. Or for whatever mental reason, doesn't even matter. It's like.

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  Chasm that needs to be crossed.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  So we need to tighten that up a little bit.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if you go to Australia, brother, that's everybody. See what I'm saying? So it's like, boom, we're used to that here. We're used to this here on many different levels. You know, something's bigger than the other. Okay, the car thing, that's probably on the side of the spectrum. But nonetheless, book covers, movie posters. When you consider a movie poster, if it doesn't look like a movie poster, like, how is that even gonna land as a movie poster? See what I'm saying?

• 1:49:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So that's what we did. So I guess the point is if you got the other cover, you're still good. I'll still be, I'll still, I'll still give you some knuckles on the first edition. When I open it up, now I might, I might open it up and it might say third edition.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  That's different.

• 1:49:23Jocko Willink?

  In which case, you know, let me just, look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna embarrass you in front of everybody. But I'm gonna look at you, you're gonna know, I'm gonna know.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:37Jocko Willink?

  That you didn't get the first edition. There's still first edition available right now, but not much more.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:42Jocko Willink?

  They're starting to run that second edition.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  But, so anyways, I want to say thanks to everyone for all that. I'm super stoked and I appreciate, appreciate it.

• 1:49:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, speaking of acquiring a warrior soul, which I know is a little bit of a bold statement.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:50:05Jocko Willink?

  But, we know from Patton that we can move in the right direction as far as improving our categories that we want improvement in, to move us towards being a little bit stronger, a little bit better, a little bit faster, a little bit more of a warrior.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:25Jocko Willink?

  Anything you can recommend that could help us with that?

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  To be able to-

• 1:50:29Jocko Willink?

  Tactical advice for us, maybe?

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Either conquer or perish with honor. Yeah, we can take jujitsu. And really, that's really what it is, what jujitsu is. I mean, I don't want to say really that's what it is, but we'll just say that's a part of it. To conquer or perish with honor. True. If me and you were about to roll, and I, when we go to shake hands, because it's a part of the, the deal. It's not a rule, but it's kinda-

• 1:50:53Jocko Willink?

  Respect.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  It's the honorable thing.

• 1:50:55Jocko Willink?

  Respect.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  What if instead of shaking my hand, I surprise you with like a guillotine or something like that? I conquered, but not with honor.

• 1:51:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, when I escape the guillotine.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Sure, okay, alright.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  Then you are gonna pay.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Right, then I'm the one who's gonna perish.

• 1:51:08Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, have you ever, well, I know this has happened to you, but it happened to me like where somebody's all excited, like all amped up and they think it's their big day.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:51:17Jocko Willink?

  And so, you go to shake their hand and like, they either A, don't. And by the way, we're not talking like a formal handshake, as if we just signed a NATO peace treaty.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, we're just talking a little bump and roll, right?

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, slap.

• 1:51:30Jocko Willink?

  Little, little, little slap bump and roll. That's all we're talking about.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:51:34Jocko Willink?

  But occasionally, especially, especially this happens if you're going with someone that like, is really trying to kill you.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:41Jocko Willink?

  And then you submit them. And then they're gonna go again, but they're so engrossed in like, okay, I'm gonna make you get you this time. They're like, forget, they're like, their minds insane.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:51:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a, that's good times.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  Or you can go one step further.

• 1:51:56Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I've ever done that, by the way. I don't think I've ever got so amped up that I like just lost my mind. I think you have.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  I've done it jokingly with you.

• 1:52:07Jocko Willink?

  No, I think you've done it where you've gotten to the point where you're, you're, you wanna go again so bad.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:13Jocko Willink?

  That you've, that like, I'll, I'll put my hand up and you'll like, get reminded and be like, oh yeah, we're actually like friends.

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  Am I wrong? I could be wrong. I don't know.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  And overall, you're wrong, but you put it this way.

• 1:52:25Jocko Willink?

  Overall, I'm wrong, just in a general way.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Because as frustrated as I've ever gotten with you, which is like, pretty frustrating. Yeah, like, deep, deep engulfing frustration. There was always like a little governor on there where it's like, even like my expressions of frustration, like there's always a hint of like joke in there, like genuine joke. I, I don't think I've ever, that's not even how I get for, that's not how I look when I get for real in life frustrated. Like I'll get more quiet than anything. But with you, it's like, and we said, talked about this before, where you're so like, you can take kinda anything, you know, like if I cheat with you, like if I straight up, like you're rolling with Andy and I jump on your back and I put a real choke in, make you tap or whatever, I feel like you can like,

• 1:53:11Speaker 01

  take that, you know?

• 1:53:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Like you won't be all mad at me, not externally anyway, but you know, I feel like you can just take this kinda stuff.

• 1:53:19Jocko Willink?

  There would be retribution.

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, but I'm just saying it won't.

• 1:53:23Jocko Willink?

  Retribution.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  But you see what I'm saying? It won't damage the relationship in any way, you know, like, I feel like, like you can kinda take these kinds of things. So it's almost like, I'm in like a little free arena.

• 1:53:38Speaker 01

  Believe me, that's it's a good thing. But I feel, what I'm saying is I feel comfortable to just be like, you know, F you or whatever.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  I find sneak attacks on the Jiu Jitsu mat somewhat offensive.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I remember one time you told me that.

• 1:53:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep, I've had a couple of people do it over the years, like, you know, like tap someone out and like, hey, we were over by the wall. And like, kind of just turn my back to start going back towards the center and have someone jump on my back and like put a choke in. That's, that's cool, but I'm first of all, like, I'm gonna get out and then I'm, you're gonna pay.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:15Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's just, you know.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  It's not with honor.

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  You know what it is? Yeah. And I think what offends me about it is the, like, you can tell that their ego has flared up. And they're trying to recover that or whatever.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  And so then maybe it is my ego that starts to flare up and I, but I, I feel more like it's a, it's a scenario where someone's outwined and there needs to be, there needs to be a lesson that gets taught, right? At that point.

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're right. And I agree where.

• 1:54:46Jocko Willink?

  And somebody actually also asked me this on social media really recently, which was like, hey, going with the guy. He's grinding his knuckles into my neck the whole time, like into my face. And he's like, so I got on top and just like mounted and, and like punished him with neon stomach or something like that. Is that, is that bad? You know, and it's a legitimate question. And I was like, no, it's proved. Like if someone, if someone wants to get all freaking hostile and kind of, I don't want to use the word dirty because it's not really dirty, but it's, what would you call that? What'd you call that? What do they call it in Portuguese? It's like grossa, right? It's means like, like kind of brutal.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:24Jocko Willink?

  Like if someone's getting crazy with me like that.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  Then I'll probably put some kind of a, some kind of a, a slightly increased measure back on them, right? Just slightly increased.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:37Jocko Willink?

  Not, I'm not, it's not like I'm gonna, oh, now we're gonna break someone's arm. Not at all. But if you wanna. You know, grab a hold of my whatever and start squeezing. It's like, okay, cool. Yeah, you're gonna.

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  It's weird cuz that one's.

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  Unemotional by the way. It's like, okay, cool. Yeah, I see where you're at.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:55:55Jocko Willink?

  That's not, not cool. And here's how you can know.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be tricky though, because some people, cuz there's different levels of that. Like, some people literally don't know what they're doing.

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and sometimes you gotta go, hey, man, listen, just relax, bro. You know, sometimes like, hey, I probably should have said that to this guy too, like, just being like, hey, man, if you get crazy with people, they might get crazy with you. What you wanna do is try and learn and try and have a good time. This isn't actual combat. We're just having fun. We're trying to learn. So you should, you should really go with that approach, you know? That's smart. That's a smart thing to say.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  Because you.

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  Cuz some people don't know.

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't know. And then, then there's like this intermediary level where they know, but it's not aimed at you specifically. It's aimed at sort of everyone, you know, you know, the kind of, you know, the kind of, they come, maybe come from an environment where it's like that or, you know, so it's like their whole attitude towards any competition is like, crush you, kill you, like, you're my enemy, kind of thing. And they just have this kind of subconscious attitude about it. So that's how they roll. And then, um, then you get on the other side of the spectrum, which I think is the ideal candidate for, for the repercussions is kind of guy where he's like mad at you, maybe not even necessarily because it's you, but just he's having a bad day, or he's just like frustrated because he's not winning or whatever kind of thing.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  And then he's kind of, he's turning it up a notch, like, and how you say he's stepping out of line. And that's what it is. It's like you're you're stepping slightly outside of like the mutual, like respectful agreement of this friendly, like, training slash competition match.

• 1:57:24Jocko Willink?

  And the other thing is, you gotta remember is, like, when I roll with Andy, like, man, we're smashing each other. I mean, it's full, he's, you know, we're, we'll do whatever, like, it's full, we might as well be competing for, you know, the world championships.

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:40Jocko Willink?

  Cuz if there's a chance where he's trying to choke me, and I've got my chin down, he'll, he'll choke my face. No, no doubt about it. I'll do the same to him, like, but if I was rolling with someone I didn't really train with all the time, and they buried their chin, I'd be like, okay, I'll go for an armlock or whatever. You know, you're not just, you're not just putting your forearm across their across their mandible and cranking it as hard as you can to open up a neck exposure, or just get him to tap from that.

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, so.

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, that's a subtle kind of dance you gotta do too with like who you roll with or whatever. But I think generally speaking, there's like an understanding where I think we all sort of understand. Where, yeah, like that, if you're real close with someone and you already know you guys are used to that competition, you can take it a little bit further. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then even on top of that, where like, and this I guess goes for people who you're, who you're at least have a good rapport with, whether you're close with them or not, where, okay, so there's, you know, Isaiah, right? He's a, he's one of the MMA guys, right? Okay, so we'll roll or whatever, and sometimes it'll go into this ongoing scramble, right? So like one time he was like, it was an ongoing scramble. I don't know if he was on purpose going outside of the mat,

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  like outside of the door. He, he kinda did like to escape, but he went outside of the mat. And I just chased him outside and jumped on his back. We're out in the, not on the mat anymore, over by the water fountain, you know? But I chased him not because, no, no, this, it's still on. It was like halfway joking, you know, getting like, ooh, we're still fighting. But he was like joking, you know? Sometimes people do that like serious, you know, like you're hitting the mop in this corner and they're still trying to go.

• 1:59:13Jocko Willink?

  So, so here's, here's the important part of this whole thing. If, the, the reason that this is important is because

• 1:59:24Jocko Willink?

  if you and I are in a real fight and you crank my face, that doesn't mean anything. I can, I'm just gonna, I'm not like, what am I gonna do? I'm, I'm gonna try and bite you, right? There's, if you're cranking my face, I'm not gonna tap to it. So it is not a legit thing unless it opens up a choke, right? If you can make the pain open up a choke, well, then that's fine. I guess what I'm saying is there's things that you could do to somebody like, here's another one, breaking someone's finger, right? Like I could grab through your fingers. If we were in a real fight, grab two of your fingers, grab one of your fingers and just break it. Does that end the fight?

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  No, it doesn't end the fight. And in fact, it has a, not a huge impact on the fight immediately, right? You know, like it's not gonna end the fight immediately.

• 2:00:19Jocko Willink?

  So therefore, for me to grab at your fingers and try and break one of your fingers is. Not good training partner.

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Because it doesn't really impact the, the, the fight. Look, it has a small impact of the fight, but, but. Like eye gouging, right? And this is a good one because I've had people try and gouge out my eyes before. It's, it doesn't change the outcome of the fight at that moment. Look, if you get your finger deep enough, because I, I have not done this, but I've had friends that have dug in for eyes. And it can, it's definitely, it makes people react, right? But if someone's a trained fighter, it's not this game changer. It's not as a game changer as a choke is.

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  So therefore, me going, hey, you can just attack my eyes and we're good. No, because if you do that, guess what? I'm gonna have scratches on my eyes. And yet, it doesn't mean that you could ever beat me. It just means that I have scratches on my eyes. It doesn't change the outcome. So I guess there's the, there's the strange part about this. Well, not the strange part, that's, it's important because we do train hard. We train hard for a reason.

• 2:01:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:30Jocko Willink?

  And that's one of the best things about jiu jitsu is you can go 99%. You can go 100% and hey, if I get you an arm lock, you tap. If you give me an arm lock, I tap. Cool, then we go again. If I gouge out your eye. It, we can't go again. And realistically, it's hard to gouge out someone and I, and it didn't really change the outcome of fight. Because you'll still be fighting with one eye.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:55Jocko Willink?

  So anyways.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even if you're training for actually fighting or whatever, like in, in, outside of MMA, I guess, but.

• 2:02:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, here's a good one, biting off someone's ear.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:07Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  You know Igor?

• 2:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's what made me think of it. So, so Igor, you know, he got into a street fight. And you know, you, you hear all these people say, you know, you rip off someone's ear, they're gonna be done. Guess what? Somebody bit off Igor's ear. And he could, he like, I remember I was like, bro. And I said, well, what happened? He goes, oh, and I got, I got side control and then, you know, mount and finished him, you know, with his ear off.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:39Jocko Willink?

  Big giant chunk of his ear gone.

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  I mean, visibly gone forever.

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  Mike Tyson style.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Mike Tyson, bigger than Mike Tyson. So this idea that, oh, just bite this guy's ear. It's like, that's why if you and I were go to train today, and I'm like, you know what? Just to make it more realistic, I'm gonna bite your ear off. And then you're like, bro, what are you doing? And you stop. Does that mean I win? No, it means we lost in training.

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:02Jocko Willink?

  And I got a false sense of security, thinking that just biting off your ear would stop you, when the reality is, when it happened to Igor, he just was like, oh, cool. Now you're really gonna pay.

• 2:03:14Jocko Willink?

  So I know there's some guy that was on the receiving end of that, that's probably listening right now going, I wish I wouldn't have bitten that guy's ear, cuz.

• 2:03:20Speaker 01

  I know, man. Heavily paid the price on that one.

• 2:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Cuz this is the thing. To bring us back to jujitsu, the, the jujitsu that you train every single day is effective. It's very effective. You don't need to bite. You don't need to pull hair. You don't need to gouge eyes. Sure, you can add that stuff. It's fine. In a real situation, it's fine. But the fundamentals that you know are infinitely more powerful than these little additional things that you might think in your brain are a game changer.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  They're not.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree.

• 2:03:56Jocko Willink?

  So jujitsu, so we wanna train it. Let's go with that premise. We wanna train jujitsu. Do you have any recommendations on uh, what we should utilize to train jujitsu?

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  Yes, discipline, but attire wise, I'm gonna go gi, no gi, boom. So the uniform for gi is a gi. Uniform for no gi is not a gi. It's a rash card. Anyway, best gis in the world factually are from Origin. So go to originmaine.com. You don't even have to ask anymore what gi I should get. Get an Origin gi and take your pick. I don't care, whatever color you like. How about that?

• 2:04:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and not only can you get gis there, and someone actually just asked this. They saw a picture of Pete and the Deco.

• 2:04:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:04:39Jocko Willink?

  Standing with Origin jeans on and said, but they, they said, where are the, where do you get those gi pants with pockets?

• 2:04:47Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:04:47Jocko Willink?

  They're Origin jeans, which are also available at originmaine.com. Made in America.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  From.

• 2:04:57Jocko Willink?

  The very, the very thread that they are created with was made in America.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  American denim.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, good. That's actually only the, the only jeans I wear. I've got some designer jeans too, by the way. I didn't realize this until, you know, I revisited them. It's been so long. Nonetheless, yes, originmaine.com is where you can get all this stuff. Also, they got shirts and joggers and sweat suits. Would you call them sweat suits?

• 2:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, I guess so.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  You know, other clothing attire elements. Yeah. So yeah, jeans, like Jaco said, um, also supplements.

• 2:05:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you mentioned discipline. I thought you were gonna talk about discipline. Uh, that we sell discipline.

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  The supplement, the pre-mission supplement.

• 2:05:40Jocko Willink?

  Pre-mission supplement, discipline in a powder, which you can get Jaco Palmer. Which is very tasty. You can also get the discipline can, which is awesome. And milk. And by the way, if you didn't know this yet, The Vitamin Shop.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:57Jocko Willink?

  The Vitamin Shop in America, which I think there's 700 stores all over the place. They now have the whole line of Jaco Fuel.

• 2:06:10Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:06:12Jocko Willink?

  If you wanna go and get some, you can go and get some.

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  Get some at Vitamin Shop as well.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  Or you can go to originmaine.com and get some there.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Yep. So yes, milk, additional protein in the form of dessert, discipline for your brain and body. At the same time. Discipline Go, the pill and the can. Can is like the energy drink, uh, delivery system.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We don't like to say energy drink, cause energy drinks, generally speaking, are not healthy.

• 2:06:43Speaker 01

  They got the stigma.

• 2:06:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, not, it's a, it's an earned stigma. They got a ton of sugar in them. They got a bunch of nasty chemicals.

• 2:06:51Speaker 01

  Yes, but this one does not yet.

• 2:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Does not.

• 2:06:54Speaker 01

  But if you take away the nasty chemicals, uh, all the sugar and that part of it.

• 2:06:59Jocko Willink?

  Can, caffeine.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  Excessive caffeine.

• 2:07:02Jocko Willink?

  300, 400 milligrams of caffeine. You do not need that in one can of anything.

• 2:07:07Speaker 01

  So take away all those negative things, you, we have, everything else is, is essentially energy drink material. So it's, I think it's just a stigma.

• 2:07:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  It has a lightning bolt. On the logo.

• 2:07:22Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  It's in one of those little thin, yeah.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  It is a can.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's true. That's not because it's an energy drink. It's because it's Tropic Thunder.

• 2:07:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  And then it's in one of those little slim cans.

• 2:07:31Jocko Willink?

  Because lemon lime doesn't have a, it has a, it has a little, little lemon lime on it, on the citrus, citrus psycho.

• 2:07:39Speaker 01

  Citrus wedge in there in the logo. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, exception, little, little twist there, if you will. Nonetheless, if you like energy drinks, but you're like, hey, I'm not down for all that, that negative noise. Boom, right here. That's a delivery system.

• 2:07:55Jocko Willink?

  And also, speaking of Vitamin Shoppe, you, me, Dakota Meyer, JP Denell, will be in the San Diego Vitamin Shoppe on February 8th to kick it with the troops.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  What, what day is that?

• 2:08:14Jocko Willink?

  February 8th.

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  Dang, alright, there you go. Boom. Also, what else we got? Okay, cans, yes. Also Warrior Kid Milk.

• 2:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  Additional protein for the young ones, for the youth.

• 2:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  If you will.

• 2:08:28Jocko Willink?

  Best thing in the world for the children.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  Agree. Strawberry chocolate.

• 2:08:31Jocko Willink?

  And don't forget about Jocko White Tea.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:08:35Jocko Willink?

  If you want to deadlift 8,000 pounds, get it.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  Yep, it's true. Happens to be certified organic as well. Also, yes, Jocko has a store. You know what? We have a store.

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  Happens to be called Jocko Store. Simplicity. So go jockostore.com. Sorry, this is where you can get your shirts and hoodies and beanies and hats, both FlexFit and Snapback truck hats, while representing on the path, you know, discipline equals freedom. Good. Stand by to get some.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  Back to the book. All that stuff. Nonetheless, you go there, like I said, jockostore.com. If you like something, get something, represent while you're on this everlasting path.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on your iTunes or Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, you know, all these podcasts, wherever you listen to your podcasts, subscribe.

• 2:09:40Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and also we have the Grounded Podcast, which we almost just recorded one when we went on this big tangent just a minute ago, but Grounded Podcast, we talk about all things life, jujitsu, and you can check that one out. Also, the Warrior Kid Podcast for kids, and don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap made by Aiden, and the new soap is out.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  You see the logo?

• 2:10:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  So dope.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  It's called Killer Soap. It's got ingredients in it that help deter microbials?

• 2:10:19Speaker 01

  Microbes, I guess.

• 2:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Microbes and funguses, it's got all to get rid of that stuff. So if you're a person that does something called jujitsu, you probably want some of this.

• 2:10:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:10:28Jocko Willink?

  And you know what's really cool about it? It's black.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  The soap is black.

• 2:10:31Jocko Willink?

  The soap is black because it's got charcoal.

• 2:10:35Speaker 01

  I hear good things, by the way.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  So, so there you go. Get yourself some Killer Soap by a young kid who started a business, no big deal. Started it when he was like 11. Started his own business, got goats, and decided, what can I make with goat milk? Oh, I know what I can make. Soap. Killer Soap, which allows everyone in the world to stay clean.

• 2:11:00Speaker 01

  Very, very nice. Also YouTube, we have a YouTube channel, official, where Echo Charles is constantly trying his utmost to make a viral video.

• 2:11:14Jocko Willink?

  He's got the ingredients. He's got the formula. Can he do, can he pull it off?

• 2:11:18Speaker 01

  I think my hypothesis that'll never be.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Categorize beyond a hypothesis, I think. I don't think you can make a viral video like, like that. You can't proactively like, okay, I'm gonna formulate. There is no formula for the

• 2:11:35Jocko Willink?

  It'd be interesting to find out if anyone's ever said, okay, I'm gonna make a viral video and then it worked.

• 2:11:40Speaker 01

  I would think that yes.

• 2:11:41Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you know what? There's some people like on YouTube, like YouTube, um, stars or whatever, that they can make consistent viral videos. Well,

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  I guess it depends. It depends. Yeah, yes, sir. Yes, sir. But I think it depends on what you mean by viral video, because technically, from what I understand, viral video is like, it just comes kind of from this real small source and then it goes viral.

• 2:12:03Jocko Willink?

  So, so if the platform is already too big.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got 10 million subscribers and it gets 11 million views. Is that a viral video?

• 2:12:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay. Point taken.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  But the thing is, I don't know.

• 2:12:14Jocko Willink?

  Has a viral video ever been manufactured proactively with intention?

• 2:12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure somebody's must've.

• 2:12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure someone had a really good idea and just came, it hit them and they were like, you know what? And they just, it was more of a hope thing. It wasn't a guaranteed thing, but it was just like, hey, man, this, I don't see how this couldn't go viral kind of thing. And they just happened to be right, you know? But I don't know that there's a formula that someone can follow. Nonetheless, in the event of us, us making a viral video, this is where it's gonna come from.

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  That would be me. That'd be you. You're making viral videos.

• 2:12:47Speaker 01

  No, but you're the talent, though. That's what they call it officially. You're the talent person in front of the camera.

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  Then we're in rough shape, bro.

• 2:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Unless, yes, we do some good editing.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm gonna do my best and.

• 2:13:01Jocko Willink?

  So subscribe to that channel. You can watch Echo Charles and I talk about skinny knees.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  Or what have you.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  I think that's the most, uh, uh, I think that's the best, the funniest video. Might not be the best, but it's, it's, it's, it's pretty funny. I watch it once every two months and I still laugh every time.

• 2:13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some laughs to be had. I will agree with that.

• 2:13:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, psychological warfare. If you need a little help getting over a moment of weakness, you're not alone. You're not alone. I will be there with you.

• 2:13:35Jocko Willink?

  Press play on your MP3 media device and I will enter your ear and give you words of discipline, focus.

• 2:13:47Jocko Willink?

  And will. So go to Psychological Warfare where the artist is Jocko Willink. It's any MP3 platform. We also have a visual representation, which you can find on flipsidecanvas.com, run by my brother Dakota Meyer,

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  where you can, he's making, let's just call it graphic representations of the path.

• 2:14:15Jocko Willink?

  So hit that up. I got a bunch of books.

• 2:14:19Jocko Willink?

  Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. Thank you all. Spread the word.

• 2:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Write a review on Amazon.

• 2:14:30Jocko Willink?

  And then get Way of the Warrior Kid, the whole series, one, two, and three. Mark's Mission Where There's a Will and Way of the Warrior Kid. Mikey and the Dragons For the Little Kid. Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual For the Older Kid.

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  That needs to be on the path. The audio version of that is on MP3 platforms as well. And then, of course, Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership. That is the books I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, laying out the principles of leadership that will help you in business and life. And if you need more help than that, we have Echelon Front, which is our leadership consultancy, where we solve problems through leadership. You can go to echelonfront.com for that. EF Online. That's Echelon Front Online Leadership Training, because leadership is not an inoculation. We got the muster

• 2:15:20Jocko Willink?

  coming up in 2019. Where are we gonna be? We're gonna be in Orlando. We're gonna be in Dallas, and we're gonna be in Phoenix, Arizona. Go to extremeownership.com. Every one of these that we have done has sold out. These are gonna sell out too. So if you wanna come, and you wanna bring your team. Go there now, extremeownership.com. And we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion for almost since the inception of Echelon Front, people have been asking us, hey, where can I hire veterans that know and understand the principles you talk about? That demand signal grew to a point where we now have an answer to that demand signal.

• 2:16:03Jocko Willink?

  If you are at a company and you want to hire people that understand extreme ownership and understand the dichotomy of leadership and understand the leadership strategies and tactics that we talk about all the time, they go to EF Overwatch or EF Legion to find people that will come and help lead your company to victory. And if you're a veteran and you're looking for your next mission, this is where you find it. You find it at EF Overwatch, you find it at EF Legion.

• 2:16:33Jocko Willink?

  Go check them out. And if for some completely unknown reason, you still feel the need to communicate with us after all these hours, then we are available.

• 2:16:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:16:49Jocko Willink?

  On the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on JaRastaBook.

• 2:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thank you to everyone out there for your support. We couldn't do this podcast without you being in the game, without you getting some Death Corps,

• 2:17:16Jocko Willink?

  or some Origin gear, or some Jaco supplements, all of which, those things, they support the podcast. So we appreciate all you troopers out there, trooping. And thanks to those of you that are out there in uniform, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, the Coast Guardmen who protect our way of life every day, and to our police and law enforcement, to the firefighters, to the paramedics and EMTs, the dispatchers, the correctional officers, the Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all the other first responders that protect us here at home. Thank you for that.

• 2:17:56Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone.

• 2:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Remember what Patton Remember what Patton taught us, not only about war and leadership,

• 2:18:09Jocko Willink?

  but about life.

• 2:18:11Jocko Willink?

  And that is the fact that we all have weaknesses, we all have shortfalls, no one was born perfect, but we can still overcome.

• 2:18:22Jocko Willink?

  We can overcome our natal defects through unremitting effort and practice.

• 2:18:31Jocko Willink?

  And as he told his own son, "You can be born with a soul capable of correct military reactions, or the body capable of having big muscles, but both qualities must be developed by hard work."

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  So, don't sit back and accept the hand that you've been dealt negative.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  Instead, overcome your weaknesses, capitalize on your strengths by getting out there

• 2:19:11Jocko Willink?

  and getting after it.

• 2:19:14Jocko Willink?

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