282: Never Say Die-Approach to Problems, Initiative, Total Self-reliance, Flexibility, and Improvisation. The Light Infantry.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:47:02 - Learning from the Light Infantry so we can take advantage. 1:33:30 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 1:35:38 - Support, and How to stay on THE PATH. 1:59:07 - 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 282 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  A 44-year-old lawton man was among those involved in a three-day fight recently as part of Operation Attleboro in Vietnam.

• 0:20Jocko Willink?

  He is Charles F. Wittes, who is stationed at Fort Sill until June with the 4th Battalion, 30th Infantry, and now serves as a platoon sergeant in Vietnam with Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. The 24-year Army veteran's wife Florence and children Pat, David, Sharon, Gary, and Wanda reside in Lawton. A married daughter lives in Litchfield, Minnesota. Operation Attleboro was not the first time Sergeant Wittes has seen action.

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  As he served with the 1st Infantry Division during World War II and saw action in North Africa, Sicily, the Normandy Invasion, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  So he had some combat experience.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  He also served in Korea with the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of the 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. Operation Attleboro has been described as the biggest US action of the Vietnam War. The 43-day operation involved some 25,000 American soldiers in the jungles of Taenin Province northwest of Saigon. It cracked open on the toughest and oldest of Viet Cong strongholds. The campaign ended last Saturday with acclaimed bag of more than 1,100 communist regulars killed and nearly 2,400 tons of rice captured plus hordes of other supplies.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  I don't think that the fighting out there was as bad as in itself as either World War II or Korea, but this was much more confusing. In Korea, you at least had lines. Over here, they were all around you, Sergeant Wittes said. At first, I thought we'd run into a platoon on patrol, but when the fighting continued, I knew we'd run into a much stronger force. I didn't really have time to think about what was going on. My time was spent getting wounded out and getting the ammo to the men. Those assaults were the first I'd seen since Korea. They were just the same type that we called Banzai attacks. Our men were outstanding,

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  as good as any I saw in World War II or Korea. End quote. Another taking part in the operation was PFC John Casarato of Lynnhurst, New Jersey, who received his baptism of fire on those three days. Up to that combat action, his combat experience had been a short sweep during which his unit received a little sniper fire. "I remember the firing was very heavy for a while, and then it stopped," he said. "I thought it was over. I'd heard that they hit you and ran, but it was far from over.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  We were too busy with the wounded to really think about what was happening. The biggest thing I remembered was the sun. It seemed like I couldn't get any place where it was cool enough to think straight. It was worse than I had imagined combat to be. There was a feeling of helplessness. The bullets were flying around us, and we couldn't see who was shooting them. I really respect the medics. They were right out there in the middle of it. It was a good feeling to know that if you get wounded, those guys will come and help you." After it was all over, that night, I realized what I went through. You wonder why you are

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  alive when a lot of other people are gone.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  And that's a newspaper article from 1966 from out there in Lawton, Oklahoma. And it's talking about Operation Attleboro, which is mentioned a few times in the article.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  The operation is named after Attleboro, Massachusetts, where the 196th Light Infantry Brigade had been reactivated out of Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  And the 196th initiated this operation after they'd only been in country for about two months.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  And this, I would say this newspaper article paints the battle in a very positive picture, but it was a, it was a rough paddle, very rough battle. The brigade commander was an inexperienced guy, didn't really have, well, he was inexperienced in fighting infantry.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Didn't really prioritize and execute.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  Lost some control at various points of the battle of, of what was happening. And in the end, even though, as reported, there was over a thousand enemy killed, there was also some significant loss on the American side. 155 men killed and five missing from the first, fourth and 25th Infantry Divisions and the 196th. And I couldn't pin this down. I believe there was four Medals of Honor that were awarded for actions during this battle.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  And it was the, the largest, largest series of air mobile operations at that time.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  And it was also a baptism of fire, as I mentioned, for the 196th Light Infantry out of, out of Fort Devens, Massachusetts. And as I was reading about this battle, I started thinking about that idea of light infantry and, and just doing some reading, doing some research. And I came across a document that I thought was worth discussing. The document is called Proverbs of the Light Infantry, which out of the gate, you know, I'm kind of already thinking, hmm, this is, this is going to be good to go. It's written by a guy named Major Scott R. McMichael. He's an army officer.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  And not only is he a military guy, obviously being in the army, being a major in the army, but he's also written a bunch, historically speaking, on light infantry specifically. He wrote a book called A Historical Perspective on Light Infantry. He wrote another book called Stumbling Bear: Soviet Military Performance in Afghanistan. So he's got, you know, like I said, the military background. He's also got this historical background, which I think served him well in putting together this bunch of proverbs, which were published in a magazine that I was lucky enough to find. So let's check out this document. Starts off, "History provides many examples that could

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  help define contemporary concepts. Here's an attempt to define the generic light infantry and suggest possible training tasks. Proverbs of the Light Infantry by Major Scott R. McMichael, U.S. Army." So there's an article, which I'll go through quickly. What exactly does army mean by the term light infantry? What is the difference between light infantry and regular infantry? Is light infantry merely regular infantry made light by stripping away its heavy equipment and vehicles? Or is it something quite different in terms of tactical style, attitudes, and utility? And this is what hit me is, look, when I, when I do these, when I, when I look at something,

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  when I read something, if I'm thinking it's strict military information, then I'll save it for when I go and talk to military troops. However, much of the time, what you find is that military information, military knowledge, military proverbs in this place are something that you can take and apply to absolutely anything in life.

• 8:35Jocko Willink?

  So when he's talking about light infantry, it sounds super specific. It's a lot more broad. These things can be applied a lot more broadly. Back to the book, surveying the official literature on the light division. One is hard put to avoid the conclusion that our army leadership is taking the view that light infantry is nothing more than regular infantry made light for the purpose, for the overriding purpose of strategic mobility. A number of facts support this conclusion. First, the initial design parameters for the division focused on restrictions on size, not operational employment. The force designers of the new light division labored under three basic parameters. One, a 10,000 man personnel ceiling.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Two, a deployability limit of 500 or less C141 sorties. And three, a requirement for the division to have nine battalion maneuver elements. So what he's saying there is when they made this thing, what they, what they base it off of is they wanted to be able to deploy this thing rapidly in only 500 flights of C141s, which is actually a lot of flights. But you know, you're going to get 10,000 people deployed in a short amount of time. Okay. So that's what they're looking to do. But he, he goes on a little bit. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit.

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  There's more, there should be more to it. It shouldn't be just you're a little bit lighter. That shouldn't be the goal of light infantry. There should be some differences as well.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  He says, certainly the army has not ignored the peculiar tactical characteristics of the division. It has, after all, developed light leaders course and undertaken a multitude of tests and studies to determine how to fight the division. But the hallmark of the division remains its strategic lightness, not its tactical lightness. This is an imbalance, not dismissed lightly. And he literally wrote in here, not a pun. So the, the major's got some, got some comedic chops. For I believe that it shows a lack of appreciation for the real meaning of light infantry. So he's arguing here that it's not just a, a, a regular infantry unit that's, has less equipment.

• 10:50Jocko Willink?

  They have a different attitude and he gets to it here. In contrast, and, and this is why I think this applies. Because.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  We know, one of the things that's, one of the things that's so fascinating, for instance, about jujitsu, is it allows someone who's smaller and weaker to beat someone that's bigger and stronger. How can you do that? Tactics, techniques, procedures, strategy, skills. Light infantry, well, light infantry can beat heavier infantry. How do they do that? The same thing that you use in jujitsu. Businesses, well, you're in a business, you've got a competitor that's bigger than you, and stronger than you, and more capitalized than you are. How can you possibly beat them? That's where I'm going. That's what we want to know, right? That's why we love the jujitsu.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Right? So that's why we kinda, we kinda love the light infantry too. And we want to learn from the light infantry. Just like we learn from jujitsu when we apply it to business, we apply it to life, we can learn from the light infantry so that we can take advantage.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  So I'm sure you're gonna go into it, but the, so the light infantry essentially is, it's for speed, right?

• 12:01Jocko Willink?

  Rapid deploy, rapid deployability.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's like where being, the speed is more important, or is a significant of significant importance in the situation. So, but with that speed comes certain drawbacks, so they have to apply certain techniques given those drawbacks.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. How does Jeff Glover tap out Echo Charles?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:23Jocko Willink?

  Can he do it? How does he tap out Jaco? Can he do it because he's bigger and stronger? Can he do it because he's, can apply more force than I can? No. He can outmaneuver us.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  He can outmaneuver, he can move, he can use his lightness, and what else does he have? Flexibility. And then he has special little tactics, techniques, and procedures that he can use. Little Jeff Glover, like a little monkey on your back.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yep. On your back.

• 12:52Jocko Willink?

  So here we get into it. In contrast to the general American use of the term light infantry as regular infantry made light, there exists another interpretation, mostly European in context and origins, which is not tied to force structure or strategic mobility nearly so rigidly as it is in the United States. This article sheds light on this opposing concept and cites a list of proverbs which characterizes operations by what could be referred to as classic light infantry. There are three primary characteristics of light infantry which distinguish it from regular infantry. One, an attitude of self reliance. Two, a propensity for improvisation and flexibility.

• 13:37Jocko Willink?

  Three, a specific common tactical style. So those are the three things that he's saying are the are the true differentiators. The attitude of self reliance is probably the most significant of the three attributes since the others are founded on it. Self reliance is based on high levels of self confidence, discipline, trust, unit cohesion, and a never say die approach to problems. It presupposes the possession of highly developed individual skills not usually found in the regular infantry soldier. So, discipline, trust, unit cohesion, the never say die approach to problems, which

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  I like, but, you know, leadership and strategy and tactics in that book, I talked about, that's good attitude to have. I'm never going to quit, but you also need to have the detachment to take a look at a problem where you're throwing all your resources and not winning and say, you know what, I'm going to throw my resources at this problem in a different way. We don't want to lose the ability to think. We don't want never say die to translate to never think of another solution to a problem that we're facing. Light infantry know that no matter what, no matter what the situation they can make do by turning the situation to their advantage. Love that. Oh, there's, there's bad weather?

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  Cool. Watch this. We're going to use that to our advantage. Oh, there's tough terrain? Great. We're going to use that to our advantage.

• 15:15Jocko Willink?

  Classic light infantry almost disdains logistics, believing that is it is possible to live in, on, and off the land and to use the enemy's supplies and weapons if necessary. Self-reliance transcends unfavorable circumstances and finds a way to accomplish the mission through innovation, imagination, and perseverance.

• 15:39Jocko Willink?

  Disdains logistics. We don't even want support. We don't even want a supply chain. We're gonna live off the land.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  The light infantry's attitude of self-reliance leads directly to a propensity for flexibility and improvisation. The light infantry cannot afford a rigid approach to tactical problems. So I love that because now we're going back on the fact that we have a never say die attitude. Guess what? We also can't afford a rigid approach to tactical problems. So we got a good dichotomy that's getting balanced out now. We were a little nervous at first.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  Instead, light infantry seeks to respond quickly to change, turning its strengths against the enemy's weaknesses in ways that the enemy does not expect. Yes, jujitsu. The light infantry leader improvises to accomplish his mission by changing his tactics and organization whenever necessary.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's very different from traditional military thought, right? Oh, we got a different problem. Let's just change our organization, change our tactics. What do we gotta do?

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  Old equipment is used in new ways and new methods are developed to meet a changing situation.

• 16:54Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry is light of foot, so to speak, and light and quick of mind as well. I wouldn't even say as well. I'd say that's probably the predominant trait that we want.

• 17:06Jocko Willink?

  Light of mind, quick of mind.

• 17:10Jocko Willink?

  Amazing how people get entrenched in their own little ideas or their own big ideas.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 17:16Jocko Willink?

  Entrenched. Can't move.

• 17:20Jocko Willink?

  The light infantry uses improvisation and flexibility as a combat multiplier, thereby frequently achieving a psychological advantage over an enemy which may outman and outgun it.

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to someone the other day. A client and the. I'm hearing him, he's trying, he's asking me to help him come up with a strategic plan. A, B, C, D, E, F.

• 17:53Jocko Willink?

  And he's getting some resistance, you know, he's got different parts of the team pulling them in different directions.

• 18:00Jocko Willink?

  And he's having a hard time making a decision of like, well, we could do this, but then if this, we could do that, but then I'm worried about this, so. It's a problem. And what I'm sitting there listening to him and I'm thinking, and I have to play this mental game with myself. Because the way that you don't find an answer when you're talking to someone is to try so hard to understand what their perspective is that you become wrapped up in the problem yourself. So I was kind of doing that, I'm thinking, well, you know, he says, well, you know, this group is saying that we should do this and this other group is saying that we should do that. And I'm starting to weigh those two groups out and see which ones, you know, you know what I'm saying? So I'm starting, I'm getting too close to it.

• 18:46Jocko Willink?

  So I'm listening. So what I have to do is I have to actually play this little game with myself where I, where I say, okay, what would I actually really do? If I was in this situation?

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  And I said, hey,

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  neither one of these groups know what's going to happen and neither do you. And you right now are trying to make a rigid plan about a future that is unknown to you. Let's reassess the plan and come up with one that revolves around flexibility and adaptability, not about, not around rigidity.

• 19:26Jocko Willink?

  Problem solved. And that's really all it took. That's really all it took. How can we come up with a more flexible plan? We don't know. Do you know what's gonna happen tomorrow?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so we can come up with a plan, but we want a flexible plan. Cause you can plan to go to the beach, but we don't know what the weather's gonna be.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kinda like the overpacking thing we talked about a long time ago where uh

• 19:48Jocko Willink?

  Refresh my memory.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  You know, like that's why you wind up overpacking. Because you're like, what if we do this? What if we do that? What if we do this? What if we go to dinner? What if we go swimming? What if we go whatever? It's like, bro, you don't know if you're even gonna go. You don't even have a plan to go to dinner. Even though you kinda know you go to dinner sometimes, you know, and then you do that too much. Bro, you're over here overpacking.

• 20:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, unless you're Levison. Levison. Remember Levison?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  That's a light traveler.

• 20:11Jocko Willink?

  He's had the Iran.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  That's some light infantry traveling right there. Yes, sir.

• 20:15Jocko Willink?

  And he's got a backpack and eight dollars.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  He might be straight up over light infantry traveling.

• 20:21Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking about, I was thinking about him from this perspective. You know, you do so much contingency planning, right? In the military, what if this happens? What if that happens? He must have been looking at contingency plans like, oh, don't worry. We'll be good. We'll figure it out. And that's the key to, that's one of the keys to light infantry.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:40Jocko Willink?

  Flexible planning.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially with that approach, you know? So you go to, in our case, we'll go to Kauai. You need a certain amount of things that you need, you're gonna need.

• 20:50Jocko Willink?

  Like seven.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Jocko Willink?

  Like shorts.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  You surf shorts. In fact, you get the hybrid shorts. The surf shorts plus casual.

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay, we're good.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  I think we have some of those.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we do.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, a shirt, uh, you know, a few shirts or whatever. Make sure you have a laundry machine over there. Our access to one toothbrush.

• 21:07Jocko Willink?

  Toothpaste. But you can kinda get toothpaste there and really a toothbrush.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the big part too where, you know, kinda like living off the land. And this sounds dumb, I know, but it's the same thing. It's the same thing. So you ever like go to like LA?

• 21:20Jocko Willink?

  Did you just count going to Vons and living off the land? I think you did.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  It is the travel version of living off the land. When you go to a civilized place, is what I'm saying.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  It's a stretch.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  You know, when you go to like LA or something and you're like, shoot, I'm gonna be there for two days. Um, you know, two, two and a half hour drive or whatever. It's like, oh, like I better bring enough toothpaste or I better, right? You can stop at any store in LA and get toothpaste.

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  Living off the land, right?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Don't pack all that stuff.

• 21:43Jocko Willink?

  Look at this guy.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Off the land. It's the same thing.

• 21:45Jocko Willink?

  That'd be actually a good reality television echo, living off the land.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Living off the land, going into foreign stores.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  Rolling into a Ralph's in LA. I can make this work.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the same thing.

• 21:59Jocko Willink?

  It's exactly the same thing, dude.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  It's the travel version.

• 22:03Jocko Willink?

  Never mind hunting, building a bow, hunting down and killing an animal and skinning it. Never mind that.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  No, no, that's too advanced.

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  We're rolling into Vons.

• 22:14Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. So we're staying flexible. We are prepared to live off the land if needed.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  If there's a washer dryer there, boom. You don't gotta bring that much clothes. You see what I'm saying?

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  My first deployment, I went to Guam.

• 22:29Jocko Willink?

  And I thought I was going to Nam, right? So I wasn't, I, I didn't plan for like a bunch of civilian stuff to be happening. I didn't plan to be, you know, down at the beach.

• 22:41Jocko Willink?

  All day, most days, which is what we actually did on my first deployment. And I think I had maybe two pairs of shorts and I just wore them the entire time. I would wear one for like a week because you're just in the ocean. You're, you know, you're taking a, a freshwater shower.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  And you're just totally good to go, living off the land, as they say.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. That's a, and that's how, uh, that's how Kawaii is too. Like you're wearing your, your shorts, say you're going to the beach and pretty much the whole time, pretty much. So yeah, you bring two of those. You're pretty good.

• 23:15Jocko Willink?

  Pretty, you got backup.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  You got backup, yeah. It's true. It's true.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  Check. See, I knew there was light infantry application, even the Echo Charles's existence were there.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:25Jocko Willink?

  We're there. All right. Back to the book. Not surprisingly, self reliance, improvisation and flexibility produce a unique tactical style as the key features of which are surprise, stealth, shock and offensiveness. The light infantry always seeks to retain the initiative to keep the enemy off balance. That was, uh, here's a good quote from Dean Lisch, because I was training with him the other day and while he was teaching class. He said, okay, so the guy on the bottom, across side, what advantages does he have? Were you here for this class?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Oh, no, but given what you're saying right now, he has said this.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so he, you know, and everyone kind of throws, actually, there's not a lot of guesses. Because let's face it, when you're on the bottom, when someone's across side on you, you're not feeling a bunch of advantages at all.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 24:17Jocko Willink?

  So he looked at it with a positive attitude. And he said, no, when you're on the bottom and someone's across side on you, you can't fall down.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  That's a good attitude.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  That's a good attitude. I thought of another one. I didn't say it to him. I'll have to discuss it with him.

• 24:34Jocko Willink?

  It's the, the person is going to have to give space to submit you in most cases from across side. There's going to be an opportunity when, if people try and submit you. If people just hold you, you're, you're going to get held.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  But if they make movement to advanced position or to submit you, they're, the advantage that you have is there's going to be some space.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:57Jocko Willink?

  Like, I think there's even less space if, if, if I'm in Dean Lister's closed guard. I feel like I can move less even when he's going for something than if he's across side. That's kind of how I feel. Might be particular to my style or whatever, but.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:16Jocko Willink?

  Can't fall down when you're already on the ground.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 25:19Jocko Willink?

  That's a big advantage, I guess. Off balance, the way that a good jujitsu player will attack your balance, that is just, that, that's the same thing we have to think about on, on the battlefield. How can we keep the enemy off balance in the business world? If, if, if the competitors know exactly what we're going to do, they just plan for it. They make a plan and the more they think they know what you're going to do, the less flexible their plan is. So when you do something that throws them off balance, it's going to be good for you. Light infantry operates most frequently at night and uses terrain at hand to full advantage.

• 25:59Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry is terrain oriented and is able to switch operations from one type of terrain to another without paralysis of the mind.

• 26:13Jocko Willink?

  Paralysis of the mind. How often you see that? A shift, it's very, it's actually a specific thing. A switch in terrain, a switch in environment and people lock up.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  I see it. Yeah, I could see that. Especially, and this goes back to something they already said, especially when it's a surprise. If I surprise you with something, that's when brain freeze happens. If you kind of see it coming, you're preparing for it. So it's almost like surprise has to be utilized to cause people to freeze up. Yeah. In my opinion. Moreover, in combat, the light infantry is logistics conscious, but not logistics dependent. Light infantry relies on superior tactics, not superior firepower to win the battle. That's jujitsu. The short discussion, this short discussion barely scratches the surface of the issue.

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  It does, however, capture the essence of classic light infantry. The proverbs which are listed here go into more detail and hopefully clarify the picture somewhat further. They have been gleaned from the close study of several excellent light infantry forces in the recent past. Although many of these proverbs apply equally well to regular infantry. As a group, they do a fair job of embodying the nature of classic light infantry as distinct from regular infantry. In conclusion, even though many of these proverbs should be embraced by all infantry, not just light infantry, history has demonstrated the difficulty of including,

• 27:52Jocko Willink?

  the difficulty of inculcating the light infantry virtue or style, except in small segments, usually elite elements of national armies. So what he's saying there is, these are great. And they'll work for regular infantry, but...

• 28:13Jocko Willink?

  These are a little, these, these skills are a little bit harder to grow inside of an organization. So chances are, even though they're a good idea to try, chances are you're not going to be as effective making this happen. Now, I can tell you that I think this thing was written, decked, I don't know, forty, forty years ago, something like that. I think times have changed. I, I think you'd find that going out and me actually working with light infantry units. Man, they're good. So, or sorry, with regular infantry units as well and armored infantry units as well. Like I've worked with all of them and they're all freaking good to go. That's what, you get good when you've been at war as a nation for, you know, a couple of decades.

• 28:59Jocko Willink?

  The US Army particularly has a history of being tied to its logistics chain and has relied more on firepower than on military art for its victories. Some truth to that. Let us assume that the new light infantry divisions should be trained in the classic light infantry style. The army may find it difficult to do so since it, it is a style with which we are basically unfamiliar, except for our specialty forces, particularly the Ranger battalions. The first step, however, is for the army to decide what it means by light infantry. Is it merely light infantry made light by the absence of heavy equipment? Or is it something more like what has been described here? This is a question which should be answered quickly for it has significant bearing on the training, strategy and leadership of our new light divisions.

• 29:44Jocko Willink?

  So that's kind of his intro. I think it's a good, solid intro. I think it gives us an idea. And it also, again, the reason I think this is so, so usable is because we're talking about a smaller, weaker force going up against a bigger, stronger force. This is maneuver warfare. This is indirect attacks. That's what this is. That's why it applies.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like this applies to more people, especially when you want to start applying it to other than, something other than military stuff where, because it's so feels like it anyway, that so often we find ourselves in a situation where it's like, dang, I don't have like the experience, I don't have the resources, I don't have the, you know, I'm not as big as that guy or whatever, and we feel like we kind of don't have a chance, you know, because they, they're just so far ahead of us in that way. So it's like, oh, no one has a chance, you know, they're, they're like a monopoly in whatever way, you know?

• 30:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  But it's not the case, you know?

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  It's true. And you know what's interesting from a business perspective? So I, I work with all different industries, right? But one day I'll be talking to a client who is the small startup, you know, 400 employees on the growth pattern, they're making things happen, but they still can't, they still have some disadvantages against the big boys.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:09Jocko Willink?

  And so I'll be talking to them about, okay, here's what we need to do. You need to work as, you know, you need to work on your mobility. How can we outmaneuver the enemy? Like all those things? The next day or even the next hour, I'll be talking to one of the big companies that has all these little elements out there, these small startups that are trying to snatch business share. What are we going to do to immobilize those small? So I actually end up teaching both insurgency and counter insurgency, depending on the client. And what's good is that I, since I, since I, I'm familiar with how each one of those components needs to win. So I can help them

• 31:51Jocko Willink?

  counter what's going on. So it boils down to execution too. It boils down to execution. Can you actually do what I'm talking about? Because if you can't come up with a flexible plan? Or you can come up with a flexible plan, but you don't have the leadership to actually make it happen. You're not gonna make it happen.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's so true. So even like the like the you talked about the mindset early on. The mindset that we're looking to change direction. We're looking to be creative like it's quick, you know, quick. Unlike, you know, let's face it, the bigger, I'm thinking of a company, by the way. But if like the bigger the company is, the more it seems like, hey, you better have your protocols in place that we all follow. Otherwise, the thing can get all unorganized. So it's like they kind of have no choice but to be a little bit more rigid in that way.

• 32:43Jocko Willink?

  Rigid, bureaucratic, very stable.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:48Jocko Willink?

  Very difficult to change. So what does that mean? That means when you're a small company, you're like, oh, your client needs this. Guess what? We can do that for you. You can turn around and we'll shift how we do things for you. The big companies, we don't actually do that.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me put you on hold real quick.

• 33:02Jocko Willink?

  You can, you can, we'll, you will give you the system that we use and you can use the system we use. The small client's like, we'll adapt our system. No factor. Let's do it.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Shoot it. Don't get them on customer service, but you go to a big company customer service. They're going to be outsourcing, reading scripts, like all this stuff, because they kind of got in a, in a big way where it's like, hey, we need everyone to give the same quote unquote quality customer service. Like we need, you know, you got to know all this stuff about our big longstanding company, you know, to help these people. So you better be educated.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  Right. So good example, big company, maybe they, they know that they're going to lose out on customer service. Because the small company can, can adapt quicker and make adjustments. So that means the big company needs to invest more in that area. And maybe they need to hire some experts and maybe they need to dump some money into,

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  you know, computer help where I can actually log into your computer and I can help. We're talking about a software, right? I can, hell, you know, no problem, Mr. Charles, I'll tell you what. If you type in this code word, I'll get into your computer right now and I can get that fixed for you, right? You want to put money. So you know where your weaknesses are. You identify your weaknesses and then you.

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  Fix them. And if you're the small guy, you know where the enemy's weaknesses are, the big guy's weaknesses are, and you exploit those. You start making fun of them. Start capitalizing on them. Which you gotta be careful, because if I start, if you're the big guy, and I start making fun of your customer service, you could, you're a big guy, you'll dump a bunch of money in customer service, all of a sudden you'll start beating me there. So I gotta be careful, I don't wanna provoke the big guy. Maybe I just wanna stay under the radar.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  And, and keep taking customers from you. And you don't really know why. It's because I respond to every single customer service issue, you know, with a team that's gonna talk directly to you within three minutes.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  That's a very, uh, that's a very significant concept, staying under the radio radar. I think it's underrated too. Because even just as a human being, it feels like you want the attention, you want the credit, you want the recognition for this, you wanna win the award, you want them to know you won, or, you know.

• 35:15Jocko Willink?

  Even more scary, or counterproductive, is you want the enemy to know that you just did this.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's more counterproductive, because now you're giving away what your position is.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:27Jocko Willink?

  You're giving away what you're doing to achieve victory.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  And bro, that goes deep, because even, even if you're not like, because no, you know, like, okay, if you want the enemy to know, right? That's like some like, hey, this is me against you, I got something against you personally, so boom, yeah, I got you, what? Kind of a thing, right? It's like a challenge almost kinda thing. But even if like, just everyday stuff, you know, some people, for example, they'll make, they'll start making a lot of money or something, and then they'll buy like jewelry or something like that, or some, something flashy, you know? Or, you know, they, maybe they have some online following or something, and then they wanna show their nice cars and their nice cows, and they wanna do all this stuff, right? Just to like, show, it's like a need, I guess, you know, for recognition or whatever. Bruh, now, what you did is you provoked the giant now.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  You made everyone know about their stuff, now this giant, whatever that may be, I don't know how that translates, but it is something where there'd be people trying to take advantage of that, people asking you for stuff, um, you know, people trying to use your X, Y, Z that you just showed them that you have, by the way.

• 36:27Jocko Willink?

  Voluntarily.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Voluntarily, yeah, cuz you needed somewhere, now they're, they're gonna try to find a way to use that for their advantage, and then it's like everybody too. Potentially, that's the giant, there's your giant, right there.

• 36:38Jocko Willink?

  You gotta watch out for that. You gotta watch out for your ego getting you to do things that are stupid.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  Straight up.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Probing the giant or whatever.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  Like even in uh, in Iraq, in Ramadi, we didn't want, we tried to, we didn't want the enemy to know what was happening. Like why are, why are people getting shot? What's happening? You know, we don't like, oh yeah, we're snipers. We got teams in, no. Just all of a sudden they start losing guys. A lot of them. They don't know why. Now it's fear. I mean, obviously they figured out pretty quick.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  Check. Alright, so now we get into the, to the uh, proverbs themselves. The proverbs of the light infantry. Here we go. Light infantry, light infantry operations. There exists a light infantry attitude which can be described in a few characteristic words. Offensiveness, initiative, surprise, improvisation, and total self-reliance.

• 37:40Jocko Willink?

  There's a part where we could just end the podcast right now, right? Cause if you take those word, those concepts to the nth degree, you, you, you know what we're talking about.

• 37:52Jocko Willink?

  But you won't get the full impact. Light forces are undaunted by terrain. Terrain is viewed as an ally. A combat multiplier for the light infantrymen. Light forces are terrain oriented. Very little terrain is impassable to true light infantrymen. Now what I, this to me, one thing that I was taught as a young frogman.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  When there's bad weather or there's bad terrain, that means that the enemy has to contend with it. And they're not going to. And we are.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:27Jocko Willink?

  And, and so, terrain, oh, there's horrible, steep, crazy hills. Cool. Yeah, that means the enemy's not gonna be on patrol up there. We will be. Undaunted. Light infantry does its best when it lives on, in, and off the land.

• 38:44Jocko Willink?

  It must be comfortable in the bush or in Ralph's if you're gonna go to Ralph's in LA for two days.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, how much of that, okay, so let's take jujitsu. How much of it is jujitsu good? Because let's face it, if you play out like zombie apocalypse in your head, you kind of think, hey, when it comes down to it, if I can beat people in fights, look, because we ran out of bullets, you know what I'm saying? Like you get to a point where, hey, man, it's gonna come down to me against you.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:21Jocko Willink?

  So there's a little bit of that, that being able to survive that you get from jujitsu.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, that's a real raw kind of form of it, you know, where, and we, I think we actually talked about this, I forget, I think it was just, we were just talking, where you can have like a big group of people and then they, and you and the group can be heavily armed and then, and then have a bunch of knives and then have body armor or whatever, whatever, right? Just all the tools and all the whatever. There's like, you can lose your weapons, you can lose your knives, you can lose your body armor or forget it, or I don't know, whatever. But at some point, it's very possible that it's gonna be, just like you said, it's me against you. No knives, no weapons, no whatever.

• 40:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, could be that way in about an hour and a half.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  And then it's like, then where are you? Is it night and day? You know, are you just business as usual kind of, kind of thing? Like, you know, the, I don't know, it makes me go back to video games, but you know how like you go, there's a game called Zanac, actually, I feel like I brought this up before, where if you get like this weapon.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Is this the super spreader?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that one too. Yeah, on Contra, when you get the spreader, you're like boom, boom, and you can win.

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's called the, I called it the super spreader because of this Rona.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  But once you die and lose that weapon and you go back to just what you're issued in the video game, which is what we call the pea shooter. Bruh, you gotta be good with that thing. And if you're not, you're just gonna game over, that's all.

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  Be comfortable in the bush. It's true. Good intelligence is vital to light infantry. Intelligence obtained by the light infantry from every source, from the national level to the use of local inhabitants reconnaissance and patrolling. Yeah, gathering information, absolutely. Conventional tactics are no good for light forces.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  You know, I, we'd have to dig down and see what you're actually talking about when you're talking about conventional tactics. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna bless that one on the spot.

• 41:32Jocko Willink?

  I get it, right? You can't plan, sometimes, for instance, conventional forces will plan for a certain number of casualties for a certain operation. Like you're just gonna take these casualties. You get into light infantry, smaller units, that can be a real problem. You can't just accept casualties.

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  For example, historically, light infantry operations are mounted at battalion level and lower. Light infantry operations are highly dependent on squad, platoon and company level actions. Got it.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  Light forces need high quality communications to coordinate decentralized efforts into a coherent whole. Okay, so this, this article is written forty, fifty years ago, something like that. And

• 42:18Jocko Willink?

  it's just interesting to me. Communications of all kinds are unreliable.

• 42:25Jocko Willink?

  Radios, they're all unreliable in a combat zone. And if you don't have coordination measures in effect that don't rely on radio communications, you can count on there to be problems. And, and I'll tell you, even as our, as our,

• 42:43Jocko Willink?

  as our communication capabilities get better, when you start talking about fighting against near peer adversaries, meaning big giant countries like ours that have big giant technological, uh, equipment like we have.

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  You can't, you get to a point where you can't use radios because they have something called DFing capability. Have you ever heard of that? Direction finding capability? So if you key up your radio, they know where you are. Your radio gives off radio waves and there are ways that those radio waves can be detected and they can pinpoint your location. So, so you have to be able to operate with minimal, minimal communications. So I don't like the, this, this particular one because it says light forces need high quality communications to coordinate decentralized efforts into a coherent whole. Actually, I don't, I don't like that.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  When I tell you, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, I give you the commander's intent. I want you to be able to go and I don't need to talk to you again. And by the way, you'll see whatever other unit needed to do something coordinated with you, you're going to know what's happening by what's happening. You're going to see an explosion, you're like, oh, Lays Platoon just started their breach, that means I can go. Like you, you see what I'm saying? You need to be able to coordinate things. You can't be reliant on radios, you can't.

• 44:09Jocko Willink?

  There was probably a year, there's probably a five, five year time period where you, where the radios were good and the enemy direction finding capability wasn't quite there yet. But that period's over.

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  Due to a general shortage of combat support, light forces must do an excellent job of combining arms when they have a chance. Yes, absolutely. You've got to be able to work with the other units that can support you. You've got to be able to do it. Light infantry forces must be masters of improvisation, familiar with all kinds of weapons, vehicles, landing craft and so forth. Yes. Light infantry forces make use of whatever is at hand to improve their combat capability. Absolutely.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  Native irregular forces are often used in support of light infantry. Yes. What does that mean? That means you have to go build relationships with the local populace. That's what that means. In order to do that, you gotta know that that's what you need to do. Because 18-year-old kids with machine guns aren't focused on building relationships. They're not. They go into a country, they have a machine gun, they have grenades. And if what they think they're gonna do is huck grenades and shoot machine guns. So you need to educate them and make sure that they understand how the local populace is going to play a role in giving you support.

• 45:41Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry must remain flexible in mind and action capable of reacting quickly.

• 45:48Jocko Willink?

  Already talked about flexible plans, flexible mind.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  When a light infantryman rises from his sleep, he is ready to fight.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  I like that.

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  Light infantrymen rely on camouflage. Why is that? Because we don't want to give away our position.

• 46:08Jocko Willink?

  We don't want to advertise what we're doing. We don't want to advertise how we're beating the competition.

• 46:16Jocko Willink?

  We want to have camouflage. Against heavy enemy forces, the light infantry always requires a great deal of augmentation. Cool. You've got to, you've got to face the reality that you may not have the resources that are needed to defeat a bigger, stronger enemy. You have to be able to say that. So if you're, you know, that's why, that's why there's a lot of industries right now where you can get help inside your small business. You can get IT support. You can get personnel support. You can get engineering support. You can get all this kind of support. And you've got to recognize when you need to utilize some of that other support. You might not necessarily want to build it out.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  I had this conversation, Leif was just telling me this when we were starting EF Online. And, you know, we started talking about building this and building that. And I said, hey, Leif.

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  We don't want to become a software company. And he was like, check, you know, because it's better to hire someone that does that. That's what they do for. I don't want to, I don't want to have a bunch of a software engineers and programmers and IT. So I don't want, we don't want to have all that. That's a different business.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:31Jocko Willink?

  We don't want to be an IT, we don't want to be a software company. We want to be a leadership training company. Cool. And he was, he was like, got it. Cause we had started, cause it's one of those mission creep things, right? Where you're like, you're like, well, if we just add this, we just build that. And all of a sudden, you got a proprietary system that you gotta maintain.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Maintain and hire more people.

• 47:50Jocko Willink?

  We're not looking to do that. We, why? We think light infantry. And what you need to do is use augmentation if needed.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry men must be able to climb, crawl, swim, ski, snowshoe, rappel, stalk, run and hide. Obviously Echo, this is written before snowboarding existed. Cause I know you're over there thinking, for those of you that don't know, Echo's now a snowboarder.

• 48:21Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it interesting to actually talk about the fact that you gotta have all these different ways of getting around by using your own energy? Light infantry must be able marksmen proficient in the use and maintenance of many weapons. Light forces rely on pioneer skills at all level, beginning with the squad to properly exploit terrain. Pioneer skills.

• 48:46Jocko Willink?

  Does that mean you have a Ralph's card?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  No, but you better know where everything is. Saying otherwise you get lost these foreign stores, you know, can be hostile.

• 48:55Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember driving around? Yeah, you do. Remember no G, like GPS is just so.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  It's a given now.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  Given now.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:03Jocko Willink?

  It's a given.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  How did you get around before GPS? Do you remember off the top of your head? Like you're in a new spot or you're going to a new spot kind of far away. You brought a map?

• 49:12Jocko Willink?

  No, you get a map.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess if I was going somewhere where there wasn't going to be a way to live off the land and go into a convenience store and buy a map.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  I was taking my daughter to Coronado like a little while ago. And so Coronado is where I worked for 20 whatever years. And what I live now. A few miles from Coronado. And we get in the car. And I, you know, start pulling out. My daughter's like, do you want to put it in the GPS?

• 49:43Speaker 01

  You're all insulting.

• 49:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, are you serious? I, I, I said, are you serious right now? And she says, yeah, why? And I go, it's Coronado. I, I worked there for 20 freaking years.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  And she's like, well, I didn't, I don't know.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:56Jocko Willink?

  And but that's, but that's her mentality is when you get in a car and you're going somewhere, your GPS.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, huh. Cause she's, she's young like that.

• 50:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Huh. Yeah, that's crazy. Oh, but well, cause I had the exact same incident. It wasn't Coronado, it was downtown. And I used to work downtown for a number of years and go down there, whatever. So I know downtown. But I know downtown like back of my hand.

• 50:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  And we're going and same thing. She puts it in Sarah.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  Sarah?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, puts it in the, or is like, she puts it in her GPS in her phone and starts rattling off the directions as if I don't know. You know, this man, man of the world doesn't know. Um, you know, how to get to the place we're going to downtown, my hood, whatever. Um, so yeah, I don't need that GPS, but the thing is Sarah's not as young as your daughter, obviously. But it does start to become like a habit, you know? I mean, just so happened I knew my way around. I think if I didn't know my way around, see that same thing, automatic install. Like, I don't even think twice about it. Like in, back in the day, I used to go, um. You know, to places or whatever. And I remember going in the, either the white pages or the yellow pages or whatever. They'd have the map.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  In the front of it. And then I'd write down directions. That's it. I got lost before too, a couple of times, but it's not, not quite as effective as GPS.

• 51:14Jocko Willink?

  I wonder what's, how much that skill is just being lost now.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  It feels like it's gone, straight up gone. You can find one or two guys.

• 51:22Jocko Willink?

  And, and we could be real negative about that. Or we could also be, well, what skills have people now garnered? Because they don't have to worry about that skill anymore.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:31Jocko Willink?

  Not sure. The next one, pertinent, Ranger standards of land navigation are a must for light forces. Gotta know where you're going. Gotta know where you are.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:43Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry rarely uses roads or trails. What does that mean? How's that apply? I'll tell you it applies. You find new ways of doing things. And just because there's a beaten path, doesn't mean you should necessarily take it. Doesn't mean you can't take it. But you should think, is there a better way to get this done? Light infantry forces left in combat theaters for long inevitably become heavier due to the acquisition of heavier weapons plus increased logistic structure. What does that mean? Keep moving. Keep moving. The minute you settle down, now you're gonna start to, now you're gonna start to grow in ways that aren't necessarily beneficial.

• 52:23Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry appreciates heavy fire support when it is available but is not dependent on it. Physical conditioning and mental strength are absolute musts.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  Across the board. Light forces, this goes into the next section, which is called the offense. Light forces may be deployed at the operational level of war, but they always fight at the tactical level. Light forces think at the tactical level. And, okay, there's another one, I'm like, hmm, I gotta press pause on that one. I'm not blessing fully. Okay, except for, I guess caveat. Light forces think at the tactical level, but you better understand the strategic goal. You have to understand why you're doing what you're doing. Otherwise, you can't think at the tactical level. Because if I say, alright Echo, we wanna take out that building.

• 53:21Jocko Willink?

  And you say, cool, got it. And you get in there and there's a little bit of resistance, so you, you know, blow it up. And then I say, actually strategically, we're trying to keep the infrastructure in place here. And you're like, oh, you might not wanna let me know that.

• 53:34Jocko Willink?

  So, thinking tactical is cool. It better be nested inside the strategic goals.

• 53:42Jocko Willink?

  Does your team, where's your team at, by the way? And your business, in your company, in your family, where's their head at? Do they understand the tactical goals that you're going for? Do they understand, are those tactical goals nested inside of what we're trying to do strategically? Good question.

• 54:02Jocko Willink?

  True light infantry loves the night, light, light forces fight at night and hide during the day. What, what, how does, how does that apply? I'll tell you how. You need to understand where you're at, at an advantage. That's what that's saying. Look, night, day, whatever, we're not, we're not transferring this, you know, you're, you're not going to be, hey, our, you know, our construction company is going to do better at night. That's not what we're saying. What you say is, hey, there's an, there's an area of construction that we're good at. We're really good at high-end custom homes, or we're really good at multiple massive track homes that we just repeat the same. You're going to be, find what you're good at. And you're going to exploit that.

• 54:47Jocko Willink?

  You're going to start focusing on that area. You're going to hide from the areas where you're going to get beat. Light infantry attacks violently and suddenly on two or more axes, seeking flanks and rear of the enemy. Right? We're not going toe-to-toe. We're not, this isn't a pugilistic endeavor where we stand here and punch each other. We maneuver. We get the flanks. This is, you can see how all this stuff just fits right into my brain. It just fits right into my brain. Attacks are conducted fiercely and tenaciously against enemy weaknesses, not strength. Not the enemy's strengths. That's maneuver warfare.

• 55:31Jocko Willink?

  Maneuver warfare. We maneuver to where the enemy is weak. That's jujitsu. We put my deadlift power, which is my hips and my back, against Echo's curling power, which is an arm lock. And despite your relatively powerful curling capabilities done compared to my deadlift, and the arm lock will win.

• 56:02Jocko Willink?

  Light forces attack stripped for action so

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  when you're in the field you can be end up carrying a lot of equipment when you go on the attack they're saying here don't carry that equipment with you into the attack

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  what this is what this is is prioritize and execute look we carried all this weight in now we need to focus on the biggest problem we've got which is doing this assault take off your gear leave your water behind not all of it leave a bulk of your water behind leave your cold weather gear leave that stuff behind we're going on an assault we're gonna be light it's gonna take us an hour and we're gonna win

• 56:41Jocko Willink?

  that doesn't mean you leave everything

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  light infantry creates a shock effect by the suddenness and fierceness of their attacks check attacks are closely synchronized which is fine

• 56:59Jocko Willink?

  again you have to coordinate things so that perfect synchronicity is not a requirement for success because perfect synchronicity is likely not going to happen if you don't put some fudge in your schedule for the manufacturing of your new item the chances that every piece of that item that you're manufacturing comes out exactly as desired and then fits perfectly with the rest of the pieces that you've manufactured the chances of that happening are very small so if you put your if you put everything reliant on perfect synchronization you're dumb

• 57:44Jocko Willink?

  we don't want to do that

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  can it are there situations where you do need to do that sure you're launching a freaking rocket into space you know what I mean so you've got NASA you've got all these people focused on one thing that that literally cannot have any issues so there's all these checks and balances the whole way through and you have actually get a very very very very high probability of success however it's still not perfect

• 58:20Jocko Willink?

  And if you tried to keep going until everything was perfect, you wouldn't ever launch a rocket because you can't get everything completely squared away. So if you're not at risk of losing a $500 billion or whatever trillion dollar rocket, and what you're trying to do is get a, get a, get something to market, you need to not rely on perfect synchronization. Things won't be perfectly synchronized. You need to be okay with that. If you have a propensity to be super anal retentive about every little thing, it's gonna be hard for you to be in a leadership position without letting some of that go. You have to be like, eh, you know, it's pretty close. You know, there's some people that cannot say that.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:01Jocko Willink?

  There's some people that cannot say, ah, it's pretty good, we're pretty close, that'll work.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't that one of the main initial challenges of becoming like, uh, what do you call it? So when you gotta start delegating when you have a growth situation or whatever? Like, that's the main one, I would say, almost, right?

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  It's one of the main ones, yes.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, where you can't like, can't let it go.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  I would do this perfectly. Cool. But you have 14 other things you need to focus on.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:25Jocko Willink?

  Get a grip. Light infantry, always, and that is italicized in the text. When you're, when I was an English major, they call things the text. Like, oh, are you referring to the text?

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. What's the difference between the text and the copy?

• 59:48Jocko Willink?

  Uh, copy is what they say in the, in the, that's more of like a marketing word. Marketing, they'll be like, hey, did you, can you check the copy on this latest thing? So all those buzzwords.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  So it's like the purpose of what has been written, that kinda dictates whether you call it the text or the copy.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  But the English, you know, professors, I think it's an elevated way of speaking, because they don't wanna say, well, what'd you think of this book? Right? Which is what a human would say, which is what a person would say. They say, why don't you give me some feedback on, on this text? You're like, well, bruh.

• 1:00:24Jocko Willink?

  Right? Cause they're getting paid money and so they can't just call it a book.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Or a play, right?

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  That's way more important than that.

• 1:00:30Jocko Willink?

  Did you read the play? What'd you think of that play? No, it's... How do... What was the impact of that text on you? Come on.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not even necessary. Sometimes. Then again, I'm sure there's a real, a reason, you know?

• 1:00:46Jocko Willink?

  Maybe not. No, you're right. You're right. There is a reason. And if we were, I'm sure we're gonna get some English professor that's gonna drop the hammer of grammar on us.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, say, "Well, text actually refers to blah, blah, blah."

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's one of those things where it could be where, you know how like there was a reason back in the day? Where the reason was like significant and you could get it, you could jam it up if you didn't like diste- or distinguish or whatever. And then, but so much has happened since then. And then, you know, the classic, you know, guys or whatever, they're like holding on to it, saying like, "No, it is important and all this stuff." It's like, "Brad, no, no, it's not because I know exactly what you're talking about still."

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  But you know what I love about this particular case? Guess what a text now means. It means I sent you a four-word text. That's, my kids text each other.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  And they, they got funny texts. My, uh, so you know how, I don't know, my son, when he texts, there's... You know how... Well, I have an iPhone and it has an autocorrect, right?

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:46Jocko Willink?

  So it automatically capitalizes letters, automatically puts periods in. That's how, that's the, that's the default setting. I'm pretty sure of the phone, right?

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:01:56Jocko Willink?

  He must have manually goes in there and removes those. So everything he writes is just no... No corrections, no capitalization. And no punctuation of any kind. It's just words. It's just uncapitalized words. And then my kids were telling me... If you put a period, if you, if you text me echo and you're like, hey, can you make it to dinner tonight? And I write, no, period. The period's kind of like aggressive.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. I don't know. I forget if you told me that. Oh, man. Yeah, that's crazy. How this whole like we'll say for lack of a culture, texting culture takes on this whole like these rules and etiquette and all this stuff. And that's crazy. It's like if, if something's in all cap, well, I guess if it was in all caps, it'd be more of an exclamation, right?

• 1:02:50Jocko Willink?

  I think all caps is like all cap, all caps is straight up almost like fighting words, right? If I'm all capping you.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:57Jocko Willink?

  It's a, where it's going.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  But that seems like carryover from even before text messaging went, the all caps is like an exclamation. That was your jam in the beginning, all caps.

• 1:03:07Jocko Willink?

  What, what did I all?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  When you started texting.

• 1:03:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like when I started texting you?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you didn't text everyone like that?

• 1:03:14Jocko Willink?

  I don't really know.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  You used to always text in all caps.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Like you just thought that that was just more dope.

• 1:03:23Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's funny. You know what's funny is I write in all caps. You know, I'm one of those people that writes in all caps. So I guess for me it would just look normal.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You know how like some people though write it and I used to do this. I went through a phase, all caps, but the capitals were just a little bit bigger physically. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  I will do that depending on the scenario and I'll give you an example. When I write the path, that T is a little bit bigger and the P is a little bit bigger.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  Cause there's, we're, we're, we're acknowledging the capitalization. Actually, now I think about it, you and I are very, very aware of capitalization of letters in texting.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. They tell a story. They tell a story for sure.

• 1:04:07Jocko Willink?

  They mean something.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, so and then there's a difference between font and typeface.

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  I'm unfamiliar.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I don't know what it is.

• 1:04:17Jocko Willink?

  So you brought up something you have no.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  No, but when you're talking about text, like, okay, so text back in the day is like the text. And now it morphed probably a couple of times into different things. And then now.

• 1:04:27Jocko Willink?

  So you're telling me there's a difference between font and typeface?

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another example of like these things that might've had a difference at some point. But I don't know what it is like font, like what is font?

• 1:04:38Jocko Willink?

  You don't know what font is?

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  I think I do.

• 1:04:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay, font is just the letters that are used to. It's the, it's the design of the letters, the actual design of the letter.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then typeface, that's what apparently typeface is. The design of the letters.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if there's any difference between these two.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. So typeface is the elevated expression, I think.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:05:01Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right, back to this italicized word. Light infantry always relies on surprise achieved through stealth, deception, silence, and maneuver on foot. I just wrote a question mark next to it, like always, always? We want to be careful about saying always.

• 1:05:23Jocko Willink?

  But I wanted to reflect the text here itself.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:29Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry always seeks to retain the initiative. Now that one, the always, which in this case isn't italicized, I agree with. Do you ever want to give up the initiative? No, you don't. You always want to maintain the initiative.

• 1:05:44Jocko Willink?

  I, I'm scrambling my brain, trying to think of a situation where, ah, you know what? I don't think I want the initiative right now. I can't think of one. I can't think of one.

• 1:05:54Jocko Willink?

  Light forces practice rigorous fire discipline, but when necessary, they deliver intense fires on short duration to overwhelm the enemy. Check.

• 1:06:05Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry turns the enemy's weapons against him. Awesome.

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  Which is, and what's awesome about that is when you've got, you've got a competitor that is utilizing something. They're utilizing something, they're utilizing a, some piece of marketing, they're utilizing some attack on your clients, they're utilizing something. You can't just say, oh no, that piece of marketing really hurts us. No, you need to look at that and say, how can we turn that piece of marketing against them?

• 1:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry forces conduct relentless pursuit of enemy light forces and irregular forces to destroy them in detail. Relentless pursuit of enemy light forces. Light infantry offensive operations are characterized by a high degree of decentralization. Yes. Which is contrary to saying, "I better have radio to coordinate every single movement with you." That's centralized. Light infantry patrols relentlessly and aggressively ambushes the enemy. Light infantry sometimes double times into battle. Think about that. You're like, "Hey, we're running. We're running." That's an interesting thing.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm concerned. I'm a little bit concerned. If I have to run to get to the battle, I'm a little bit concerned about what I'm doing. Because I'm running, I feel like I'm late. If I have to run to battle, I feel like I'm late.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. It seems like that's like a flex move as well.

• 1:07:42Jocko Willink?

  Concur. Yeah, it's sort of like, "We'll run."

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  I'm not sure if that's the smartest thing. I'm running, that means I'm late, and now I'm tired when I show up.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit more. I mean, I'm not saying you can't function, I'm saying you're a little more tired than you would have been.

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  Do we get a cool flex, right? Do we get to say, "Look, we'll run."

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 1:08:00Jocko Willink?

  "We'll run."

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Like, it could have been, it could be, I guess, under certain circumstances, be like a psychological warfare situation. Because in football, that's how it was, where it's like hustle off the field, hustle on the field, right? When you think about, okay, there might be a time-saving element to that, for sure. But, bruh, if I'm really not hustling on and off the field, I got more energy for the play.

• 1:08:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I'll tell you what, when you run, when, when like you see kids wrestling?

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  And one kid runs, like, they go out of bounds. One kid runs back, runs back, neat, you know, toe on the line, ready. And the other kids, psychological warfare.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Psychological warfare.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Maybe that's why they're saying that.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  Maybe, I think you're right. I think it might be in the parlance of our time. A little flex. Light infantry tracks, listens, locates, cuts off raids, and ambushes the enemy.

• 1:08:54Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that weird to think about when you're in, when you're competing against someone? You actually should think you should be tracking, listening, locating, cutoff, raiding and ambushing them. Think about how, the thing that I like about that is you're focused on them. The thing I don't like about it is you're focused on them. Right? There's a little dichotomy there. We can't be focused so much on what the other guy's doing. We need to be doing something.

• 1:09:22Jocko Willink?

  The enemy never knows where the light infantry is or when he will attack. Check. Don't give away your position for the 50 millionth time. I'm not gonna, when, when Echo has a different viewpoint than me, I don't start off by telling him my viewpoint and explaining why my viewpoint is better. I don't. I actually ask more questions about your viewpoint and try and understand your viewpoint and get your viewpoint till I actually know exactly where it is before I reveal my position.

• 1:09:55Jocko Willink?

  Standing operating procedures are used widely by light forces for quick silent action. Yes, standard operating procedures.

• 1:10:06Jocko Willink?

  For silent action. That means you don't have to talk. We know what's gonna happen. Next one. Rehearsals, training, pre-combat briefings and sharing of information to the lowest levels are more common among light forces. This is the cornerstone of decentralized command. Rehearsals, training, pre-combat briefings, all that stuff. The infiltration of large units of light infantry is possible in close terrain and is necessary for success in major operations. Under these conditions, light forces infiltrate to attack the rear, to establish blocking positions and to create obstacles in the path of a retreating enemy.

• 1:10:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Check. What that means is we're, we're moving into good positions. And we're doing it in a clandestine manner. So the enemy doesn't know that what we're doing. And the last one for offense is hand to hand combat is a required skill for the light infantry. Affirmative.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  Man, the, the propagation of hand to hand combat right now.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  In the last since the UFC started is insane.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Jocko Willink?

  It's insane.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep, it is. I mean, even in that community, it's, it's insane. Not to mention like when you go, when you explore the spectrum of the guy who doesn't know anything versus the guys, the guys or guy who knows a lot.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Even within the people of who knows, it's so much like variety. So it's so vast, you know?

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  It is. It is a insane evolution in since 1993. It's crazy. The evolution since 993. Since the ultimate fighting championship.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  The evolution of combat sports is almost incomprehensible.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause before then it's kind of like people didn't really have a valid found or a stable, we'll say, or reliable foundation of fighting. And then kind of jujitsu kind of essentially provided that and everyone started learning it. So what does it look like? This is kind of the answer. The, the answer to this question is what you're talking about. Like, what does it look like when everyone knows the foundation? Imagine what you can build on it, you know?

• 1:12:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I guess there's other thing. I mean, if you look at basketball, right? I mean, basketball now. Is different than it was in 1954. Right? It's a different game. I mean, we're talking, it's a different game, but I think that's less, obviously I think mixed martial arts is. Might be the most, but skateboarding, you've seen what a kid will do on skateboards right now.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Jocko Willink?

  It's mind boggling.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Jocko Willink?

  Surfing.

• 1:12:54Jocko Willink?

  I mean surfing is nuts.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Jocko Willink?

  It's nuts what guys are doing from a technical level. From a technical blasting airs like what? But not only that blasting three sixty ollie airs where they're not even they're not touching their board, but they're going up and doing a three sixty in the air and landing it. If you brought an old school surfer from nineteen sixty two.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  And you, if you were to bring it, if you were to bring a nineteen sixty two surfer and say, hey, if you go back to nineteen sixty two and said, do you think that a surfer will be able to launch off the wave into the air, turn three hundred and sixty degrees without touching his board and land? Does that sound possible?

• 1:13:40Jocko Willink?

  Do you know what I mean? Does that sound, does that actually sound possible?

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't re, it's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to comprehend that that could be an actual thing.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  You know, they probably wait, what do you mean not touch the boards? Meaning not grab that board? They didn't even understand grabbing the board like you wouldn't probably had to say that part.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Like, how are you going to get a board out of the water? First of all, their board weighs forty two pounds made of redwood.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Jocko Willink?

  So there's these, like you said, there's a foundation. Once this foundation gets created, you get to build on it. And what's, that's what's so crazy. I've been talking about this on the debrief a little bit. I've been talking about EF online. Leadership. There's a base there, but people just ignore it.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Jocko Willink?

  People think, they, they don't understand that leadership is a skill, just like, just like surfing, just like skateboarding, just like playing basketball. It's a skill and if you learn, then you, if you pick up a book and you read, you'll learn about it and you go, oh, I can use these moves.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Jocko Willink?

  And people don't do that. People, people don't understand why it's very difficult for people to understand that leadership is a skill. Even though they go, that guy's a great leader. They think that that person was just born that way.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:56Jocko Willink?

  They don't think, what are they actually doing? I mean, when I, when I was running the trading and I got to watch, that's what made it so obvious. I'm like, oh, that guy's not doing what that other guy did. And that's why they're falling apart right now. Got it.

• 1:15:15Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  Next section is called "The Defense." Light forces can defend, but they are more suited to the offense. Defense can immobilize the light infantry, consume too much ammunition, and develop rigidity of mind. These are the dangers of the defense for light infantry.

• 1:15:37Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, we're not feeling like we're, we're gonna focus on that.

• 1:15:42Jocko Willink?

  Light forces must be able to disappear into the ground rapidly for defense. Light infantrymen must be good diggers and fast.

• 1:15:52Jocko Willink?

  Light infantrymen must be masters of fortifications. That seems like we're focusing a lot to become a master of fortification if that's not something we really want to be doing. Light forces defend on the reverse slope. I like that one because that's using the terrain to defend.

• 1:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Spoiling attacks are a frequent tactic of light forces.

• 1:16:13Jocko Willink?

  Normally, light forces are ill armed to defend against armored vehicles, even in close terrain. This is a very important one. Why? Because it is acknowledging one of our weaknesses. It's acknowledging one of our weaknesses. So, here we are, we have this tough mentality. What is it? The never say die mentality? We adapt, we overcome, and we have that mindset. And we're in a light infantry platoon and we're out there and all of a sudden we see armored vehicles coming. And we go, you know what? Adapt to overcome. We can, we can do this. And what this is saying is actually no. Is actually no. We are ill armed. So now we see armored vehicles coming and we say, you know what? Hey, we need to back out of here.

• 1:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Or we need to get in a serious defensive position. Or we need to hide so we don't get seen. So, as a leader, you need to recognize what your weaknesses are, and then you need to actually explain those to the team. Hey, this is not a fight we want to get into.

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Hey, this other, this other manufacturer wants to go toe to toe to us on making this highly regulated item. We are not good at making highly regulated items. We don't want to get in that fight. Now, everybody knows that. Hey, you want to spend a bunch of money on a bunch of equipment that costs a lot and and then you get scrutinized over the production that you're making? That's not what the game we're in. You go ahead and have that game. So you need to understand what your weaknesses are, and then you need to propagate those to the team.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry counter attacks immediately to retake lost key terrain or to hit the enemy's rear or flank while he is attacking. This is what I like about this is this is a mindset.

• 1:17:56Jocko Willink?

  This is standard operating procedure. When we get attacked, if we start to lose terrain, just everybody know that we're coming back. We're going to immediately re-attack. That's what we're doing.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  The light infantryman is invisible and silent in the defense by day or by night.

• 1:18:16Jocko Willink?

  Good way to do defense. Not be seen.

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  Logistical support. True light infantry is not tied to a supply line. Light infantrymen disdain logistics. That's so strong. That's so strong. As an important planning factor, they can always, quote, "make do."

• 1:18:38Jocko Willink?

  Disdain's a strong word.

• 1:18:41Jocko Willink?

  Strong word.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a way, doesn't that kind of makes it seem like you're painting yourself in a corner? You know, we're anti-this almost.

• 1:18:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And I get it. I get it because it's a because logistics becomes mission creep. Meaning, hey, look, we just, you know what? We're gonna need water.

• 1:19:00Jocko Willink?

  And we're gonna need, we're gonna need water, we're gonna need water buffalos. You know what a water buffalo? They're like big tanks of water. We're gonna need water buffalos. And that means we're gonna need vehicles to tow the water buffalos. And that means we're gonna need fuel for those vehicles. And that means we're gonna need a maintenance crew for those vehicles. And that means we're gonna need to feed the maintenance crew. You see where this is going? Right? So that's why I think we need to be careful when we open the door to large logistics because once we open the door, the freaking party gets crashed. And now all of a sudden, we got, you know, the cops getting called.

• 1:19:32Jocko Willink?

  So we've got to be careful on that in that regard.

• 1:19:37Jocko Willink?

  Light forces can operate separated from their lines of communications by depending on enemy and indigenous supplies. Cool. Light infantry men can live off the land like Echo Charles can.

• 1:19:51Jocko Willink?

  I can't wait. I can't wait to see the comments on this one. Bro, we could do some really funny stuff with you, uh, you know, lost in LA. What's he gonna do?

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  Hey, motel eight. This looks like a, this looks like, I think I found, I think I found, I think I found a location for me to lay up for the night.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  Motel eight, dude.

• 1:20:16Jocko Willink?

  Light forces make maximum use of the indigenous population for bearers, handlers, sworders, loaders, and so forth. Look, this goes back to what I said earlier, forming relationship with the local populace. You need to make sure you emphasize that with the team.

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, what do you have? You have young men with machine guns and grenades, and that's what they joined the military to do in most cases. So some people came in with more idealistic visions than that, which is great. God bless them. But a lot of 18-year-old young men that joined the military didn't join for those idealistic reasons. So if we don't get them on board with the treating the indigenous population with respect and explaining how that indigenous population can help us succeed in our mission and explaining that we are actually there to support the indigenous population. If we don't do those things as leaders, we're gonna end up screwing things up.

• 1:21:15Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry frequently resupplies at night. The use of helicopters, amphibious craft, and light craft is vital to the resupplies of light infantry. Improvisation is a constant feature of light infantry logistics.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  I'll say this about improvisation.

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  You can train for improvisation. And the way you train people to improvise is by making them improvise. That's what you do. You can't. And then what makes it hard is training by its nature is a structured thing, right? Okay, I'm gonna set up some training for you. Echo Charles, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna start in the mount, you're gonna go for arm lock, you're gonna start here, right? So there's a structure to it, and we can go through that structure, and I told you what move you're gonna do, and you're gonna drill that move. So what I need to do is put you in situations where there is no move. Hey, get on your back, put your left leg over your right elbow, and your partner's gonna go and grab your other ankle.

• 1:22:20Jocko Willink?

  Ready, go. You have to improvise to get out of there. You can actually start to learn to improvise better. So we need to do that when we train subordinate leadership, when we train our teams. We need to put them in situations that they actually have to improvise, because there's methodologies and thought processes that fall into better improvisation. If you never think about it, and you throw your team into such a situation, and guess what? You throw your team into any real situation, they're gonna have to improvise. That plan is not gonna be perfect. And if you don't train them to improvise, they're not gonna be able to do it.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  Technology. Next section. Weapons used by light forces must not impose a logistical burden. Cool. If equipment cannot be man-packed or mule slash donkey-packed, the light infantry generally has little use for it. Cool, we're trying to stay light? Light? The helicopter is almost revolutionary in its effects on light force mobility and logistical support. Check.

• 1:23:27Jocko Willink?

  The delivery of the light infantrymen into the area of operations has changed over time, but actions on the ground have changed little. Check.

• 1:23:37Jocko Willink?

  Historically, advantages in technology have not been the deciding factor in light infantry operations. This is important. So we can't just rely on the fancy new equipment that we've got. Obviously, that's not, that's not going to make the difference. It's not going to make the critical difference. It might have a difference. It might make an impact. But historically, technology is not going to be the deciding factor. Next section is called "political arena." Political action is often needed to support the light infantry operations. Cool. You know what that means? Play the game. Go play the game.

• 1:24:19Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry profits from a psychological operations edge and must be prepared to use this advantage. All kinds of psychological things, all these, the shock that we're talking about, the surprise that we're talking about. Those things are a psychological advantage. And we need to be able to exploit those psychological advantages. Utilize them. Cooperation between a light infantry security force and the local police and intelligence structure is essential to success. What does that mean? Build relationships.

• 1:25:04Jocko Willink?

  The hearts and minds' role in low-intensity conflict is one to which the light infantry normally is very sensitive. I would say that the light infantry should be very sensitive to it. But I also think if we as leaders don't explain to the team the importance of the quote "hearts and minds," then we will not have them as sensitive as they should be. I don't think there's a predisposed mindset that leans towards people that join the military thinking hearts and minds. Think you have to account for the fact that there's a decent chance they're not thinking about the hearts and minds.

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  They're thinking about other stuff.

• 1:25:54Jocko Willink?

  The last section is leadership. Light infantry leaders are generally of higher quality than conventional infantry leaders.

• 1:26:07Jocko Willink?

  I don't agree with that. I give that one the down vote. I've worked with conventional infantry leaders and they're freaking awesome. I've worked with light infantry leaders and they're also awesome. I don't think they're generally of a higher quality.

• 1:26:25Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry leader traits are imagination.

• 1:26:30Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that funny? The first one, imagination.

• 1:26:34Jocko Willink?

  The next one, flexibility. The next one, hardiness. The next one, endurance, confidence, improvisation, discipline, technical expertise, perseverance, and so forth. Kind of weird to say and so forth.

• 1:26:53Jocko Willink?

  Because you listed one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  It's like more.

• 1:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but imagination and flexibility, that is not what people think of when they think of military leaders, right? They don't think of imagination and flexibility. They actually think of the opposite, rigidity.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of you say that too, right? Where they were, or actually it might have been in another book where creativity was one of the, you know, attributes of a leader or whatever. And you wouldn't really think that. You wouldn't think creativity. It's more like, I don't know. Maybe the first thing that comes to mind maybe for a normal person would be, I don't know, authority or, you know, something a little bit more rigid.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, right. And I talk about discipline all the time, but discipline's only good if it's complemented by imagination and flexibility.

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  Light leaders lead from the front. Consequently, they suffer a higher ratio of casualties than normal. I don't think this is something that we're super.

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Trying to make a proverb, right? Right? I get lead from the front, absolutely. But are we, are we actually leading from the front to a point where we're a higher level of casualty as a leader? I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say, if I'm talking to my leaders, I'm gonna say, listen, you lead from the front and you also position yourself to where you can continue to lead without becoming casualty. Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. If we're losing leaders, we are losing the most important thing on the battlefield.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  I get it. I get the, I get the attitude, but we have to make sure we're smart about it. Junior officers and non-commissioned officers must possess skills above and beyond those of regular infantry. These skills include demolitions, artillery calls for fire, the use of close air support and familiarity with foreign weapons and foreign languages. Fair enough.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  Fair enough.

• 1:29:02Jocko Willink?

  That comes down to all those things. All those things are just training. So when you're in light infantry units, you should have the opportunity for more training. You can get some of these skills. Teamwork and confidence in each other are vital to light infantry operations. Teamwork and confidence in each other.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  That is a huge piece of teamwork. You know, I call this trust as opposed to confidence, confidence in each other. That's what bonds a team together. I trust you, you trust me. You trust that I'll be there if you need me. I trust that you'll be there if I need you. And if I can trust that you're gonna be there if I need you, I'm more apt to go out and make something happen because I know you got my back.

• 1:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Here's a good one. Courage without teamwork is of little value.

• 1:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Makes sense. They didn't say it's of no value, but if I don't have some teamwork backing me up when, when I do something courageous,

• 1:30:12Jocko Willink?

  not what we're looking for. We need teamwork. Morale, esprit, and spiritual power are of high value to light infantry operations. What is esprit? Esprit de corps, it's like, it's like the bond, the bond that we have. So,

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  there's not much clarification on spiritual power. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the team has to believe in what they're doing. If you're going to be successful, if the team doesn't believe in what they're doing, it's going to be a problem. Because we are not willing to make sacrifices for things we don't believe in.

• 1:30:57Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry men usually, usually leave no casualties on the battlefield. I like that. Could be a little bit stronger than usually. Almost never.

• 1:31:10Jocko Willink?

  Right? And that's different from the army saying of leave no man behind. And actually, that's all services say that. And that's always the goal.

• 1:31:20Jocko Willink?

  But you also have to make a call sometimes.

• 1:31:26Jocko Willink?

  And that might be, hey, we need to, we need to back off right now. We need to come back and re-attack this position later. Because right now, if we keep going to try and recover this individual, we're all gonna die.

• 1:31:41Jocko Willink?

  Light infantry men look to their leaders for a clear voice, for clear voice instructions and thrive on the motivation of visually observing their leaders in action.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Necessary sometimes. Clear voice instructions, absolutely. Sometimes the team actually has to see what you're doing, and they will take action based on your performance. They will be inspired and motivated by seeing, oh, looks like we're going.

• 1:32:12Jocko Willink?

  And the last one, a light infantry leader can do everything a soldier can do, and more.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  So a light infantry leader can do everything a soldier can do and more. Now, listen, on that one, you're not going to be able to do 100% of what your frontline troops can do. And you definitely might not be able, you certainly might not be able to do more. Right? Sniper's gonna be better at shooting than you. The radio man's gonna know more about the radio than you. The point man's gonna understand the route better than you do.

• 1:32:53Jocko Willink?

  So that's a little bit.

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Not sure I agree with that. You should be able to, you should know how to do it. You should know how to do all those things, but you're not gonna be the expert. But you should absolutely do more.

• 1:33:09Jocko Willink?

  If you're in a leadership position, you should do more, more work, more effort, more sweat, more toil and grind and more exertion. Because you work for them.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's what a leader does.

• 1:33:29Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. That's the document. Short, sweet proverb, Proverbs of the Light Infantry.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Good things to think about applies to many aspects of life.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  You disagreed with a few things in there, which is the amount that you disagreed with is actually pretty small when you consider. This was written 50 something years ago. Like that, that's, that's pretty impressive staying power as far as all those concepts go.

• 1:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And I don't know if we'll ever hear from Major Scott R. McMichael, US Army. But if we do, I'm sure he could clarify some of these and explain them in a different tone or different, different aspects or perspective that I don't understand.

• 1:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Also, you know, the time that it's written, I think it was written in nineteen eighty something, nineteen eighty-five, maybe. So my guess is, as a major, he probably wasn't, likely wasn't in Vietnam, unless he was an enlisted guy in Vietnam, just doing the timeline. So maybe bouncing these things off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would... Actually, I, I think if we discussed them, I think we would come to some kind of resolution on, on some of these, you know, maybe that I didn't understand it correctly, or I didn't see what the perspective that he was talking about. So, you know, and he might also be like, yeah, you know what? I, I didn't fully underst- I didn't fully calculate that aspect of it.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  So, but yeah, I mean, the vast majority of them are very, I'm in total agreement with.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, a lot of times one knows when the language is that of always and never. So that tends to make you, at the very least, feel like, okay, there are no real exceptions to the, to that. And then as time goes on, you can start to see the exceptions. And then, you know, one exception can, can kind of open the floodgates for others, you know? And you're like, oh, wait, we're seeing this exception kind of often. Oh, shoot, we should maybe reevaluate or update that always to just be like,

• 1:35:32Jocko Willink?

  Often.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Often, or, you know, tends not to, or something like this, you know?

• 1:35:38Jocko Willink?

  Got to be careful with always never.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Gotta. I think so too.

• 1:35:42Jocko Willink?

  All right. Well, speaking of doing more, it seems like we should do more, more work, more effort, more toil.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. You said something really interesting right there at the end. It says, you work for them.

• 1:35:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  It's not as intuitive as one might think when you're in the position, you know? A leader, seems like they work for you.

• 1:36:02Jocko Willink?

  If you don't have that intuition, you need to write that on your, you know, on the cover of your notebook.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I have kids, and that's another one, right? Where it's kind of like, it's almost like, it's not, and I don't want to say intuitive, because intuitive is the wrong word. It's more like on the surface, like on the surface, the kid's got to listen to you. You know? Um, but no, like you're the one who, you're essentially working for them.

• 1:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Your job to,

• 1:36:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  get them up to speed, you know, all this stuff.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  I don't know, it's weird.

• 1:36:34Jocko Willink?

  Now, there comes a point when they they're gonna be working for you doing them dishes. Cleaning the kitchen.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:36:40Jocko Willink?

  Pulling weeds, right?

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:36:42Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna come.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  I think about that too, and I'm not ignoring the benefits of the kids doing the dishes instead of me now. I'm not ignoring the benefits of that. But that's not why you teach your kids to do the dishes, so they can do them for you, you know? That's not the primary reason.

• 1:36:59Jocko Willink?

  It's not the primary, it's not the primary, well, it may be the primary reason, but it's not the most important reason.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Okay, might, well, emphasis on the word might, how about that? So, like, I never, like, I always feel bad, so let's say, okay, say one of my kids has a chore, this is real, by the way, so one of my kids has a has a list of chores.

• 1:37:20Jocko Willink?

  I've noticed that a lot of your hypothetic hypothetical situations are just real.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:37:27Jocko Willink?

  You you you give a lot of, let's say, there's a, by the way, this is real. Okay, so let's just call it what it is.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  But there's a reason I do that, only because I don't need you asking all these very specific questions necessarily. Not necessarily you, but other people ask me these specific questions, and then now.

• 1:37:42Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna rat yourself out.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there might be that too, but I I usually am looking for the answer that applies to more than just me in my specific situation.

• 1:37:51Jocko Willink?

  You're trying to broaden the expanse of your question.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Trying.

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay, check.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  So I always feel bad if let's say the chores are to, one of the chores is to

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  load the dishwasher.

• 1:38:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. But let's say this child didn't eat dinner with us. They went out with their friends for dinner, and they came home, they gotta do their chores every night.

• 1:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, they gotta load the dishwasher all our dishes, all the people, you know? It doesn't seem right. It just, on the surface, it just seems like, oh, that's kind of wrong, you know?

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't seem right to who?

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Me.

• 1:38:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  Making them do that.

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Like, it's like, what are you, my servant? Now you gotta clean up my mess? You didn't even participate in the mess, you know, it's like, it kind of feels that way for me.

• 1:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles the merciful.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  But there's a bigger picture than that.

• 1:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  Where his job is that for a reason. It's not to clean up after me. It's to teach him that in life, like these things have to be.

• 1:38:49Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  Like things that you can do, you know, to function. So it goes beyond that. But you got, so you gotta suck it up, you know?

• 1:38:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. But also you need to explain why, right? You need to explain why.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:03Jocko Willink?

  And if you explain the why, then they go, yeah, you know what? That makes sense.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Jocko Willink?

  You can't say, cuz I told you to. You can't say, cuz I'm the dad.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Jocko Willink?

  You need to say, well, here's what's going on.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:14Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Ask him, what do you call it? Yeah, I think it's, this is a technique in sales where you ask them like, questions with only one answer, you know, like, or it's basically this, like, if you say, why can't I eat this cupcake? Or whatever. And I'll be like, hey, you know, cupcakes aren't good for you, right? And usually that just goes right over their head. Like, it's not good for me really, cuz it seems really good right now. You know, as far as I'm concerned. So I'm like, okay, if this cupcake makes you less healthy, less healthy of a person. And one of my jobs, one of my many, is to look out for you, your wellbeing and your health. And I allow you to eat this cupcake. Would I be being a good dad? They can never say yes. Sometimes they'll say yes as a joke, but they understand.

• 1:39:54Jocko Willink?

  But they know what's up.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:55Jocko Willink?

  Putting the cupcake down.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yep. Explaining why I'm doing what I'm doing.

• 1:39:58Jocko Willink?

  Or they're just quickly biting off the frosting. What is frosting anyways?

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it's sugar butter. Um, a lot of butter and sugar.

• 1:40:08Jocko Willink?

  Huh.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  And then there's like, I don't know, some vanilla, maybe some cream or something.

• 1:40:11Jocko Willink?

  It takes most, I would say, seventy percent of the cakes I've eaten in my life were only, the, the cake itself, not good. But the frosting, when I was a little kid, right?

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to get that corner piece that was, had frosting on four sides.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got you.

• 1:40:30Jocko Willink?

  Right? Were you in that game? Or were you taking a middle piece that had one side of frosting?

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So oddly, and when I was a kid, yes, but as I grew up, it's probably just a maturity thing, really. You know, you know, I like less, less frosting. You didn't mature out of that.

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  Didn't mature out of that.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I, you know, I won't wanna eat the cake.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's we know that's just weakness, right?

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the frosting, that's where the.

• 1:40:51Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you're like, you know what? I don't even need to eat dip cake, but maybe a little knife snatch full of freaking frosting. Which I didn't even know what it was until you just told me.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I understand, you know, it makes sense as opposed to say the brownies where you want the middle piece of the brownie. Cause that's a softer one.

• 1:41:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I like their brownie. That's a little bit um like the hardened part, you know, around.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  Oh, so you like the edges? Yeah, I guess it depends on.

• 1:41:15Jocko Willink?

  Man, when you're a kid, like when I'm just, this is all just when I was a kid, you know, you're just in the game, right? You're just, you're tracking sugar like a little addict. I mean, I'm not going Pete Roberts level. Did you hear where? Yeah, when Pete Roberts was talking about having damn sugar cubes hidden in a pencil holder hidden in his room.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's going hard. He's going hard for sure.

• 1:41:36Jocko Willink?

  Like that's, that's some weird, crazy.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Jocko Willink?

  Dude, that guy looks and gets a look on his face when it comes to sweets and stuff. Look, I got a sweet tooth, sure, whatever, man. He starts losing his mind, bro.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. That's where we had that guy. He wasn't on the podcast. It was, we were up in, up in Montana. And he was talking, started going all sugar crazy on me. Started getting the wild eyes, started getting crazy eyes, bro, talking about sugar.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:03Jocko Willink?

  That's why he's a good test for Jaco Fuel because he's got a sweet, a legit, like certified lifelong sweet tooth. We're talking a crackhead that's got uh sugar cubes.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:42:15Jocko Willink?

  And he gets a weird twinkle in his eye when he starts talking about eating sugar cubes. He's a good test for Jaco Fuel because he's not in here going, oh, you know, it tastes pretty good. Like he will straight reject something. If it doesn't, if it doesn't have that sweet little kicker.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:42:31Jocko Willink?

  He's not down for the cause, Pete Roberts.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And you get a health person who's down, always down for the, you know, plain chicken breasts and broccoli and all this stuff. That guy who's like down for that kind of stuff and then he's gonna taste some, you know, some, you know, peanut butter, chocolate, malt or whatever. And the thing is not where it needs to be sweetness flavor wise. He's gonna be like, oh, yeah, man, that's pretty, that's pretty solid.

• 1:42:54Jocko Willink?

  Breast broccoli guy, he's like, wow, man, this is amazing. Might be a little too sweet. Pete Roberts like, you know, if you don't, if you don't knock it out of the park with Pete. He, you know, he's like, whatever.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Jocko Willink?

  He's over there freaking crawling around looking for sugar cubes on the ground.

• 1:43:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh freaking Pete dude.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  He's doing great.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  What a beast. Speaking of Jaco Fuel, what do we got?

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so yeah, forget about the cupcakes and all this stuff or whatever, you know, if if we know that eating cupcakes, sugar, butter, frosting, brownies, sugar cubes, if we know that that's bad for us, makes us less less healthy. And we have to be more healthy to be more capable to help the people that we work for.

• 1:43:39Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. Check.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Yet we still eat this stuff, are we being a good leader?

• 1:43:46Jocko Willink?

  Good leader, good dad, good mom, good parent, good friend, good brother, good sister, good compatriot, good human being.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:43:55Jocko Willink?

  The answer's freaking no dude.

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  Negative.

• 1:43:57Jocko Willink?

  The answer's freaking negative.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  And I get it, things taste good, but guess what? Good news, I got good news across the board. Okay, first off, before we get to the two good of the news, the great news, maybe some guidelines, okay, we want to be working out, we want to stay healthy, we want to stay capable, we want to stay mentally and physically in the game, we'll see. We're gonna stay on this path we're all on, alright, so you might need some supplementation, it'll help you, big time. Jaco's supplementation.

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  If you're going hard, I'm gonna say you're gonna need supplementation.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:26Jocko Willink?

  If you're going hard, you're gonna need supplementation. If you're pushing hard, you're gonna need supplements.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  Yep, and we got a bunch. So, let's start with the physical and cognitive. Discipline, it's the name, discipline, many modes, we got the energy drink, we'll call them ready to drink cans, you know, which is cool, I guess. The capsules and the powder called discipline, so the energy drink cans,

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  they're available in multiple places. Wawa, East Coast.

• 1:44:54Jocko Willink?

  East Coast.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  JacoFuel.com, online. Vitamin Shop. Is that everywhere?

• 1:45:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep, worldwide, Vitamin Shop.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  Boom, there you go.

• 1:45:04Jocko Willink?

  Only in America, but.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so boom, multiple options as far as where to get it, this is just the energy drink cans. Uh, Vitamin Shop has everything else as well that we're about to talk talk about. Okay, so what are those things? Other supplementation, joint warfare, joint warfare and super krill oil, this is for your joints and some general health stuff in there as well. Um, that'll keep you in the game big time, especially on the on the physical front. Also, vitamin D3 and Cold War, free immunity, stay in the game, don't have to worry about getting sick anymore. That's the thing, you start overtraining, not sleeping enough, all this stuff, sickness will come and get you, take you out for a little while. If you just let that happen, are you being a good leader? Are you?

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  No. You're letting down everybody.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  You're kind. There was this book, you read it on the podcast. And it really, this thing stuck with me because I kinda had this inkling of this concept. But I never could really arrive at it and embrace it as much until I heard it where it's like it taught. Basically, I forget the exact words, but it said, like, if you get sick, that's kind of your fault. Don't let your own thing affect the team kind of thing. It was like, oh, it was one of these things where it's kind of like, if you get, it was, it was kind of, kind of raw. Because sometimes, right? You just get sick. You get

• 1:46:18Jocko Willink?

  It does happen.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  Disentry or some thing, you know? It's like, sure, you can take measures to try to avoid it, but sometimes unavoidable. This, the book you're reading was like, still, that's your bad. Don't let

• 1:46:29Jocko Willink?

  What book was that?

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  I forget. But it was like, man, your personal shit, don't, don't even come over here with that stuff. You better keep, keep moving, kind of a thing.

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  It's like, damn.

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Try and figure out what book that was. We'll, we'll go back to it.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it was, it is interesting. So let's say we apply that philosophy. Boom. We got some measures, some significant measures. That's a vitamin D. Three, by the way. And also the Cold War for immunity. Boom. Also, the good news that I was about to present. We got protein supplementation, but we don't need cupcakes anymore. It replaces the cupcakes and the frosting.

• 1:47:04Jocko Willink?

  You don't even need frosting.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Certified, uh, accepted, tasted by Pete Roberts, the sugar cube addict, which is a good thing in this case as far as like, what do you call credentials?

• 1:47:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  Is what I'm saying? So yes, best tasting protein on the market, straight up in the world.

• 1:47:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, straight up. Check it out. Also, all this stuff, if you want to get it for free shipped to your house, you go to jockofuel.com. If you subscribe to one of these things, you'll get it for free, shipping for free. Which is, that's what we're doing to compete with other, you know, we're talking about big guys, little guys today, big companies, little companies. We've got big companies out there that are like shipping stuff for free, which is good. They have the capacity to do that. How do we compete with them? Cool. We figure out a way. Subscribe, free shipping. That works. So there you go. There's an example, real world example of the light infantry mindset going against the big heavy hitters out there.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  That's true. And that's a big deal of free shipping. Sometimes, some of us, you know, when we check out, we see that free shipping. That's nice. Got to admit it. So yeah, also jujitsu stuff because we're doing jujitsu now. We're back, back in the game.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  Way back.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Coronavirus. I remember that. You know, that was back in the day, but we're back doing jujitsu. Um, so you need some jujitsu gi's, rash guards, other equipment. Uh, go to originusa.com. That's where you can get them. It's all American made stuff.

• 1:48:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And just stuff for like wearing too, like things to cover your legs in called pants. The best pants ever. Delta jeans. Get factory jeans too. If you're living up north, we understand. You're probably going to get the factory jeans. They're heavier. If you're living down south or you're living out in the west coast, you're probably looking at the Delta 68 jeans.

• 1:49:00Jocko Willink?

  And boots, you get boots.

• 1:49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Are, are they doing that wallet? Or is that just Pete kind of flexing on us?

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  Well, he's doing the wallet. There's a couple of versions of the wallet. There's like the real, what are they? Slim?

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, minimal, whatever.

• 1:49:12Jocko Willink?

  Pete called it concealed carry.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  Right? He was up there all cracked out on sugar cubes. Concealed carry wallet.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Probably was. Well, but like it is, it is cool because every time like, cause a wallet, you don't just automatically think, well, I don't anyway. But when he will bust it out, you can tell like, you know, he took some pride in that one. You know, so they put out some cool stuff.

• 1:49:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No. Well, Pete takes massive pride in the whole process from designing it and then the functionality of it and then the production of it. Cause think about, think about something's going from his head. From his head to people's hands, passing through the, the company being built by the factory. Like it's awesome. So the whole, everyone there, everyone there, when a wallet goes, when a pair of boots goes out, everybody, there's pride all over that stuff.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. It's like you gotta represent, right? You can't just be throwing in some half thought idea and be like, hey, try this and then show everybody. It's like, bro, we're, we're not doing that kind of stuff.

• 1:50:17Jocko Willink?

  We're going all in. That's what we're doing. We're not throwing something together. This is all in scenario. So is Pete proud? Yeah. Is every person that's on the line creating this stuff proud? Hell yeah. It's freaking legit.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Makes sense. Also, speaking of legit, Jaco's store, this one equals freedom, shirts and hats and hoodies, some rash guards on there. Um, some warrior kid stuff on there, some soap on there, Jaco soap, trooper soap, killer soap, antibacterial charcoal, charcoal activated.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  Satisfying.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  So, all this stuff. Um, yeah. So if you want to represent while you're on this path, you know, this is where you can, you can get your attire, your gear. Also, we have a subscription situation there too. Shirts, interesting designs, creative.

• 1:51:02Jocko Willink?

  You're wearing one right now. If you want to go on YouTube and look at the current shirt that Echo Charles is wearing.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Unavailable, by the way. You missed it. A lot of people have it, you know, they're representing.

• 1:51:12Jocko Willink?

  But here's the thing, every time you're learning and you're coming up with more dope designs.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Sure. I try to keep a standard quality level or whatever. Either way, it's fun. Um, yeah. So it's called the shirt locker. So yeah, man, sign up for that. You know, if you're interested and uh, check out everything else on there, jacostore.com if you like something.

• 1:51:31Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to the podcast.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  Also check out the Jaco unraveling podcast with Daryl Cooper. We've been getting kind of crazy with those. Getting nuts as they say, but the freaking awesome feedback, we'll, we'll keep knocking them out. Grounded podcast, we should talk to Dean List, we're getting all those out pretty soon. Warrior kid podcast. And you can also join us.

• 1:51:56Jocko Willink?

  In the underground. So, so we have an alternative platform that we are, we have created so that we have control if contingencies unfold that we need to execute an alternative platform. We're not doing it. We hope to not do it, but things are strange in the world. So Jaco Underground dot com. If you want to help support the, the alternate world, if needed, you can, you can pay eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. And we're doing like an additional podcast where we talk about just really interesting stuff. That's not quite Jocko podcast material, but it's Jaco life material.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  Alternative and amplifying.

• 1:52:39Jocko Willink?

  Information.

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  Material information. Yeah.

• 1:52:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And look, if we're, if you just, if you can't afford that, no factor, email assistance at Jaco Underground dot com. We're just trying to make sure we're taken care of and you're taken care of should things start to go sideways. We also have a YouTube channel where I am the assistant director for some awesome videos and then Echo puts some videos on there too.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  Unraveling is on there too, by the way.

• 1:53:05Jocko Willink?

  All of them?

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  No, but they're, they're getting rolled out as well. Yeah. Got a new one up there.

• 1:53:11Jocko Willink?

  That's good to hear. Yeah. Those unraveling podcasts. I'll be interested to read the comments on those.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's a thing because those really run the risk and they have had like a, you know, YouTube will flag it because of the material. Anytime you and Daryl Cooper start talking about genocides and all the, you know, the brutal realities of history and you know, whatever. It's like YouTube's like, pump your brakes there.

• 1:53:38Jocko Willink?

  One time we were talking about something and Daryl was like, you know, this is, this particular thing is really bad and it's just not appropriate. Not, not what you want to hear on a podcast. And we got done. I was like, Hey, bro. I don't ever want to hear that again. He's like, I'll never say it again. Like that's what we're doing, you know? If we don't address, if we don't address and inform people about what happens when things go sideways, then people don't realize how bad it is. That's what happens. So yeah, we're getting flagged, getting censored, must be 18 or older. You'd think that we were putting out freaking pornographic material. We're not. We're talking about what communism does. We're talking about what authoritarian governments can do.

• 1:54:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't, I never got, you know, deep into history in high school and all this stuff or whatever, but kind of the, the significance isn't going to be no news to you, obviously, but when you do present it in such an interesting way or whatever, it, one of the many valuable things you can get from it is like, yeah, you realize how bad it was back then. At the same time, by contrast, you realize, oh, today isn't that bad. Even the bad stuff that happens, like, man, you kind of compare it to the whole thing. It starts to, it starts to offer this, this maybe more enlightened perspective on things.

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, and it also offers you

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  an understanding of why things are happening and how things happen. Because, look, just like leadership is a, is something that you can learn about from the past, so is everything else. And to sit here and think that we're in a you totally unique time and that nothing like this has ever happened before, it'll be different this time. That's freaking wrong. That's just wrong. The, the, the way that the world works, the way human nature works doesn't change. And there might be different technology, but just like technology won't make the difference in a light infantry battle, technology will not change human nature. It'll have influence over it. But we need to watch out for what we need to watch out for.

• 1:55:37Jocko Willink?

  Human nature inherently does the same things over and over again. So let's be careful. Check out the unraveling. Check out Daryl Cooper's podcast, Martyr Made. Right now, there's a lot of, there's a flare up going on in the Middle East. You want to get the background on that? You want to try and, you want to get, get some understanding of what's going on in the Middle East? You don't know. I'm going to tell you, you don't know. And I studied the Middle East and the conflicts in the Middle East. Daryl Cooper's podcast, Martyr Made, is, is a doctorate in what happened in the Israeli Palestinian.

• 1:56:13Jocko Willink?

  Scenario situation. So check that thing out if you can.

• 1:56:19Jocko Willink?

  Psychological Warfare, I made an album with tracks and you can get it on any MP3 platform. There's no music, by the way, just FYI. Flipside Canvas, if you need something to hang on your wall. We got Dakota Meyer, my brother, he's got an awesome company, Made in America, Flipside Canvas, stuff to hang up on your wall, got a bunch of books. Final Spin.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  Starting to get some anticipation from people about Final Spin. Cause let's face it, it's hard to understand what's happening. You're looking at it, you're seeing some words, you're hearing about the story, you're kind of wondering what the hell is this about? So that's coming. Pre-order it now so that the publisher actually makes enough.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  Actually makes enough. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation Protocol, Discipline equals Freedom, Way of the Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3, Mike and the Dragons, About Face by Hackworth, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy of Leadership. These are the books I've written thus far. Just getting warmed up. Have a leadership consultancy called Echelon Front and this is what we do. What we do is leadership. That's what we do. That's the only thing we do. That's the only thing we do is leadership. Big companies, small companies. That's what we do all day long, every day. If you have any problems inside your organization, I can tell you right now, they are leadership problems.

• 1:57:45Jocko Willink?

  And the way you solve those problems is through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com if you want to work with the Echelon Front team. Also, we have online training. We just put up 12 new courses where we go through each chapter of Extreme Ownership and break down in a granular level, how to implement these, these principles in what you're doing.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  So check out efonline.com. We have the muster, it's live, live event. We didn't do any in 2020 because of Miss Rona, but we're executing May 25th and 26th. We got some seats left right now in Orlando.

• 1:58:25Jocko Willink?

  Get on it. Phoenix is next, August 17th and 18th. That's going to be a hot one. Las Vegas, October 28th and 29th. Go to extremeownership.com. Look,

• 1:58:38Jocko Willink?

  we sell out. So if you want to come, try and get there quick.

• 1:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Also EF Battlefield, we do battlefield walks. I'll let you know when the next one of those is taking place. And also if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, then you can check out a Gold Star mom, Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She has a charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want more of my obstinate opinions, or you need more of Echo's incalculable comments, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, or as Echo calls it, the Gram, or on that Facebook.

• 1:59:24Jocko Willink?

  Echo's at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the folks out there in uniform right now, with a special shout out to all the light infantry. Thank you for making the sacrifices that you make to protect us. And the same goes to those that wear the uniform here on the home front. Talking about our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders. Thank you for your sacrifices to protect us here at home. And to everyone else out there, you might not be a light infantry soldier or leader, but you can certainly adopt the attitude of the light infantry, the offensive mindset,

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  the initiative, the total self-reliance, the flexibility, the improvisation, the discipline, the trust, the confidence, and a never say die approach to problems.

• 2:00:24Jocko Willink?

  And if you go at life like that, you are going to win. So go out there and get after it. And until next time, Zeko and Jaco, out.