229: Pick a Plan and GET AFTER IT. Any Good Plan Executed Boldly is Better Than Indecision. General Omar Bradley

0:00: 00 - Opening 0:10:59 - General Omar Bradley's take on Leadership. 1:49:15 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 1:50:42 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:06:14 - 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 229 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  Leadership means firmness, not harshness or bullying. Understanding, not weakness. Justice, not irresponsible freedom. Humanness, not intolerance. Generosity, not selfishness. Pride, not egotism.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  So, little quote for you to kick things off. This is coming, I ran across it the other day and as I ran across it, I saw some of little bit of the dichotomy of leadership in there. And it just caught my attention and it's a quote from General Omar Bradley.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  A general with a good amount of name recognition.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  But a general who kind of flew under the radar sometimes because he was competing with some, some big names. You know, he's competing with General Patton, he's competing with General Eisenhower, he's competing with General Montgomery, so he kind of flew under the radar sometimes. Even though he does have the Bradley Fighting Vehicle named after him, which is an awesome machine. But he absolutely was a well-regarded general in his own right. Born in 1893 in Randolph County, Missouri, worked as a boiler maker. Figured out he could get a free education by going to West Point, so he went to West Point, graduated in 1915.

• 1:46Jocko Willink?

  Same year as Eisenhower, by the way. He was a really good athlete, baseball star, could have played pro ball, but.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  Chose to be in the army, chose to go and do his commitment to the army. So 1915, you're probably thinking World War I, W W I. Well, he actually didn't go to World War I. He didn't go and fight in World War I. There were mining disputes in the unions in the, in the mines up in Montana. And they had to activate some army units to send him up there to guard the mines. And that's what he did. He did that for a little while, and then he did go to a unit that was getting ready to deploy to World War I. The Spanish flu came, which everyone seems to know about the Spanish flu now. And there was, then there was the armistice and he didn't deploy.

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  So he didn't get any combat action in World War I. Thought that that might hurt his career, but he stayed in anyways. Ended up teaching tactics at the infantry school. Fast forward through the, the peace years, made general in 1942. Assigned the 82nd division, then the 28th National Guard Division. Eventually worked under General Patton as the deputy in charge of second corps. And then took it over himself, led the campaigns in Tunisia and Sicily. Uh, Ike Eisenhower selected Bradley to command the first army during Operation Overlord, D-Day.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  Command, he commanded the most troops of any general, US general in history. When he took command of the 12th Army Group, 1.3 million troops. Little decentralized command better come into play right there. Continue with all those troops to push through Europe until the fall of Germany. We covered Ernie Pyle on this podcast, podcast number 39, his book Brave Men. It was the heavies, one of my favorite lines. Ernie Pyle nicknamed him the G.I. General. Cause he was kind of a laid back, down to earth guy, didn't make a spectacle of himself. After the war, he ran the VA for a while, the Veterans Administration.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  First ever chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Korean War. Retired in 1953 after 38 years of service. I found a, the internet is amazing.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  I found an evaluation.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  You know, we talk about the evaluations, the evaluation, the Marine Corps evaluation, the Navy evaluation. I found an evaluation of Bradley written by General Patton. It's pretty cool because it shows, it shows what type of a person Patton was, just in the way he wrote this thing. So it says, "Subject efficiency report through commanding general NATO USA APO 534 to Adj. General War Department, Washington DC. Name and grade of general officer reported on Omar F. Bradley, Lieutenant General. Period covered 1 July

• 5:04Jocko Willink?

  1943 to 8 September 1943, 2 months and 8 days. Duties performed commanding general to corps 1 July 1943 to 8 September 19 something unclear. Manner of performance, superior. Physical activity, superior. Physical endurance, superior. Knowledge of his profession, superior. For what command or duty would you specifically recommend him?" "An army."

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  And then, "What opportunities have you had for observing him during period covered? Intimate daily contact. Does he render a willing and generous support to plans of superiors regardless of personal views in the matter?" "Yes." Which is a very interesting topic to cover. I mean, you think about what they've got in there, physical duty, knowledge of his profession, what job would you recommend? And then, "Does he give generous support to plans of superiors regardless of his personal views in the matter?" So this guy's gonna back you up. The answer there is yes. And 10, "Of all general officers of his grade personally known to you, what number would

• 6:22Jocko Willink?

  you give him on this list and how many comprise your list?" And Patton's answer is, "Number 1, I know all of them."

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  Further remarks deemed necessary? None. Signed, G. S. Patton Jr., Lieutenant General, U.S. Army Commanding. So, that's a pretty awesome review. The interesting thing is, if you know anything about the history of Bradley and Patton, there's some interesting dynamics there. They, first of all, they had very different personalities. Patton was, you know, flashy and ego driven in a lot of ways, and Bradley was not. And there's some quotes I pulled from Patton's journal, journals about Bradley. So it's interesting that he could have these, write him that glowing, like, evaluation

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  about him to try and get him promoted. But at the same time, here's some things he said about him. Bradley is too conservative. He wants to wait until we can all jump into the fight together, by which time half our men will be, will have the flu or trench foot. I wish he had a little more daring. Another one. Bradley is a good officer, but he utterly lacks it. Too bad. The it factor. Echo Charles. Next one. Bradley is a man of great mediocrity. On the other hand, he has many attributes which are considered desirable in a general. He wears glasses, which I have no idea, I have no idea why that's cool, to be a general. He wears glasses. He has a strong jaw.

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  He talks profoundly and says little. And he is a shooting companion of our present Chief of Staff, General Marshall. Also, he is a loyal man. I consider him to be among our better generals. Another quote. We had a lot, quite a long talk, and I told Bradley a lot of my best ideas to tell General Marshall. I suppose I should have kept them to myself, but I am not built that way. The sooner they are put into effect, the better it will be for our army. So there, hey, we see a little, a little planting the seed, you know, leading up the chain of command, right there.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, "It was really a great plan, wholly my own, and I made Bradley believe that he thought of it."

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  That's exactly what I talk about. Plant the seed, let him think it's your own idea.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  But because it's Patton, because he's got a little bit of that ego that kicks in, he also wrote this, "I do not wish any more of my ideas to be used without credit to me, which is what happens when I give them orally to Bradley." How's that for short sighted? That's sad to read. Little bit sad to read. Yes, sir. Another one where ego gets the best of Patton. He says Courtney Hodges and Omar Bradley both received a distinguished service medal for their unsuccessful defense of the bulge. I did not receive one for successfully defending it. So clearly, these guys had a, you know, an interesting relationship.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  General Bradley also wrote a book and it's, from what I gather, his aide de camp did most of the writing, which I'm not saying that's a horrible thing, because writing is a mechanical thing that you have to do. And if you can get someone to catch your ideas and do it well, then it's fine. But the book was released in 1951. It's called A Soldier's Story. It's 600-page book.

• 10:10Jocko Willink?

  Details his experiences in the Army, obviously, especially in World War II. And I'm sure we're going to cover that book at some point. We're not doing it today.

• 10:20Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, after I read that quote about him, and, you know, just talking about leadership and kind of the dichotomies that are there, I remembered this short piece that I have, and I got a bunch of these little short things in a certain file folder in my computer, and they're old too. I've been collecting them for a long time. What's the name of the file? It's, uh, Books and PDFs. I have this thing, Books and PDFs, that I just download, I save them into Books and PDFs. I've got a lot of them. We've covered a bunch of them too, on this podcast. So, I remembered this one of his, and it is called Leadership.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  General of the Army Omar and Bradley. This article's first published in a winter 1972 issue of Parameters, which is the magazine of the US Army War College.

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  Editor's note, General to the Army Omar N. Bradley visited Carlyle Barracks on 7 to 8 October 1971 to meet with members of the 12th Army Group Association. While he was at Carlyle, he addressed the Army War College faculty and students on the subject of leadership. His address contained observations that were gleaned during a long and significant career. A careful reading of his remarks gives us some insight into the qualities that made General Bradley the great soldier and human being that he is. General Bradley's thesis is that leadership is an intangible that involves a constant interplay between the leader and the lead. When this interplay is successful, we have the ingredients for great accomplishment.

• 11:54Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. Kicking into it. All of you here this evening are leaders. I am pleased to meet you. What you do may well dignify the past, explain today, and secure for all of us tomorrow.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  Perhaps I can touch upon a few factors that will underscore the value of good leadership. Leadership is an intangible. No weapon, no impersonal piece of machinery ever designed can take its place. It's an interesting idea that leadership is intangible. Have you ever heard that expression that somebody asked for the definition of pornography and the Supreme Court Justice said, "I can't give you a definition, but I know it when I see it," something like that? It's a weird thing, right? Because leadership, if you're going to define it specifically, it's kind of the same answer, right? Look, I can't tell you exactly what it is, but I know

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  it when I see it. And you see different people do it differently.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can see two different people say or do the same thing, but be like, hey, this guy's leading and this guy's sort of not. You know, he's doing something else, you know?

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's, in leadership strategy and tactics, I give someone talking about pride, and the same sentence about pride, depending on who is saying it and what context it is, can be negative or positive. For instance, "That guy's full of pride," right? Or, "That guy's full of pride." You know what I mean? Like, that's the same sentence. But it means two completely different things.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  So continuing on, this is the age of the computer. By the way, this is 1971. And if you know how to program the machine, you can get quick and accurate answers. But how can you include leadership and morale, which is affected by leadership into your programming? Let us never forget the great importance of this element, leadership. And while we use computers for certain answers, let us not try to fight a whole war or even a single battle without giving proper consideration to the element of leadership. Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. Your little calculator over there.

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  We're going to be covering a podcast shortly about the creation of Top Gun. And same thing, there's some people that would do the calculations of this aircraft versus that aircraft and think, well, this aircraft is superior aircraft, it will win. How many times is that wrong? What do they not calculate? They're not calculating the human element. How many times have you watched a UFC fight where on paper, everyone thought person A was going to win and person B wins? Because the human element, they don't calculate it. So how can we expect to calculate what's going to happen in combat without trying to figure out what implication leadership has on it?

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, another element to be considered is the man to be led and with whose morale we are concerned. I am constantly reminded of this point by a cartoon which hangs over my desk at home, which depicts an infantryman with his rifle across his knees as he sits behind a parapet. Above him is the list of the newest weapons science has devised, the newest weapons science has devised, and the soldier behind the parapet is saying, but they still haven't found out the substitute for me. So there's the human beings.

• 15:46Jocko Willink?

  Of course, with this particular group of service personnel, I am considering leadership as it applies to a military unit. However, having been associated with industry for some time now, I find it difficult to completely separate the principles of military and industrial leadership. They have much in common. And he retired in 1953, this is 1971. He worked with some companies, I know he was the, like, the chairman of Bulova, Bulova? How do you say Bulova Watch Company? B U L O V A?

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bulova or Bulova.

• 16:19Jocko Willink?

  He was the chairman of that, so that's a big company. So he understood the same thing that we now know to be true. And that's a strong statement. Did I say it? Yes, I did. We know to be true. I couldn't have told you this 10 years. The day I retired from the Navy, I couldn't have told you that military and civilian leadership are the same. I couldn't have answered that question. I didn't know it. I didn't know the answer. It wasn't until I started working with civilian companies that I said, oh, these are the same, the same principles employed in both situations. And that's what Omar Bradley is saying here. He says they have much in common, they have more than much, they have a lot in common.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  I'd go so far as to say they have everything in common, but there's differences. But I'll tell you, the differences between leading an army platoon, leading a Marine Corps platoon, there's little differences there, are the same differences between leading a gas station and a construction site. So going from one construction site to another construction, there's little differences. I used to say that about SEAL platoons. Because like, the difference between a SEAL platoon and another SEAL platoon are the same differences that you find, there's just going to be differences in those situations. The principles don't change. The principles don't change leading a construction site, the principles don't change leading a manufacturing line, the principles don't change leading a Girl Scout troop.

• 17:51Jocko Willink?

  Leadership is leadership. Moving on, in selecting a company in which to invest our savings, we often give primary consideration to the company with good leadership. In similar manner, a military unit is often judged by its leadership. Good leadership is essential to organized organized action where any group is involved. Now, if you were to dig down into this right here, I'm here to tell you, if you're going to invest in a company, the number one thing you should look at is what's the leadership like? Because if they have a great product, groundbreaking product, but they have horrible leadership, it doesn't matter. Leadership should be the number one component you look at.

• 18:35Jocko Willink?

  When we work with investment groups, sometimes they're wanting us just to tell them, do an assessment. Make an assessment, what is this leadership pod like? What are these humans like? Are they good leaders? Do they have capabilities? Do they have potential? Are they bad? Like, those are the questions. Continue on, the one who commands, be he a military officer or captain of industry, must project power, an energizing power which coordinates and marshals the best efforts of his followers by supplying that certain something for which they look to him, be it guidance, support, encouragement, example, or even new ideas and imagination.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  Projecting power, that's an interesting concept. And look, I'd love to tell you, well, you know, that's, you don't need to project. But if you dig a little bit deeper on that statement, it's fairly accurate.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Projection of power, like appear powerful?

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Just, just saying, hey, I got this, we can do this. You know what I mean? I guess it's a form of confidence. Which he talks about later, but I think that that projection of power.

• 19:49Jocko Willink?

  And an energizing power.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's talking about, which coordinates and marshals the best of. You've seen this before, right? Well, let's just look at a, a, a, kind of a generic situation. You see a group, they're not really focused, they're not really making anything happen. And all of a sudden, the leader steps up, takes control, exhibits that power and they, and marshals those people to move in the same direction. That's what leadership is.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. You watch American Beauty, you ever watch that movie?

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  I have seen it, but I don't really remember.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  It's actually pretty good, but there's a part, this guy, his name, what was his name? I forget his name, but he called himself the king of real estate. It's kind of a one off character. And he said to the lady, I forget her name, something Burnham. Anyway, says to the lady, oh, call me crazy, but it's my philosophy that in order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.

• 20:50Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  That's what he said.

• 20:51Jocko Willink?

  Super cheesy.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Okay, man.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  I think.

• 20:55Jocko Willink?

  And let's think about that, right? If you project an image of success at all time, when are you projecting your vulnerability? When are you projecting your humility?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  Right? If you're just walking around by the, the, the, the Merc. Right? And you're rolling.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:13Jocko Willink?

  With the Rolex.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Wait, what's a Merc?

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  Mercedes.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Okay, I understand.

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  Rolling with the Merc and the Rolex.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  The roly.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  Projecting success.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Jocko Willink?

  But I, I don't, I don't know. I, I don't necessarily, as a matter of fact, I don't agree with that.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Well, when I, when I heard it, I was like, probably you're just a poser. That's what, all you're doing. It was like, basically it was because like, he just broke up with his girl. And then the lady was like, oh, I thought you guys were doing so well or whatever. And then he was like.

• 21:43Jocko Willink?

  That it was a lie.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Essentially, yeah, he was like, basically I put on an image of success to be successful in my business. I don't know, whatever.

• 21:52Jocko Willink?

  I got a better idea. If you want to be successful, why don't you be humble? Why don't you step up and work hard? There's a bunch of other better ways to be successful than pretending to be successful. I'm gonna throw that out there right now.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm gonna agree.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on. The test of a leader lies in the reaction and response of his followers. That's straightforward.

• 22:24Jocko Willink?

  The reaction response, look, if you're a leader and people don't react correctly, you're failing. He should not have to impose authority. Say it again. He should not have to impose authority. Bossiness in itself never made a leader. He must make his influence felt by example and the instilling of confidence in his followers. The greatness of a leader is measured by the achievements of the lead. It's the ultimate test of his effectiveness. You know, I think he brushes up against a lot of stuff. And this is like my third time reading through this today.

• 23:07Jocko Willink?

  And I keep, I keep seeing little connections, right? I keep seeing little where he's brushing up against really important things and, and kind of talking about them. Talking about them. Kind of passes through them, like mentions them. And some of them are perfect, you know? He should not have to impose authority, right? That's, that's, that's obvious. It's almost like he's uncomfortable saying it. Because he continues on by saying he must make his influence felt by the example and instilling confidence in others. See, the thing that I have a problem, well, I guess, I don't know, maybe you can help me. Instilling confidence in others, what does that mean, right? There's a little bit of a lack of explanation behind that. We know what it means. Maybe this is why he says leadership is intangible.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  Cause look. We say, hey, you want to instill confidence in your people. Great. Thank you.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  But that's, that's goes without saying. How do we actually do it? Right? How do we actually do it? How do you instill confidence in people? Oh, how about you give them something that they can handle? Okay, that's a good thing. How about we take our team and we go out and we accomplish a pretty simple, straightforward objective and our confidence goes up a little bit. And then we handle a more complicated one and we keep doing that. And then we give subordinate leaders thing, you see what I'm saying? This idea of just, you know, making people confident. In stealing confidence in your followers, great. How do I do it? And by the way, that's leadership strategy and tactics. That is, that is why I wrote leadership strategy and tactics. Cause those questions right there, I realized there was a, a gap between, hey,

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  build a relationship with your boss. That's great, Jaco. How do I do it? How am I supposed to do that? I was on EF online the other day and I said, I said, Jamie, cause I was talking to someone, I said, I got the name, I got my next book. And she was like, oh, great. Cause she's always mad because I'm doing too much.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:06Jocko Willink?

  And I said, because we were talking to somebody about ego, I thought, oh yeah, I'd give that person a little ego massage, maneuver around, plant the seeds, all this. I said, my next book is going to be called, uh, what was it? Ancient Techniques of Ego Massage Therapy.

• 25:22Jocko Willink?

  Right? Cause you could actually do that. You could say, hey, here's the person that you're dealing with. Here's how you want to massage that ego. Here's another person. Here's another ancient technique of ego massage.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dang, that'd be actually a really good book.

• 25:33Jocko Willink?

  I know. No, I'm not even kidding.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Because they, you know, you could tell someone even now, like if they don't have the guidelines, like a for real comprehensive, you know, instructional, they, they get, it's so easy to take that kind of stuff too far, you know, like, oh, just massage his ego. And you go massage ego, do it too much. And the guy's like, bro, this guy's kissing my ass right now, or just trying to massage my ego. Cause this isn't part of ego massage, effective ego massage. Them not really knowing like that you're doing it for the sake of you.

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:02Jocko Willink?

  For sure. If they know you're doing it.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:04Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't really work as well.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Cool. I'm waiting for that book too.

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. So I'll get, I'll get working on it and get cracking. Maybe it'll just be a little, uh, maybe it'll just be a little short little handbook, a couple of techniques for the troops out there. You know what I'll think of? I'll think of other ancient techniques that need explanations and I'll put them all in, let's say there's four sections.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  What do you mean ancient techniques?

• 26:32Jocko Willink?

  I'm just saying that.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds cool. Yes, sir.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I probably could write a little book on that just by watching you do certain stuff.

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know what you could do to help me is you go, oh, I saw you do this and then I can go into that exactly what I was doing and that would be helpful.

• 26:51Jocko Willink?

  Because you get to see that what's interesting for you is you see maneuvering happening.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:55Jocko Willink?

  On multiple different fronts.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:58Jocko Willink?

  And I sit here and tell you, hey, this is what's happening over here with this company. This is what the move is going to be. Watch how it unfolds and you're like, okay. And then you watch and you go, okay.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 27:07Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:10Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 27:12Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on. Too frequently, we use the words leader and commander synonymously. We should not forget that there are far, far more staff officers, staff officer assignments than there are command billets. And a good staff officer can and should display the same leadership as a commander. While it takes a good staff officer to initiate an effective plan, it requires a leader to ensure that the plan is properly executed. This is good stuff that we're about to dive into. That is why you and I have been taught that the work of collecting information, studying it, drawing a plan and making a decision is 10% of the job.

• 27:55Jocko Willink?

  Seeing the plan through is the other 90%. A well-trained officer is one who can serve effectively either as a staff officer or as a commander. So by a staff officer, they mean the guy that's coming up and helping coming up, put together the plan and going through the logistics of it all. That's the person, that's the, that's the staff officer. And then there's the person that makes it happen, that executes it. That's the commander.

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting to think this goes back to what we were talking about on the last podcast where I was saying, look, you're your commander and you're your troops. Right? You're both of those things. So you can come up with great ideas in your little head. Beautiful plans, amazing plans. Can you imagine how many people come up with plans that are actually freaking awesome? But they never execute them? Think about that. That is a, that is a graveyard.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 28:49Jocko Willink?

  A massive, infinite graveyard of incredibly good plans that never got executed on. Instead, a staff guy in their head, there's a nut. See, this is where the metaphor continues. Cause you've got a staff guy in your head that's in there coming up with these little plans, right? Coming up with these great plans. Hey, if I start this workout, hey, if I start this business, hey, if I can produce this thing. They come up with, the staff office coming up with great plans. Super. Good job. Unless that commander can get the troops in your head to execute it, has no value whatsoever. And, and by the way, and we've talked about this, that idea by itself is zero value.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:26Jocko Willink?

  Zero value. You come up with this great idea. Hey Jocko, I thought of this new app. Right? Cause everyone thinks of a new app every day. Hey Jocko, I feel this new app. It's, it's game changer. Okay. Cool.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Get it.

• 29:43Jocko Willink?

  How many of those things get executed?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  Not many.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  So let me ask you this. What's your opinion on this? Uh, so let's say

• 29:53Speaker 01

  me and another person, right? Let's say, okay, let's say somebody says, hey, I have this great idea. And tells you, you know? And it's a, and it's a good idea actually. And he said, this is how I'm going to execute, you know, whatever. Actually, there's so many different scenarios, but okay, this one, okay, here's, here's my plan. Um, and, and it's a

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm starting to worry about the execution of this very idea itself. We can watch this unfold. Let's see what's happening.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  And, okay, and then I don't have the capability to execute this plan at all. You know, there are other people who do, but it's just my idea. It's my idea. I don't know. Got pill that cures cancer. I don't know anything about, you know, but let's say I have that idea. I tell you and then you're like, oh yeah, good, good idea. And then years go by and I never execute. I never call somebody up to help execute it. You know, I'm just done. That was just my idea that I intended. It went into the graveyard, then he said, and then. You say, hmm, that is a good idea. I, unlike you, have the capability to actually execute most of this and I know the other guy who can execute the rest.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, me, I don't, I don't have any capability and I don't know anyone. I'd have to go shopping for my, and I simply didn't do it, right? Let's say you say, okay, and you execute the plan and be successful in your new thing, right? Is that like a violation or how do you feel about that? Cause you know, that happens a lot, right?

• 31:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it definitely happens a lot and it paints the reality. And, and what's interesting, you ever heard the term idea guy?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, sir.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh, that person's a good idea guy.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Went ahead.

• 31:28Jocko Willink?

  But it's kind of, it's kind of a pejorative, right? Oh, that guy, well, that guy's an idea guy, meaning like, hey, that guy can't really make anything happen. You can sit around here and spout off good ideas. That's great.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  So funny.

• 31:40Jocko Willink?

  That's great, but you don't actually execute on any of them. Which is just, what do I think should happen? Quite honestly, I guess in a perfect world, that person that came up with the idea and didn't execute it, he's paying the price for not making it happen. And the price is you watch somebody else, you know, go and, and do well with your idea because you didn't execute it.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Right, so he's gonna think, let's, let's say the, let's say I'm the idea guy in this particular scenario and you're that, you're the guy who can actually make it happen, right? Usually the idea guy is gonna be kinda salty because he's like, hey, I, I told you that, the whole idea, you know? Not how to do it, but just the idea, like, eh, that was my idea, you know, like on Seinfeld. It was my idea for the cologne that smells like the beach. Anyway, it's a thing, but the, but usually that's why that guy's salty, right?

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's mad.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he's mad, but the, the reality is like, bruh, not only did you not execute, like, I don't even know if you could, really.

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's a weird thing there because. If you don't have, you said two things, you don't have the capability of executing, which is a little bit different than not having the will to execute.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this, what I meant was, you don't like, okay, so I get this, this whole scenario is actually like a real scenario that happens all the time. Back when I used to make websites, like I'd hear it all the time, or and my brother Jade, he makes apps. So when you say, oh, I got this cool idea for new app, oh, that's a real thing. Everybody's calling him like, hey, I got this idea for this app, right? Meanwhile, they know nothing about what they're doing at all.

• 33:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Like they're like, oh, this, wouldn't it be cool to have an app that can read people's minds? Or that's not a real one, but I'm just saying, meanwhile, they have no idea about making apps. First off, they have no idea about mind reading, second off, and they have no idea about like anything else, you know? They're like, but they're like, that's a cool idea. Let me call the app guy, you know? And then so most of the time it's like, even if that were a good idea, which it's not, but even if it was, I don't need you for that to do it. You see what I'm saying?

• 33:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's a weird thing there because there's also people that don't have any good ideas, but that are really good at execution.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  So what I recommend you do is you form up your team where you have people that have ideas and people that can execute those ideas.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:59Jocko Willink?

  So you complement each other. You work with someone that can actually make things happen. I couldn't make this podcast. I didn't know how to press record.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, I didn't know how to, I didn't know what piece of equipment we're gonna need. I couldn't execute it. I have an idea. Hey, I think we should do, that's the exact same thing you're talking about right now. Now I could have sat in my closet by myself going, I am gonna do a cool podcast about war and human nature, and it'd be so good. I could have sat there for five years with this idea and then someone else would have come out. Maybe I would have told somebody and they would have been like, I'm gonna execute on that. What did I do? I actually said, oh, I don't have the capability to execute this by myself. Fine, echo Charles, do you know how to make a podcast? Yes, I can figure it out. Cool, we're making a podcast. That's an example, right? I can't execute it by myself and it doesn't matter to me.

• 34:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm not caught up on the fact that, because there's people that sit on ideas. They won't tell you, you better sign this N D A, right? I've signed so many NDAs for people to tell me their brilliant ideas. And I go, yeah, so I won't steal it. And it's like, okay, cool. Very few of them. I feel bad. People listening to this going, you signed an idea. There's some good ideas out there, right? But a lot of them are, number one, they're real obvious. You know, I've had people hit me, well, hey, man, I'm already doing that. Or, hey, that's in the works or whatever, because it's just sorry, you know?

• 35:33Jocko Willink?

  But that's a classic example. Look, I know I can't execute. I'm not going to say, you know how long I sat on the idea of having a podcast? Not very long. I want to have one who can help me execute this. Echo Charles, boom.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, man, I always. I kind of feel it's weird because when you think about it, let's say. I don't know, you're a lot more mature than most of us.

• 35:56Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I'm 48 years old.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I'm seeing your attitude, not your physical being. You know how?

• 36:04Jocko Willink?

  What I'm saying, even at 48 years old, you don't think of like, oh, this guy's mature. He actually is just old.

• 36:12Jocko Willink?

  You'd say someone that's 21, you go, he's pretty, or actually like 17, oh, he's a pretty mature kid, right?

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay, I know, and so, but the reason I'm saying is you understand because this, this immaturity versus maturity applies to it no matter what age. So let's say. All right, I'm going to use me. I'm not saying I'm like this, I'm not saying I'm not like this, but I'm going to use me as the example. Let's say that I'm like, hey, you know what would be a great idea just in passing to like, I don't know, my friend or whatever? Let's say he's a surfer, surfboard shaper or something, and maybe an engineer too, you know? And I'm like, oh, you'd be a great idea for a surfboard, a little motor on there. So I don't know, whatever, we'll just say a motor on there. That that does this and that. You know, like just in passing, like that's my cool idea.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  First off, not only do I not know anything about surfboard making, it's like, bro, I didn't really even mean like you should really do that. And let's go into business. I didn't mean anything like Ty just said it. Meanwhile, it's stuck in the guy's head where he's like, yeah, I could totally do that. And no one's doing that. And he does it, becomes massively successful, right? Most of us will have at least 1% of our little brain saying like, oh, man. Like, that's my idea. Like, I deserve part of it.

• 37:29Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? If you, if I was the surfboard shaper, mechanical engineer guy, and you gave me that idea and we, and I was successful, I would give you reward. I would take care of you. I'd be like, cool. I think that's, I think that's the right thing to do, actually.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so too, especially if you know each other.

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  It would probably be out a different proportion than you think. Cause people with ideas always think that they, they think that the idea is the hard part.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the everything. The idea without an idea, there's nothing, right?

• 37:58Jocko Willink?

  Right. Without an idea, there's nothing. However, they're both equally important. But the idea usually gets less. In the investment world, your good idea gets you like 10%. It doesn't get you 90%. A lot of people think their idea should get them 90%. It doesn't get you 90%. It gets you 10%, gets you 15%.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and under certain circumstances.

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, of course. I'm throwing it out there as kind of a generality.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  I agree with you even 110%. You think I couldn't agree with you 110%?

• 38:28Jocko Willink?

  Apparently you just did.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  I, I think the idea part of it is worth less. Alright, cause everyone, it's like, okay, okay, here's my idea. I'm saying it publicly, straight up. Here's my idea. A pill that cures cancer. Just cures it. Just saying. That's a good idea, right? See, I'll kind of blame that, that is, like, okay, so now, one freaking, look, and not only did a million trillion people already have that idea, as far as an idea goes, like, I have no capability of executing this. Maybe I could get like, 100 people.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of a bad example.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's an extreme example. No, it's an extreme example.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  It's so extreme that it doesn't make, it doesn't make the point. You need to think of something a little bit better.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Well, all these app ideas are like, kinda like that. It's like, you don't even, most of us don't know even how apps work as far as making them.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know what else is interesting is a lot of times the, the first company that has an idea and invests in it and pushes it, a lot of times they aren't the ones that are actually successful with that, with that idea. It takes another someone to take it to the next level.

• 39:41Jocko Willink?

  The MP3 players. Apple didn't invent those. There was other companies that made MP3 players and then Apple came and made it into the iPod and it was super successful. So there's a lot of times where the idea phased just to get that thing launched and then someone else looks over and goes, yeah, that's a pretty good idea. We're jumping on it. We're jumping in the game.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And that kind of goes back to it in a way. So you know how, back to what you said where it's like, okay, if you got an idea from somebody and then you actually executed the idea and made it successful when they had no capability or intention, by the way. Um, and you became massively successfully and you would pay them or whatever.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  I would be cool.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  But what if you didn't know the person? What if you heard the idea on like you're watching, I don't know, Project Runway or something and you heard like one of the people say an idea just in passing to their friend on the show. You don't know them or nothing.

• 40:36Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Do you contact them and be like, hey?

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  Depends on how successful I was.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Massive, one billion dollars.

• 40:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'd try and contact that person.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And be like, hey, I got this idea from you.

• 40:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think I would. Yeah, I think I would. I'm pretty.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying about that maturity, but you're very mature. You're a very mature person.

• 40:56Jocko Willink?

  Try and take care of people if, you know, if they deserve it and if you come up with a great idea, even though you did nothing to execute it.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  What if the idea?

• 41:04Jocko Willink?

  Bother me.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Especially when they do all the time. What if someone had the idea and forgive me for stringing this out, but I'm trying to see, I'm trying to identify your threshold. You see what I'm saying? What if the idea was said by someone that you don't know in passing and it was a joke? It wasn't even like a for real idea. Like it was a joke. Like you're like, oh, let's, we should invent a parachute that like can spring a motor and take you, I don't know, something kind of ridiculous, but when you thought about it, you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not really, I could actually do that. And you did it. Meanwhile, they're totally joking. In fact, they were kind of mocking it. Then would you reward them? You got the idea from them?

• 41:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I'd need more specifics on the scenario.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  All right.

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  But if people hit me with good ideas, I will take care of them. You know?

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  Pretty straightforward.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  All right.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  All right. Going back to the book. That was rough.

• 42:05Jocko Willink?

  I can recall a former vice president of one of the companies with which I am associated. He would formulate some good plans, but never followed up to see that his plans got the expected results. I knew he had served in World War II, so out of curiosity, I looked into the nature of his service and found that his entire period of service was a staff officer. He had never had the advantage of a command job, so his training was incomplete. Maybe if he had remained in the service longer, he would have developed his leadership qualities as well. And this man would still be with the company. So if you're not able to execute things, your idea, this is now, see now I'm starting to get mad. Because, because it does bother me when people just want to throw out ideas and they don't push them to completion.

• 42:51Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, that's unsat. That's unsat.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  See, and yeah, you and Dave were talking about that. Good deal, Dave. We're talking about that too. It's like a sin, right? If you don't follow through and all this. So, and that is true, which kind of takes me back to what it, like, what about the idea guy who's like, you stole my idea, right? It's like, it kind of makes that thing a little bit more angry, like, like it makes you mad a little bit more when a person is like, hey, that was my idea. It's like, bro, you're like, you're, you're a low utility person. You don't execute on anything ever. And now this was your idea and you somehow deserve like something for the success of the idea. Meanwhile, you provided, in my opinion, less than 1% of the ideas. Success.

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. When you get into these hypothetical scenarios where the person is basically not really creating the idea for the purpose of being executed, maybe that's the line. But if you're creating an idea and you're active, if you've created an idea and you're actively trying to get people to execute on it, I'll probably, I will take care of you. If you're not even intentionally trying to create something, first of all, you're, you're, you're no factor in the world. Like, how would I even know who you are? You're not, you don't even step up. You don't leave a trail of, hey, that connects you to this idea.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  So it's no factor, actually. Zero factor. The person's just unsat.

• 44:16Jocko Willink?

  You may have heard, heard this story about General Persing in World War I. While inspecting a certain area, he found a project that was not going too well, even though a second lieutenant in charge seemed to have a pretty good plan. General Persing asked the lieutenant, how much pay you received? And when the lieutenant replied, $141.67 per month, sir. General Persing said, just remember that you get, get a dollar 67 for making your plan and issuing the order, and $140 for seeing that it's carried out.

• 44:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you need people like that. And I'll tell you, this is another thing, that will go in the next book.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, maybe not the next book, it'll go into the next ancient technique book. Ancient technique will be getting things, getting the troops to execute the plan.

• 45:05Jocko Willink?

  How do you do that? Cause this is again, he brushes up against these things. Like, hey, we all know that it sucks that if your team isn't doing what they're supposed to do. How do we actually get them to do it? Right? What are the leadership strategy and tactics? Which, some of which I do talk about in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. How you get the people to actually get the job done that you want them to do? And part of it has to do with, you know, this guy seemed to have come up with a pretty good plan. Well, if you let your troops come up with a plan, there's gonna be a better chance that they execute it, as we know.

• 45:36Jocko Willink?

  So that might go into the ancient, ancient procedures, ancient techniques.

• 45:45Jocko Willink?

  You remember that video that I was in where I was talking about the?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Ancient masters?

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  Yes, the, the ancient masters. And I said something where you said to me, I could tell you were reaching for a word.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  Because I said something like,

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Summon the power.

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  Let me summon the power of the, and I didn't know what to say. I painted myself in a corner, then I said, the ancients. Which by the way, may have been brewed in my head from Tenacious D. Cause he's got a, one of their, one of their, or the HBO special, they talk about the ancients. And that's exactly, what am I talking about? Maybe. That's exactly where it came from. I had to summon up the D. They came through at the moment of truth.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  Because that, those videos, that particular video.

• 46:36Jocko Willink?

  I for some reason, I'm a little bit more, um, I have a little bit more fun when I'm annoyed. A little bit, just a little bit annoyed. Mocking it or something. So what happened was the, the female who was prompting me with different questions.

• 46:54Jocko Willink?

  She says, you know, so tell me, tell me what you do to get up in the morning. And I said, well, what I do is I set my alarm clock and I, when it goes off, I get out of bed, which is my standard answer. I give it a thousand times. And then she says, no, no, no, no, but she said something along the lines, and she was super cool. She said something along the lines of, no, but I mean, I think my producers, can you give my producer more than that? And that's when I went into this whole thing, but it was just off the top of my head. But I got stuck for a word and the D delivered for me. Came through. Yes. So now there's going to be a whole book connected to that. See that levels, layers.

• 47:33Jocko Willink?

  All right. Continuing on. He's, he's, so he's talking about the Pershing thing. You get paid a hundred and forty dollars. You get paid a dollar sixty seven for making the plan. You get paid a hundred and forty dollars for seeing that it's carried out. He says, I'm not sure that I would go to that extreme. Certainly in these days, problems are complex and good staff work plays a large part about resolving them. I have known commanders who were not too smart, but they were very knowledgeable about personnel and who knew enough to select the very best for their staffs. Remember, a good leader is one who causes or inspires others, staff or subordinate commanders to do the job. Boy, I've known commanders who are not too smart, but they were very knowledgeable.

• 48:19Jocko Willink?

  There's, I know there's all kinds of like literature about this kind of thing, but there's different kinds of intelligence, right? Absolutely. Different kinds of intelligence. And one of the least, most important types of intelligence is book smart. When it comes to operating in the real world, one of the least, least important types of intelligence is, hey, I can memorize this for a test or I can understand these. If you can't read people, if you don't have the emotional intelligence, if you don't, aren't able to react, if you aren't able to control your own emotions, there's about a million things. Yeah.

• 49:01Jocko Willink?

  So you can be not too smart.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:05Jocko Willink?

  And still do outstanding, especially if you're smart enough to go, you know what? I'm not that smart, but I got, I got Fred over here.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  He's got some brain horsepower. I'm gonna bring him on the team.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm not gonna put him up in front of the troops because he fumbles around with his words.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  But I'm gonna have him going through my plan line by line, checking the numbers, making sure we're good to go. Build the right team.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  Furthermore, no leader knows it all, although sometimes you find one who seems to think he does. A leader should encourage the members of his staff to speak up if they think their commander is wrong. He should invite constructive criticism. It is a grave error for the leader to surround himself with a yes staff.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  Hence,

• 49:57Jocko Willink?

  no yes men, leadership strategy and tactics, do not surround yourself with yes men. Speaking of ideas that have been stolen, Omar Bradley, I stole that idea, I guess, and put it in a book.

• 50:13Jocko Willink?

  General George C. Marshall was an excellent exponent of the principle of having his subordinate speak up. When he first came to chief staff, when he first became chief of staff of the army, the secretariat of that office consisted of three officers who presented orally to General Marshall, the staff papers or studies coming from the divisions of the general staff. I was a member of that secretariat. We presented in abbreviated form, the contents of the staff studies citing the highlights of the problem involved, the various possible courses of actions considered and the action recommended. At the end of his first week as chief of staff, Marshall called us into his office and opened the discussion by saying, I am disappointed in all of you.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  When we inquired if we might ask why, he said, you haven't disagreed disagreed with a single thing I've done all week. We told him it just so happened that we were in full agreement with every paper that had been presented that we knew he wanted. And that we would add our comments to anything that we considered should be questioned. The very next day, we presented a paper. As written and then expressed some thoughts which in our own opinion made the recommendation, recommended action questionable. General Marshall said, now that is what I want unless I hear all the arguments against an action. I am not sure whether I am right or not.

• 51:34Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to surround yourself with those people that are just going to tell you that you're right and you know what you. You feel that or you see that. With the. The suit, the what are they celebrities. Right that can surround themselves with people that just tell them, hey, you're the greatest, you're you're super, you can do whatever you want. And then you watch them on the downward spiral of destruction. They need someone going, hey.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  Bro, stop. That's that's dumb. I you you might be able to get away with it, but you're not going to get away with it for long. And it's gonna be hanging over your like, that doesn't happen. They get surrounded by people that just blindly support them.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you feel that it's like, I guess, when you think about it, it seems like a two way street, right? Like the person. Okay, so you don't want to surround yourself with yes men, right? And let's say you happen for lack of a better way of putting it, you happened to not surround yourself with yes. Yes, man. It's not like you actively were like, hey, you're a yes man and I don't really hang out with you that much.

• 52:34Jocko Willink?

  Grew up with Fred and he's like, we'll push back and.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  Same with Dave.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you trust them because that's your boy, your friend or whatever, right? Um, versus the person who's like actively surrounding themselves with. People who are not yes men, right? But the two way street kind of goes where if.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  I'm not saying celebrities are like this, but some people in the world are like this where it's like, hey, and maybe they don't consciously think of it this way. They just go by their feeling and they're like, hey, this person doesn't agree with me like all the time like this person does. And when this person agrees with me all the time, it really makes me feel good. And this is just a feeling. They're not consciously.

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. So you're saying, you're saying that someone may just by small decision after small decision after small decision decision over time, they just end up getting rid of everyone that gives them any objections.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  I think that's exactly what happens.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:31Jocko Willink?

  I think that's why you have to proactively make sure you've got people on your team that are gonna push back, you know, and I just was on the EF online today. I was talking about the fact that I was hyper paranoid

• 53:47Jocko Willink?

  about making sure I took input from other people. There was the, when the SEALs went into Panama, they went into Patia Airfield. It was a rough operation, lost four SEALs. And I worked for a guy that was there. He was, he was on the boats that, that, that put the SEALs in. And so he had been through the whole planning process and everything. And I,

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  I asked him, I said, you know, what happened? And he explained to me that what happened tactically on the ground and I, I was kind of, okay, I get that. I was, I said, but how did you, how did that plan? Cause the plan seemed like it had some, some violations of sort of fundamental,

• 54:38Jocko Willink?

  like normal tactics that SEALs use. And he just said that there was a couple of guys that kind of were, no, this is what we're doing. This is what's gonna work. And there wasn't a lot of pushback against it. So.

• 54:51Jocko Willink?

  I always felt that it was really critical that you want pushback and that you listen to it. Because if, you know, all those SEALs and, and you know, those heroic guys that died on that airfield. If, if a plan can get through all those guys, all those SEALs. Then we need to make sure our minds are open and we're listening and taking input. Because otherwise, if you, if you come, you come up with a plan that you think is great. And when you hear a question about it, you gotta listen to the question. You gotta listen to the question. So it's.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Man, that's so hard. Tricking, like, you know, when you come up with a plan or an idea or whatever, a video, whatever. And, and you show it to someone or you present it. And here's the thing, when you come up with a comprehensive plan that you're happy about, you're fired up, you know?

• 55:46Jocko Willink?

  I, I know where you're going with this and you're like saying how hard it is. I, I, I am so conditioned at this point to be paranoid. And I was trying to figure out where that came from in my head and it came from that situation. From hearing that guy who ended up, I ended up working for, hearing him explain to me, hey, there wasn't enough pushback. And we went forward with a plan that not everyone agreed with. And you think, I thought to myself, I'm never gonna, so at this point, I come up with a plan for anything, which normally, as you know, I try not to. I try to let other, everybody else come up with a plan. But sometimes I do come up with a plan. And I'm, I'm so comfortable with someone saying, hey, I don't like that. It doesn't have any impact on me whatsoever.

• 56:31Jocko Willink?

  It's so easy for me to say, actually, great point, didn't think of that.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, that's so good because you, and you, and you know, you've put it, you're the one who put it like this where it's like, you don't emotionally attach yourself to the plan. But I guess that's the, really the part that's hard.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  I watched SEAL platoon after SEAL platoon after SEAL platoon.

• 56:50Jocko Willink?

  Get so wrapped around the axle.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  That plan is dope.

• 56:55Jocko Willink?

  Of my plan, my plan.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  And you know, normally at the end of the day, they, and this is, this is when I was running training. I would wa, because I'd sit there and watch them plan and you're, I'm de facto detached because I'm sitting back watching them plan. But you would see them just go down the road, road of arguing with each other about my plan versus your plan. Both the plans will work fine. I'll tell you what won't work is trying to plan, do the plan in 20 minutes. Cause you've wasted four hours arguing about which plan is better.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:25Jocko Willink?

  And I would see that all the time.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, but yeah, I felt, I'm not going to say I've gone through this. I'm not going to say I've not gone through this, but you know, you show someone a video that you might've made or whatever. And you're like, you say, hey, you know, tell me what you think of this video before you release it or something like that. And really, when you really be honest, this is what it is. Half of your brain is like, hey, I need some feedback to make it the best I can. And let me give you a look just so I can get some good feedback, you know, on improving it. That's half. The other half of your brain is kind of like, hey, this is kind of the premiere a little bit. And I want to get rewarded for my work, you know, with, with, you know, praise and hopefully applause or something, you know, kind of like that.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  So it's like your two sides of your brain. So one, when it, when you do have, get feedback where it's like, hey, I would improve this. I would do this or at that beginning, got to change it or whatever. That, that second part of your brain is kind of like, bro, why did I even show it to you? Like you're not even fucking being cool about it, you know, kind of, kind of an attitude, you know? That's the part.

• 58:28Jocko Willink?

  It, it, once again, this is where humility is so important. Cause otherwise you just don't improve anything.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  I know.

• 58:36Jocko Willink?

  Hey, if I show someone a piece of writing and they go, yeah, you know, I like this, but you could do this different. I'm like, okay, cool. And sometimes I just wrote a, a, a piece and I sent it to one of my editors. And the, I would, let's say they wrote a hundred things. Well, no, let's say they wrote 50 things. Of the 50 things that they wrote, I accepted. I don't know, 93% of them. There was one major change, the only, the most significant change in the piece. And I said, hey, I appreciate the feedback. I'm not changing that thing. And it wasn't because of ego. It's like, okay, I read it five times and said, you know what? That's absolutely needs to be in there.

• 59:22Jocko Willink?

  And I saw her perspective and said, you know what? I get where, where she's coming from. But this ties everything together. And I think that's what I didn't do a good job explaining to her. But yes. You have to at least be open to it. You have to at least be open to it.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Admitting to yourself that you're like.

• 59:46Jocko Willink?

  And go into it with the attitude of, hey, I have to actually strongly be able to defend my position. And if I can't defend my position, then you're probably right.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Right. Like on a logical level, almost, you know, not like, hey, that wasn't cool. You put down that my writing, you know, like not that attitude, you know?

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  My, just like I say, well, my goal is to listen to, if, if you and I are working together and I'm in charge and we're going to attack a target, my goal is to have you come up with a plan. That's my absolute goal. When you come to me with a plan, I'm not looking at it, what's wrong with it? I'm saying what's right with it? I like it. I like your plan better than what I thought I was going to think. When you bring me a piece of, when I bring you a piece of writing and you give me feedback, my goal is to go, okay, your feedback is correct and I'm wrong. And unless it just pains me to change something, then I'm going to lean towards your recommendation.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's such a good way to look at it. It's like, your writing or whatever, your completed work that you need feedback on. It's like you just, if you go in automatically regarding it as this, there's a problem with this. There's holes in this. It's missing stuff and it has too much of some other stuff.

• 1:01:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  I know that for a fact and it, it, that upsets me. I'm going to go to this person and they can identify them. These things. That's it.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Not how awesome it is. It's like, there's a problem with this and I, I need this problem to be solved and this person can solve it.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  I was listening to Brian Koppelman on Tim Ferriss's podcast, Brian Koppelman.

• 1:01:23Jocko Willink?

  And David Levine are the writers of the show Billions.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  Have you heard of the show?

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  I have. I hear good things.

• 1:01:31Jocko Willink?

  But it was interesting because Brian Koppelman, I wish I could remember exactly what he said. There's two things that he said. Number one, if he's going to give somebody something for feedback on something that he's written, you don't give, you don't give someone their completed project and say, hey, can you give me some feedback on this because I already finished it? What you're really asking, if I say, hey, Echo, I wrote this book.

• 1:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Can you give me some feedback on it?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Jocko Willink?

  That's sort of, it's sort of a bad thing. I have to say, hey, Echo, this is just a draft.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Jocko Willink?

  And then he had some response of saying something like, do you want, do you want me to read it? Or do you want feedback? He had some way of saying, hey,

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  You want me to really go to town on this thing? Or you just want me to read it? You just want me to watch this video that you made? Or do you want feedback?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  I wish I could think of what he said, something, you know, do you want professional feedback or something like that? Something that was, hey, look, if I give this to you straight, it's going to sting.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, man, that's so good. Because it's almost like they're, because they're two different people. They're two different roles you're asking this person to be. Are you, do you want this person to be an audience member?

• 1:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  A fan?

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Or do you want to be a critic?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  A critic or editor or assistant, whatever, you know, you want, yeah. So it's like just two different attitudes and that's, yeah, that's the, like the emotional ego part versus the, you know, the technician or whatever the other guy is.

• 1:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So those are, you gotta get that humble brain going if you want to ask people for feedback in anything and it stings every single time. It's the way it works.

• 1:03:13Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, if you happen to be a detailed, detailed to a staff, try and be a good staff officer and if possible, avoid being a yes man. I would suggest to all commanders that they inform the members of their staffs that anyone who does not agree once in a while with what is about to be done is of limited value and perhaps should be shifted to some other place where he might occasionally have an idea. So if you're just in agreement all the time, I don't need you.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  I don't need you.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Of course, I'm thinking about the decision-making process. After a decision is made, everyone must be 100% behind it. I thought the British were admirable in this respect during World War II. No matter how much discussion there had been on a subject, as soon as a decision was made, you never heard any doubts expressed. You had to believe that everyone involved in making that decision had never entertained any ideas except those expressing this decision. You know how I used to explain this to the young junior officers? Because I used to say, "Once a decision is made, you execute it as if it was your own." Now, here's where people will freak out about that, right? They freak out about that because they think, "But what if I don't really agree with it?" If you don't really agree with it, check a couple things.

• 1:04:30Jocko Willink?

  Number one, if Echo comes up with a plan, and you're my boss, and you're telling me how we're gonna do something, and I'm like, "No, we need to do it this way", the first thing I need to check, and finally you're like, "No, we're doing it this way, that's the decision, we're going forward." The first thing I need to check is, what do you think it is? Take a guess.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Your ego.

• 1:04:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I need to check my ego. Because I would say upwards of 90%. 90% of the time, the only reason I disagree is because of my ego. Because I got some little idea and I think my way would be better. And even if my way is better, it's not drastically better. Because we're both fighting for the same cause.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Jocko Willink?

  Right? How often is it a boss is like, "Hey, we want to execute this way", and someone says, "Hey, that's a really horrible way to do, it's gonna be unsafe for the team members, and it's gonna not, it's gonna lose money."

• 1:05:21Jocko Willink?

  And the boss goes, "I don't care, no, we're doing it my way." No. He goes, "Wait, wait a second, what are you talking about? Explain this to me, how is it unsafe? And how are we gonna lose money?" So, the idea is, first thing you check is... Is it my ego that's preventing me from accepting this new idea? What are the degrees of variance between my idea and the way it's actually happening? Cause if the degrees of variance are minimal, then shut up and go and execute the plan as if it was your own. Now, if there are significant degrees of variance where it's gonna be a really bad situation, and I hate to use the word catastrophic, but certainly if you see a catastrophic problem, then you go, hey, we cannot do this. This is not good.

• 1:06:05Jocko Willink?

  And you, you don't go forward if it's gonna be catastrophic. Or again, going back to leadership strategy and tactics and you gotta make it, then you've gotta figure out, is it better for me to go ahead with it, but now I can go mitigate the damage? Mitigate the risk as much as possible? That might be what you have to do. So that idea of executing as if you believe it, as if it's your own, which is what you should do. You, you need to have those conversations, listen, put your ego in check. And then if it's close enough, you go, Roger that boss, I'm on board with the plan. Let's go execute it. And you do execute it as if it's your own. No factor.

• 1:06:44Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, I don't want to over emphasize leadership of senior officers. So he doesn't want to just talk about senior officers. My interest extends to leaders of all ranks. I would caution you to remember that an essential qualification of a good leader is the ability to recognize, select and train junior officers. I would like to quote from a book entitled Born at Revelry. Written by Colonel Red Reader. Colonel Reader was on a trip for General Marshall. And one of his assignments was to inquire into junior leadership. This is an account of his conversation with Colonel Bryant Moore on Guadalcanal. Quote, Colonel Moore, I said, tell me something about leadership. I had hit a sensitive spot.

• 1:07:30Jocko Willink?

  Colonel Moore forged ahead, leadership? The greatest problem here is the leaders. And you have to find some way to weed out the weak ones. It is tough to do this when you're in combat. The platoon leaders who cannot command, who cannot foresee things and who cannot act on the spur of the moment in an emergency are a distinct detriment. This is clear, right? We know this. But there you have it reinforced for the one millionth time. If you've got weak leaders, you're gonna have problems.

• 1:08:02Jocko Willink?

  If you can't command, if you can't foresee things, and if you can't act on spur of the moment, you're gonna have problems. When's the last time you heard, that's a negative thing, right? Oh, he acts on the spur of the moment. Actually, there's some times where you need to do that.

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  He continues on, "It's hot here, as you can see. Men struggle. They get heat exhaustion. They come out vomiting and throwing away equipment." The leaders must be leaders, and they must be alert enough to establish straggler lines and stop this thing.

• 1:08:33Jocko Willink?

  And I need to do, I tried to research this and order the book. The book is actually for sale. It's called Born at Revelry. It got some interesting reviews. Seems like a good book, where they say, I guess it's written in some offensive language in modern era. So, but I, because I wasn't really a hundred percent, "The leaders must be leaders, and that they must be alert enough to establish straggler lines and stop this thing." I guess he's talking about heat exhaustion, right? He must be. Straggler lines are lines of people that aren't ready to fight, and stop this thing, I'm assuming he's talking about the heat exhaustion.

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  So it goes on, and this is why I think that's what it means. "The men have been taught to take salt tablets, but leaders don't see to this. Result, heat exhaustion."

• 1:09:24Jocko Willink?

  "The good leaders seem to get killed. The poor leaders get the men killed. The big problem is leadership and getting the shoulder straps on the right people."

• 1:09:36Jocko Willink?

  And then the book continues, "60-millimeter mortar shells fell about 30 yards away and attacked a number of coconut trees. I lost interest in taking dictation, and the Colonel stopped talking. When the salvo was over and things were quiet again, Bryant Moore said, 'Where was I?'" "You saw that patrol. I tell you this, not one man in 50 can lead a patrol in this jungle. If you can find out who the good patrol leaders are before you hit the combat zone, you have found out something." Now, what's interesting about that?

• 1:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Is first of all, one man in 50 can lead a patrol in this jungle. That's a, that's a significant statement.

• 1:10:19Jocko Willink?

  If you, and, and I will tell you, he says, if you can find out who the good patrol leaders are before you hit the combat zone, you found out something, how do you do that? You do that by putting them in these pressure situations. We had such a benefit, our guys were so ready. We put these guys, we put, I put my, I put the SEALs going on deployment through training like that where you could see them break. You could see them not be able to handle it. Or what's more important, they wouldn't be able to handle it day one. Day two, they'd be a little bit better. Day three, they'd be a little bit better. Day four, they'd be a little bit better. By the end of a six month workup, they're actually one of the people that can make these, make these things happen.

• 1:10:58Jocko Willink?

  So it's not just about finding the good patrol leaders. It's about training them.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  He says, I have to get rid of about 25 officers because they just, I've had to get rid of about 25 officers because they just weren't leaders. I had to make the battalion commander weed out the poor leaders. This process is continuous. Other junior leaders are finding out that they must know more than their men, more about their men. The good leaders know their men.

• 1:11:26Jocko Willink?

  Of everything he talks about, he says, the thing that he gives that you must know your men. That's the thing that, that's the, that's the one thing. He doesn't say they need a navigation, they need to work under fire. He said, they need to know their men.

• 1:11:39Jocko Willink?

  Very interesting thing to focus on for, for this guy talking, for General Moore talking about this or Colonel Moore.

• 1:11:48Jocko Willink?

  But I will tell you that having to get rid of about 25 officers, I'm going to go ahead out on a limb here. And I don't know how many officers he went through, but some of those officers could, could have been trained. Could have been trained, could have been prepared, could have been molded, could have been, could have been educated, could have been tested prior to going into combat. And he probably would have done better than, than having to get rid of 25 of them.

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, what then are the characteristic, what then are the distinguishing qualities of a leader? There are many essential characteristics that he must possess, but I will mention a few that come to mind as perhaps the most important. First, he must know his job without necessarily being a specialist in any, in every phase of it. A few years ago, it was suggested that all engineers, all engineering subjects be eliminated from the required studies at West Point. I objected. For example, bridge building is especially for engineers. Yet, I think every senior officer should have some idea of what is involved. When we reached the Rhine in World War II, it was not necessary that I know how to build a bridge,

• 1:12:58Jocko Willink?

  but it was very helpful that I knew what was involved so that I could see the bridge engineers receive proper support in tonnage allowed and an idea of the time involved. So, so first, know your job. You have to know everything about it. I didn't know the sniper weapons as good as the snipers did. I didn't know the radios as good as the radio man did. I didn't know the route as good as the point man did, but I knew enough about them. Continuing on, specialties dominate almost every problem faced by the military today.

• 1:13:31Jocko Willink?

  By the, but faced today by the military leader or the business manager. This individual must get deeply enough into his problem that he can understand it and intelligently manage it without going so far as to become a specialist himself in every phase of the problem. You don't have to be a tank expert in order to effectively use a tank unit of your command.

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  Thomas J. Watson of IBM once said that the genius of an executive is the ability to deal successfully with matters he does not understand. This leads to another principle of leadership which I have often found neglected, both in the military and in business. While you need to be a specialist in all phases of your job, you should have a proportionate degree of interest in every aspect of it. And those concerned, your subordinates, should be aware of your interest.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  So you, you should be interested in what is happening. You must get around and show interest in what your subordinates are doing, even if you don't know much about the technique of their work. And when you make these, when you are making these visits, try to pass out praise when due, as well as corrections or criticism. That's an interesting one. It's very interesting what Omar Bradley points out here. That, that, hey, not only should you know what's happening, but you should, you should show interest in what your subordinates doing. You know how I would translate that? I would call it building relationships.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Building relationships.

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  Right, that's what he's talking about. He's talking about building relationships, showing interest, being out there.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:03Jocko Willink?

  Building relationships with your troops. Again, I, I think a lot of times in this, in this speech, he's, he's either brushing up or he's using his own verbiage to cover, to, to, to, to talk about the same things that we talk about all the time. The same things that I write about all the time. Continuing on, "We tend to speak up only when things go wrong. This is such a well-recognized fact that a complaint department is an essential part of many business firms. To my knowledge, no comparable facility exists anywhere to expedite the handling of praise for a job well done. It need not be extravagant. We all get enough criticism and we learn to take it.

• 1:15:48Jocko Willink?

  Even Sir Winston Churchill, despite his matchless accomplishment, found occasion to say, 'I have benefited enormously from criticism, and at no point did I suffer from any perceptible lack thereof.' But let us remember that praise also has a role to play. Napoleon was probably the finest exponent of this principle of recognition through his use of a quarter inch of ribbon to improve the morale and get results."

• 1:16:15Jocko Willink?

  So interesting that Bradley is very focused on praise. Very interesting that he's focused on praise. You can see what kind of a different guy he is than Patton. And by the way, I forgot to say this. His book, much of the movie Patton, the famous movie, Oscar award winning movie Patton.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:16:36Jocko Willink?

  It was, a lot of it was based on, on, on that book that he wrote, A Soldier's Story.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Cause it's two different philosophies, right? With the praise thing.

• 1:16:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, you just, you just get the feeling that Omar Bradley was a little bit, well, a lot more.

• 1:16:57Jocko Willink?

  A lot more humble, a lot more, you know, open and, and, and probably, hey, good job, buddy. Where you don't expect Patton to say, hey, good job, buddy. Unless it's some crazy situation, that's how the job soldier.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:10Jocko Willink?

  But you do, but you picture Omar Bradley going, hey, nice work on that. That was good. You don't really, so I'm just saying it's a, it's an interesting thing for him to key in on.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels like, like there's, I mean, maybe it goes with different personalities or whatever, but okay. So on one hand, you have the guy who's always saying, good job, was good job. And offering corrections when necessary too.

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  Dichotomy can get out of bounds for sure.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  So they're essentially, it's almost like you're constantly in touch with how they're feeling about you kind of thing as a, as a, as a worker or as whatever.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Um, so it's like, they'll be like, good job. Every, every little thing is either a good job or hey, you could do this a little bit better. Every single little thing, right? So it's like, you kind of know where you stand and it's kind of comforting, I guess in that way. But at the same time, it's kind of like, when do you know when you really did a good job? You don't really know as much. You're not in touch, but the opposite, the other guy who did, he doesn't say anything. You do a little good job, you won't hear nothing ever. You'll know about the corrections for sure, but they tend, and I'm speaking from experience more than anything. They tend to be like big corrections. If you have to make a, you know, cause it's not, if it's no factor corrections where it's like, eh, you know, whatever, like, fine, it's an 80% solution and it's cool, whatever.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, they don't say much is what I'm saying until something's a big deal, good or bad. So really it kind of makes you wanna strive to get that big compliment, you know, more so than, so it's less comforting, I guess, day to day. But at the same time, it's almost like this intangible like motivation to do a good job for this guy, you know? It kinda seems like that.

• 1:18:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's a dichotomy that's gotta be balanced. You don't wanna go overboard. You don't wanna be complimenting every little thing. You don't wanna harp on every little thing either. I would say you are correct. It's better to back off a little bit and have your, have your compliments or your criticisms be worthy of either one of those things. Smaller corrections more often are easier to give than big corrections. When people aren't used to see, kind of condition someone, right? You can condition someone and it's good to do this. If, if, if I condition someone where they expect like, hey, some, some pretty straightforward feedback, that's a totally positive thing.

• 1:19:27Jocko Willink?

  If you're not conditioned to it and all of a sudden I hammer you with something, it's a blow. Yeah. You know, it hurts and it might even make you defensive. But if I'm constantly, not constantly to the point of being annoying, but if I'm on a regular basis, I'm telling you, oh, Echo, you know, can you adjust this thing when you, when you put these things out? Or hey, Echo, when you, when you get, when you get done with a project, the report needs to have more detail in it. Okay, well, the more I correct you, and again, I gotta be careful, can't go overboard. But I gotta get you conditioned where you understand that I am going to give you some, some feedback. Some negative feedback about what you're doing.

• 1:20:10Jocko Willink?

  Don't wanna harp on you. It's really hard to tell, right? Cause a lot of times people just sit there and take it. They go home and kick their dog because they're mad at their boss.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  Possible.

• 1:20:23Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 1:20:25Jocko Willink?

  The next little characteristic of a leader, he says, "Both mental and physical energy are essential to successful leadership. How many really good leaders have you known who were lazy, or weak, or couldn't stand the strain? Sherman was a good example of a leader with outstanding mental and physical energy. I cite him with some trepidation, because some of you may be from Georgia. However, during the advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta, he often went for days with only two hours of sleep per night and was constantly in the saddle, doing reconnaissance, and he often knew the dispositions and terrain so well that he could maneuver the enemy out of position without a serious fight with

• 1:21:09Jocko Willink?

  minimal losses." So, General Tecumseh Sherman, who marched, who did his march to the sea, hundred million dollars worth of damage in Georgia, as he kinda destroyed things as he went, but showing that he had this high level of energy. Continues, "Conversely, a sick commander is of limited value. It is not fair to the troops under him to have a leader who is not functioning 100%. I had to relieve several senior commanders during World War II because of illness. It is often pointed out that Napoleon didn't lose a major battle until Waterloo, where he was a sick man."

• 1:21:49Jocko Willink?

  "A leader should possess human understanding and consideration for others. Men are not robots and should not be treated as though they were machines. I do not by any means suggest coddling." There's another example, the dichotomy, right? "Don't treat them as if machines, but don't coddle them. But men are highly intelligent, complicated beings who will respond favorably to human understanding and consideration. By this means their leader will get maximum effort from each of them. He will also get loyalty. And in this connection, it will, it is well to remember that loyalty goes down as well as up. The sincere leader will go to bat for his subordinates when such action is needed." Pretty straightforward dichotomy right there.

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  A good leader must sometimes be stubborn.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Here, I am reminded of the West Point Cadet Prayer, and part of that prayer says, "A leader must be able to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. Armed with the courage of his convictions, he must fight to defend them. Then he has, then he has to come to a decision after thorough analysis. And when he is sure he is right, he must stick to it even to the point of stubbornness. Grant furnishes a good illustration of this trait. He never knew when he was supposed to be licked. A less stubborn man might have lost at Shiloh.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  By the way, Shiloh, 24,000 dead in two days. Total nightmare. Maybe you've heard the story of General Grant in the Richmond campaign, when, after being up all night making his reconnaissance and formulating and issuing orders, he lay down and fell asleep under a tree. Sometime later, a courier rode up and informed General, informed the general that disaster had hit his right flank, and that his troops at the end of the line were in full retreat. General Grant sat up, shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and said, "It can't be so," and went back to sleep. And it wasn't so. He had confidence in himself and in his subordinate leaders. A little hard for me to accept that one. I may give a little bit more attention if someone tells me my flank is collapsing.

• 1:24:00Jocko Willink?

  But the point being, he had confidence, "Hey, we're gonna be alright."

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  That seemed like a little tale. I mean, I don't know, obviously, I don't know if that's true or not. I'm assuming it's true, but it seemed like more of an exaggerated tale, like straight up sleeping.

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Straight up.

• 1:24:17Jocko Willink?

  There's a picture of Dave Burke and I.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 1:24:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Where I think we're putting in Combat Outpost Falcon in downtown Ramadi.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:28Jocko Willink?

  And the picture's probably, I don't even know when the picture's taken, but we're both asleep. We're both of us sitting up against the wall, we're both asleep. We've probably been asleep, awake for 24 hours at this point.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Jocko Willink?

  And he's the commander of Salt 16. Yeah, Salt 6. He's, he was a Lightning 16. And, and I was the commander of Task Unit Bruiser, and we're both just racked out. Yeah, we're in the, but we're in the Combat Outpost. The Combat Outpost was now secure. There's a bunch of guys from the 137. Army just surrounding this thing and building it out and we need to get some sleep. So apparently we did.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Sleeping gets a bad rap, I guess. Now that you kind of mentioned it, you know how sleeping on the job, sleeping on the job, that's not a good expression. Like that expression is not a positive expression.

• 1:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  You know, like, hey, if you're sleeping on the job.

• 1:25:20Jocko Willink?

  You're not doing a good job.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  But if you, yeah, actually Leif talks about this too. Leif would like, as soon as he would get into an Overwatch position, get it set up and get security set, he'd be like, cool, I'm gonna sleep. Cause the planning cycle for, for like us officers going into the field, we would be planning basically the whole time, getting ready to go in. We would know that once we got in the field, we could get some sleep.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:43Jocko Willink?

  Because there's no chain of command breathing down your neck for another con ops submission. You're just out there. You're like, oh God.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro. Bro, if you're sleep deprived, a lot of times you're not, you're no good to nobody.

• 1:25:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I, you know what? I'm not a hundred percent on board with that. I'm just being straight up. Like there's, there's, I mean, I read some things that say, you know, if you've, if you've missed, if you haven't slept for 24 hours, it's the equivalent of three, you're, you're legally drunk. I, I don't think so.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure there's.

• 1:26:18Jocko Willink?

  There's times, I'll tell you what's a good example. The early musters that we did when we were doing the musters. We were, we didn't, we didn't have a system down yet. And so we didn't know all the things that we were going to have to tackle. We were just, we just didn't prepare correctly. And so we, Leif and I would be up all night long. I think the worst muster as far as sleep goes was New York City. New York City, one of the nights, I think it was the first night, we had to sign whatever 900 graduation certificates. It was 1:30 in the morning when we got started. PT, by the way, for us starts at three.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  So we sat there, we signed him, we went to bed for an hour, we woke up and next day we're on stage the entire day. No stopping, people riddling questions at me, boom, what about this, what about that? Now, could I have done that if I was seven drinks drunk?

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Some people can, well, and I guess.

• 1:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Let me, let me rephrase that. Let's not compare to alcohol. Cause we know functionally you could pull that off, but to say that I was up there cognitively impaired.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:31Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it's, I don't think you could say that.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:34Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it's true.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  I think the reality of it is that different people are different and it's going to affect people in different ways. And generally speaking, you know, getting, getting adequate rest is better than not getting.

• 1:27:46Jocko Willink?

  There's no doubt. We would love to get that big old sleep.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Sure, that's great. But what I'm saying is people don't always get to sleep a lot. And you still have to make critical decisions and your mind, just like your body.

• 1:28:01Jocko Willink?

  Can adapt to certain situations. When I'm doing something, it doesn't matter how tired I am, I know what's happening. I'm on it, right?

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you know, it's interesting, the, okay, so there is, I'm not gonna, I don't know the studies, but. If you believe that you got enough sleep, it affects your capacity. So like. That almost suggests like, man, if you're just like, I'm gonna BTF through this hundred percent. And that's your attitude, that will help your cognitive capacity, even if you didn't get that much sleep. And I think I meant more than anything where it's like. I don't mean you're no good to nobody when you, when you're, you know, sleep deprived. I'm saying it's a good attitude to have to make sure like your team or whatever isn't sleep deprived.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  That's a good attitude to have, you know, but as an individual or a team member, whatever, it's good to be able to. Function with, could sleep in without.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Yes. You do need to be able to sleep. Sleep is preferred, but what I'm saying is. It's not gonna, you can step up and rise to the occasion. Look, I don't recommend it. For sure. You want to be able to sleep. Yes. But I'm not drastically cognitively impaired at the moment, you know, where all of a sudden I wait a second, you know, I don't know what the answer to that question is. Hold on, you know, that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Your adrenaline flows, you're up there, you're, you're pulling the trigger on your gun, you're whatever, things are happening.

• 1:29:36Jocko Willink?

  You get in the game. You get in the game. You're not, you know, falling apart. Oh, no. You're making things happen. Even, hey, you come to the muster, you operate on very little sleep at the muster, especially the early ones.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Jocko Willink?

  I didn't see you, you know, hey, I forgot to press record.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:30:00Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  Maybe haven't been paying attention as much as you could have been in that case.

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. Continuing on. I do not mean to infer that there is always just one solution to a problem. Usually there is one best solution, but any good plan boldly executed is better than indecision. There is more, there's usually more than one way to obtain results. And the most important thing about that little section right here, look, we know that's the same thing Patton says. Any good plan boldly executed is better than indecision. Or a good, what does Patton say? A good plan executed now is better than a great plan executed next week. Saying, they're saying the same thing. There's usually more than one way to obtain results. I like that. I want to focus on that because

• 1:30:44Jocko Willink?

  again, I'm not arguing with you about six and one half dozen the other. I'm not arguing with you about, should we bring six vehicles or five vehicles? I'm not arguing with you if we should, if we should invest, you know, $800,000 in this market or $740,000 in this market. I'm not arguing those things. What's the outcome gonna be? They're gonna be pretty close. There's more than one way. It's the skin of cat. Cool. Let's go. Let's rock and roll.

• 1:31:11Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, when you come up with a plan and, and I go, you know what, Echo, let's do it. Let's, let's do what you say. And we start going down that road. It's not like we're stuck there. And I go, hey, Echo, it looks like your plan might not be working out that great. Let's make an adjustment. You go, cool. Sounds good. And by the way, you're more open to hearing my suggestions if I was originally open to your suggestions in the first place. I built a relationship there. Working on multiple fronts.

• 1:31:40Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, another quality of leadership that comes to mind is self-confidence. You must have confidence in yourself, your unit, and your subordinate commanders and in your plan. This recalls a couple of incidents. Just before the invasion of Normandy, 1944, a story went around in some of the units that were making the assault on the beaches that they would suffer 100% casualties, that none of them would come back. I found it necessary to visit these units and talk to all ranks. I told them that, of course, we would suffer casualties, but certainly our losses would be less, would not be 100%, and that with our air and naval support, we would succeed. After our landing, a correspondent told me that on his way across the channel,

• 1:32:21Jocko Willink?

  in one of the leading LSTs, he had noticed a sergeant reading a novel. Struck by this seeming lack of concern by the sergeant, he said, he asked, "Aren't you worried? How can you be reading at a time like this?" The sergeant replied, "No, I'm not worried. General Bradley said everything would go alright, so why should I worry?"

• 1:32:41Jocko Willink?

  I can't recall just what I had said, but it accomplished its purpose, at least where one man was concerned. I might relate another incident where there was a lack of confidence. I had to relieve a senior commander because I learned that his men had lost confidence in him. This meant, of course, that we would not expect maximum performance by that division. After being relieved, the officer came back through my headquarters and showed me a file of statements given to him by request, I am sure, by the burgomaster of all the towns his division had passed through. If he had confidence in himself, he would not have felt the need for all those letters. That's a cool little story. So he fires this division commander, and the division commander comes out and says, "Listen, I haven't been doing a bad job.

• 1:33:26Jocko Willink?

  Here's the mayors of all the cities that we've been through. Here's, they told me I did a good job. Here, look at the letters." And he's like, and he actually goes on, "After seeing the letters, I told the officer that if I ever had any doubts as to whether to relieve him, those doubts were now removed. His letters proved beyond question that he had lost confidence in himself, so it was no wonder that the man had lost confidence in him." So, definitely, confidence is important. The interesting thing is humility.

• 1:34:01Jocko Willink?

  Which is chapter two in Extreme Ownership, Check Your Ego,

• 1:34:08Jocko Willink?

  became an army value in 2019.

• 1:34:13Jocko Willink?

  And which is awesome. But I also, he talks about confidence. That's what he talks about. He never really explores what happens when you get overconfident, right? And we all know that you can get overconfident and you can lose. So that's why humility is important.

• 1:34:32Jocko Willink?

  He says here, next characteristic, a leader must possess imagination. Whether it be an administrative decision or one made in combat, the possible results of that decision must be plain to the one making it. What will the next step be and the one after that?

• 1:34:49Jocko Willink?

  That's all he gives to imagination. That's all he gives to creativity. Need a little bit more. While there are many other qualities which can contribute to effective leadership, I will mention just one more, but it is a very important one, character. This word has many meanings. I am applying it in a broad sense to describe a person who has high ideals, who stands by them and who can be absolutely trusted. Such a person will be respected by all those with whom he is associated. And such a person will readily be recognized by his associates for what he is.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  Circumstances mold our character. These circumstances affect different people in different ways. From exactly the same set of circumstances, one man may theoretically build a palace, while another may have difficulty building a lean-to.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  A lean-to?

• 1:35:47Jocko Willink?

  A lean-to, it's a little hut. Little lean, the roof leans up against a stick. And he puts some, puts some, puts some leaves on top of it to keep you dry. That's called a lean-to. So from the same experiences, one person builds a palace, the other person builds a lean-to. That's a rough one to take. It's a rough one to take because you might look around and say, well, you know, I didn't have the right circumstances in my life to be successful. I promise you that there's someone with worse circumstances that's more successful than you. Promise you.

• 1:36:30Jocko Willink?

  Promise you.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  I believe you, sir.

• 1:36:34Jocko Willink?

  It has been said that a man's character is the reality of himself. I don't think a man's strength of character ever changes. I remember a long time ago when somebody told me that a mountains, mountain might be reported to have moved. I could believe it or disbelieve it as I wished. But if anyone told me that a man had changed his character, I should not believe it.

• 1:36:57Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. Look, I think it's hard for people's characters to change. I don't think you can change someone's character very easily, actively, proactively make their character change. But I think that through life and through experience, people's character does absolutely change. And you can meet someone now that you knew 10 years ago. And you'd say, whoa, that person's a whole new character and you would mean character. And it's classic sense.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, what in to kind of

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  to kind of identify, what is character do you think like what just kind of moral like your fiber? You know, it's not because it's not like you can talk to pretty much anyone and they'd probably tell you, yeah, like I'm a different person than I was 15 years ago. Pretty much everyone would be like, okay, that wouldn't be a big surprise or whatever, but they're not talking about that, right? Like character is different.

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, they are talking about that. What he's saying is that you know, that slimy guy that you knew in high school that was trying to screw people over and whatever. He's saying like that guy, when you meet him 20 years later, guess what he's doing? Still a slimy guy.

• 1:38:06Jocko Willink?

  I disagree with that. I actually have known people whose character has changed. And for me, I mean, there's a, we could do a whole show, I guess, about what is character. But like for me, character is doing what you're, you know, you're supposed to do. Like actually doing what you know you're supposed to do, doing what you know is the right thing to do. That's, that's, that's how you end up with character, right? You say you're going to do something, you do it. You know, you're supposed to do behave a certain way, regardless of anyone's watching, regardless of the outcome. You know, you're supposed to do the right thing, you do it, that's character.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  I agree with you. I think that you can eat. It it's a rare thing. I do kinda agree with him.

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink?

  It is a rare thing, but it happens. Look, there's some people you go, I remember that greasy dude.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:52Jocko Willink?

  Just being all trying to, you know, get what, take care of himself.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:56Jocko Willink?

  And you look at that person 10 years later, it's the same dude, but occasionally you'll get someone that changes.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, like through maybe some big impactful event or maybe or maybe even just like a new influence in life and maybe like a little revelation kind of thing. Like, right, you can, oh, yeah, that can happen, I think. And I think it kinda does happen on these teeny tiny ways, but nothing that would kinda collectively be considered character. You know, but I think, yeah, I think, well, people can.

• 1:39:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I I absolutely think they can. I think it, yeah, I and I've seen it.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  I've seen it.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:39:31Jocko Willink?

  I know people where I, you know, used to look at him and go, yesh. And now I look at him totally solid.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:38Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I I don't know how much my character's changed, but it absolutely, it has changed.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm a different guy than I was when I was 22.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, maybe in in the may on the battlefield, maybe it's it's more rare, you know, like where to the point where he's writing straight up, it can't be changed.

• 1:39:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's it's it's strange that he's so, I mean, saying it's he more believe that a mountain moved than someone's character moved. That's a really bold thing. And look, I got plenty of examples where I know someone when they were, you know, 15 and then 20 and then 25 and 30 and it's the same guy.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Jocko Willink?

  The whole time. Sometimes it's the person's just as as upstanding in their character the whole time. And sometimes it's they go or sometimes they're just a scumbag from day one and you're like, yeah, no, that's didn't expect much, much less than that. And then there's some people that progress and there's some people that that regress. Right? Some people get treated bad. They go through and their character goes down. So I think we're in mutual disagreement with General Omar Bradley on this point. I think people's character can absolutely improve and I think I think it can get worse as well. You know, somebody gets, what's that? Burned.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00Jocko Willink?

  Right? You get burned by someone. You get burned by a girl. You get burned by one of your friends. That'll change your character.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Kind of the same deal, right? Some big like revelation, you know, or some big impactful event or the wrong influence over time, like just over time and time and time, you know, you start hanging around with wrong people, getting into drugs or something like this, you know? Or it's kind of like, man, my whole life is like, if you don't lie and cheat and steal, you kind of don't live. You know, you kind of don't survive kind of in this environment or something like that. Yeah, that would make sense too. Yeah.

• 1:41:36Jocko Willink?

  Check. All he's wrapped. That's the last characteristic he talks about. All leaders must possess these qualities, which I have been discussing. And the great leaders are those who possess one or more of them to an outstanding degree. Some leaders just miss being great because they are weak in one or more of these areas. There's still another ingredient in this formula for a great leader that I have left out and that is luck.

• 1:42:04Jocko Willink?

  All caps.

• 1:42:07Jocko Willink?

  He must have opportunity. Then of course, when opportunity knocks, he must be able to rise and open the door. Cool. I mean, look, yes, absolutely. I've been extremely lucky. I've seen people be extremely lucky. I've seen people been unlucky. So luck absolutely plays a role. I will say you make your own luck to an extent.

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  Luck is a tough one.

• 1:42:38Jocko Willink?

  I, no one wants to.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, it's a double edged sword, right? It's a double edged sword because you either, oh, that guy got lucky, right? You didn't see how hard that guy worked, right? Or that guy got unlucky. You didn't see what that person did to end up in that unlucky spot.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  And both those things can flip.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  And they're both true.

• 1:43:01Jocko Willink?

  And they're both true.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man, yeah, it's, it gets real complicated in the luck thing.

• 1:43:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, I talk about in leadership strategy and tactics, I talk about the, the luck that I had in the SEAL teams. All kinds of luck.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:15Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of luck, for sure. Just the people I worked with, the deployments that I did, the situations that I was in, there's a lot of luck there. Some of that luck I manufactured. Some of it was just straight up, all caps, luck.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  But then it's like, at the same time, you can be like, well, even in a great, uh, result, like a scenario with a great result, you could have been even more lucky. They're possible, you know, so it's like, especially when you want to point your finger, you know, and be like, not point your finger, but you want to put your finger on a certain result and be like, oh, this was lucky, brother. There's just way more to it than that. Like you can't, there, there are better results that are, that were possible.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  Right? So you just chose to point your finger at this very specific result and be like, this was lucky. And then, and then it's a spectrum. You could have been like one level less lucky and still had a great result kind of thing. And, and then it goes down from there and it can go up from there too. So it's like, any time to label it luck as the thing. I mean, there are extreme scenarios for sure. Oh yeah, like you win the lottery, that's lucky.

• 1:44:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Technically in and of itself.

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Does play a role.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Jocko Willink?

  You do make your luck, yeah, for sure.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  It's not the whole deal at all. And it's just like, it's like, if you. You gotta.

• 1:44:35Jocko Willink?

  Let's say this, luck is a factor, but it is a smaller factor than most people give it credit for. Though, like you said, there are times where people just get lucky.

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  Massively lucky.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  And then you have to evaluate, like, what specific result are you talking about? Because if it's like, okay, this person has uh twenty million dollars in his bank account. That in and of itself is the the result, right? Of some something, right? Now you can start evaluating, okay, was it hard work? And then with that hard work, it's like, okay, what luck, is there luck in that hard work kind of thing? Or did they just win the lottery? Okay, that's, you know, that's a big lucky thing, kind of thing. But you're just talking about the twenty million dollars in the account. You're not talking about his whole life. You're not talking about any of that. You're just talking about a very specific scenario. So that's why I think sometimes people get jammed up. And they'll evaluate this whole big resulting scenario, not a specific element in it, a big resulting scenario.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Oh, this person's whatever, you know, successful in this way, right? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's ju- it's, he just got lucky. But Brad, you're talking about that success has so many different elements in it, good and bad, by the way. And then you just wrap up the whole thing and deliver a luck.

• 1:45:51Jocko Willink?

  Luck is most likely a minor impact, but it is an impact. And there are times when it's a significant impact.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. But yeah, it's like, it's it's straight up, or most of the time, anyone you hear it, it's straight up negating every other factor.

• 1:46:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, when people say, oh, that guy is lucky, for sure, for sure.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  When someone's trying to make excuses for themselves on why this person got this promotion and I didn't, oh, they were lucky.

• 1:46:23Jocko Willink?

  Is there no luck involved? No, there's some luck involved, but let's not leave it to luck.

• 1:46:30Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, some may ask, why do you talk about the qualities of leadership?

• 1:46:35Jocko Willink?

  They maintain that you either have leadership or you don't, that leaders are born, not made. I suppose some are born with a certain amount of leadership. Frequently, we see children who are, who seem inclined to take charge and direct their playmates. The other youngsters follow these directions without protest. But I am convinced nevertheless that leadership can be developed and improved by study and training. Hundred percent.

• 1:47:01Jocko Willink?

  There is no better way to develop leadership than to give the youngster or other individual a job involving responsibility and let him try to work it out. Try to avoid telling him how to do it. He's talking about youngsters. As you've heard, as I talk about leadership strategy and tactics, this is a technique. It's a technique to make people better leaders. Put them in leadership situations, give them responsibility, give them a job, give them a task, something they can do, make them lead it, they lead it, they're successful, their confidence goes up. Then he says, try avoiding how to telling them how to do it. Yeah, that's decentralized command. That, for example, is the basis for a whole system of combat orders. Yes.

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Combat orders, they're actually talking about something very specific. It is a way of delivering orders using commander's intent as opposed to telling you, here's the mission, here's the people, here's the weapons, here's everything, here's exactly how I want you to do it. Instead, you just give them the mission, you let them figure it out. They call that combat orders. Well, tell the subordinate, we tell the subordinate commander what we want him to do and leave him to the details. I think this system is largely responsible for the many fine leaders in our services today. We are constantly training and developing younger officers and teaching them how to accept responsibility. However, don't discount experience. Someone may remind you that Napoleon led armies before he was 30 and Alexander the Great died at the age of 33.

• 1:48:27Jocko Willink?

  Napoleon, as he grew older, commanded even larger armies. Alexander might have been even greater had he lived longer and had more experience. In this respect, I like, I especially like General Buckner's theory that judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.

• 1:48:51Jocko Willink?

  And he wraps it up here. I've been asked to speak on leadership in the past. I have fairly well covered these same thoughts with other groups. Somehow, however, at the moment, these thoughts take on added significance for me. You see, my first great grandson was born a year ago. We call him Fat Henry. What happens to his life and to the lives of his contemporaries may well be in your hands.

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 1:49:23Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:49:25Jocko Willink?

  It's a poignant kind of way to to wrap it up. The fact that the the leaders right now that are listening to this. The leaders that are learning, the leaders that are reading. They will end up running the world. And they will end up running it well and making it better or

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  running it bad and making it worse for Fat Henry.

• 1:50:00Jocko Willink?

  So, interesting, interesting. I'm sure we'll get to his book at some point.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  But so much about leadership, so many things, you know, that we hit. We cover, we see it from a different angle.

• 1:50:19Jocko Willink?

  Makes you better, makes me better, makes me better every time I get to the opportunity to think through these things.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  And of course, the best way

• 1:50:32Jocko Willink?

  to train leaders is to make sure that we are being good leaders ourselves, setting a good example. The best example that we can. Staying on the path, you might say, so

• 1:50:47Jocko Willink?

  since we are looking to stay on the path. Anything you recommend Echo Charles for that conduct?

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  We do want to keep ourselves capable. Improve the skills, increase the skills, one skill being jujitsu. It's important skill.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  To increase and maintain our capability, jujitsu is one of them. Keep working out. If you're not working out, work out. The weak body is an incapable body. In a matter of speaking.

• 1:51:21Jocko Willink?

  Kind that is true. You definitely want to be as strong as you can. Different for everybody.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Yes. Realistically.

• 1:51:28Jocko Willink?

  But be the be the best shape that you can be in. That's good advice. Can't really be denied.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  Can't be. So when we're doing jujitsu, we need a gi, we need rash guards. Get an origin gi. Cause they're the best hundred percent factually.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  Made in America.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  In America, you know, okay.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  Are we blowing that off now? Made in America is not a big deal anymore.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  Or is made in America a bigger deal than ever?

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  I think.

• 1:51:54Jocko Willink?

  Cause we got an American supply chain. Is that what's going on?

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So what?

• 1:51:58Jocko Willink?

  Just making sure, cause it seemed to me like you were just getting ready to move on.

• 1:52:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no, well.

• 1:52:02Jocko Willink?

  Without saying made in America.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  Okay. Hey, I understand your uh feedback.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:52:09Jocko Willink?

  Made in America is a big deal.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Huge deal.

• 1:52:11Jocko Willink?

  It's it was a big deal. Prior to the virus.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:52:16Jocko Willink?

  Now it's an even bigger deal. American supply chain. We're not, we're not begging and pleading for stuff to get shipped overseas. We have it. It's made in America, all of it.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. So.

• 1:52:27Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, it's not just jujitsu either.

• 1:52:31Jocko Willink?

  Jeans, you probably need jeans.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:52:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, does everyone in the world, the entire world, wear jeans? Yes, every single person in the entire world needs jeans, has jeans. Why not get jeans that are made in America? Why not get the best and most comfortable jeans ever made? That's my question.

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, no reason why not. Um, so. Go to origin Maine, the state Maine, originmaine.com is where you can get all this stuff. Okay. So all this stuff that I'm talking about, like Jaco, so eloquently put it.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  Is made in America. From the beginnings of the of the materials. Cause one thing to be like, hey, yeah, I, you know.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Switched the tag out here up in, you know, Long Beach. And so it's made here technically, you know, and hey, look, no one's mad at that. That's cool, but.

• 1:53:21Jocko Willink?

  Some people are mad.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Well, some people are, yes, sir. You're right. I'm wrong. All right. Stand corrected for sure, but. And the fiber, the cotton is grown in America. That is made in America. So these things are made in America. So like we said, geese, rash guards, jeans, American denim.

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  Other things joggers, sweat suits, various apparel, clothing items, boots.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  So Origin Boots have like a more of like a,

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  I don't want to say mystique, but you know, when you're like, when you kind of see the Origin Boots, they kind of have a gravitas to them.

• 1:54:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  More so than.

• 1:54:04Jocko Willink?

  There's a little something about them.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you know how Omar Bradley said that some people don't have it?

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:12Jocko Willink?

  Well, we could say that certain items in the world also have it. I would say that Origin Boots have it.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  That is the perfect way to put it. Yes. Yes, sir.

• 1:54:21Jocko Willink?

  So get some boots with it.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Yes. Also Jaco Fuel. Okay. So I was talking about staying healthy, staying capable, all this stuff like, hey, man, supplementation is part of that, that whole deal. So.

• 1:54:35Jocko Willink?

  Important.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Very important. You won't know how important it is until your joints start giving up, your joints start quitting workouts. You know, when your elbows are all sore, when you're trying to, you know, get under the bench and stuff.

• 1:54:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  Trust me, it's no good.

• 1:54:49Jocko Willink?

  Joint warfare, krill oil, super krill oil, discipline and discipline go. We got the ready to drink. How, you were drinking lemon lime today?

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I.

• 1:55:00Jocko Willink?

  Citrus psycho.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had the tropical thunder one earlier.

• 1:55:04Jocko Willink?

  You're too deep, huh?

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:55:06Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, milk, by the way. If, if you're a human and let's say you, you are doing any kind of activity, you need protein.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:55:19Jocko Willink?

  Might as well get protein that is clean and that just straight up tastes like dessert.

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  Dave Burke.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, worried that maybe it was a weakness.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:55:31Jocko Willink?

  At night to have a strawberry milk.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Man, that was a very technical scenario he was talking about. So I could see it's a weak, you know what? I evaluated it.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  This ties back into the whole thing where you used to be like, hey, Jaco, if you're so into the way your supplements taste, maybe that's a weakness.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Right. It's kind of the same.

• 1:55:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's the same thing.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  Concept. Yeah.

• 1:55:54Jocko Willink?

  I thought, I still think you're wrong.

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  Well, at the end of the day, if your results driven, oh yeah, it's like weakness. Well, no, I, you won't be able to recognize any weakness in the scenario. So let it go. Cause at the end of the day, you win a hundred percent. You are correct about that.

• 1:56:08Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  But if we want to go technical. Your intention is something. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:56:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I want the supplements to taste good.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:20Jocko Willink?

  Dave, look, this is a thing that we need to just continue to try and clarify for everyone. If you have a milk late at night, you're not that hungry, but you want to taste something delicious. So you mix one up. It's 11 o'clock at night. Let's face it. That's a questionable activity, but at the same time, you're literally providing your your body with the fuel that it needs to be strong. So it's it's it's a real thing. This is a real, this is a real win. So I'm just calling it a win.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. I agree. So yeah, get on that. Get on that.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  Do I need to make a milk milk that tastes like crap?

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:04Jocko Willink?

  Just for the mental discipline? Just to get a double dose of discipline, you'll get strong and you'll get mentally tougher because you'll be drinking something that tastes like kerosene.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, don't do that. Don't do that, please.

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  So anyway, yes, milk, protein in the form of a dessert, all for it 100%. Jaco White Tea. Also, you want something a little bit lighter, organic, refreshing if you drink it as iced tea.

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  The thing that people really like about Jaco White Tea is that it allows you to bed to deadlift 8,000 pounds. And that, by the way, that's double blind placebo tested with a 94 person control group.

• 1:57:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so get that. And all these supplement items can be found at the vitamin shop. So you don't have to order it by mail. You can go and get it from the vitamin shop. If you need it, if you have an emergency situation.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, you need it right now.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Need milk now.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I dig it. Also, we have a store. Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store, where you can get your apparel. Apparel's cool, right?

• 1:58:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  I mean, the word apparel. Merch. That was the one. I think the kids are saying that nowadays, merch. Which is cool. I dig it. Anyway, merch. If you want to buy a T-shirt that says, "Discipline equals freedom", boom, get it there at jocko's store.com. You want to see, or you want to get a shirt that says, "Good", written across the front? Good? That's a... You gotta know what that's for, you know?

• 1:58:38Jocko Willink?

  If you want a trucker's hat?

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:40Jocko Willink?

  Or a regular hat? Or a beanie for your head?

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  Flex fit? Yeah. All that stuff. Hoodies, lightweight and heavy, tank tops, all this stuff. Yes, jocko's store.com, that's where you can get this cool stuff.

• 1:58:53Jocko Willink?

  And if you are seen in the wild by me, representing, I will give you a head nod.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  Yes. The bona fides, as it were. Oh, yeah.

• 1:59:04Jocko Willink?

  What is the bona fides? Do you know, do you know what the technical bona fides was in the military? It's like the cheesy thing where someone says, "It's a nice night for a walk", and the other person says, "But it's cold in Nebraska." So it's a little, like, I would say to you, "It's a nice night for a walk", and you would say, "But it's cold in Nebraska", and then I go, "Okay, cool. Hey, here's what's going on."

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  You know what I thought it was? I thought it was, "Nice night for a walk, eh", and the other person says, "Nice night for a walk", then you say, "Wash day tomorrow. Nothing clean, right?" Then the other person says, "Nothing clean, right."

• 1:59:43Jocko Willink?

  What is that from?

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Terminator.

• 1:59:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Anyway, so yes, bona fides all day. If I see you, I'm gonna give you the same deal. I may say, "Nice night for a walk."

• 1:59:52Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it weird that my knowledge comes from 20 years of serving the nation in the military, and your knowledge comes from Terminator 2?

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  Uh, well, that was Terminator 1, but yes, Terminator 2 as well. That is interesting.

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  So I guess, basically, we both have the same knowledge.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, same thing. Same thing.

• 2:00:05Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, and also subscribe if you haven't already on all the podcasting places. Where have you listened to podcasts? Subscribe. You know, it's a thing. It's cool.

• 2:00:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, speaking of, you know, this podcast, we also have other podcasts. One of them, we're having some technical difficulties right now. We had a podcast that was previously called "The Thread". There's already an existing podcast called The Thread, which I didn't know about because I just didn't really pay attention to it. And so we're changing the name of ours. Just don't know what it's gonna be called yet. We'll put it up there shortly. So if you're missing The Thread, that's where it's at. It's gone for now. It'll be back. We'll put up all the episodes. We'll change whatever we gotta change. So that it's differentiated from that. My bust. Oops. Yeah, the weird thing is, there's all kinds of podcasts called The Thread,

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  or some variant of that. But ours, I think I would say ours was more popular. So they didn't like that. And I don't want people to be confused.

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  No, it'll eliminate confusion, for sure.

• 2:01:09Jocko Willink?

  We also have the Grounded Podcast, the Warrior Kid Podcast. And speaking of Warrior Kids, we got Warrior Kid Soap from IrishOaksRanch.com. Is that stuff, is Killer Soap live on the Jaco Store yet?

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  Uh, ye- yes.

• 2:01:28Jocko Willink?

  You keep giving weird answers.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Well, you know, there's a thing. There's the, no, be on the lookout for that. How about that?

• 2:01:34Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so if not, go to IrishOaksRanch.com and get some soap, some Killer Soap, so that you and your family can stay clean.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  Stay clean. Also, we have a YouTube channel for the video of this podcast, plus excerpts, and which is a big deal. So, you know, you wanna listen to a cool concept that may have been, you know, in one of the episodes that you kinda remember, it'll be as an excerpt so you can, you know, you can watch that. Maybe share it with somebody if you want. But nonetheless, YouTube channel, yes, we do have a YouTube channel. So subscribe to it if you want. Totally official. Got the checkmark.

• 2:02:11Jocko Willink?

  Did they send you something? Did they contact you to tell you, you're official now?

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  Um, well, we had some help by some very capable people. And yeah, they let us know that we're official.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  Did you feel kinda good about that? Were you kinda like, you're the man?

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. I still do. I feel like we have an official YouTube channel. That's good.

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, we do factually.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  Better than being unofficial. I'm just saying that.

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Also Psychological Warfare, iTunes, Google Play, MP3 platforms. Get yourself some psychological.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  To get you through moments of weakness. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, flipsidecanvas.com. Very cool graphic designs to hang on your wall. Hang it in your gym, hang it in your room. Keep you on the path. Some books, we've got a book called The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  We got Leadership Strategy and Tactics, I referenced that a bunch today. We got The Way of the Warrior Kid series, there's three of them.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Way of the Warrior Kid, Mark's Mission, and Where There's a Will. We got Mikey and the Dragons, best children's book ever for the young'uns. Factually.

• 2:03:24Jocko Willink?

  We have Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership, which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, and we have Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. So, check those books out. We have Echelon Front, my leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems through leadership. If you have issues in your team, in your organization, in your company, go to echelonfront.com and we will help you out. We have EF Online, which is

• 2:03:52Jocko Willink?

  interacting with all the EF instructors, all the Echelon Front instructors, including me, Leif, JP, Mike, Dave, Jason,

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  Steve.

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  All of us, we're on there. I should have written those out, make sure I don't miss anybody.

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  But yes, that's what we're doing, we're there, we are, we have shifted to this online platform for a lot of our consulting right now due to COVID-19. It turns out that this platform is just awesome. We're utilizing it, we are ramping it up. So, if you want to check that out, if you want to talk to me, go to efonline.com, get enrolled in that. We also have the muster coming up, it's our leadership conference. The first one of the year was canceled due to COVID-19. That was in Orlando. That one's canceled, right now we are shifting to Phoenix, September 16th and 17th, and then Dallas, December 3rd and 4th, go to extremeownership.com. We moved a bunch of people from Orlando to Phoenix and Dallas. Those are going to sell out even quicker than normal.

• 2:04:59Jocko Willink?

  Everything we've ever done sold out, so get there early if you want to go get registered, if you want to get there. And of course, we have EF Overwatch, executive leadership. If you need someone in an executive position at your team, go to EF Overwatch. We have military members that have leadership experience to plug in senior positions to plug into your organization. If you need frontline leaders or frontline troops, go to EFLegion.com. And if you're a vet, go to EFLegion.com and sign yourself up so we can get you employed out there in the world at companies where they cherish the military experience that you have.

• 2:05:41Jocko Willink?

  Also, AmericasMightyWarriors.org, Mark Lee's mom, helping service members around the world, helping their families and helping Gold Star families. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want to hear more of my tedious explanations, or you want to hear more of Echo's disjointed prattle, then you can find us both on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the service members out there who are protecting us from evil, and

• 2:06:25Jocko Willink?

  the same to police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service. Thank you for protecting us here at home and on top of them. Thanks to the doctors, nurses, and medical personnel who are risking their health to protect ours. And to everyone else out there, remember what General Omar Bradley, commander of the most American troops ever, remember what he taught us. He taught us a lot, and let's think about this. He taught us that there are many solutions to a problem. But any good plan executed boldly is better than indecision. So don't hesitate.

• 2:07:10Jocko Willink?

  Instead, pick a plan and get after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.