The Debrief w/ Jocko And Dave Berke #25: Team Does Not Want To Put In The Extra Effort

How does a leader get his team to care enough to put in the extra effort and go above and beyond what's required. 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 the Jocko debrief podcast episode 25 with Dave Berke and me Jocko Willink. Dave, let's debrief. What do we got going on?

• 0:07Dave Berke?

  We got a question. This actually, a lot of the times when we talk, it's business situations that we're dealing with, either me and the team with a long range client or a client you've been working with. And I'm

• 0:19Jocko Willink?

  If you don't know this, we have a company called Echelon Fund. We're a leadership consultancy. We've been around for a decade.

• 0:27Dave Berke?

  Crazy.

• 0:28Jocko Willink?

  Which seems kind of crazy. We work with hundreds of companies in every size and shape. And just as you may have read in Extreme Ownership or the Dichotomy of Leadership or Leadership Strategy and Tactics, we learn a lot as we do this. And oftentimes, we would debrief each other, say, oh, here's what happened with the client. Here's the leadership situation we're in. Here's how we solved it. And we learn a lot from each other. And so we decided at some point to make these debrief podcasts to let everybody learn from these lessons. We also have an online training platform for leaders. And so it's called extremeownership.com. It's

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  the academy and we do questions and answers on that. We have some free courses on there. We have paid content on there. We do live sessions where you can just come on and ask questions directly to me, Leif, Dave, who, you know, anyone on the team. And so it looks like you're talking about something from the academy here. Just wanted to give everyone a little heads up in case someone's jumping in out of nowhere.

• 1:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah, that's exactly right. So the academy is a great place. We meet once a week. People ask a bunch of questions. It's really cool. The questions that are asked are relevant to not just the person asking it. There's a version of this that just about everybody is dealing with. So every now and then there's a question that when it gets asked, it's connected to so many other similar questions that is sometimes worth discussing more generically than just the specific thing that's being asked, because it's the same challenge people are dealing with. And this was one of those questions. And it's a question or a question that we get a version of many times. And so quite simply, the question is, got a leader in an organization and they've got a team working for them and that team doesn't want to put in the extra effort, or at least so it seems. So the situation is,

• 2:12Dave Berke?

  hey, they work from nine to five, you know, but nobody wants to stay late. Nobody wants to work weekends. Nobody wants to come in early. Those things aren't happening. They're not engaged and they don't seem to care beyond the basic requirements that are set for them. And the question is, how do I get them to make that extra effort so we can win? How can I get them to care as much as I do? That's the generics of the question. So that's the situation we see and hear about all the time. And like I said, it's a version of a question that we get almost all the time, which is, how can I get my people to take more ownership? And the reason I thought this was good, it reminds me of the last podcast we talked about, is seeing two different ways to answer the same question, two different viewpoints that you could possibly have. A lot of times,

• 2:56Dave Berke?

  on the academy, in person, whatever it might be, when we get a question is, how do I get people to take ownership? One of the most common ways we answer, depending on the situation, is you can't make people take ownership. You have to take ownership. And that's a very common answer we give. And that answer to that question is very relevant, especially when we're talking about people that don't want to take ownership of problems. Jocko works for me, there's a problem. Jocko doesn't want to take ownership of that. And one of the worst things I could do as a leader is say, Jocko, this is your fault. You need to take ownership of it. What I actually need to do is I need to take ownership of that. And say, hey, Jocko, this problem you're dealing with, this is my fault. Let me explain why, the things I've done wrong, the mistakes I've made, the lessons I've learned. And if I take ownership of problems, what you'll see over time is,

• 3:41Dave Berke?

  that's a really effective way for me to solve these problems. And you'll see the value of that. And you'll be far more inclined to be taking ownership of problems than if I'm imposing that on you, which doesn't work. So I can't tell you to take ownership. It's kind of a direct violation of what we teach, which is Jocko works for me. Jocko's got a problem. It actually isn't his fault. It's my fault and I want him to see me take that ownership.

• 3:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I was gonna throw that in there. So this is not a ninja trick manipulation. This is not Dave saying that it's his fault in order to trick me into me saying, no, it's my fault. No, when you do this, you have to think to yourself, wait a second, I'm the person in charge. The team didn't do it there, or my employee or my subordinate didn't do what they were supposed to do, or the team didn't do what they were supposed to do. This actually is my fault because I'm the, I'm the person in charge.

• 4:28Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Jocko Willink?

  And so here's the things that I didn't do well. I didn't explain the why. I didn't, I didn't give Dave the training that he needed. I didn't give him the, the gear that he needed or the support that he needed. These are things, these are mistakes that I made. I didn't give him the clear end date. I didn't tell him what the, the reward was going to be for us winning this contract or, or closing this deal. These are all mistakes that I made and I'm going to present those to Dave and say, hey, here's the things that I messed up. Here's how I'm going to fix them next time. And I look forward to another opportunity for us to win. So again, I just want to reiterate that this isn't a manipulation. It's not a little ninja trick that you're going to use to get someone to take ownership. Yeah, finally I got Dave to say it's his fault.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no. If I'm in charge, it's my fault.

• 5:16Dave Berke?

  Yeah, that, that is so important. And in fact, I mean, we literally teach the concept of ownership every time we're working with someone. And a question that I will ask every single time when we talk about why are you, why do you take ownership of the situation? It's not uncommon to say, oh, that's what I want my other people to do. I, I want, I want them to see this as well. There's one reason you take ownership of a problem. It actually is your fault. That's the reason you do it. And there is power in that, especially if the people around you see the authenticity of that. Good. Dave believes and understands why this is his fault. And if you see me do that as your boss, you're actually going to want to emulate that. You're going to want it, you're going to want to follow that same path.

• 6:00Dave Berke?

  Because that recognition that I have that this problem is my fault. That's where all my power comes from. Cause if I got a problem that's not my fault that I can't solve, that means that problem isn't going to go away. And I don't want my life to be like that. And so that differentiation between the technique that sometimes people go, oh, this is a cool tool to get other people to do it. That is not what ownership is. And so even in the understanding of that, the reason we take ownership, why it works,

• 6:29Dave Berke?

  you are actually responsible and, and there is so much power in that. But sometimes in these situations, I've got people working for me. Let's say you're working for me, nine to five, Jocko's, Jocko clocks in, does his work at, at, at four 50 and I go, hey, man, I need an extra 30 minutes to get this thing out the door. You know, and we need to get this to this client, you know, ahead of schedule, whatnot. Can you stick around 30 minutes late? And you're like, nope, five o'clock, I'm punching out and he leaves. This is a little bit different situation and, and this gets me to how we answer the same question sometimes. How do I get my people to, to take ownership? We answer it in what seems to be the exact opposite answer, which is I have to give you ownership.

• 7:11Dave Berke?

  And that is different than saying, I have to tell you this is your fault. But if I've got people on my team and they don't feel like they have ownership of what's going on with this team, with this company, with what we're trying to do, it's going to be really hard for them to see why they would stay late, why they would come in on weekends, why they would come in early, why they would do any of the things that so many leaders right now are struggling with their people not doing. And so the concept of giving people ownership, sometimes in this case, like it is in this case, sometimes it's actually a literal thing. And the cool thing about the way I get to think about these things, the way I'm going to deep review or the questions I get to answer,

• 7:55Dave Berke?

  is I get to think about the position that I'm in. I get to think about myself and some of the best advice, maybe the best advice I ever got as I came to Echelon Front was, when I answer questions, the first thing I should think about is what I would actually do. And so I gotta put myself in a position of trying to understand what is not just the frustration of this leader whose people aren't. Doing what he wants them to do, but also the position of those people that don't feel compelled to want to do that. I'm thinking if Jocko ever called me and goes, "Hey, man, I know you had plans, you know, tomorrow at 5 o'clock, I know you were gonna head out and whatnot, but dude, here's the situation. We got this issue. Can you stick around? Can you come down here and give me an hour of this and that?" I try to think of the reason why I would say yes.

• 8:41Dave Berke?

  And the reason I would say yes is that I actually feel, I actually feel like I have ownership of what's going on here. I have, I feel like I've been given ownership, so much so that this feels like every bit as important to me as it feels to you, which makes it really easy for me wanted to, for me to want to do extra things. And so if we actually want the people to do the things we think we need them to do, they have to feel like they have ownership and you have to help them see that connection. But the reason I thought this was an important one is something that you talked about, and I'm thinking of all the different stories we say is,

• 9:20Dave Berke?

  can they make the connection? Can they make the connection between the things that they are doing? To make the team successful, the company successful, to make the client successful, and their life being better, their life being better for them? And that's the concept of, of giving ownership is I feel like this is in my best interest to say, this is in my best interest to do this extra work. This is my best interest because I get to share in the benefit of feeling like I have ownership in this company.

• 9:48Jocko Willink?

  So Dave is a little bit selfish ultimately. Because when I call you at 4 o'clock and I say, "Hey, Dave, I know you're planning to head up to the mountains this weekend with your family, but I got a client, they want to meet for this, for dinner tonight. Can you come down? Cause they're, they're, they're, you know, aviation company and you're the guy and they really want to meet you. Can you come down?" And, and what you just said is,

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  Which is true. You go, well, yep, I want to go down. I'll be down there because you know that when you go down there and you help Echelon Front and Echelon Front does better and Echelon Front gets another client, you know that Dave Berke is gonna have more job stability. Dave Berke is gonna make some money directly from that client. Dave Berke's family is going to be more stable and secure. Dave Berke's gonna build some relationships with some more people in this company. That's gonna open up more opportunities. So there's, it's an interesting dynamic. And you know, we used to have that expressing in the expression in the military of what's in it for me. Remember that? Totally.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  And you'd want to explain to guys what's in it for you. So it's sort of one of those situations. And you're right, this is in Leadership Strategy and Tactics, right? This is when what I called the thread of why. And how does the thread of why, hey, if Echelon, if I call up Dave and say, hey, Dave, like Dave's, you're on a salary, you're getting paid no matter what. And I call you up and say, hey, Dave, can you, can you come down to San Diego tonight and go to dinner with these people?

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  But he's planning to go skiing, or he's planning to go to the mountains, or he's planning to go whatever, camping. And if he has no, if he's not gonna benefit, or he doesn't understand how he benefits and his family benefits and his life gets better, the better Echelon Front does, then he's not gonna do it. So what we need ultimately, what we're talking about is unified strategic goals. We are both trying to go in the same direction. When Echelon Front wins, well, Dave Berke wins. Dave Berke's family wins. That's what happens. So you're in the military now. And now you've got people that gotta go out and do a mission. Well, how does that benefit me? You're putting my life at risk. Well,

• 12:04Jocko Willink?

  guess what? If we do our job here in this foreign country to put a, to dismantle a terrorist group, guess what? You're gonna benefit. Your family's gonna benefit. They're gonna be safer. You're gonna get possibly promoted. There's a bunch of reasons.

• 12:25Jocko Willink?

  America's going to be more stable, your family's going to be safer. So the minute that I'm telling someone to do something, and I cannot connect the dots between how this is going to benefit them, I got a problem. I got a legitimate problem. So that connection between those two things is what's powerful. Between Dave understanding, hey, when Echelon Front wins, Dave Berke wins, Dave Berke's life gets better, his family's life gets better. That's what we want. And this goes anywhere. This goes to any, you know, the example that I use in the, in the book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, you know, the CEO got up and made a big speech about, we're profitable, we paid a bunch of money to the shareholders.

• 13:10Jocko Willink?

  None of that mattered to the workers. They're all like, hey, we didn't get any money for, we didn't get any dividend check. But what they didn't understand is that they had job stability. What they didn't understand is that there would be expansion. What they didn't understand is as they grew, there would be more opportunities for every single one of those workers. And once they saw that, they realized, oh, I should go harder. I should do more. So, yeah.

• 13:34Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And, and you talked about that financial one and that, that one is, that one actually, I think sometimes can be the easiest one to pinpoint is if that is the motivation. But what Dave Berke is actually doing, I've got plans for my family. I've got dreams, I got visions. I want my kids to be able to go to a good school. I want to be able to take a nice vacation with my wife. I have goals and strategic things that I want to accomplish for my family. And if I can make the connection between the pathway to me having more control over my life, to doing this extra work, and if I can get my, in this particular case, get my family to understand that, hey babe, hey Jocko called, I need to stay an extra hour tomorrow. We've got A, B, and C going on. And I know it's going to put us a little behind schedule. We're going to arrive a little bit later than we planned.

• 14:17Dave Berke?

  But she understands what it is that I'm doing and how it helps us accomplish the things we want to accomplish. It doesn't necessarily mean I got an extra amount, you know, deposit in my paycheck. It might be, this is what's best for the company because over time, that's going to be what's best for me. Maybe that means we bring in a better client and we get to now outfit Echelon Front with, with new, better computers so we can do a better job building, you know, PowerPoint presentations, a better, a better job training. I can make the connection between all the reasons how the company wins and draw a direct link to my life getting better. How hard is it for me to go, dude, do you need me to stay for an extra hour? No factor. Where do you need me to be? And it doesn't have to be this tug of war by which you're trying to compel and force me

• 14:58Dave Berke?

  and trying to squeeze a little more blood out of the turnip on my hourly schedule as opposed to, hey, Dave, the ownership that you can have in this is all these other things. Yeah, money is great, and I'm not trying to diminish the value of people getting paid more. I think that's great, but the thing that I've discovered people want more than anything is they want more control over their lives. And I can make the connection between Echelon Front being successful as a company with my life having me having more control over my life and being able to accomplish the things that my wife and I have for our families. And if I can draw that link all the way back down to that, it makes it so much easier. And I think it's important to think about that idea of when you want people to take more ownership, you've got to give them more ownership.

• 15:44Dave Berke?

  Sometimes that is in a literal, a literal sense of giving ownership. We've worked with clients where they give them ownership in the company. They have that connection. And when you're in charge, it's kind of easy to make that. If you're the CEO, it's easy to make the connection between your people's extra work and how it benefits you, not so simple for them. And so if I've got people on my team that don't want to take that extra effort, they don't want to give that additional beyond what's expected of them, nights, weekends, early, extra, whatever it might be. Sometimes the answer to that is the almost opposite of what we say for ownership is, I'm not giving them enough ownership. And literally, the example I wrote down was the one you have from Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Obviously, you hit on that because you know that so well.

• 16:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  All good, all viable points, Dave Berke.

• 16:33Dave Berke?

  Go on.

• 16:33Jocko Willink?

  All viable points.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  When I was on Andrew Huberman's podcast a little while ago, and we were talking about teams, and I said, hey, Andrew, if you have a team of 10 people, and you all get along great and love each other and support each other, and I have a team of 10 people, and we don't get along, and we don't like each other, we don't have relationships, who's going to win? He's like, yeah, obviously, the team that cares about each other, the team that takes care of each other wins, which means we need to have good relationships inside of our team.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  Which if you've been on the Academy calls for the last two years, what we've been talking about is if we have a relationship, that means we trust each other, that means we listen to each other, that means we respect each other, and that means we are able to influence each other. That's what a relationship is. So Dave and I have a relationship, and that means we trust each other, that means we listen to each other, that means we influence each other, that means we treat each other with respect. And you can take any one of those and turn them off, and we got a bad deal, right? So if we don't trust each other, we don't really have a relationship. If we don't respect each other, we don't really have a relationship. So, that being said, I gotta add something else into the mix, which is probably the preeminent piece of a relationship. It probably trumps, possibly

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  trumps, everything that I just said. And that is, when someone, when you know someone cares about you, when you know some, and you know, I've taken this expression that we had in the SEAL teams, which we would talk about our gear, we'd say, take care of your gear, your gear will take care of you, which means if you take care of your parachute, and when you get done jumping it, you clean it, you make sure it's squared away, and you pack it correctly, it's gonna work for you. Your dive rig, you take care of that thing, you clean it when it's not being used, you keep it in a cool, dry place, so it doesn't get mold, like all those things, you take care of your gear, your gear will take care of you. Well, guess what? If you take care of your people, your people will

• 18:27Jocko Willink?

  take care of you. When I had Mooc, General James Mukuyama, on the podcast, he talked about the premier, one of his premier elements of leadership was caring, caring for your people. Who was his favorite leader? Colonel David Hackworth. Colonel David Hackworth, who is like known as a hard ass, and yet, Mooc and everyone else knew that David Hackworth

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  cared about them. That's what they knew. So, if we were to break it down, Dave, if I called you at 5 o'clock, or 4 o'clock, and said, hey, man, this client, their aviation company, I know you're planning to head to the mountains with your family, can you come down here?

• 19:26Jocko Willink?

  Look, sure, you have ownership and all those other things, but if you were just Dave Berke and you didn't work at Ashland Front,

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  but we were just friends and we had been through stuff together and you knew I cared about you and I called you up and said, hey, man, I got this client. I know you don't do this kind of thing and you're just flying for the airlines now or whatever, but they'd really like to meet you. Can you come down here?

• 19:48Dave Berke?

  If I believed you cared about me more than yourself?

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  You're doing it.

• 19:51Dave Berke?

  I'm there.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  You're doing it. And so if you're not running your organization

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  in a way that people recognize, oh,

• 20:05Jocko Willink?

  look, I know we want to make money, but you can see Jocko is actually concerned about where I am in three years. Jocko was concerned about making sure my family is good to go. Jocko was concerned, like if you care about your people, they're going to take care of you. Now, part of this is leadership capital too, right? How many times, I mean, Dave, you got, like I call you the next weekend, I call you the weekend after that, I call you the weekend after that. By the way, I call you Thursday night and then you're going on a date with your wife and I call you up. All of a sudden I'm burning my leadership capital and what I'm actually displaying, there's like an equivalency here. What I'm actually displaying is that I don't care about you. Look, I don't care that you're going to the weekend. I don't care that you're going to the mountains. No, you need to come and work with me. I don't care that you're going on a date with your wife. You need to come and help me out.

• 20:49Jocko Willink?

  All of a sudden I'm displaying through my actions and there's like an equivalency between leadership capital and how much I care about you. Cause if I care about you, bro, dude, look, you're going on a date with your wife. Don't worry about it, man. Don't come down. Seriously, like free, I'm not even going to dinner. Cause I don't, I'm not going to do this because I don't want you to come down. I want, I want you to go be with your wife tonight. You know, you had this date planned. I want you to go to the mountains with your family. That's more important. When I care about you, when I invest and I up the bank account of how much I care about you, then I've got some capital in there and you know, when I need something.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, you're gonna give it to me. So that is a very important thing to think about. You are, when you, when you've got people that you work with, that you work for, that work for you. Every moment, you're, that, there's a leadership capital element. And that leadership capital, it's like the dollar bill is based in gold, right? The dollar, the dollar bill, it used to be based in gold, right? It used to represent gold. Well, leadership capital, what that's based in is how much do I care about the, my people? And when I cut you off, when you're talking, I don't care what you have to say. And when I don't treat you with respect, I don't care how you feel.

• 22:12Jocko Willink?

  And when I don't allow you to influence me, I don't care about what your ideas are. And when I don't trust you, I don't care if you trust me.

• 22:23Jocko Willink?

  So the leadership capital piece, if you were to translate, if you were to go cash in that money for gold, what you would get is care.

• 22:35Jocko Willink?

  That's what you would get. And every, so when you want, when you've got people that aren't on board, that don't want to work, that don't want to, that want to skip things, they don't, they haven't seen how much you care about them. And if they haven't seen how much you care about them, it's going to be hard for them to care about you. So start investing in that bank.

• 22:54Jocko Willink?

  But by the way, your whole approach to this thing, the whole approach here, what can I, how can I get more out of them?

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  How can I get more out of them? How can I get them to work harder? Wait a second, let's put that, let's, let's, let's do the same thing we do with trust, listen, respect and influence. Cause if I want you to trust me, I'm going to trust you. If I want you to treat me with respect, I'm going to treat you with respect. If I want you to care about this job, I need to show that I care about you.

• 23:23Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 23:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And if you actually cared about me, the way that you just described, how often would you want me to make those sacrifices on behalf of all these things that supposedly matter to you? If that was really more important than, that I was more important than I was to yourself. So yeah, that connection is the way you described. That's awesome is that.

• 23:45Dave Berke?

  That's what you do with people you care about. And you know, and sometimes you gotta go, hey, Dave, listen, dude, I'm sorry, man. Here's the reason why I need this. And when those times happen, the times are supposed to happen. I'm like, bro, stop, just tell me when and where, no factor. And if that happens every single day, I might start to think, yeah, oh, oh, I think I see what he's doing. It's not exactly what I thought.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Check this out. We want people to, this is going back to your original question. Stay late, work weekends, come in early. Okay. So if I want you to stay late, guess what I should be actually doing as often as I can? Getting you out early. If I want you to work weekends as often as I can, if I want to prove to you, look, I care about you. I'm like, hey, Dave, you know what? Tomorrow morning, Friday morning, I actually have got everything under wraps. You don't even need to show up. You can just stay home. Like, don't come in. Hey, Dave, I know you got your son's wrestling tournament tomorrow night and it's gonna be late night because you gotta drive back from out of state. Don't come in in the morning. Get some sleep. You need some rest. It's all good. What does each one of those things mean? Each one of those things means I actually

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  care about you. So I'm taking the things that you're demanding. Stay late, work weekends, come in early. These are just flip those upside down. And I want you, because now, look, Dave, you know, Dave didn't come in on Friday, last Friday, two Thursdays ago, he came in late in the morning because he had that wrestling tournament. You know, I gave him the Friday off. So we're doing all these things. Now when I call, now Dave knows I care about him. He knows I care about his family. And now when I call him up and say, hey, Dave, I just got a, I just got a tasking from that client. I, I need help. And it's, and it's now. And it's, I know it's Friday afternoon, you're driving home. Can you either come turn around right now? Or can you meet me at 6 o'clock

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  tomorrow morning? Can you? I'm, all day long.

• 25:38Dave Berke?

  Yeah, no factor.

• 25:39Jocko Willink?

  No factor. So if you want people to take care of you, take care of them.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  There you go. All right. My turn? Your turn. All right. Um, I just want to make sure that everyone. You ever seen those signs on the beach? Have you ever seen a sign on the beach, legit sign on the beach that said sharks? Yeah. Like, you gotta watch out. Yep. You probably shouldn't get in the water. There's other signs, you know, you go camping and they'll say fire warning, right? Hey, don't start fires. You're wearing stage red or whatever. There's little things that we gotta watch out for in the world.

• 26:23Jocko Willink?

  And something, I, something you may want to pay attention to, something you may want to put, but just make sure you're looking for the signs.

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  Is insecurity.

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  I was with a client recently and I saw an interaction that

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  was, it, it, it said to me, I see some signs, they say, watch out for insecurity. A particular individual who's in a senior position, doesn't have a degree in computer science.

• 27:00Jocko Willink?

  No degree. Matter of fact, like did whatever, one year of junior college or something, and yet is in a very powerful position.

• 27:09Jocko Willink?

  And has a, has a ton of experience. So didn't go to school, didn't get the piece of paper, but knows a ton about it. This is like the mechanic that's looking at your car, right? And he's been working on Fords for, you know, 25 years. He's been working on Fords for 25 years.

• 27:31Jocko Willink?

  And yet there's a, you know, an engineer from MIT that's gonna look at your, you know, that's that, who do you want to diagnose the problem with your Ford? Your Ford's an engine, right? Look, that person from MIT is obviously smart, has a degree in mechanical engineering. But it, but the guy that's been working on Fords for 25 years. So that's the kind of scenario that we rent, right? This guy knows a lot. He's been under the hood in the computer world and the software world, even in the hardware world, but he really knows a lot.

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  And he threw out one of these, um,

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  you know, they don't respect me because I don't have a degree.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  And that right there, you know, this was in an offline conversation, they don't respect me because I don't have a degree. And that, that just flag, the, the big giant like eight by 12 flag went up that said insecurity on it. Cause he was so obviously insecure about this. And the funny thing is, I talked to the rest of the staff and guess what the staff thinks? The staff thinks he's brilliant. The staff thinks he's got all this knowledge. The staff thinks that it's incredible what he's done. They're totally behind him and yet he's insecure about the fact that, that he doesn't have a degree in this stuff. And this is just so ego driven.

• 28:51Jocko Willink?

  You know, so now he feels like, he feels like maybe he's not good enough because he's insecure. So now he's projecting on everybody else that they don't think he's, you know, got it going on. And so then it's like, then what happens? And so there's one flag goes up, then another flag goes up. The other flag is like, hey, we need to do it my way. So all of a sudden we're imposing on people.

• 29:13Jocko Willink?

  All of a sudden another flag goes up. That's like making people look stupid in a conversation. Hey, uh, that's a completely different engine than that Ford that you're talking about. You, you, you know, and then it's a little snide, they didn't teach you that in college? You learned that up at MIT?

• 29:33Jocko Willink?

  You didn't learn that? And all of a sudden these, it's just red flag, red flag, red flag. And it gets to be, it gets to be a little bit embarrassing and what sucks is of course, everybody sees it, right? Yeah, they might not see the first one. You put up one red flag and you put up a flag and people, maybe you raise it half mast. You know, it's a half mast thing that says insecurity and people kind of like overlook it because there's a bunch of other flags of, hey, confident and, and you know, knows stuff. And so they don't really see it. But then you start putting up flag after flag after flag and it really starts to leave a mark.

• 30:09Jocko Willink?

  So I'm asking you to pay attention to that. I'm asking you to not do that, actually.

• 30:16Jocko Willink?

  I'm asking you to pay attention to insecurity because it can manifest itself in a lot of different ways. They don't respect me. That's a huge one. They don't respect me because I'm too old. They don't respect me because I'm too young. They don't respect me because I have, don't have a degree. Or they don't respect me because I have a degree because that happens too, right? Oh, this freaking college kid coming down here with his degree. Or the opposite happens. Oh, they think they know everything just because they've been to college. Did I get, did I catch both directions there? I can't tell if I did. It can go either way, right? Either this guy has a degree, thinks he knows everything, or this person doesn't have a degree, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Or I have experience or don't have experience. That's another one, right? I've been doing this for 25 years,

• 31:00Jocko Willink?

  I don't have to listen to Dave. Or Dave, you know, he's, he has 25, so he thinks he knows everything. We just, either direction. We can find insecurity in either direction. And the thing is, no one cares. The only person that cares, the only person that cares is actually you. I've, I've, I've had that conversation with at least 20 people. Where 20 people have pointed out their insecurity of, I don't have this, or I didn't do that, or I never, you know, oh, I never served. So therefore, no one respects me. Like, no one actually cares.

• 31:40Jocko Willink?

  They care if you suck at your job. They care if you make mistakes repetitively, repetitively, and you don't correct them. But no one actually cares that you don't have a degree. No one cares. No one cares that you have a degree, by the way. So, to prevent, and so, by the way, this is your ego. So this is your ego that gets, your ego gets very reactive to this stuff. Your ego is super sensitive. Your ego is nervous. Your ego doesn't like people looking at it. Always thinks everyone's looking at it. Your ego thinks everything is looking at you. When the reality is, no one actually cares. So what can you do about it? When you start to feel, when you start to feel this, when you start to feel the insecurity

• 32:24Jocko Willink?

  come out, just freaking take ownership of it. And you probably thought I was gonna say that. But take ownership of it. Own it.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  And the way you own it is by saying like, yeah, you know what? They might have learned something in college that I don't know. How hard is that? So you're a computer science, you're, you didn't get a computer science degree, but you know all kinds of stuff about computers. Cause you've been working, you've been under the hood of computers for 25 years. But you got some other person that rolls in that has their, their computer science degree from MIT. And instead of being like, they think they know everything, instead own it and say, oh yeah, you know what? That's pretty awesome. They probably learned some stuff that I don't know.

• 33:03Jocko Willink?

  Good. I can utilize that knowledge.

• 33:07Jocko Willink?

  If you understand that maybe someone has more experience than you. Instead of being like, well, that Dave thinks he knows everything just because we could know. Actually be like, hey, you know, Dave, you've been doing this wrong. I mean, that's awesome. I really want to learn from you. Take ownership of it.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  And take ownership of it internally and externally. Right? If you only take ownership of it externally, but you really hold the internal grudge, everybody can see it. So watch out for that one.

• 33:37Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can see how insecure you are.

• 33:42Jocko Willink?

  And all you, this is the crazy thing. When you're, this is the, pay attention to this. When you're hiding your insecurities, everybody can see them. When you open them up, they're not there anymore. Isn't that a wild thing to think about? When you hide your insecurities, everyone can see them. When you open up and show everyone your insecurities, they disappear. Isn't that amazing? Boy, it takes some courage to open up and show everyone those insecurities. It takes so much courage to do that.

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can see your little petty behaviors.

• 34:18Jocko Willink?

  Everyone can see them. Those little snide comments that you're making. Everyone can see them. Everyone can hear them. Respect levels go down. And then what's scary is you end up with a self fulfilling prophecy, right? It's like when you, um, when the police start watching a guy who's paranoid because he's acting paranoid. So the police start watching him and then all of a sudden he's like, you see the cops are watching me. It's downwards, it's a downward spiral.

• 34:45Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens with your insecurities. You hide them. People start to notice them. People start treating you differently. All of a sudden, you become more insecure. It's a freaking problem. Whereas if you go, oh yeah, you know what? I didn't even go to college, man. And I know, I know there's a lot of stuff I probably missed out on. And that's why I'm glad we brought you on board. Cause I know you have a really good formal education and I'm looking to learn from you. All of a sudden, there's no insecurity there. It actually becomes a security. You actually look like a confident, squared away person that's willing to learn and be humble. What'd you write down, Dave?

• 35:19Dave Berke?

  At the very beginning, when you start, when you described the signs of insecurity, you compared to like looking for sharks. I love that image of like, hey, look out for this. What I wrote down was in my mind as I was thinking of what you were saying, I wrote down domino's fall. It just, I was thinking about this and you just said it when you said, um, I wrote down, you wrote down the spiral. Like as soon as we take that first step, it's like the dominoes and, and you could see the path to destruction that will take when you, when you make that first engagement of, oh, I don't want them to know that I don't have this, or I don't want them to think that I'm dumb because I don't have this. If you, that first tilt down that path, you talked, you talked about the spiral. It's the exact same thing I was thinking of, how bad that goes.

• 36:04Dave Berke?

  But in the same breath, from the very beginning, the first step in the process you're talking about is, and we talk about humility all the time. How humbling and, and I really think how liberating is it to accept? Nobody's thinking about me. No one was paying attention to me. Nobody cares about me or my background on my resume. And it gets to the counterintuitive nature. You talk about this all the time, how counterintuitive things are. The more you try to hide it, the more visible it is. The more my ego gets in the way to try to prevent what I'm afraid of, the more likely the thing I'm afraid of is going to reveal itself is just like, nobody cares about you, man. And if I am humble enough to, to accept that, that they're not really paying much attention to me. They just don't have the time. They really don't care.

• 36:46Dave Berke?

  They're surely not going home devoting all their free time to Dave Berke. It's super liberating. I don't have anything to be worried about because they're not really trying to pick me apart. And the worst thing I can do is draw attention to myself and go, I wasn't paying attention, but I can't help. But look at Dave now because he's always trying to cover up this deficiency he thinks he has. And now all of a sudden I'm the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. So that's what I wrote down, but just, man, if you could just accept, nobody really cares about you or your background or what you've done. And just stop thinking that everybody's paying attention to it. That's a liberating, powerful thing to get to exactly what you just said. So that's what I wrote down.

• 37:25Dave Berke?

  Nobody cares about you.

• 37:27Jocko Willink?

  That's such a good place to start, man. And it's, it's hard. It's an, you have an egocentric view of yourself and the world. And you think everyone notices you and they actually freaking don't.

• 37:36Dave Berke?

  They don't.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  They don't. There's not one person that went home after that meeting and was like, gee, I wonder what Dave Berke got his degree in. No, no, no one did that. Actually, I take that back. You know who did do that? You know who did that? Someone that's insecure. Someone that's insecure about Dave Berke really did a good job in that meeting, but I wonder what he's got his degree in. That's who, just dealing with insecure people and everyone can see that they're insecure. So don't join in with them. Everyone can see that they're insecure. Don't join in. When, when, when Dave Berke leaves the meeting and I lean over to Leif and say, what's his freaking degree in anyways? You know what that means? That means Dave Berke just crushed that meeting. I'm insecure about it and I'm trying to pick a, pick him apart. And you know what Leif thinks? Leif's like, geez, Jocko's insecure. He must be intimidated by Dave's kind of a badass, right?

• 38:21Jocko Willink?

  That's what's, that's what's happening. Don't fall into that.

• 38:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah, we need to make a flag that says danger insecurity risk high. You know, it's like, you know, the, you know, the, the, when, when this, the, the tide is rough and you're talking about like, you know, you know, high, you know, it's like insecurity is high right now. The risk is high.

• 38:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Dave Berke?

  Don't fall into that.

• 38:40Jocko Willink?

  When you start feeling that, you know, uh, I think it's, yeah. Echo talks to me about this where like another big guy comes into the jujitsu gym. And it's like immediately like Echo gets the feeling of like sizing him up and stuff. But he doesn't do that with like some little guy because you know, Echo's 200 and whatever, 215 pounds. So some little guy doesn't really pose a threat to him. So therefore he's not insecure about that personal. But when he starts seeing someone, all of a sudden he's sizing them up. So if you start feeling insecure, it just means that you've met someone that's hopefully comparable to you and is going to kick ass. And the worst thing you can do is be insecure about that because everybody can see it. So if Dave Berke comes in and briefs Leif and I, and Dave walks out and I go, I wonder what he even got his degree in.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  They, Leif knows, oh, Jocko's like kind of beta in this scenario. If Dave Berke walks out and I go, man, that was an awesome brief. That guy's smart as, sharp as a tack. Leif goes, oh, yeah, Jocko's assessing him, you know, that's cool. Don't be the insecure. Watch out for those flags. And as you just pointed out, the way you do that is you just, you just put your ego in check and be humble. Stop trying to prove to everybody what a smart, dynamic leader you are.

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't try, you don't have to prove that to everybody, every second. You have to prove to them how smart you are. You don't have to prove, you don't have to prove how tough you are. You don't have to prove what a dynamic leader you are. You don't have to prove any of that stuff. And in fact, every time you tried and actively outwardly prove that, everybody sees it as an insecurity. And it's going to make you look weak because you are. So there you go. Don't let insecurity manifest itself, or it will manifest itself. All right. I think that's probably a pretty good place to stop. As always, if you want to dig deeper in this stuff, uh, check out the Extreme Ownership Academy, extremeownership.com.

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  We have a bunch of courses on that. We got, we got two free courses right now. One by Dave and me, one by Jamie and me. Dave and I, you talk about the framework of extreme ownership. And how to, how to utilize it pragmatically. There's some protocols you can follow that'll help you. And then Jamie and I talk about the obstacles to extreme ownership, of which there are many. And you can, you can easily rationalize not taking ownership. In fact, we should probably do a course about that. Part of the barriers is, is that you can easily rationalize, but this really isn't my fault, but it actually is Dave's fault, but Dave should have showed up earlier, whatever the case may be.

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  So that's extremeownership.com. Uh, you can take some of those free courses. We've got some other courses on there. We've got a bunch of, well, actually we have a ton of courses that you can sign up and take to learn leadership, most important skill there is, because you can't do anything by yourself. You can't. We can't do anything worth doing by yourself. So you're going to need a team. You're going to need part of a team. And that's why we teach leadership, because if you're part of a team, no matter where you are on that team, you're a leader. So check that out, extremeownership.com. If you want, if you want help inside your organization, go to ashlomfront.com. We have a leadership consultancy. That's what we do there. Also a bunch of books about leadership, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy of Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Check those out. Check out other podcasts. I got a podcast

• 41:58Jocko Willink?

  called Jocko Podcast. I've got a podcast for the kids called The Warrior Kid Podcast. So you can check those out. I've got the Unraveling Podcast with Daryl Cooper as well. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can go to jacostore.com, you can go to originusa.com, or you can go to jacofuel.com. That's what we've got going on. Thank you for listening to us debrief. Now, go lead. This is Dave and Jocko.