302: Have a Plan, a Protocol, and a Code. Iron Sharpened Leadership. W/ Gen. John Gronski

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:33 - General Gronski. "Iron Sharpened Leadership" 2:35:43 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:59:24 - 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 302 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  Sir, we have a tick. As I quickly walked across our tactical operations center to the radio operator, I'm sure my heart rate spiked. A tick, pronounced tick, stands for troops in contact. It is something arresting everyone's attention because it meant one of our patrols was taking enemy fire on the mean streets of Ramadi. As I pressed the handset of the radio to my ear, I could hear a sense of urgency in the voice of the patrol leader on the ground.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  He was leading a group of soldiers on a dismounted patrol on Ramadi's southwestern side of town. Things could get kind of sporty there.

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  The young sergeant leading the patrol was requesting I direct Super Cobra gunship helicopters to fire at insurgents on top of a building. They were engaged by insurgents with small arms from behind a building, but now he could see guns and other weapons on the roof. The insurgent had ceased for the moment, but the patrol leader was concerned about what might come next.

• 1:21Jocko Willink?

  Something did not feel right. People need to pay attention to gut feelings and instinct. I have found the more experience one gains, the more gut feeling factors into decision making. If something does not feel right, it probably requires a little more attention.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  I used a steady voice to calm the patrol leader down.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  I let him know I would call in the Cobras, but first I needed him to provide positive identification of exactly who was on top of that building. My intuition was telling me to let the situation develop before calling in heavy firepower.

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  After a few minutes, the patrol leader made a positive identification of the force on the rooftop. I was glad I did not pull the trigger on the Cobras. A US Marine Corps civil affairs team were on the top of the building.

• 2:22Jocko Willink?

  A stressful situation was averted. Calmness and coolness prevailed. As it turned out, the small arms fire he received was some harassment fire and the insurgents who initiated the incident had quickly disappeared. So that right there is an excerpt from a book which is called Iron Sharpened Leadership, which was written by General John Gronski, who served in the US Army and the National Guard for over 40 years. And I had the honor of serving with him during the Battle of Ramadi, where our deployments

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  overlapped by about a month or so in the spring of 2006. And he's actually been on the podcast before, episode 235. So if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, stop and go and listen to that one to get some background on General Gronski. But we are honored to have General Gronski back again tonight to discuss his new book, which, as I said, is called Iron Sharpened Leadership, and the subtitle is Transforming Hard-Fought Lessons Into Action. So, General Gronski, once again, thank you for coming by.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Hey, Jaco, it's great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me. Always good to be here in San Diego.

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  San Diego's not a bad place to be. So, your first book that we did, we touched upon it on the last podcast, it was called The Ride of Our Lives, and it was about a bike ride that you made across America with your wife and your infant child. And you talked about some of the lessons that you learned along that voyage and the experience you had, but that was very early in your Army career. And this is reflective of your entire Army career. So what made you decide to write this book, Iron Sharpened Leadership?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, Jaco, when I wrote that book, The Ride of Our Lives, near the end of the book, I put some just leadership lessons that I gained on that ride, as you mentioned. And I actually had people asking me to expand on those lessons. And, you know, the book focused just on that very short period of time, three months in 1983.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  And I just gained so much more experience and learned so many more lessons over the next 30 plus years. And I just felt compelled to put those lessons down in the writing and hopefully would help other people gain from really most of the mistakes I made along the way.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  Had you written The Ride of Our Lives in close proximity when it actually took place or was that, did you remember back 30 years or whatever it was?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I took that bike ride with my wife and 15 month old son back in 1983. I kept a journal.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  That journal sat in a shoebox for over 35 years. And then when I retired from the Army in 2019, had a little bit of time on my hands. So I decided to, you know, write the book, The Ride of Our Lives. And it was really meant to be for myself to reflect back on and for my family to have. And then I decided to self-publish it as a book and it turned out to be quite popular.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. So, so this book, like you said, this is, this is going back on your whole career and the lessons that you've learned and you, you've been through the entire leadership spectrum in, in the Army and spent a bunch of time in combat. And so this is a great book and let's jump into it. So, and then just so everybody knows, look, if I have to skip around, I'm not going to read the whole book right now. There is an audiobook version of this as well, but we're not going to read the whole thing. So I'm going to jump into some spots. It's, it's obviously not going to be completely cohesive when we read it on the podcast. It's, it's set up in a very cohesive manner in the way it's read, but I gotta make that caveat before I start reading. But here's the one I wanted to start with.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  Going to the book. "Some of the best leadership advice was given to me by a crusty, non-commissioned officer during my first experience in the Army when I was training as an ROTC cadet at Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1976. I was a patrol leader during a training event. In this scenario, my patrol was passing through a cleared lane within a minefield. The lane was about 40 yards in length. As we began, as we were crossing the minefield on the cleared lane, we began to receive small arms fire from an enemy position about 200 yards away."

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  I hesitated. The soldiers were waiting for a command I did not give. It took less than a minute for the enemy to destroy my entire patrol. The sergeant, who was a seasoned Vietnam veteran, pulled me aside and loudly advised, "When in charge, be in charge. Your followers expect you to lead, so you better damn well lead."

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  Good lesson learned out of the gate.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, again, I could just say, as I reflect back on my career, it was those non-commissioned officers, especially early on in my career, those Vietnam vets, who I was fortunate to be around and fortunate to get, you know, just some hard advice from, you know, no punches pulled, "Hey, this is the way it should be." You know, so square yourself away and lead when you're in a leadership position.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, I was thinking in that particular case, and when I was running training, a lot of times, the younger guys, the young SEAL officers, one thing that would happen to them would be, there would be a platoon chief or a leading petty officer that would get in the habit of making a lot of the calls. And so, the officer would get in the habit of not making calls. And it was a, it wasn't even a fine line. What they had to realize was, if one of the NCOs makes a call, awesome. You help, you support their call, you're gonna go, no factor, all good. It's in those moments, those rare moments where, you know, in this particular case, maybe the

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  NCO got hit with the first volley of fire, or the NCO wasn't in a position on the minefield where he could see where the fire was coming from. So they can't make a call. Or they're panicked, or whatever the case may be. So you get that leadership vacuum. And that's when that officer has to be detached enough, has to be heads up enough to go, "Oh, wait a second. My NCOs aren't making a call. I need to lead right now." So it's a little bit of a cautionary tale too. You know, if, when you're in charge, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to make the call, but you better be prepared in case, you know, the people, your subordinate leadership doesn't make something happen. In an ideal world, subordinate leadership makes a call, you don't have to do anything.

• 9:35Jocko Willink?

  I hate to say it, but in an ideal world, when you're in charge, you don't have to do anything.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Ideally, and you know, Jacque, you speak to the fact that you have to put your followers into positions where they have that opportunity to make some of those tough calls. And I even think of this reflecting back, you know, my kids are both in their 30s now, but reflecting back when my children were teenagers. And I really think it's important for parents to let young teenagers make decisions. Because if parents are making all the decisions for their kids, when are they going to learn how to make a decision? You know, they're going to learn how to make a decision when they become an adult? Well, that's kind of too late. So I do think you need to put your followers in positions where they gain

• 10:24Speaker 01

  that experience. And if they make a mistake, you know, that's usually how we learn more is when we make a mistake than when we do something right by accident.

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, I was gonna say, when you were saying, let your kids make decisions, let your kids make mistakes, too. And just like in the military, this doesn't mean you're gonna send a young, you know, first lieutenant out on an operation that they're not capable of conducting because they don't have the experience yet and they don't have the knowledge. You're not gonna say, oh, let's see how it goes. No, you're not gonna do that. Just like you're not gonna say, oh, my kid wants to go play in the street, which is not a good decision, where they could get hit by a car. And that's not what we're talking about. But you can certainly let them make decisions and let them brush up against the guardrails of failure. Because that's where you learn through those little scratches that you get on the body.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Because this section kind of sets up the rest of the book. My personal leadership philosophy is based on three elements of character, competence, and resilience. There are subcomponents to each element of my leadership philosophy. Character, competence, resilience, and their subcomponents are skills. And like any other skill, they can be learned and strengthened. Although some may be born with higher levels of any one of these elements, everyone can improve them through training and practice.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  And this is something that I think there's a lot of people in the world that think that leadership is something you're born with and either you have it or you don't. And like you said, there are certainly, you might have some advantages in some areas. You might be pretty articulate, you might be pretty, you know, visionary, you might be, have a good sense of other people's emotions. There's different levels that people have in all those categories. But no matter where you are in all these categories, you can improve upon them and you can get better. And I think a lot of people think, oh, leadership is just, just going to come through osmosis

• 12:32Jocko Willink?

  or it's something you're born with and there's nothing you can do to actually train it. When the fact of the matter is, there's 100% things that you can do to improve your leadership skills.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I think it's like athleticism. You know, some people are born with better athletic skills than others, but everybody could improve in that athleticism. It doesn't mean everybody's going to be a, you know, an NFL player or NBA player, whatever, but everybody could get better. And I feel the same way about leadership and that's another reason why I wrote the book and just as you've written many leadership books to try to help people develop those skills that we know could be improved.

• 13:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, and that's the benefit of being in the military is you get to see over and over again, young leaders actually improve and get better and, and make better decisions and get more experience. So it's something that you and I, through the blessing of being in the military, got to see over and over again. It's, it's fact, it's a fact that you know leaders can be improved.

• 13:34Jocko Willink?

  Um, let me get into these, these components here. The first one, character. Character is the root of leadership. A leader of character will be able to establish an environment of trust. A character-based leader grows trust by trusting others first, providing a vision, displaying integrity, leading by example, and sincerely caring about others. A leader must have values and principles. Values are something a person believes in and will be guided by when times are good and when times are tough. A character-based leader sincerely cares about those they lead and they place the interests of their followers above their own.

• 14:16Jocko Willink?

  The key component. I had a guy on this podcast by the name of General James Mukuyama. And he was, he served in Vietnam and he worked for, he worked for Colonel David Hackworth when Hackworth was the battalion commander. Mukuyama was one of his company commanders. But that was a point that he made so clear was that idea of you gotta care about your people. And that was a thing that Hackworth had that, I don't know if it always comes about, comes across in, in his books and in his writings, but Hackworth just cared about his soldiers and that elevated him so much in their eyes. And that's exactly what you're talking about here.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, it's, it's easy to say, you know, care about your, your people that you lead, but it's, I think extremely hard to do. To put the interest of those you lead before your own interest. I think the only people who could naturally do that are parents. You know, I think parents could naturally put the interests of their, their kids before their own. But to do that to people that, you know, aren't, aren't blood relatives of yours, that, that's a hard thing to do. And I've been fortunate enough to be around leaders in the military who had that ability to do that.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  It was almost an innate sense they had to put the welfare of those they lead first. And, you know, we learned this in, in the Army and the Marines and the Navy, Air Force, you know, that, you know, leaders eat last. And the reason we do that, you know, you can imagine, you know, you're out there, either in a training environment or on an operation, you know, get this chow mermited out to you in the field and, you know, it's rainy, it's cold. And if that leader jumps into chow line first, it's probably, whoever's going to be the last guy in the chow line probably isn't going to eat or at least get a full portion. I mean, that, that's why leaders eat last. You want your folks that you lead to have the benefit of, of that nutrition before,

• 16:24Speaker 01

  before you suck, suck it down, you know? And again, we, we learned this in the military and I think. You know, folks in the civilian sector, some know that kind of innately and others maybe never experienced that and that's why I think there's some organizations that cannot develop that trust that is so essential if you're going to have an organization effectively run.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  Another thing about this is I think there's people who think that they can fool their troops and their subordinate leadership into thinking that they care about them and I promise you, having been a young enlisted guy, having been the youngest and most junior guy in my first two SEAL platoons, everybody can tell when you're looking out for yourself. Everybody can tell. You're not fooling anyone and that's why the people that truly care about the team and put the team above themselves, that's why they always shine.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And you know, you think of examples that we've seen in the military, you know, a leader who, I remember when I was over in Ramadi, you know, one of the platoons was getting some better version of an up armored Humvee and the platoon leader refused to take that better version. He made sure, you know, his other soldiers in the platoon got that version before he would take it to ride in himself and that's putting yourself more at risk for the benefit of those you lead. So there's a perfect example of how one could do that, especially if it means putting your life at risk. This guy was a true leader.

• 18:11Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent. No, that's a outstanding example right there. Next thing, next characteristic, competence. When I talk about competence being an element of leadership, I am not referring to the technical competence in a specific job. I am referring to the general competence of a person to lead others. Many elements make up competence, but the most imperative are providing a vision and purpose for the organization, decision-making, developing others and communication. A leader must be able to articulate a vision which is simple, unique, ideal image of the future. Leaders must explain the why behind the vision and tell their followers what they believe in.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  When leaders provide vision and purpose, they instill confidence and provide inspiration that fuels an organization, empowering it to success. A leader must learn and apply problem-solving skills and decision-making processes. A leader also must possess the courage to decide. One of the most important roles of a leader is to develop other leaders. A leader must mentor and coach, must be a mentor and coach, willing to take others aside and provide insight into what it means to be a leader. A leader must communicate in clear, concise, and respectful manner. Most leaders spend between 70 and 90% of their time communicating. It is important for a leader to develop listening skills and the ability to get a consistent

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  message out to all stakeholders. So that's the competency of being a leader, all these skills that you list in here. And again, what's interesting about these skills is, you know, if you scan through them, can you get better at explaining the vision? Yes, you can. Can you get better at decision-making? Yes, you can. Can you get better at problem-solving? Yes, you can. Can you get better at decision-making? Yes, you can. Can you get better at mentoring? Yes, you can. Every one of these, can you get better at communicating in simple, clear, concise language? Respectful manner? Yes, you can. Everything you're talking about here with the competence of a leader is something that you can, you can improve upon.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, you know, in the book, as people go through it, they'll see, you know, there's stories associated with these lessons that I've learned. And then there's certain actions I've found through my experience over the last 40 years that help one get better and stronger at these particular skills that you mentioned.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so just to make that clear, because I don't know how much I did it in my notes, but you broke the book down almost like a military learning manual where, hey, here's the actions that you need to take if you want to improve in these areas. And I know I don't hit them, I think I hit a couple of them, but that's what, that's the way the book is broken down. The last thing is resilience.

• 21:03Jocko Willink?

  Anyone who has ever led anything will tell you that at some point in time, the organization you lead will face adversity. For that may matter, every living person faces adversity at some point in their lives. It all comes down to how prepared one is to face these challenges and how one responds. Leaders must prepare themselves and give their followers and their followers to overcome challenges. Positive energy is essential when leading a large organization or a small team. Optimism and enthusiasm are two key traits of a resilient person. Like any other trait, they must be exercised to become a strong part of one's makeup. A leader must be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually fit.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  To strengthen resilience, leaders must follow themselves, must allow themselves to be vulnerable by moving out of their comfort zone. By taking risks and taking on tough challenges, scar tissue is developed and resilience is improved.

• 22:02Jocko Willink?

  So the person that's going to lead had better be able to get back up again if they get knocked down.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, Jaco, I think resilience is something that has been talked about a lot, a lot over the last few years. But resilience, I don't, I don't believe resilience actually just happens by itself. You know, you've got to train to become a resilient person by doing certain things that you just mentioned, you know. Moving out of your comfort zone. I mean, if you're a leader or a person who just wants to take the easy way of just staying in your comfort zone, doing things that you know how to do, never stretching yourself, never putting yourself in a position where you might make a mistake because you think

• 22:50Speaker 01

  you're going to look bad in front of your followers, or your peers, or whomever, you're not going to grow that way. And, and then when tough times do happen. You're going to be less likely to demonstrate the resiliency that's needed in order to help your organization get through those tough times.

• 23:09Jocko Willink?

  Reminds me talking to some of the, some of the tankers, actually this was the 111 A.D. that replaced you guys in Ramadi, but one thing that I found interesting was they do, and it was actually a guy named Mike Bahima, who was the, who was a company commander, fantastic guy, but he was explaining to me what, what they do to prepare for deployment. One of the things that they do to prepare for deployment is they bring their tank on this tank range and they do gunnery where you're shooting and you're moving and maneuvering the tank and doing comms and reloading. And it's a challenge. It's like, I guess in, for an infantry guy, for, or for a SEAL, it's like doing a combat conditioning course where you run, you shoot, you got headplates to hit, you got long distance shots to take, you gotta do pull-ups and rope climbs, then you gotta shoot more.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  It's like that, but it's in a tank. And one thing that he said to me was, when they go do gunnery, the first person that goes is battalion commander.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Sets the example, hey, this, I'm going first. And so what you're talking about getting out of your comfort zone, I can't imagine a lot of those tanker, those tank battalion commanders, they've probably been out of the tank for a while and yet they're gonna step up and they're gonna show, okay, this is it, this is what we do.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, you kind of reminded me of something that I wouldn't mind sharing with you because I think it's, it's a kind of a great lesson in, in resiliency and this goes back to Ramadi. I had a, a national, you know, one of our National Guard tank companies, when we were training at, at Camp Shelby before going over to, to Iraq. This, this company has three platoons and one of their platoons went through that tank gunnery that, that you just talked about. Only one of their platoons did. And when they got over to Ramadi, we actually task organized them to 269 armor, which was in East Ramadi Combat Outpost Corregidor area.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  And since 269 armor was, was an armored battalion, they didn't need this company to operate in tanks, so they made them motorized infantry. So they operated as motorized infantry for the six, the first six months they were over in Ramadi. And then 269 armor leaves and they get replaced by first at a 506 infantry from the 101st airborne, light infantry.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  But tanks were still needed in the eastern Marty. So now these, these National Guard soldiers who were tankers, operating as motorized infantry for the previous six months are now in tanks. And they just did a remarkable job. They had several main gun engagements while they were over there. And it just goes to show you how by training to be resilient and training in those skills, even when you're taken out of that particular job in a combat situation for six months and then having to go back into those tanks again and then just performing remarkably,

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I think is just, just a great story of not only resiliency, but, but adaptability.

• 26:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's something that has made the SEAL teams successful. And it starts in the basic SEAL training. And I always say that, hey, you know, the basic SEAL training, you don't really learn anything because you're just doing pushups and being wet, cold and miserable. You learn how to suffer and if you don't like to suffer, you're not going to be there. But one thing I will say is you're in total chaos. Like it's total chaos when you're there. Everything that happens, I mean, you go out, you go out, your boat's in the ocean and they're getting flipped over and you're getting washed up on and people are confused, lost. You got chem lights bouncing all over the place. You know, when hell week kicks off, there's just total chaos, confusion. There's, they're throwing smoke grenades everywhere. You can't see anything. There's machine guns going off. You can't hear anything. And it's just like that all the time.

• 26:58Jocko Willink?

  So you get used to this environment where there's total chaos going on and you have to figure it out. You have to adapt. And then when I got to the SEAL teams, and it's not so much like this anymore, but it still does have this, still does have this, this DNA, which is there, there was no doctrine. When I got to the SEAL teams, if you want to do a raid. If someone didn't tell you, if your platoon chief didn't know how to do a raid, you had to just figure it out. And there's good and bad to that. I mean, it's kind of good in the Army. You want to do a raid, you can pick up the, what is it, seven tac, six infantry platoon and squads, you can figure out how to do a raid. It tells everybody what they need to do. SEAL Teams doesn't have that. And so you just go, okay, well, what makes sense? How can we do this? And, and like I said, there's some good to that.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  There's some bad to that because now you might not come up with the best plan, but there's also some good because you're constantly learning to adapt. And, and I think that's one of the things. And it's, look, the whole, I'm, I'm saying that about the SEAL Teams because that's my environment, but the military in general does that. And that's exactly what you're talking about. You take guys, you train them in one, in one aspect of combat. You take them on deployment, you put them into a totally different aspect of combat, they perform. And then halfway through, you switch them back to the original thing and they get back on that horse and do it again. Or in this case, get back in those tanks and do it again.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, you know, I remember when we got over, when the brigade, uh, I was part of, got over to, to Ramadi in 2005, COIN Doctrine wasn't written yet. And, uh, you know, COIN Doctrine wasn't, uh, written by, uh, General Petraeus and General Mattis until like early 2006, really. And, uh, so there was no COIN Academy that, you know, leader, that leaders from my brigade went to when we got to Iraq, but I think 2006, 2007, and after that, any brigade that got, uh, deployed to Iraq went through this thing called the COIN Academy, the Counterinsurgency Academy. And so we, we kind of had to figure

• 28:56Speaker 01

  it out on our own. And the way you figure it out, you know, you read history, uh, you see how it was done in the past, you just use some common sense, you talk to, uh, leaders that, that you respect and that you count on and, and you kind of figure it out. And that was the interesting thing that was done there, you know, a brigade of 5,000 soldiers and Marines, but a lot of the operations were occurring at, at the platoon and, and company level. So it's not like, you know, because I was a brigade commander, I was directing some type of large brigade operation. That didn't exist. They were all done at very small unit levels. And, and, uh, just, just, uh, an amazing thing about our American, you know, uh, servicemen.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  And women, they figure it out. They have a way to figure it out. And I think if you read history of the military, which I know you you do when you read on on your podcast regularly, it's just amazing how we have, you know, how our American military has just figured things out as we went.

• 30:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't even remember, because the first, so I arrived in Ramadi in like April of 2006. I visited one of my friends who was an intel officer at one of the at one of the bases and in Ramadi. And she had the big targeting board. And I had worked with her before. She had that big targeting board when I was in Iraq before, the same big targeting board. I was like, man, this is, this is not a good sign. Because if we're just going to be targeting these people, and this is this board is just as big as it was when I left.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:39Jocko Willink?

  And I went back to my talk, my tactical operations center, and I Googled, I think I must have heard something about this new counter insurgency manual. But I Googled it, and it was on, it was a draft copy, because it didn't even get released yet. It was a draft copy that I got. And I was just like, okay, this is it. And I found it on, I forget those websites, those, there's a couple websites, I want to say one of them was like globalsecurity.org, maybe I found it. But I was on one of those websites that I used to read about what was happening in the world, sort of from a, from a military geopolitical perspective, also has a bunch of manuals. So it had the new FM3 Tac 24 Counter Insurgency. And I, I literally read it that, like, that night, day, it's pretty long. And I just plucked

• 31:24Jocko Willink?

  things from it.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  And realized, okay, this is what we need to do. And I remember, I know I stole from it, because I remember my boss saying, you know, what's your objective in these types of operations? And I said, provide security for the populace, which I know I didn't make that up on my own. I didn't come up with that. That's 100% stolen from, from the counter insurgency manual. And, and that's what, that's what kind of drove me in that direction of like, hey, how can we really help the broader conventional forces that are here as, as they start to move in and try and stabilize what's happening?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's, it's funny you mention that, because we kind of evolved. And, and I read somewhere, or somebody told me, you know, you can't kill yourself out of an insurgency. And we, when we first got there, you know, our, our mission was to, you know, kill the insurgents. And we evolved into protecting the populace. Cause we realized, you know, the, the, the main, the main, uh, uh, goal here is to protect the populace in order to change chaos into, into something that was going to be calmer than chaos there. And, and so, uh, the same type of thinking you had about your, your mission of protecting

• 32:41Speaker 01

  the, the, the people of Ramadi, we, we kind of evolved into that too, from, uh, again, reading history, uh, talking to some of the Iraqi leaders in Ramadi that we would be dealing with on a regular basis. And, and we came to the, to the conclusion that, hey, if we're going to be successful here, it's about protecting the populace, not, not, not simply killing the bad guys. Now, sometimes you would have to kill bad guys in order to protect the populace. So I'm not saying, you know, that was totally off the table. Uh, but the, the mindset completely changed for us throughout that one year that we conducted operations there.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Awesome stuff. Um, getting back to the book here.

• 33:28Jocko Willink?

  You say, discipline, respect and selflessness are part of the United States Army's DNA forged over 200 years ago during the training of the Continental Army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. You throw in Pennsylvania any chance you get, Kent, don't you?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I, I got to, yeah.

• 33:43Jocko Willink?

  These traits have served our military well and account, at least in part, for the reason the United States military always tops polls announcing the most trusted organizations in America. Any leader would do well to demonstrate the traits of self-discipline, respect for others, and selflessness in order to lead effectively.

• 34:04Jocko Willink?

  Now you got a story in here about, uh, was it Sergeant Mike?

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Cotcher, Mike Cotcher.

• 34:10Jocko Willink?

  Cotcher. Tell us that story.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, Mike is, uh, an amazing, uh, person. Mike Cotcher was a soldier in the Pennsylvania National Guard 28th Infantry Division, uh, who, uh,

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Was deployed to Afghanistan. And while he was in Afghanistan, a rocket came in. This rocket landed about, I don't know, 10 feet away from him. And it just caused significant wounds to Mike Cotcher. Broke his jaw, you know, internal bleeding and damages. And then his left arm was wounded so significantly that it had to be amputated. And they, you know, as they were treating him, he was eventually put in a coma, an induced coma. And it took him two years to recover from these very, very significant wounds that he had.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And, you know, he had a lot to deal with, obviously, recovering from these wounds, not, you know, losing his arm, et cetera, et cetera. And he decided that the way he was going to overcome this adversity that he was facing was to just build himself up physically and compete in physical competition. And so he decided to enter the Invictus Games. And the Invictus Games were created, I think, by Prince Harry, if I'm not mistaken. And it was all about bringing, you know, wounded warriors together to compete in Olympic-style competition.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And so I believe it was in 2018 in Sydney, Australia, when Mike was competing in his third Invictus Game. As he was competing in some track and field events, he noticed this young girl, about eight years old, in the stands, and she was kinda, you know, shadowing him. Whatever event he would go to compete in, she would kinda, you know, move her seat and come over and watch him. And then he realized she had one arm. And when it came time for him to receive his silver medal that he earned, he asked Gemma to come up on the podium with him. And when he was given the silver medal, he took it from around his neck and put it around Gemma's

• 36:34Speaker 01

  neck and gifted the silver medal that he worked so hard for to this young eight-year-old Australian girl. And I had the opportunity to email back and forth with Gemma's father, who, again, is Australian, and he went on to tell me how that had just completely changed Gemma's life. Another interesting thing he told me, he said, you know, Gemma's arm was not amputated. She was born without that arm. And he said, and there's a psychological difference between having your arm amputated or being born without an arm. So he made that distinction clear to me.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  And he went on to say that, you know, from Mike doing that, what Mike probably thought was a very simple gesture, it just dramatically changed Gemma's life. And now she's competing in sports. As a matter of fact, I see pictures of her on Instagram where she's winning swim meets, and she's just ready to tear it up because of this very simple leadership gesture that Mike Cotcher demonstrated to her. And it just goes to show you that the simple things we do in life as leaders have a profound effect on those that we do those things for.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's similar to the butterfly effect, you know, that, you know, this could have a generational impact. I don't want to sound too dramatic here, but it could. It could have a generational impact on Gemma and on Gemma's children, if she has children someday, et cetera, et cetera, just because of that very selfless act that Mike Cotcher did. And you got to realize, you know, you worked hard to get the silver medal.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  I mean, just to give it away like that to somebody that you don't really know was was quite a gesture. So that's that's the story about Mike.

• 38:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can only imagine a young girl like that. And you know, young girls and boys, but I would I've got three daughters and one son, and I would say that girls are really self-conscious about, you know, those kinds of things, their body, they're they're self-conscious about that. And you could imagine someone like Gemma, who's sort of avoiding any time where all of a sudden this becomes the focus is like, what's different about her? And and him just come along and say, yeah, it's cool.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:02Jocko Willink?

  It's good.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  Don't worry about it. Go do your thing.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  And how much that just changed your life. That's awesome to hear.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:10Jocko Willink?

  You wrap up this idea here, you say self-discipline, giving up could become a habit. Working hard and striving continually to get better is also habit. Habits are developed through repetition, and where self-discipline comes in. Leaders who are self-disciplined adhere to the same standards they have set for their followers. They lead by example and share hardship, struggles, and tough jobs with their followers. By the way, adhering to the same standards you expect from others, and sharing the load are two of several actions a leader must take to instill trust throughout an organization. Self-disciplined people have the motivation to do the hard work behind the scenes, which makes them great at what they do. These people have the drive

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  to act in order to make themselves better and to avoid anything detrimental to achieving their goals. This work ethic generally has a way of making everyone around them better, too. Self-disciplined leaders have a bias for action, and in uncertain times, leaders dispel uncertainty through competent and confident actions. Self-disciplined leaders have an offensive mindset and do not allow setbacks or obstacles to stop progress. Good leaders find a way to win, and inspire faith and belief throughout an organization. Some people are born with a greater propensity to be self-disciplined than others. Like other traits, self-discipline can be developed. For those who have poor self-discipline, I have found the best way to improve self-discipline is to do some small things and work yourself

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  into a more difficult things. If you hit a bump and backslide a bit, do not beat yourself up. Just get back with the program. Remember, good habits are developed through self-discipline of continuing to do those things.

• 40:52Jocko Willink?

  I get asked this question a decent amount.

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  Am I disciplined because I was in the Navy? Or am I disciplined because I am disciplined? And I don't know, what do you think?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I think, I think the training that you received in the Navy certainly, certainly helped is my belief.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  And, and I think goals are important, you know, I mean, if, if, if you have no goals in your life, nothing that's meaningful and purposeful for you to work toward. What the hell are you going to be disciplined about, you know, I mean, you're going to be kind of like just, just drifting one way or the other. So I think, uh, you know, people that have specific goals, you know, your goal to be a SEAL, your goal once you were a SEAL to, you know, be a SEAL commander, et cetera, et cetera. Kind of sets you up to be more disciplined about achieving those goals. So, uh, I, I, I think it's probably a little bit of, of both.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Uh, but I do think the path you chose and those goals you had, uh, probably did a lot to help you become a very self-disciplined person.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  And you think that's the same for you then?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Well, um, I do, I, I, I think if I didn't take the path I, I, I did by, by getting into the Army. Uh, I probably wouldn't have had the benefit of those NCOs and, and other role models who showed me that in order to achieve something, you really got to work hard for it. Now, yeah, when I was growing up as a kid, you know, my, my dad, my, my family tried to show me those things. Uh, so I, I think it's,

• 42:40Speaker 01

  you know, now that I'm thinking of it, it's, it's kind of, I think, um, building blocks along the way in your life, you know, you're going to learn some of that from your family. And then, you know, I'm a big believer in sports, you know, you play sports like, you know, I played some sports in high school and you have to be disciplined in order to get out there on a field and not get yourself beat up, right? Uh, and, and then, you know, you, you, you join the military and again, you've got to show some discipline in order to, because you know, people are counting on you. And, and in order to achieve what, what, what you want to in, in that regard. So I think it's really like a building block as you go through your life. And some people are fortunate to have.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Role models and mentors in their life who are going to show them why discipline is important. And then you just continue with it.

• 43:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think I was, I don't know if this is luck or unlucky. I was lucky in the fact that I wasn't really great at anything. And when I got to the SEAL teams, if I didn't work hard, I was gonna look like an idiot. And I didn't want to look like an idiot and I didn't want to let my teammates down. So I had to just work hard to be ready for stuff. That's definitely the, that definitely influenced my path quite a bit. I think if I would have been a natural, a naturally gifted athlete, I would, I probably would have had less discipline. I would have needed as much discipline. But, but the other thing you gotta remember is people get out of the SEAL teams. And sometimes they're even still in the SEAL teams and they, you know, they, they let themselves go. They don't practice, they don't train, they get out of shape.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's, so just because you were in the military, just because you were in the SEAL teams or whatever you did. And you gotta maintain that discipline. That discipline is not, it's not a chip that they put into your brain that now you got it. You don't have to worry about it anymore. No, no, you still gotta go.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, Jack, and I, I do think that's why purpose is so important. And, and those goals are so important because the same at Ranger School, you know. You know, you get, you get that Ranger tab and that's when the hard work should start. Because now you've got to prove it every day that I, I deserve to have this Ranger tab on my shoulder. And I, and I see it, you know, folks I know that, that went to Ranger School and now they're out of the military. And they kind of just like let themselves go. And, and it's probably because they don't have that, that purpose anymore or that goal anymore. And I, I, I think that's an unfortunate thing. And that's why purpose is so important. That's why I think leaders have to be able to communicate purpose to their followers.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  So their followers understand, and I know you talk about this in your dichotomy of leadership book. You know, so, so people understand, why am I doing this thing that the leader has told me to do? Well, if you don't explain the purpose, the leaders aren't, or the, the followers aren't going to get it.

• 45:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:35Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit dignity and respect leaders demonstrate leaders demonstrate respect for others by the words they choose the tone of voice they use and by treating people with dignity demonstrating respect is also about being considered of a person's time and showing interest in what others think good leaders treat others respectfully regardless of position good leaders treat the maintenance person with the same amount of respect they treat the CEO. I believe it is impossible to be toxic leader to be a toxic leader if you treat those people you lead with dignity and respect this does not mean you cannot hold people to the prescribed standard and counsel them however there is a dignified and respectful way to do those things

• 46:15Jocko Willink?

  a leader could even fire someone in a dignified and respectful way a rule to follow is praise in public reprimand in private now what's interesting about this paragraph is this is anybody that doesn't that has sort of a surface view of the military they don't think that this is they don't think this is applicable at all in the military I guess it's just from boot camp movies right I guess it's just from Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket has has given and I love that movie it's a great movie it's it's incredible movie and it is accurate you know you talk to any Marine look they don't use the same language that they used back then but man boot camp is boot camp and it is yelling and screaming making people uncomfortable and and

• 46:57Jocko Willink?

  really not treating them with treating them with disrespect especially in the beginning so I think movies like that have given this false image of the military that that's how military leadership works and it and it is not true now are there leaders that act like that yeah there absolutely are in the military and guess what there's leaders that act like that in the civilian sector too that act that are disrespectful that treat people bad they're in leadership positions and and it's not good it is not good and and what's interesting about this is I can yell and scream. If I, if I'm your boss, I can yell and scream at you and you're probably gonna do what I tell you. You're intimidated. You don't want to get fired. You, you don't want

• 47:41Jocko Willink?

  to hear me yell and scream. So you go do what I told you to do. And so I get some positive feedback on my yelling and screaming. However, as soon as you get home, you're on monster.com looking for a new job because you don't want to be working with me because I'm a jerk.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:54Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, how much effort do you actually give? You know, do you give 110%? No, you probably give 72%, which is the bare minimum you needed to give to get the job done. So all my yelling and screaming got me the bare minimum that you are going to produce. Whereas if I treated you with respect, you're going to give 110%. You're going to do that job better than I could do it and better than you could do it with your minimum effort. So this idea, treating people with respect, I mean, this is just, it seems like common sense. And I think sometimes, I mean, I had this happen when I, when I started working with companies. The very, actually it wasn't the very first. It was one of the first companies I started working with. And I'm on the phone with the, the CEO doing an introductory call.

• 48:35Jocko Willink?

  And he says, I can't wait till you get out here and whip my people into shape. And I said, hey, you know something? If you want someone to whip your people into shape, you should get someone else. Because whipping people is what happens. That's what you do to slaves. And slaves is not a good environment. And no one wants to be a slave. And they don't do the job that they're supposed to do. They'll do the bare minimum so they don't get punished for it. So I'm glad you got this section in here.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, Jaco, I have, you know, business owners talk to me about that all the time, you know, like, why can't I be a toxic leader? You know, get, get, get the job done, you know, get shit done, you know, that type of thing. And it's kind of like, you know what? You could be a toxic leader. And like you said, you could yell and scream and people are going to listen to you and they're going to do it. But if you're looking for sustained success over the long period of time, that's where, you know, toxic leadership does not work. Because toxic leadership could work for short-term gain, but if you want sustained success over time, that's not the way to do it.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Certainly is not.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit here. And again, if you're listening to me read this, I'm just jumping through various sections. It's not going to sound completely cohesive as I read it, but you get the book and it is completely cohesive. Next section I want to read here is, uh, to be successful in life, you must make yourself vulnerable. There's no risk without reward. With that said, the risk you take must be prudent and must include risk analysis and risk mitigation measures. Nothing is risk-free and seldom can a person eliminate risk entirely. Although risk cannot be eliminated, leaders must identify ways to reduce the most probable and highest impact risks. I think this is funny because I say to leaders all the time, if there's no risk, it's not even a decision. What's the decision? If there's no risk and

• 50:29Jocko Willink?

  it's just a benefit, cool, we're doing it. We're not even talking, that's not a decision, that's just what we're doing.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and I think that's why some leaders fail to have the courage to make decisions because with almost any decision you're making, there's some sort of risk associated with that. And, uh, again, if you're going to look at gaining anything for your organization, you know, we talked about, you know, moving yourself out of your comfort zone, you've got to move your organization out of its comfort zone too. And so it's, it's, it's about, okay, understanding what those risks are, and then how am I going to reduce the probability of this happening and also reduce the impact of it happening?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  And those, those are certain steps you could take. You know, I talk about optimism a lot, and especially, you know, if you hit a really bad day, a really bad day.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  You know, you have to be optimistic and then lead your organization through that. But it's not just because you're telling people, hey, things are going to get better. You've actually got to put a plan together that's believable to your followers. So it's just not about, you know, what you say. It's about, okay, what plan have we put together now that's going to show that we're going to be able to do things a little bit differently to overcome this adversity. So, you know, that's really, and it takes a lot of hard work and it doesn't come easy.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was, whenever I talk about you got to believe in the mission, right? And I say, believe isn't, doesn't mean the old saying of you can believe it, you can achieve it. Actually not true. Because I could say, I believe I can fly. I'm not going to be able to fly. To me, believe, belief in the mission means you see an actual pathway to achieve the mission. And it might be challenging and there's going to be bumps and hurdles and obstacles along the way, but we are going to be able to do it. And hey, everyone, here's how we're going to get there. And as long as you can show people an actual pathway to get to this victory, then you can, then people can believe in what you're doing, for sure.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and, you know, I'll just reflect back on a bad day. You know, I had January 5th, 2006. I think you're familiar with the glass factory bombing there in Ramadi. And, you know, you have a bad day like that and you just, you know, as a leader, you just can't cave in.

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  So, so give everyone a little brief. I mean, obviously, I knew about it. I arrived there shortly thereafter and I tracked it as it happened. I mean, it was a horrific incident at a police recruiting event. So recruiting local police in the city of Ramadi to come and join the Iraqi police and become the defenders of the city and help the local populace, what we talked about earlier, defend the populace. Here you go, come and sign up. And it was actually going pretty well and then this event happened.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was going remarkably well. You know, when we first got there, I guess it was July of 2005.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Next June and July I'm there, of course, but July of 2005, you know, we started police recruiting events and we'd have like two or three people show up to join the police. I mean, it was pathetic. And, you know, we started to talk to the sheikhs and actually through our talks with the sheikhs, they would tell us some things that our troops were doing that probably weren't that beneficial to the citizens of Ramadi. So we started to change up some of our tactics and procedures. That didn't affect our operation, but it

• 54:35Speaker 01

  helped the sheikhs understand that, hey, we were really here for your people, for your tribe. And this really demonstrated itself in January of 2006. We held this recruiting event. It was January 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And on January 3rd, we had 200 people show up at the glass factory in Ramadi where we're conducting this event at.

• 55:03Jocko Willink?

  And the glass factory is an old factory, but it's a nice, big building and it was right outside or very close to the main US camp of Camp Ramadi. So it was a pretty good spot to do it.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. It was a good spot to do it. 200 people showed up the first day. It's like, we can't believe this. Like before, we're having two or three people show up. We've got 200 people standing in line to join the police. So the sheik, you know, that told us the sheikhs were getting the word out to their tribespeople that, hey, come and we trust these Americans. Come in. And so the second day, we had around 450, 500 people standing in line to join the police. It's like, this is incredible. The third day, and as I reflect back on it, you know, whenever you're operating in an insurgency environment, you don't want to do things three days in a row. So it was a big mistake

• 55:53Speaker 01

  I made. Third day, we had about 800 people standing in line. I mean, we were ecstatic. We thought we really turned a corner here. And a suicide bomber, because this was the third day in a row we were doing this, suicide bomber shows up and detonates their vest right in the middle of this large crowd, killing over 100 Iraqis and killed a Marine dog handler, Sergeant Khan, and also a good friend of mine, Lieutenant Colonel Mike McLaughlin, and injured several other of our soldiers, some severely, but thank God no one else died, no other US military died from that attack.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  And so that was a really, really bad day. The way I handled it is I brought the leaders together the following day, because two weeks from that particular day, we were going to have 200 Iraqis show up at the glass factory again, so we could ship them to Baghdad to attend police training. So we knew we were going to have a similar situation, so got everybody together the next day. And the importance of leaders admitting when they do something wrong, I think, really comes out here, because when I got everybody together, and I don't know what they were thinking, maybe they were thinking I was going to try to blame somebody, I don't know,

• 57:18Speaker 01

  but the first thing I said was, "We're not going to waste time fixing blame on anybody because I'm the one responsible for this. So forget about fixing blame, it's on me. What we need to spend our time doing is talk about how are we going to change things so this doesn't happen two weeks from now when we do the same event again." Because, you know, we had to publicize this so people knew to show up, so it's not like you're keeping it from the insurgents. And so I'm not going to get into the details of how we change things, but we changed things significantly in terms of the way the outside of that glass factory was set up. So if, God forbid, a suicide bomber was going to blow themselves up again, the most they

• 58:01Speaker 01

  could take out would be about 10 people, rather than 100 or more. And so the point is, when leaders hit these bad days, this adversity, there's...

• 58:17Speaker 01

  The organization is counting on you to find a way through it. And that was a lesson I learned. I mentioned, you know, this book is filled with mistakes I made that I was able to learn from. And by putting this book out, hopefully, others won't have to make similar mistakes. And so, the whole point of what I just said is, when you hit adversity, you've got to be able to be resilient enough to fight your way through that for the organization. And again, that's not going to come by itself.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  You've got to prepare and develop your resiliency before these bad days happen, because we all know they're going to happen. And then, it's also the important part of a leader admitting they made a mistake, so the organization doesn't have to start pointing fingers at one another. Because if you don't do that, and you can't develop that sense of trust, because people know when you screwed up, okay? And if people are expending more energy on watching their own back, they're not going to be expending energy on getting done what the organization needs to get done. Because watching your own back takes a hell of a lot of energy, doesn't it?

• 59:42Speaker 01

  And so, that's really the moral of the story.

• 59:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's a... And you were there when this, when we had a blue on blue that I wrote about in Extreme Ownership. And it's the same, you know, it's the same exact approach I took, which was, hey, there's a friendly Iraqi soldier dead, there's several Iraqis wounded, one of my guys is wounded, who are we going to blame? Don't look any further than me, because this is on me. And it is on me. This is happening, I'm the senior guy out on the battlefield, this is 100% my fault. And that way, yeah, we don't have to look at who we're going to point fingers at, no one has to worry about, hey, am I going to leave you out to dry? I'm not going to hang you out to dry. This is 100% on me. And then, we... How do we prevent this from ever happening again? It's the thing a leader has to do in those situations.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit here. You talk about creating a vision. You say, "The concept of a leader providing a vision to an organization they lead is at least 2,000 years old." In the King's James Version of the Bible, Proverbs 29:18 reads, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." An early point in my experience leading people, I became aware that providing a vision of the future was one of the most important things a leader can do. The whole concept of leadership is about taking people to a place where they could not reach on their own. I have found that when I provide a vision of the future to a group I lead, it motivates and inspires them to work toward achieving a desired end state. That is why I believe creating a shared vision and communicating it consistently are important

• 1:01:13Jocko Willink?

  roles of a leader. Visualizing achievement is essential if you are to gain success. A vision must be a simple, unique, ideal image of the future. Ideally, the vision a leader develops should be a shared vision. A shared vision not only, does not only mean everyone in the organization believes in the vision, but also that representative members of the organization have provided input to create the vision. Occasionally, I'll get, I talk about decentralized command all the time with all the companies I work with, and occasionally I'll get someone saying, "Hey, you know, I, I, I feel like the, the team doesn't really know where we're going, and I'm trying to lead them in the

• 1:01:58Jocko Willink?

  right direction, but I don't want to impose it on them." And, and I, I say, "Listen, it is okay for a leader sometime to say, 'Hey, everyone, this is where we're going.'" Because not everyone has the visibility that you have from your leadership perspective. You know, if you're in charge of a project, not everyone can see all the moving pieces, so they might not see, "Hey, this is where we need to go, this is what we're doing." Is it good to get input for that collective vision? Absolutely, absolutely. But you may be in a situation where other members of the team don't have the vision that you have because, just because of where you're sitting. Or where you're standing, you can see a little bit more, you have a little bit more visibility on things. So sometimes you do have to make the vision. And as soon as you make that vision, your vision doesn't, isn't written in stone, or you shouldn't write your vision

• 1:02:43Jocko Willink?

  in stone. If you write your vision in stone, you're probably making a mistake. And some people might think that that sounds weak. Well, you're going to change your vision. Actually, I may change the vision if we get to a point where we need to do something just like when you were in Ramadi, you say, hey, wait a second, we've been doing things like this, we're not getting any progress with the shakes. The shakes are telling us, oh, guess what we're going to do? Adjust our vision. So there's nothing wrong with adjusting your vision. And there's nothing wrong with, if you're not getting feedback, it's okay. Cool. Watch this. Here's the vision. Here's what we're going to do. Start moving in that direction. Adapt as needed.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you know, totally agree. One, one thing I learned when, God, this is back around late 90s, around the year 2000, it was before 9/11, when I took command of 55th Brigade, you know, National Guard Brigade, so, you know, about 3,000 soldiers distributed across northeastern Pennsylvania, down toward the Philadelphia area. And, you know, 85% of them had full-time civilian jobs. So like, man, I gotta develop a vision for this organization in order for us to show some, you know, to move forward here. And what I did is I went

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  around to representative samplings of soldiers who were part of that brigade. I would talk to a PFC that had like a year in the Army, you know, I would talk to a major who had, you know, maybe 16, 17 years in the Army and, and every, and a few folks in between there. I mean, 3,000 soldiers, you can't talk to all of them and say, hey, where do you want to see this brigade go? And, and the question I would ask them, I would say, hey, you know, if you fell asleep for five years and woke up five years from now, what would you want to see this brigade look like then, you know? And the funny thing is, whether it was a soldier, low rank, one-year experience, or higher-ranking officer with 17 years' experience, everybody kind of wanted the same thing.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  They wanted to be well-trained, so if we had to deploy, we'd be able to do our job successfully. And that ended up essentially what the vision was. So what it taught me, and this goes for any business leader out there trying to develop a vision for their organization, and many organizations are working distributed now, you know, with the pandemic and everything else, it's try to get a, you know, when I say "shared vision," try to get a representative sample, if you could, of where people would like to see it go. And ultimately, you as the leader, like you said, you've got a broader view of everything. So yeah, you've finally got to put a stake in the ground, say, "Yeah, this is going to be our vision." But I think it's a good idea to get a representative's sampling of those in your organization.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  And then, you know, when you get it out there, you know, you've got to share it in a multitude of ways, you know? When you're speaking to people one-on-one, you've got to communicate that vision. When you're speaking to a group of 500, you've got to communicate the vision through email, through your website, through whatever, you know, social media means you might want to use. But the vision then has to be consistent, you know? It can't be a new flavor of the month, or a new vision of the quarter. You know, like you said, visions could change, but it shouldn't be changing on a very, very frequent basis. That's where I learned about developing a vision, you know, over 20 years ago.

• 1:06:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's always interesting, like, that's alignment, right? No matter who you talk to, you talk to a frontline individual that's been in the Army for six months, you talk to someone that's been in the Army for 20 years, enlisted officer on both ends of that spectrum, and they all say, "Oh, well, I'd like that if we get deployed, we're ready to do our job." You can make so many decisions based on that, just knowing that right there. "Hey, is it going to help us do our job if we spend time, you know, clowning around at work on our drill weekend? Is it going to help us be ready to do our job? No, it's not, so let's do something else." And that goes up and down the chain of command. And now that we have that shared, aligned vision, now we can all make a bunch of decisions just based on the fact that we know that when we deploy, we want to be ready to do our job, we want to be effective.

• 1:06:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay, does this help us be effective or not? And we can make a decision. So that's important stuff.

• 1:06:55Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, you know, this has got a chapter in here called keeping your feet on the ground, which is about humility. You say, "I worked for an arrogant leader before. It was not any fun. All of us who worked for this man felt our opinions were not valued. He was the kind of guy who said things like, "When I want your opinion, I'll tell you what it is." Stereotypical military, but not actual military. "We believed we were not respected and we felt more like objects rather than we were part of the team. The result was our initiative, imagination and creativity were stifled. As you can imagine, the leader failed." Again, this is a, this is one of those false images of military leadership. Does it happen? Yes, it does happen. And, and here's something else I'll tell you about this.

• 1:07:41Jocko Willink?

  You want to know, it does happen more often in the military. And one of the reasons it happens more often in the military is because in the military, you're only in command for two years, generally speaking. So, most of the enlisted guys, you're working for a jerk or an arrogant person, it takes them three months or three to six months to go, "Hey, this guy really is arrogant." Then at six months, they're like, "Oh God, what are we going to do about it? This guy's horrible." Now it's a year. Now they start thinking, "Hey, we should really do something about this. We should get rid of this guy. We should run it up the chain of command. We should fill out our surveys, our command climate surveys and report what a jerk this guy is." And then it's 18 months and then they go, "You know what? He's going to be gone in six months. Let's just freaking deal with it." And that guy never gets the feedback and so everything that he did worked and it's positive feedback and it's a positive feedback loop.

• 1:08:25Jocko Willink?

  He thinks he did a good job because he yelled and screamed and didn't take anyone's opinion and now he gets promoted. That's the unfortunate reality of the military.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the other interesting thing with that, you know, we could call that guy a toxic leader, is I've found that toxic leaders are very good at not letting their people they work for, their superior officers, whatever you want to call it. See their toxicity.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  They're they're able to hide it.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  I've known a lot of military leaders that everyone above them in the chain of command loved them. Everybody below them in the chain of command hated them.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  Because above the chain of command, they'd see someone that's making stuff happen.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:03Jocko Willink?

  Below the chain of command, they're getting they're the ones that are freaking being driven to, you know, bloody fingers as they try and get the job done. And yeah, that that happens often.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing how good they are at hiding that toxicity when they're talking to somebody who who they work for.

• 1:09:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you got to be careful as a leader to make sure that that's not happening. That's why it's important, like you said, to go down and talk to the troops.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  And say, hey, what's what's Echo Charles like as a leader? How's that going? And you know what they're gonna say at first? They're gonna say, he's he's great. But you got to ask them, well, how often does he talk to you? Does he take care? You know, you got to dig it out of them.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Because most of them, they don't want to they don't want to they don't want to make they don't want that beef, as Echo would say.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  And you know, the the more you get down there, you know, I call it muddy muddy boots leadership. The more you get down there to talk to the troops, you know, whether it be military civilian, then you're able to develop that trust too. Because you're right, the first time you go down and ask somebody, hey, how's it going? They're not going to be totally honest with you if they don't know you. But the more they get used to seeing you come around and and just having a rapport and see that you're, hey, a normal guy, and you really do want the best for the organization.

• 1:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  They're going to loosen up and tell you the truth.

• 1:10:15Jocko Willink?

  Also, don't burn your sources, you know?

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Jocko Willink?

  Don't don't go back and say, hey, Echo, I need to talk to you. John Gronski said you were a tyrant. And all that, that's you're never going to get any information again.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  So you got to be careful about that one. Fast forward a little bit. One of the best ways a leader could show respect to others is by asking for their opinion and then seriously considering it. Leaders empower others in an organization simply by listening. To stay level headed and keep one's feet placed firmly on the ground, leaders must acknowledge others for their contributions to this team's success. So, this is something I've written about, talking about, listening is, I think is the most underrated, possibly the most underrated aspect of leadership. The only other one that's in a close second, and it correlates very directly is asking earnest questions. Ask earnest questions and then listen to what people have to say.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  And you know, some leaders think they're listening, but their actions don't show that they're listening. You know, like, you're going to talk to somebody, "Hey, hey, could I have a minute? Could I talk to you?" And, you know, the leader is, you know, checking their phone while you're talking to them, or they're, you know, tapping something on the keyboard or their computer while you're talking to them, or you're talking to them, they're looking off at somebody else, you know, it's kind of like, "Wow, is this guy really listening to me?"

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  You know, that leader might think they're listening, but their actions are showing that they're not really listening. So, it's important that you really do that active listening.

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  Actually listen.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:48Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Identify your core values. To develop strong character, you must take the time to figure out what you stand for and what your core values really are. This came to light for me many years ago. I attended a dinner at which the speaker gave an impassioned talk about his own personal core values. The next day, as I was still thinking about what I heard, I realized if someone asked me what my personal core values were, I would not be able to give an answer. Sure, I had values, I tried to be an ethical person, but to that point, I never took the time to think long and hard about exactly what I stood for and my principles. I never took the time to consider what values were most important to me.

• 1:12:26Jocko Willink?

  Important.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  You know, the other thing about values, if you don't understand what your own personal core values are, when you make personal decisions, or when it comes a time for you to make a personal decision about something, I really believe you have to factor your personal core values in the decisions you make. So, if you don't have those core values... articulated in your own mind, how are you going to factor them in to your decision? And the same with organizations. You know, organizations, many organizations have organizational values. But when the leadership team gets together with the CEO and they're in the, you know,

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  they're going through this decision-making process, how many of them actually factor the organizational values into the decision that they're making? Which I would think, I would just guess many don't even think about their values when they're making a business decision.

• 1:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, which is crazy to think about. If you're making decisions, you might as well just be making decisions in the blind.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then, and then you're not being true to your values. And again, that breaks trust with your customers, or that breaks trust with your employees, or whomever that particular decision is going to affect. So, yeah, really, that's why values are so important, I believe. And then the other thing, behaviors, I think, are important, too. You know, I know a lot of organizations are getting, you know, they do have organizational values, but now they're also getting into organizational behaviors. So they actually list out, you know, maybe between 10 to 20 behaviors that they expect from their employees, which I think is, is very important. As a matter of fact, a consulting firm, I used to work for, Green Castle Consulting,

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  has expected behaviors that they want their consultants to demonstrate. And I think that's a very good way to look at things. Because, you know, values are kind of conceptual. Behaviors are more tangible. And, and I do think, you know, identifying expected behaviors is really helpful in, in getting your employees to treat customers or treat each other the way you want them to.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is something that I was acutely aware of, especially with kids. And when I wrote the first Warrior Kid book, the whole, actually, the entire premise of the first book is the kid has to come up with a warrior kid code of what he's gonna, and, and his uncle in this book, it's a kid's book, but the kid's uncle is, was in the SEAL teams. And so he introduces him, he can see that the kid's kind of floating around, not making the best decisions. And so he says, hey, warriors live by a code. And I point out, you know, the Marine Corps values, the Ranger code, the, I just point out, the ancient, you know, the Samurai code, the Viking code, and I put them all in the book.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  And say, hey, you need to make your own code. And the kid ends up writing his own code and the uncle approves it, this warrior kid code. And then eventually I wrote another book called The Code, The Evaluation of Protocols, which literally has like a code saying, hey, as an adult, you still need a code. You still need to figure out what it is you're trying to do. What are you trying to do with your life? And if, again, if you have this code in place, hey, I want to be healthy. Cool. Is that donut gonna help me be healthy? No, it's not. Don't eat it. Hey, I want to be, I want to spend quality time with my family. Okay, why am I watching TV right now? Okay, don't watch TV. If you have something to live by, then it's gonna make your life that much better. And, and that's why the Warrior Kid Code and the Code of the Evaluation of Protocol,

• 1:16:16Jocko Willink?

  that's the purpose of those, say, hey, listen. And, and in both those cases, I say, write your own code. Cause you shouldn't follow my code, but I can pretty much guarantee you, most people would have an 80% overlap on what their code is gonna be. I mean, I might be more into, you know, martial arts than someone else might be more into fishing. But if you're gonna focus on some part of your life, there's gonna be an 80%. Who doesn't want to be healthy? Who doesn't want to have a good family? Who doesn't want to be financially successful? Who wants to save money? Like all these things, it's a 90% solution. And you can make some small adjustments to it, but to wander through life without that stuff is exactly that. It's wandering through life.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, Jaco, I think you putting that emphasis on code in, in that book is one of the best things you've ever done. Because if you want to keep people on an ethical path, one of the guardrails to stay on that ethical path is by actually writing down what your own personal code is.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  And then that will help you stay grounded and help you stay on that path. That's just a great technique to use to keep somebody, you know, staying within those limits. Because how many times have we seen CEOs, COOs, governors, you know, stray ethically off the path?

• 1:17:35Jocko Willink?

  Presidents.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, presidents, you know?

• 1:17:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, anyone in the chain of command from the bottom to the top.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and again, it's because they either never took the time to write down their own personal code, or if they've written it down, now they're not paying attention to it. So I think that's great advice you gave out there.

• 1:17:52Jocko Willink?

  This is one of the sections where I actually made a note of your action section of the book. So here, here's the actions, and you did this for every one of these sections. You identify actions to actually take to move forward and improve this area of leadership. So here the actions are identify your own personal core values. Ensure your personal core values and the values of the organization you work for are aligned. When making a decision, factor your personal values and your organization's values into your decision-making process. Strive to place the welfare and interests of your followers ahead of your own.

• 1:18:31Jocko Willink?

  And, and those are some things, some actions that you can take to make this a reality. And hey, identify your own personal core values and write them down. It's something everybody should do.

• 1:18:45Jocko Willink?

  Section here called cultivating trust. And you get in this situation where it's 1999.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  1999, you're going to Lithuania. Let me go to the book here. The country had regained its independence only about six years earlier. It was going to be my job to work with the Lithuanian military to help them understand how the US military functioned and grow the relationship between the US and Lithuania. I would have a team of three other US military personnel representing the Marines, Army, and Air Force. And the team would also include one Lithuanian Army officer and three Lithuanian civilians. And this is, you're coming off, I think you're coming off battalion command at this point. So you were just done leading 800 people, and now you've got a team of seven. You arrive in Lithuania for this job. And I gotta read this part. After I was on board for a couple of weeks,

• 1:19:39Jocko Willink?

  I began to come up with what I thought were some excellent ideas. Instead of tackling the work myself, I gave began to shoot off yellow sticky notes to everyone, giving them tasks to do. I had plenty of bright ideas and I shot off plenty of taskers to them. I thought I was making a great impression on the team because of my exceptional ideas. However, I could not explain it, but something seemed to be amiss. Somehow I did not feel the team was comfortable under my leadership. I had an Army Reserve Major working on my team as an operations officer. He was a bright guy with an analytical mind and positive demeanor. One morning, when I was sitting in my office, he knocked on my door and asked if he could speak to me privately. I brightened up. I was all about this. I thought to myself, there is a young officer who needs advice from a sage like me. The major sat down and I asked him what was on his mind.

• 1:20:24Jocko Willink?

  His answer floored me. He said, sir, you are tearing this team apart. He went on to say that since I arrived, morale was at an all time low. The team's perception of my leadership performance was 180 degrees from what I was hoping for. Their perception was not the boss is a sharp guy. He has great ideas. Rather, their perception was negative, including such thoughts as the new boss thinks things are all screwed up here. The new boss thinks we are all screwed up. The new boss thinks we have nothing to do. The new boss does not trust us. Notice the us versus him attitude that developed here. This was definitely a lesson learned for me. Thankfully, I had someone on the team with enough guts to discuss the issue with me. I thank the major for the personal and moral courage he displayed by discussing the issue with me.

• 1:21:06Jocko Willink?

  I had no idea that through my behavior and tone, I was giving everyone such a negative perception of how I thought they were performing. You go on here, look, fast forward a little bit. What I did to to repair trust. I immediately met with the team members and apologized for the mistake I made. I took full ownership of creating a perception that I did not trust them. I told them I trusted them completely. I explained to them that I now realized how my behavior was negatively affecting the team. I promised them I would change my behavior.

• 1:21:33Jocko Willink?

  That's a good story.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Jocko Willink?

  Freaking battalion commander, post battalion commander rolling in, the good idea fairy.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42Jocko Willink?

  Is what we call that.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  You know, and that taught me that whether you lead an organization of 800 or you lead an organization of eight, the leadership challenges are there. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't get any easier or harder depending on the number of people you lead. You know, you've still got those challenges. The folks on your team are still expecting you to be a good leader, a positive influence on them. And as I mentioned in the book, I'm just glad that this guy had the personal courage to come up and tell me about it.

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  It was really, it was really life-changing for me because that really got me on a journey to really study what trust is all about. And not only how to cultivate trust, but also how to repair trust if you unfortunately break it.

• 1:22:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, and one thing that is nice is luckily, you must have given him some kind of an impression that you were somewhat approachable. And I can guarantee you, there's the, the fitness reports of the world and evaluations are littered with people that decided they were going to go tell their boss, hey, this is what it looks like. And they get scorched for it.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Jocko Willink?

  Because the person didn't have an open mind and didn't really want to hear them. So luckily, you had an open mind and were humble enough to say, ooh, that's not good. I, I made a mistake. Unfortunately, the bosses that oftentimes need that sort of personal guidance are the types of bosses that aren't open to that type of personal guidance, unfortunately.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, scary. But I'm glad you, I'm glad you complimented his moral courage.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I realize how hard that, that was for him. And, and again, I think that, you know, the lesson for anybody out here listening is, hey, you know, you, you could be, you know, you could be a jackass, you know, if you want to be and not be approachable and, you know, hey, my way or the highway, I'm the boss, you know, who are you to tell me what to do or give me advice? But you're probably only going to go so far in, in, you know, your journey as a leader. And if you really want to have long-term success, you've, you've got to follow some of these basic leadership tenants, you know?

• 1:24:02Jocko Willink?

  Next chapter, what leadership is all about and, and, and you have a great combat story about, what is it, gunny sergeant?

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, gunny sergeant Burkhart.

• 1:24:11Jocko Willink?

  Or master sergeant.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he retired as a master sergeant.

• 1:24:14Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding. Um, just a real, real show of courage. You told the story on the last podcast, you recite it with some more detail in here in the book, just of a, of a guy that just is unstoppable. Um, so I, I won't, I won't cover that right now. Get the book to read that story. Um, but you do say this about leadership. Effective leadership is measured by the results an organization achieves. After all, organizations exist to achieve their purpose and attain results. Leaders cannot attain results on their own. Leaders must enlist the support of their followers to be successful. When leaders demonstrate to followers, they care by placing their followers' welfare ahead of their own. That is a great way for the leader to gain follower support.

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Former Army Chief of Staff, General Gordon Sullivan, in his book, Hope is Not a Method, says, "Our effectiveness as leaders is not so much what we do as, as in what influence, as what we influence others to do. A leader must inspire others to be their best and to work toward achieving organizational objectives. A leader is nothing without support of those he or she leads. Using the model of character competence, direction, and overcoming adversity is a framework for enlisting and retaining support, which will lead to organizational results and success." If you're doing your job as a leader, the, the, the team is going to be doing what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah. Don't forget that.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  And, and, and you know, uh, it, it, it's all about, you know, being fortunate enough to have people around you like, like a gunny, Michael Burkhart. And one, one other quick story I want to tell that's, that's not in the book. I didn't mention it last time, uh, but I, I think it's inspiring. We have this one soldier from the 28th Infantry Division who came to Ramadi with us. His name is Anthony Jorgensen. And again, we got there in July of 2005. It was in the fall of 2005. He was in an uparmored Humvee, I believe it was in the gunner's position. ID detonates, causes his uparmored Humvee to flip over on its side. He ends up having a broken arm and I think a broken

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  leg, both. And so gets sent back home to the United States, recovers from his wounds. And it was sometime in early 2006, he tells the leadership in the Pennsylvania Guard, "Hey, I want to go back over to Ramadi." You know, it's like they can't believe it. It's kind of like, "No, we are not sending you back." So, I did have a battalion from the Vermont National Guard there with me, task organized to my brigade. So, this guy leaves the Pennsylvania National Guard, joins the Vermont National Guard, just so he could get Vermont to send them back over to Ramadi, be part of that battalion. So, he gets back

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  over there, and then it's April 2006. He's out there on another patrol, and he's in a support-by-fire position. He's in the gunner's compartment of this uparmored Humvee. There's some dismounts going into a building that they believed insurgents were in. And an insurgent fires an RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade, at this uparmored Humvee that Jorgensen is in. And, and just like, wings it, you know, slight damage to the Humvee. He gets knocked down out of the gunner's hatch, gets back up there. He sees that insurgents are pinning down these dismounts that are out there. So, he jumps down into the driver's

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  compartment, drives that uparmored Humvee between where the insurgents are firing and these dismounts that were pinned down, gets back up into the gunner's compartment and lays down suppressive fire on these insurgents, allowing these dismounts to disengage and then continue to mission. All this after suffering these wounds in that attack back in the fall. Now, how many... You know, how many people would, you know, leave Ramadi with, with, you know, honorable wounds like he did and then fight to get back over there and then, you know, does this heroic action, uh, which I believe he got a brown star with V for, for,

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  for doing what he did. But just, just, again, the reason I want to bring that story up is, these soldiers are so inspiring and, and, and, you know, you know, we think as leaders, we should be inspiring our followers, but our followers have a way, especially in the military, of inspiring us and some of these stories just have to be told.

• 1:28:54Jocko Willink?

  Anthony Jorgensen, what's he doing now? Do you know?

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he lives up in the Scranton area and, uh,

• 1:28:59Jocko Willink?

  Just kidnapped in the Scranton area.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. So just, just very proud of,

• 1:29:04Jocko Willink?

  You know what he does for a living?

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Um, offhand, I don't know.

• 1:29:07Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, uh,

• 1:29:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, we salute you, Anthony Jorgensen.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he needs that shout out.

• 1:29:13Jocko Willink?

  What a beast.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, you get blown up by an IED and thrown out of your vehicle. Like you say, oh, he, he had these wounds. You, he's lucky to be alive after that happens.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Jocko Willink?

  And then you get hit with an RPG, you're lucky to be alive and Humvee.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, again,

• 1:29:31Jocko Willink?

  I hope he's playing the lottery up there, Anthony Jorgensen in Scranton, PA. He's got some luck.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  He, he's a guy I'd want, you know, watching my back any, anytime.

• 1:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Awesome stuff. Uh, here's an interesting title. Do not, for a chapter, do not treat everyone equally.

• 1:29:52Jocko Willink?

  Talk to us about that.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Basically what, what that's about is, um, you know, I don't think leaders should treat everybody on the, on the team equally. Uh, you got, and when I say that, that's what I mean by it. You got to get to know the, the people on your team. Everybody's a little bit different. So you gotta really get to know what makes them tick. And, and what's going to motivate certain people as opposed to motivating others. And so, uh, you know, you, you can't treat them equal. I think there's a story in there. I think about, um, Jimmy Johnson, when he coached the Dallas Cowboys and he was asked by a reporter, "Hey, you know, if, if you, uh, saw Troy Aikman asleep in one of your team meetings and a third string

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  offensive guard asleep in, in, in your team meeting, would you treat them the same way?" And, and he answered, absolutely not. He goes, and this is what I do. He goes, I would probably cut that third string offensive guard immediately. And with Troy Aikman, I would go up to him and I would kind of nudge him gently awake and I would say, hey, can I bring you a cup of coffee? You know, so the, the point is, you know, you, you've got to understand the talent you have on your team and, and not everybody should be treated equally, you know. Some, some people need a kick in the butt. Some people need a pat on the back. Another interesting story with this, a football story, you know, I, I grew up as a Green Bay Packer fan. So in 1966, 10 years old, Lombardi, you know, winning

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  his first Super Bowl, I became a Packer fan. So I started to read all kinds of books about the Packers. And there was this one story, you know, Bart Starr, who was the quarterback for, for Lombardi. I think it was like the second year Lombardi was the head coach, he was just chewing Bart Starr out relentlessly during this practice. And, you know, talk about moral courage. After practice, Bart Starr goes to Coach Lombardi's office and he goes, hey, Coach, could I talk to you privately for a few minutes? The coach says, yeah, sure. What's up? And Starr says to him, he goes, Coach, he goes, I don't want you ever chewing me out in front of the team again. He said, I'm the quarterback. I'm leading this team. He goes, if, if they see you chewing me out the way you were chewing

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  me out, he goes, I'm not going to be able to lead this team effectively. And Lombardi, light bulb went off in his head and he realized he could not treat everybody exactly the same way. You know, so he never chewed Bart Starr out in front of the team again. Cause he realized that, hey, what Starr said was exactly correct. You know, he couldn't lead the team effectively if, if he was going to be treated like that. And so again, just, just some great lessons we could learn from, from, from, from past leaders. And, you know, I just tried, I think we all try to do our best when we hear these lessons to try to apply them if we could.

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's when you, when you get a guy like Vince Lombardi and the reputation that he has, and he's humble enough to think, oh. If he can be humble in that situation and maybe listen to one of his subordinates and say, "Ooh, he's right, I'm wrong," that's another indicator that you might want to stay humble as a leader. You've got some stuff to learn no matter who you are.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:33:03Jocko Willink?

  You talked earlier about muddy boots leadership and you tell a story in here about you got complimented on the fact that you were in charge, but you were, your boots were muddy because you've been out in the field going, seeing what was happening and that's a whole concept of get in the field, get out there, talk to people, find what's going on in the front lines. You say this here, "A mentor," in that same chapter, you say, "A mentor of mine told me, 'The personal presence of a leader is probably the greatest key to influencing the action once a plan has been put into motion. A leader's presence demonstrates to one's followers the importance of the work at hand. When the leader is where the action is, they are then positioned to motivate others and make timely adjustments when necessary.'"

• 1:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Leader sometimes has to go and make things happen.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I remember as a young army officer, reading in some manual somewhere, or maybe it was even some senior leader who was coaching me, but said, you know, "There's three things a commander could do to positively impact the battle once it begins." He said, "The commander's use of fires, you know, close air support and indirect fire, the use of the reserves, you know, because it's usually the commander retains the authority of when to use his reserve, and the third thing is personal presence on the battlefield."

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  And he said, "Those are the three things a commander could do to influence the battle once it begins." And that always stuck to me, stuck with me, especially that notion of the personal presence on the battlefield and just having that personal presence there. Which help, I think, you know, soldiers in battle or in the civilian sector, you know, employees in an organization, realize that, hey, this leader is out with us, sharing the load, sharing the danger, you know, sharing what's coming our way, and, you know, they kind of get bolstered by that whole notion.

• 1:35:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, I can attest to that. I remember seeing you out on the battlefield in Ramadi looking over and saying, well, there's the brigade commander. Roger that. I guess he's not sitting back in the talk all the time. He's out here with the troops. Like you said, seeing what's happening, understanding what's happening, and taking that risk. I mean, if you were in Ramadi and you were out in the city, you were at risk. And IEDs and roadside bombs and RPGs and machine guns, they don't care what your name is, they don't care what your rank is, they'll kill you one way or the other if they want to.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I did try to get out there a lot, not because I had any type of, you know, courage to speak of, but just because I felt it was necessary to do. And the other thing, for any military leader listening to this, and really, it applies to business leaders too, I would encourage my staff to get out there. And the reason I encourage my staff to get out there is because I felt it was important for my staff to also gain ground truth. If the staff was gaining what they thought was the truth from reading reports, they were missing about 80% of what was happening. So although I know, you know, in the military, a lot of times, especially in operations like that, the staff needs to be back doing

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  staff work, I always encourage them that, hey, they did have to make time to actually get out there, talk to troops, see areas with their own eyes. And again, just a history from less in Hurtin Forest, 28th Infantry Division fighting in the Hurtin Forest in November 1944, the Battle of Schmidt. It was a devastating time for the 28th Infantry Division in about four days, over 6,000 casualties. And one thing that was written about that period is, it said that General Coda, who was the division commander at the time... Most reports I read said he never even went as far forward as one of his regimental

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  command posts and the staff did not go forward either. So they didn't realize that the call trail through the Hercan Forest which they were sending Sherman tanks down. A Sherman tank is eight and a half feet wide. The call trail was nine feet wide. I mean, it was not a good, you know, MSR, main supply route or good route of any sort for those tanks to be going along. And so the lesson there is because the commander didn't get out on the battlefield, because the staff didn't get out there, they're relying on maps. They didn't get the full understanding of what that Hercan Forest area was like. So again,

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  for any civilian leader, any military leader, absolutely important, not only to get out there yourself, but to get your staff, the ones that you depend on to advise you to get out there as well.

• 1:38:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's another piece of this when, when you are the leader and you, what you're supposed to be doing is you're supposed to be detached. You're not supposed to go out there and get in the firefight. You're not supposed to go out there and run the marketing meeting or meet with the client necessarily, or get and start manufacturing stuff on the line. You're supposed to go out and, look, do you, do you maybe do a couple moves on the manufacturing line to make sure you understand what's happening? Yes, but you don't start manufacturing things. You come in from a different perspective. You come in with a different perspective. And then what you have to look for as a leader is you have to make sure that things are going in the right direction. And the test that you should put on yourself is, like, basically the momentum. Is the momentum that we're

• 1:38:50Jocko Willink?

  going in correct? Because the momentum could be wrong and the momentum could be right. And if the momentum is right, cool, you can just get out of the way. If the momentum is wrong, that's where you're gonna have to step in and stop it. And, and one of the places where you see this is, well, in combat, when things lag, you know, you get an element that's not moving as quickly as they're supposed to move, they're lagging, they're moving too slow, and they don't even realize that. They, they can't realize it because they're doing it. You can come in and say, hey, we gotta step it up. Hey, we need to push that next building. So when, when an element is lagging, a leader can step in and move things quicker. And they should, because that's the, the momentum is inertia. The momentum is, hey, we're, we're going slow, we're being methodical,

• 1:39:33Jocko Willink?

  but they need to move faster. The leader's got to make that happen. There's also times where the leader steps in and says, hey, we need to slow down. Guys are moving too quick. You guys are taking, you're not, not, uh, taking too many risks. Slow it down. So there's all these situations where I think what the leader needs to be cognizant of, cognizant of in their mind, when they step into these situations is, is the momentum we have, is the crowd, is the mob moving in the right direction? If they are, great. Get out of their way. Let them keep going. But if they're not, that's when your opportunity comes to, uh, straighten it out and check it.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's not, it's not just about speed. It's about tempo. And, uh, a couple of things came to mind, Jaco, as you were talking. One is, um, my personal security detachment in Ramadi, uh, you know, was generally four up armored Humvees. I had a platoon, the platoon leader's name was Jacques Smith, just, just an excellent leader. And, um, early on, as we were out there with me, you know, uh, being transported by this, uh, when we, when we moved mounted by this, uh, four up armor Humvee formation,

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  you know, I was kind of on the radio directing the movement of these four up armored Humvees and, and, uh, Jacques Smith, you know, the lieutenant, he looks at me, goes, sir, he goes, you're, you're leading the brigade. He goes, let me lead this platoon. And I, and I said, you know what, Jacques, you're exactly right. I'm going to shut up. You know, we're out, when I, when we're out here, this is your platoon. You're going to lead it. I'm go, I'm not going to say a damn word, uh, about how, how you should maneuver this platoon because he was right. I had, I had a, a brigade to lead. And then the other story is Command Sergeant Major, uh, Chris Kepner, he was my Command Sergeant Major when I commanded 28th Infantry Division.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  Uh, he used to say, uh, as he would go out and talk to leaders and coach and mentor leaders, he would, he would say, leaders could stop things from getting screwed up just by the fact that they were there, just by their mere presence. Uh, so, you know, that's why it's so important again, you know, for, for leaders to get out there because people are going to do the right thing and adhere to those standards when they know the leader is, is there.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  I was down in Florida a while back doing some leadership training for a sheriff's department down there and one of the deputy sheriffs was speaking to a group of corporals and he told the story how in the jail there, how some deputies that should have been in the kitchen watching the prisoners do what they were doing, you know, cooking the meal, just neglected to be there as they should and things really got out of hand. And his point was just because the sergeant wasn't going down and checking to make sure those deputies were doing the right thing, they, you know, they're human beings that just decided, hey,

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  you know, this mustn't be that important because nobody's checking on us, so we're not going to be doing the right thing. And so his point was, again, just by the mere fact of a leader being present, they're going to fix things just by being there.

• 1:42:47Jocko Willink?

  This is, reminds me of another chapter in the book here, chapter 11, "An Organization's Personality." You say, "In 1985, I took command of an infantry company in the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard. The infantry company I commanded was designated Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 109th Infantry, and the unit had an authorized strength of 144 soldiers. I was honored to have an opportunity to lead the commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers assigned to the outfit. I remembered reading an Army Leadership Manual earlier in my career before taking this command. In the manual, there was a statement I will never forget. It said, 'A military unit, and any organization for that matter, takes on the personality of its leader.' When reading that statement as a young inexperienced leader,

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  I doubted it. I could not believe a unit of almost 150 soldiers would take on my personality. I did not believe someone like me could have that type of impact whereby over 100 of the people assigned would take on my traits. Based on my experience commanding that company, I learned I was wrong and the leadership manual is correct. An organization will take on the personality of its leader. In my case, the commander I took over for was a good man. However, his focus seemed to be more on being a nice guy than on emphasizing..." Physical fitness and tough training. That was exactly what the person, personality of the unit was when I took command. Everyone got along, everyone was comfortable, but many of the soldiers relaxed on their fitness levels and the unit did not go into the field much to conduct rigorous training. I believe soldiers need to be in excellent

• 1:44:15Jocko Willink?

  physical condition and I also believed infantry soldiers needed to train rigorously in field conditions, be experts with their weapons and take excellent care of their equipment. Over time, the unit took on a tough persona. This was ratified by our brigade commander when he selected our unit to train at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. In late 1980s, this was a big deal and an honor for National Guard Company to be selected for that training. So, there you go.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:38Jocko Willink?

  Case in point.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  The, the next section I wanted to just jump into and it's called decision making and there's some tap, some topics in here that you write about and I, I just want to kind of do a, a high level review of some of these, some of these, uh, sections. One of them's hit the ground running.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:59Jocko Willink?

  Which means when you show up, get started.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Um, get your butt in gear.

• 1:45:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Another one's character is foundational. Again, this is what we're doing, what we're doing. This is who we are. And if we don't have good character, hey, listen, if you don't have good character, you might be able to get away with it for a little while. You might even be able to weasel out a promotion because you, you maneuvered and you manipulated and, and you took credit where you didn't and you didn't give credit to the team or you still, you, you might, you might even get a promotion. You might even get two promotions. It can happen, but eventually it's not, it's not going to last.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  No, no. You know, uh, a friend of mine, Len Morella, he graduated from West Point in like 1958 or something, uh, retired as a Colonel in the Army. He wrote this book, uh, about character and in the book, he would go and interview different leaders who were known to be character-based leaders. And one of the people he interviewed was Coach Kraszewski, Coach K from Duke. And, um, in the, in this interview he was doing with Coach K, he, you know, Len, Len said to Coach K, like, what does character have to do with winning a basketball game? And Coach K's answer was, you know, character has absolutely nothing at all to

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  do with winning a basketball game. But it has everything to do with winning a championship. You know, and that is exactly what you say, you know, you might have a win here or there if you're not character based, but if you want to be a champion, if you want to have long-term success, you, you gotta be a character-based leader. At least that's what I believe.

• 1:46:42Jocko Willink?

  Um, another sub-headline here is know your job and do your job. And this, I might, my note that I took on this one is there is such a thing as a stupid question. And let me explain that. You know, people always say, oh, there's no such thing as a stupid question. If you show up to a job and you're going to be in charge of a tank and you say, hey, what's the name of this vehicle? How far can this gun shoot? How many rounds can we get out? If you're asking questions that you should have done some research and know when you showed up, you're wrong. If you show up to a manufacturer, to run a manufacturing plant and you show up and say, hey, what is it we're making? Or how many employees do we have? Or who's in charge of the day shift?

• 1:47:22Jocko Willink?

  If you're asking questions that a little bit of research could have answered, you didn't do a good job preparing. You don't, you, so know your job. That's my part of know your job. There is stupid questions. Don't show up your first day and ask stupid questions that you should have known if you would have taken an ounce of effort to, to figure out what was happening.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  No, uh, you know, you're exactly right. I mean, uh, you, you gotta put forth some of that effort now. If it's some type of, you know, inane, you know, technical, you know, thing that maybe a guy with 10 years' experience would know. And you wouldn't know, hey, that's, that's fine.

• 1:47:54Jocko Willink?

  And you can ask those questions all day long.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But it's just showing you really don't care. If, if you didn't, you know, take the time to do that type of research before coming into the job for sure.

• 1:48:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you say take on tough assignments and this is, there's a, this is, this is just a good thing across the board. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to show everyone that you don't, you'll take the, not just the tough ones, but the crappy ones. Hey, no one wants to work this weekend? Cool. I got it.

• 1:48:24Jocko Willink?

  One of my buddies, Seth Stone, who's in Ramadi with us, he was on a ship, he was a ship driver in the Navy, and they had, his department got assigned to do some cleaning, like they hadn't been in port for a while, and his department got assigned to clean whatever. And I heard this after he died, someone, the story got passed to his brother was, you know, as his department was leaving for liberty, they looked up and they saw he was cleaning whatever it was they were assigned to clean. And he had just said, you know what, I'm gonna let the guys go and go on liberty, and I'm gonna do whatever menial task we've been told to do. And he was the guy in charge of the department. So do the tough ones, do the crappy ones, too.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And again, you know, all in line with hit the ground running, you know, a lot of people say, don't volunteer for anything, right? You know, I think that's a big mistake. I mean, you gotta volunteer to take on those tough things. And when you do that, you know, a couple of benefits. First of all, nobody's gonna expect you to succeed if you're just starting, you know, out in your career. You know, you're not gonna have high expectations if you're just starting out. And so by tackling those tough things, gaining that experience, you know, it's just like, you know, in the military, you know, a second lieutenant in the army, the lowest ranking commissioned officer, you're expecting a second lieutenant to make a mistake, you know. So that's the time to take on those

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  tough assignments, gain that experience, make some of those mistakes, learn from them, and, you know, hopefully have the right leaders guiding you along the way. And that's how you're really gonna get off to a good start and be successful.

• 1:50:03Jocko Willink?

  Another one, develop your leadership philosophy early, but continue to refine. And this is, once again, important. Even Vince Lombardi refined his philosophy.

• 1:50:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's what you need to do. Come up with a philosophy, but then refine it, make it better as time goes on.

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  Um, next section here is, is competence. And I don't know if you did this on purpose, but some of your chapter titles have a little bit of a, you know, you're going to get some rise out of some people. This one's not everyone deserves a mentor.

• 1:50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kind of did that on purpose.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  What do you, what do you mean by that one?

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, and again, this gets back to, uh, an infantry conference I was at, uh, and, and General Cohn, you know, he, he since passed away, but he was, I think, the trade off commander at the time, speaking to us there. And he, he basically said that during his remarks. And it's like, wow, you know, that kind of hit me, you know, like, like a brick hitting me in the face. It's like, well, what's he talking about? Uh, but, but what he went on to say, and, and which, what I have, you know, come to, to see as true is, you know, not everybody deserves a mentor. Cause if you're not out there actively looking for a mentor, for somebody to, um, you know, somebody's example to follow, you

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  probably don't deserve a mentor. And I remember even as a, as a young officer thinking, you know, hey, nobody's mentoring me, you know, what's up with this, you know? And I was expecting some, you know, uh, gray beard, you know, to sit me down at their side and, and tell me all the facts of how to lead. But hey, that, that, that doesn't happen. And then I realized mentorship is happening all around us. All we gotta do is look for, for. So again, if, if you're a young executive in, in a company, um, you know, uh, and, and, and you're observing how one of the senior leaders in that company is acting, how they're talking to people, how they're relating to people, and you're learning the good and

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  the bad from that, that's actually mentorship. Uh, and, and, you know, mentorship is all around us if we took, just look for it. But nobody should expect somebody to kind of sit us down and, and tell us about, hey, these, these are the things you really gotta look out for. That, that's not realistic. That's, that's just, just not going to happen.

• 1:52:29Jocko Willink?

  No, it is not.

• 1:52:32Jocko Willink?

  Chapter 18, this one's always a big topic, getting buy-in. Napoleon used a technique to obtain buy-in. It was the same technique used by the Union general who commanded the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, General Meade. Meade was a disciple of Napoleon. The technique was called a war council. On July 2nd, 1863, Meade brought his lieutenants into his makeshift headquarters at the Leister House. He had an agenda that evening. The council had to provide their recommendations on one of three courses of action Meade would have to decide. One, the Union Army should leave the battlefield. Two, the Union Army should stay and fight an offensive battle.

• 1:53:16Jocko Willink?

  Three, the Union Army should stay and fight a defensive battle. Meade began by asking his lower ranking and least experienced lieutenants to voice their opinions first. He used this method because he knew if the more senior officers spoke first, more junior officers in terms of rank, reputation, or experience might feel too intimidated to disagree. After all, this was by design, a hierarchical organization. Meade knew he had to get the lower ranking leaders to speak first in order to get their unvarnished thoughts. After everyone spoke, Meade decided the Union would stay and fight a defensive battle. The rest, as they say, is history. The Union Army was victorious and won the battle and would go on to win the war,

• 1:53:59Jocko Willink?

  although it would take another bloody two years before the Confederate Army laid down their arms.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  When people ask me this question, how do you get people to buy into the plan? I say, let them come up with a plan.

• 1:54:16Jocko Willink?

  You don't have to worry about buying anymore. You don't have to worry about it. You came up with it. I'm buying into your plan and I can do that easily. I can control my own thoughts. And if you come, if John comes up with a plan, that's pretty decent. I'm cool with it and we'll go with it.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you know, as a leader, I've found, you know, give the task, give the purpose, but don't give the how, you know, give the what and the why, but not the how. And usually, you know, those people who work for us are going to figure out a better way to do it than we would have figured out. So, yeah, you know, let them run with it. In any organization, usually those people at the grassroots level have, they're closer to the problem set. So, turn it over to them. Now, yeah, you might have to provide a little bit of guidance, you might have to, you know, kind of, you know, just adjust one way or the other, but essentially, you know, giving

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  them the what and the why and let them figure out the how is generally the best way to handle it.

• 1:55:20Jocko Willink?

  And I'll get leaders say, "Well, what if my, what if my subordinates come up with a stupid plan?" I'll say, "Well, what's wrong with you if you've got subordinates that are coming up with a stupid plan?"

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you what's wrong, you haven't trained them properly, you haven't given them the right mentorship and guidance, you haven't let them come up with plans before so they could learn how to plan better. So, if they come up with a stupid plan, what do you do? You start asking them some earnest questions about their plan and kind of it reveals to them what some of the holes in their plan are, and then they can make adjustments. And while they're making adjustments, they're also learning. So, the next time you ask them, ask them to come up with a plan, it's, it may not be a brilliant plan, but at least it's less stupid than the first plan. And then you look up in three months or six months, all of a sudden, their planning is outstanding, and you look up in a year, and they're probably planning better than you are, because like you said, they're the ones that are closest to the problem.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and you know, what you said a little bit earlier, I think is exactly true, you know, sometimes, you know, our followers will come up with a plan that isn't exactly the way we would do it, but you know, I let them run with it anyway, you know, as long as, you know, it's not flawed in any way, it's just a different way than I would have thought of doing it. And, and I think that's really where leaders have to leave their ego at the door, you know, to say, you know, "Hey, this isn't the way I do it, but it's going to get the job done, it's still going to be cost-effective," or, you know, whatever the case might be, so, so let them go forward with it. And, and it's, you know, like you said, you don't have to worry about the buying if they came up with it.

• 1:56:40Jocko Willink?

  I go into every meeting with my subordinates, when I was in a platoon, when I was a task unit commander, right now in the business world, I walk into a meeting with my people, my goal is to use their plan, that's my goal. I don't want to use whatever I'm coming up with, I want to use theirs. And if you have that goal at the beginning, that's going to lead you to the best possible place. And look, like you said, if their plan is... Dumb, which, which, you know, you can get some people come up with some dumb plans occasionally. Occasionally some people come up with some dumb ideas. That's okay. Ask them some earnest questions and they're going to see that their plan is, well, the reality of their plan, which is dumb.

• 1:57:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, this kind of leads into the whole, you know, asking your followers what their recommendation is. And, you know, some, some followers are going to come up with some type of crazy recommendation that you just know from your experience. It ain't going to work. Uh, but I think what leaders need to do is then get back with those followers and explain to the follower, hey, this is why I didn't use your recommendation. Now, again, I'm, you know, talking about situations where there's time to have those conversations. You know, if you're in the middle of the firefight, you know, you gotta sometimes, hey, you know, go left, not right, whatever. But I'm just saying, you know, in, in most situations where you're asking for recommendations on some type of long-term plan you're putting together,

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  somebody comes up with something, you know, that's really wacko, uh, and you're not going to use it. I, I do think you show people the respect by at least getting back with them and explaining to them why I'm not going to use your plan.

• 1:58:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause that's your, that's also your opportunity to teach them why that plan wasn't good. And again, I'll do it by just by saying, hey, John, I just want to ask you about, you know, this, this channelized area that you want to take your patrol through. Do you think that's the best approach to the target going through this valley where there's elevated positions on both sides that could be occupied by the enemy? And you'll look at me and say, you know, boss, let me get back to you and you'll come up with a different plan.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:58:37Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit, you, you got a section in here talking about tactical patience, which is a concept everybody needs. And I think it's the younger you are, the more you need to understand tactical patience. Cause the younger you are, the less tactical patience you generally have. And that goes all the way to like little children that are four years old. They have the least amount of tactical patience. So you talk about that. But what I like here is you also throw in a section that is, is called what tactical patience is not. Demonstrating tactical patience is not about putting off a decision. It is about taking the time, when you have the luxury of having time, to think through the information available and the recommendations before deciding. Just as nothing happened in business before somebody sells something,

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  nothing happens in business until the leader decides. Good leaders have to have the courage to make a decision with less than perfect information.

• 1:59:32Jocko Willink?

  So it's good to be tactically patient, but also there comes a time where you gotta make a call.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Jack Welch, you know, the CEO at General Electric for 20 years, I think from like 81 until 2001. You know, he, he wrote in one of his books that the problem he saw with mid-level managers throughout General Electric is the unsuccessful ones were the ones who did not have the courage to make a decision. And again, when you make a decision, you're putting yourself out there. And, and some leaders just don't want to take that, you know, that risk to put themselves out there and, and potentially make the wrong decision.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  But it's so important because again, once you make a decision, it doesn't mean that you have to stick by that decision no matter what, you know, you've got to assess what's going on, you know, get some feedback about what's actually happening out there, you know, the real deal. And then, you know, make those adjustments as you go. But anybody who thinks that, hey, once I made this decision, I can't, I can't deviate from it. I don't think that's a good technique.

• 2:00:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's a technique that I talk about in Leadership Strategy and Tactics book is, I call it iterative decision-making. I'm going to make the smallest decisions I can. You know, you want me to go assault a part of the city of Ramadi? I say, hey, got it, boss. We're going to take one building. We're going to start with this one little building over here and see how that goes. And if like we get a good foothold and now we can put some troops in a good spot, now I can go to the next building. I don't send, you know, all my troops into a bunch of different buildings at the same time. No, I'm going to make small steps in that direction. And, and then, then it's very easy for me to make adjustments. It's very easy for me to say, oh, you know what? Hey, boss, I'm going to need more troops or, hey, boss, this doesn't make sense right now. This is way more fortified than we thought it was going to be.

• 2:01:24Jocko Willink?

  Whatever the case may be, I can make adjustments, but I start off by making very small decisions and then adjusting. And the other thing that, that I was thinking about while you were saying that is,

• 2:01:34Jocko Willink?

  When you were talking about Jack Welch and the mid-level managers failing to make decisions because they don't want to put themselves out there. And this reminds me of what you were talking about earlier and what's in the book. The idea of forming like scar tissue and the habit. If you get in the habit of saying, hey, look, I made a decision, wasn't the best call. It's on me. Here's the adjustment we're going to make. Once you realize that that doesn't, it's not the end of the world to do that. Now, I can tell you, can you, can you do that to an extent where people go, hey, Jock was just nothing but bad decisions and every decision he makes goes, hey, my mistake. This one was my mistake. Hey, sorry, guys, this was my mistake. Eventually, you're going to lose some clout and you're going to lose some credibility. You can't just make bad decisions all the time. But if you make decisions, hey, even a, what is it?

• 2:02:19Jocko Willink?

  A broken clock is right twice a day. You're going to be right some of the times, you know? If you're doing a good assessment, you make a decision and it turns out to be wrong. Hey, guys, sorry, my fault that we should have gone in a different direction. Here's the adjustment we're making. People don't lose respect for you. They gain respect for you. But if you don't experience that and you don't build up the muscle of making a decision, owning the outcome, whether it's good or bad, own the outcome, you can build up a muscle memory for doing that where it becomes habitual and it's okay. And I think if you never, if you never step into that arena, you're just scared of it. You know, it's like Mikey and the dragons, the other kid's book I wrote, the kid's scared of the dragons.

• 2:03:01Jocko Willink?

  He doesn't realize that the dragons are small and that's true with most things we fear. So if you don't open that door, go in that cave and make a decision occasionally, you're never going to understand that there's a, once you do that, if it was a bad decision, just own it, make adjustments and move forward. You need to learn that. You need to feel that and you can get used to it.

• 2:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, Jocko, I was listening to an interview you were participating in once and I think you said something to affect that every, every problem is a leadership problem. And, and you know, where that gets to is, you know, leaders have to create an environment where subordinates feel comfortable taking the risk to make a decision and know, hey, if it doesn't turn out exactly right, at least, you know, I'm not going to get my legs chopped out from underneath me. So, you know, it's really important that, you know, if you, if you're a leader and you see that you've got

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  Subordinate leaders who are hesitant to make a decision, maybe you should look in the mirror and think to yourself, hey, what am I doing to create an environment where these people are afraid to even decide or make a mistake? That's not a good environment.

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  A horrible environment and you're gonna end up, your team is gonna fail eventually.

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, chapter 25, iron sharpens iron. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17. And this is right in line with what you were just talking about. Demonstrate initiative. An attribute I felt strongly about was initiative at every level of leadership throughout the division. And this is, again, this is when you were in a leadership position. This was a result of my combat experience in Ramadi, Iraq. I saw during my time in Ramadi, how it was essential that junior leaders demonstrate initiative in order to get ahead of the decision-making loop of our enemies. I believed if we did not encourage initiative in steady-state operations and training exercise,

• 2:04:58Jocko Willink?

  subordinate leaders would not display the necessary level of initiative when in combat. I put out written guidance and I continually reinforced stating, I believe demonstrating high levels of initiative was worth the risk of making honest mistakes. So this is exactly what you were just talking about. If you've got a team that's not making decisions, you're the problem. And the way you, the way you instilled that culture inside your division when you were a division commander was by talking about it, by putting out written guidance, by demonstrating it. And I like this, this point of the fact that initiative is worth the risk of making honest mistakes.

• 2:05:40Jocko Willink?

  That's a huge deal. If you're a subordinate leader and you know that the boss wants you to take initiative and that it is worth the risk of making honest mistakes, that's... That could be a game changer for a young leader.

• 2:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I think that's an important statement there about, you know, demonstrating initiative is worth the risk of making honest mistakes. But the caveat to that is, is if you're a leader and you put that statement out there, guess what your subordinates are going to be looking for. They're going to be looking for the first time somebody demonstrates initiative and makes an honest mistake and they're going to...

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  You're going to marshal them.

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're going to be watching to see, how do you react to this thing? And actually, I think it was my sergeant major, you know, Chris Kepner, who mentioned that to me after I put that statement out. He goes, you know, people are going to be watching to see how you react the first time somebody makes an honest mistake by demonstrating initiative. And that was a little, you know, some good counsel from him. So again, leaders, again, to develop and cultivate this trust in the organization, they put something out there, now they really have to pay attention to make sure that they, you know, they walk the talk there and do what they said they're going to do because people are going to be watching. Nobody's going to believe it. Nobody's going to believe that written word

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  until they actually see it in action.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward here, you're talking about some of the internal attributes. It says, "If leaders cannot get in touch with their own feelings, they will have difficulty understanding the feelings of others. Leaders must practice self-awareness and mindfulness." Once one develops self-awareness, and you talk about, I'm fast forwarding a little bit, you talk about journaling is a good technique, like writing down what your thoughts, what your feelings are so that you get some perspective on them. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. "Once one develops self-awareness, one can then become better at controlling emotions. Followers look to leaders to be able to get stable when things get chaotic. Controlling one's emotions has many personal, organizational, and societal benefits."

• 2:07:50Jocko Willink?

  I remember when I was young, I was a young inexperienced leader. I acted out in front of a group of my followers, showing great displeasure, not with them, but with the situation we were dealing with. I ranted and raved and threw my notebook across the room. As an inexperienced leader, I thought this would demonstrate to my followers I was all in. Instead, when I saw the negative reaction of my followers, I realized this was a poor technique. You remember what happened? What made you so mad?

• 2:08:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, actually, I was a lieutenant on active duty commanding a platoon. And I can't remember the actual incident that made me upset, but it was something that was upsetting to our, to our unit.

• 2:08:33Jocko Willink?

  The whole platoon got weekend duty or something like that?

• 2:08:36Speaker 01

  Something, you know, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna show them I really, you know, care, care about this and acted out and I realized that they were not looking for a leader to act like that. They were looking for the leader to act professional, more stable. And, and I think I might have either wrote in that book or, or somewhere else, that they were looking for a rock and instead what they got was a pile of sand, you know? And, you know, that, that really taught me that, you know, it's, it's kinda like being a parent, you know? Kids aren't looking for friends, they're looking for parents, you know? And, and, and subordinates aren't looking for, for buddies, they're looking for followers that they can count on and to be, be a follower.

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  And, and the other thing is, I, I like to say is that leaders don't need to be great all the time, but they need to be great when it makes a difference. They need to be great when it matters, you know? Because, you know, let's face it, you know, steady state operations, 80% of the time, 90% of the time, things are kinda moving along right, you know? But then you hit this bump in the road and that's where you really gotta stand up and you gotta be a leader and you've gotta show that, that ability to control your emotions and to be stable because that, that, that is something that creates confidence in the organization. If a leader falls apart like that, then, then heck, the subordinates don't have anybody

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  to count on because even the leader is starting to crumble. That, that's not a good thing. So, that happened on early on, that happened early on in my career and I realized what a mistake that was. So, I was always very, very cognizant of, of the fact that, hey, you, you had a, you had to show strength when things were kinda caving in all around you. That, that's what, that's what your subordinates are expecting.

• 2:10:25Jocko Willink?

  I always looked at it, if my leader couldn't control his emotions, how the heck is he gonna be able to make good decisions? And I always remembered, I saw when I was younger, some of the leaders I had would fly off the handle and I just think, well, how's this guy gonna make a decision? No one makes a good decision when they're emotional.

• 2:10:41Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 2:10:43Jocko Willink?

  Displaying empathy. Empathy is an essential element of being a servant leader. Empathetic leaders can sense what their followers are feeling. This eliminates tone deafness and the perception leaders do not understand, or worse yet, the perception the leader does not care. When followers think a leader does not care, they will stop bringing forth their problems and issues. Empathy is the capacity to show followers you care about them. A leader must understand how followers feel and what their issues are in order to provide their resources, allowing followers to do their job more effectively and increase the probability of mission accomplishment. You gotta see the perspective of the people on your team.

• 2:11:24Speaker 01

  And you know, I think it was Colin Powell who said something to the effect that when soldiers stop bringing you their problems, you've effectively stopped being a leader. And you know, you could apply that to, you know, civilian sector as well. When you're, the people who work for you stop bringing you problems, you've really effectively lost your ability to lead them. Because, you know, folks are gonna stop bringing us their problems when they figure either you can't do anything about it, or you just don't care enough to do anything about it. And that's just a terrible position for a leader to be in.

• 2:12:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta, you gotta maintain that connection. There's always a running joke whenever I'm in a leadership position that no one ever tells me that they're tired, that they don't want to work more. It just never happens. So I always have to make sure that I'm pulling that string a little bit more than normal. Because no one wants to come and say, "Hey, Jocko, we've had enough. We don't want to do another operation. We don't want to go. We've been on the road too much." No one ever wants to tell me that. So I always have to make sure I'm digging a little bit deeper. Otherwise, they won't say a damn thing. Section three is resilience. And I'm gonna read a little section here. Our four up armored Humvees launched themselves out of the gate of Forward Operating Base Ramadi

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  on a sun drenched Sunday morning in September 2005. The heat was stifling. The Euphrates River running through our area added a high degree of humidity, causing my eye protection to messed up with sweat. We were traveling around along Route Michigan toward Observation Post Hotel, overlooking east Ramadi OP Hotel. A suicide bomber attacked the Observation Post a few weeks earlier but failed to dislodge the tenacious soldiers who operated out of there. I wanted to check on the soldiers and gauge their morale. Our vehicles made their way through the city, through a city struggling due to the violent insurgency there. Still, as we made our way east, toward east Ramadi, the streets were busy with vehicle and pedestrian traffic. I was happy to

• 2:13:33Jocko Willink?

  have my brigade chaplain riding along with me in the backseat of our vehicle. In the Army, I've always been a big fan of our chaplains. These warriors of a higher power could bolster the spirit of soldiers anytime they visited a unit. The chaplain was also part of my personal staff, and I valued their insight prior to making decisions affecting the welfare of soldiers. After our visit to OP Hotel, we made our way back through the center of the city. The chaplain noticed the same thing I and every soldier in our mounted patrol noticed. The vehicles and pedestrians covering the streets about two hours earlier had disappeared. There was a strange

• 2:14:13Jocko Willink?

  quietness clothing the neighborhood we were passing through. We had seen this before. We braced ourselves for an insurgent attack. We all became a bit tense as our senses were alerted. The banter we usually engaged in as we moved about the city was quieted as we gave the alleys and buildings around us our full attention. In order to calm down our crew, the chaplain announced in a loud voice, "Fear not, boys. God is with us."

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  The young specialist operating out of the gunner's compartment of our vehicle heard the chaplain's announcement, and from his more exposed position atop the vehicle, he playfully called down to the chaplain, "God may be with you all down there, but he certainly is not up here with me."

• 2:15:02Jocko Willink?

  About 20 seconds later, we heard the boom of a rocket propelled grenade. The grenade squarely hit the armor shield surrounding our young gunner and harmlessly ricocheted into the air before exploding and causing no harm to personnel and no damage to equipment. Our stunned gunner did not miss a beat. He quickly and loudly proclaimed, "I stand corrected, Chaplain. God just arrived." Of course, we all broke up with laughter. It was good having the Chaplain with us that day. And this is a section that you've got called Spiritual Fitness. Talk to us about spiritual fitness.

• 2:15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, when we talk about fitness, of course, you know, we think of physical fitness and, you know, mental fitness, emotional fitness. But I think spiritual fitness is a big part of helping us develop our leadership strength. And that's whether we are part of some type of formal, you know, religion or whether we just are connected to our spirituality in another way, you know, through nature, through meditation, whatever the case. It's important that we understand that there's something, this is my own personal belief, there's something larger going on in the universe around us. It's not all about us.

• 2:16:25Speaker 01

  You know, we're just a speck of everything that's going on. And I think that helps us keep grounded. I think it helps us keep humble. And I think it, again, kind of aligns with whatever values we say are our personal values where it will help us stay on the right track as we're making these decisions. So I think if leaders don't take the time to reflect on the notion that there's a higher power out there, that there's something going on that's really much bigger than ourselves, they may be missing something.

• 2:17:04Jocko Willink?

  And that's one part of this whole section of the book, which is called Resilience, and this is one of your three overall themes. And you've got some other facets of resilience in here. Positive energy. And that's an overused statement, right? And what I was thinking about when I was reading this is... You know, you can think of the positive energy as someone that's sort of like, it's, it's hard to understand, or it can be hard to understand. But if you think of people that have negative energy, it's real easy to understand those people, right? It's really easy to someone who's, oh, this is never gonna work. Oh, we're screwed. Oh, this is horrible. We all know people like that and it's, it seems easier to identify. Maybe I shouldn't use the word hard to understand. It can be hard to under, hard to identify someone that has positive energy.

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  It's real easy to, to, there's more people it seems that have negative energy. And occasionally you'll get someone that's just got super positive. And, and then you'll remember that and you'll remember how they're, you know, what their response was when something was going wrong and how they took it. And they look around and be like, oh, good, we get another chance to go at this. Or whatever the case may be. So I think that's, that's a good one. You've got fitness, physical fitness in here.

• 2:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Which is again, something that I get often asked. Does that come from the military or is that just part of you? And the answer is, look, there's plenty of people in the military that get out of the military and physical fitness, their physical fitness fails.

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:27Jocko Willink?

  And they get out of shape. So it's not something that you get, it's not a chip you get programmed. You, you need to work at it.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And just kind of back to your, your piece there about the, the positive energy. You know, you mentioned those negative people. I like to call them energy sponges because they just kind of sap the energy from everyone around them. It's kind of like, why do I want to be around this person, man? You know, uh, and, uh, it's, it's just not good for a leader to be that way. Uh, I like to say a leader should brighten up the room when they enter it, not when they leave it. You know, if you're the type of leader that brightens up a room when you, when you leave it, it's kind of like, man, you're doing, you're doing something wrong there. So, uh, again, it's not like you gotta be, you know, all smiling and slapping people on the back and glad handing people all the time.

• 2:19:17Speaker 01

  But, but people have to know that you're expecting tomorrow to be a better day than today. And who doesn't want to be around a leader who believes that tomorrow is going to be better than today? You know, cause you know, we want to move forward and, and that's what I mean by, by positive energy. And like we've talked about earlier in the podcast here. You have to have an action plan, a believable action plan. You know, if you want to be known as a positive leader because people aren't going to to follow you if they just think you're glad handing everything and you really don't have a plan to back it up. That's important.

• 2:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta, you gotta see a pathway to get this mission done.

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:59Jocko Willink?

  And see a way to get out of this miserable situation that we're in and see a way to have some fun with it.

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, hey, you know, it's human nature. People want to be able to, you know, have, people want to be able to enjoy their work, you know, and if, you know, the old saying, you know, if you enjoy your work, you're not going to work a day in your life. And I truly believe that. And again, you've just got to find those things that really, you know, keep you motivated, keep you excited about life.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  What about vulnerability? This is another thing that you clue into here.

• 2:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Talk to us about vulnerability from a leadership perspective.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I, when I talk about vulnerability, and we already talked a little bit about the first part. It's about having the courage to leave your comfort zone, allowing yourself to be vulnerable to try something maybe you haven't tried before or something that's a little bit hard. But the other aspects of vulnerability is putting yourself out there and exposing yourself to your followers. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. One way to expose yourself to your followers, and I think this is a helpful technique, is sharing stories with your followers about times maybe when you tried something and you failed, you know, or you made a mistake.

• 2:21:17Speaker 01

  And the reason I think that's important is because, you know, followers look at a leader to think, man, they're in this position of leadership. Everything they touched in life must, you know, must have turned to gold. They probably never made any mistakes, so they want to be in this position of leadership. And we know nothing can be farther from the truth. So by, by explaining to your followers how, hey, you know, I've, I've tried and I've failed sometimes and I've made mistakes and this is how I was able to overcome these mistakes. That, that inspires those followers. And then the, the other piece about vulnerability is having the humility. To ask people on your team, and I know you've written about this, because I've read it.

• 2:21:58Speaker 01

  But have the humility to ask people on your team what they think and how they would do something. And then, having the humility to follow through with their recommendation when you see it's a good recommendation that should be followed. And again, not just having that attitude that, hey, I'm the leader. You've only got two years on the job. What could you possibly know, you know, more than I know? But again, you don't know what life experience that person had. So, so asking people their opinion. We talk about respect. I think one of the best ways you could show somebody on your team that you respect them is by asking their opinion. Could you imagine working for somebody for 10 years?

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  And you've never had that person you worked for ever ask you for your opinion? I mean, you know, how could that make you feel good? And how could that make you feel that that leader of yours respects you? Man, you never even asked me what I thought. You know, so I think one of the best ways to show people you respect them is to ask their opinion. Doesn't mean you have to follow their recommendation, like we mentioned earlier. And if you don't follow their recommendation, a good technique is getting back with them and explaining to them why. But I think, to me, that's what vulnerability is all about, those couple of things there.

• 2:23:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is another negative example that I think is easier to see. Is if you're talking, if you work for me and you're talking and I cut you off, right? That's, everyone knows that's disrespectful. Well, that also means that if I actually listen to what you have to say, that I'm being respectful. I'm giving you respect. So that's a, if you can't remember to listen to people, remember how rude it is when someone cuts you off. And the opposite of that is to actually listen to people. Here's another, I think this is a vulnerability that is so uncomfortable for leaders and people and subordinates up and down the chain of command. It's a vulnerability that is, that is, people avoid almost at all costs. And that is the ability to say,

• 2:24:00Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:02Jocko Willink?

  I don't, hey, I don't know. Hey, what do you think we should do this? I don't know. Up and down the chain of command. I think the first, the first place I learned this, when, when, when I got to the SEAL teams, you didn't get your, you weren't a SEAL when you got to the SEAL teams. You were a new guy. An FNG, as a matter of fact. So you get there, you're an FNG, you don't have your trident, which is the insignia that means you're a SEAL. And so you have to study for six months. You're on a probationary board. You have to, you're on probation, I should say. And then you have to eventually go in front of a verbal board and you go to the diving, you go to the weapons, you go to parachute, you go to tactics, you go to the radios, you, and all these chiefs and master chiefs and senior chiefs, and they're asking you questions. And what they tell you is, and this is, this is probably the first place I realized, oh,

• 2:24:47Jocko Willink?

  okay, that's, that's the right thing to do. If they ask you a question and you don't know, what you say is, I don't know, let me do some research and I'll get back to you. And that's the right answer. And they're going to ask you some questions. They're going to dig so deep into those manuals, they're going to get that answer. Or you can sit there and say, you can try and make up an answer. You can try and pretend like you know it. And then you're going to get crushed because you lack the humility and you're not being vulnerable enough to say, hey, I actually don't know. So up and down the chain of command, just like you said, no one expects the leader to know everything. As a leader, we think everyone expects us to know everything. And when we try and act like that, we look like idiots.

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  You don't know everything. Just say, hey, I don't know. What do you think? It's perfectly fine.

• 2:25:29Speaker 01

  Three powerful words there that a leader should live by.

• 2:25:34Speaker 01

  When, when they don't know, say it.

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, skipping forward a little bit, remaining calm during the storm.

• 2:25:43Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you talk about some ways to do this and you got a couple of points in here. Take control of the things you can. I think this is something that even though it's so obvious, we still fail to do this as people. We worry about things we have no control over. Uh, so don't do that. But you got another, another section in here. Do not catastrophize. Now, did you make up that word?

• 2:26:05Speaker 01

  No, that's actually a word I heard when I went through resiliency training.

• 2:26:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  They, they talked about the concept of catastrophizing.

• 2:26:13Jocko Willink?

  So here's the section on catastrophizing. The United States Army trains soldiers on techniques that will help them display resiliency. One of those techniques, which I think is particularly relevant during these uncertain times, is how to not catastrophize. When you catastrophize, you focus only on the worst case scenario. You believe the worst will happen, and of course, this produces a great deal of anxiety. This can also sow the seeds of a self fulfilling prophecy. A method to place things in perspective and avoid catastrophizing is by going through a practical thought process promoting resiliency and reducing anxiety. First, look at what the worst case scenario would possibly look like. Second, identify what the best case scenario might be.

• 2:26:58Jocko Willink?

  Third, consider the most likely or probable outcome. Then focus your attention on the plan, on the most probable case and develop your primary plan of action around that scenario. So this is something, and I think the reason I got a little bit focused on this is because this is what our news media gets paid to do. Catastrophize everything.

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Everything is catastrophized, everything is a worst case scenario, the world's gonna end. I, if you follow the headlines, the world ends every single day. It gets killed by COVID, by war, by this politician, by that politician. Every single day, there's a catastrophe that happens. And, and if you do that as a leader, you need, you're, you're making a mistake. But, but what's also important is you can't react to these things. And someone runs into the office with some massive problem. It's like, okay, let's think through it. Okay, I see you're excited, awesome. Let's think through it. Catastrophizing.

• 2:27:53Speaker 01

  You know, I'm surprised I woke up this morning, you know, watching the news. I thought the world ended yesterday. Uh, but, but yeah, you're, you're exactly right. And, and I do try to use this technique, uh, because usually the very worst case doesn't, doesn't happen. And, and you get yourself all spun up about it, all friggin tense and, and stressed out about it. It's not going to do you any good anyway.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, this is a, one of, one of the most beautiful things I learned in the military. Is the, is the counter to the catastrophizing individual above you in the chain of command, below you in the chain of command, appear, whatever, they, they're panicking, they're freaking out. And what you learn in the military, you learn this powerful word, which is Roger that, or either Roger or Roger that. Someone comes in, they're going crazy, oh, you can't believe this happened. I'd be like Roger. Meaning, okay, I understand. Let's, let's think about it. So anytime, be very careful as a leader, be very careful with the words you choose to, to explain what's happening. And, and sometimes as a leader, we want to get a reaction out of

• 2:29:00Jocko Willink?

  people where we've, we've got this situation happening and we know it's critical and we need to make some adjustments. And so in order to get people moving, instead of explaining to them what's happening and why we need to make a move, we just go straight to level 12 catastrophize. In order to get it, in order to get people to move, we catastrophize. And the problem with that is it ends up being the little boy that cried wolf, where you catastrophize everything, everything's a catastrophe, everything's going to end the world, everything's a strategic failure for the team, everything's a catastrophic event. And it's like, no. In fact, there are so few catastrophic events that can actually happen, that there's almost nothing that you can catastrophize with me. We're going to get through just about everything.

• 2:29:43Speaker 01

  That, that's kind of like the whole thing. If everything's a priority, nothing's a priority.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  You know, you've, you've, you've really got to be clear about what the priorities are, and then get everybody working toward achieving those, you know, probably maybe two or three priorities. So things that are really important.

• 2:30:00Jocko Willink?

  Prioritize and execute, I believe. I believe that's the word. Um, I want to close out with one last section here. Um, and it's, it's how you close out the book, but it's, it's a good indicator of everything else that's in the book.

• 2:30:17Jocko Willink?

  So it says this, "I was raised by my father to have faith in God. Though my father faced setbacks such as losing his wife at an early age and raising seven children after her death, he never lost faith. My father made it a point to march all seven of his children into church every Sunday morning. This made a lifelong impression not only on me and my siblings, but many others who resided in our community. There are certain things I learned about good leadership as a young boy from my father and others that have been reinforced throughout my life. The things I learned were the importance of having strong character and staying true to your values even when things got tough.

• 2:30:59Jocko Willink?

  Being service oriented and helping other people whenever you could regardless of their race, religion, and setting an example by doing the right thing even when no one was watching. I know I am not a perfect leader, but I continue to do my best to learn how I can become a better person and a better leader, and I encourage all who read this book to do the same. Seek to place the organization you lead in good hands." Well, I think that's what we're all trying to do. We're all trying to do the same thing, continue to learn, continue to try and become better people and better leaders, and definitely appreciate you for writing this book and

• 2:31:43Jocko Willink?

  giving some of these lessons learned.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  No, Jaco, I appreciate the time to talk about it. I appreciate the time to talk about the book with you and just really grateful that we could spend a little bit of time, you and I, just talking about our own leadership philosophies and what it means to continue to learn and continue to grow to be a better leader. So, thank you for the opportunity.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's, I mean, obviously, we use some different verbiage and some focus here and there might be a little bit different, but the underlying themes, I mean, these are what leadership, these are the underlying themes that exist in leadership anywhere you look. Anybody that understands it is gonna, you're gonna see these common themes. So, right now... You've got a consulting company called Leader Grove, or is it Leaders Grove?

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  Leader Grove.

• 2:32:37Jocko Willink?

  Leader Grove, and it's LeaderGrove.com.

• 2:32:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:32:41Jocko Willink?

  You've got JohnGronski.com.

• 2:32:45Jocko Willink?

  People can find you there. You're on Twitter @J.L. Gronski. You're on YouTube, YouTube channel, that's John Gronski.

• 2:32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:55Jocko Willink?

  LinkedIn, John Gronski. It's a good thing about having the last name Gronski, it's not a real common last name. It's like mine, the last name, correct?

• 2:33:02Speaker 01

  Not, not real common.

• 2:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you can, you can get away with it, and, and you can just call everything Gronski. LinkedIn, John Gronski, and then you've got Facebook, which is John Gronski Leads. And, uh, what else?

• 2:33:15Speaker 01

  Oh, the Gram.

• 2:33:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're on the Gram?

• 2:33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:17Jocko Willink?

  You're on the Gram, see? Echo Charles, you know what's up.

• 2:33:20Speaker 01

  And that, and that's @JohnGronskiLeads on the Gram.

• 2:33:24Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so, any, any other, Echo, you got anything?

• 2:33:28Speaker 02

  No, sir. I think we covered it.

• 2:33:31Jocko Willink?

  That's it, huh? Nothing from Echo Charles?

• 2:33:33Speaker 02

  It was interesting to see the, the, I mean, not necessarily the contrast, but the overlap, so much overlap, you know? Different terminology, how you said, but very interesting.

• 2:33:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. It's, um, good leadership, good leadership across the board. Any closing comments?

• 2:33:47Speaker 01

  The only closing comment I have is that I've got a, I've got a good time drinking your Jaco Go, uh, energy drink, so I love that. Mango, yeah, that, that's Echo's favorite flavor as well. But I just want to thank you again for the message you put out. I mean, you put out a message that, uh, so many, uh, people could follow whether they're in a leadership position or not, and by the way, I think everybody is in some position of leadership. Uh, and, and I think you agree with me when I say you don't have to be in a formal position of leadership in order to lead. But anyway, thank you for putting the message out, you do, and, and to the kids too, you know, what your, your kids, um, uh,

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  you know, the books you put out for, for children to help them get on the right path, uh, is, is very important, so. Appreciate that. The other thing I want to thank you for is, uh, you know, getting a picture of myself, you, Echo together, so when people look at the picture, they could see what a, a small, unmask, unmasking a man I really am compared to you two. So I appreciate that. But no, really, Jaco. Uh, thanks for having me back again and, and again, thanks for the leadership message that you continue to get out there. So I appreciate that.

• 2:35:01Jocko Willink?

  I, I always say, um, if you interact with other human beings, you're in a leadership position. So if, if you're listening to this right now, you're in a leadership position. Hey, thanks, thanks for writing the book. That's going to help people lead and more important, once again, thanks for your service. Thanks for your service in the Army National Guard, the Army and the National Guard. And thanks once again to you and to your soldiers. And the, the service and sacrifice in the Battle of Ramadi, um, the efforts that your guys put forth, they, they literally saved my guys' lives. We learned lessons from you when we got on the ground. We listened to what you had to say. You told us to do operations. You told us not to do other operations. You told us to stay off this street. You told

• 2:35:43Jocko Willink?

  us how to better do our tactics. So your guys from the 228 literally saved the lives of my guys. I know it and, uh, we will never forget what you and your men did for us and, and did for America.

• 2:35:57Speaker 01

  Thanks, Jaco.

• 2:35:58Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for coming on.

• 2:36:01Jocko Willink?

  And with that, General John Gronski has left the building. So Echo.

• 2:36:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:36:07Jocko Willink?

  Kind of closed that out, talking about how people, we all want to be better, need to be better, can be better.

• 2:36:14Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 2:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Where do we start?

• 2:36:16Speaker 02

  Well, we start with our health. Without health, we have nothing.

• 2:36:20Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:36:20Speaker 02

  Straight up.

• 2:36:21Jocko Willink?

  From what I understand, you had a little disregard of your health the other day and went to a McDonald's restaurant.

• 2:36:28Speaker 02

  It was, uh.

• 2:36:29Jocko Willink?

  And ate food.

• 2:36:29Speaker 02

  It was a momentary lapse of judgment.

• 2:36:32Jocko Willink?

  And discipline.

• 2:36:33Speaker 02

  And discipline for sure, but it's the, it was, it was very unique.

• 2:36:37Jocko Willink?

  What made you break?

• 2:36:38Speaker 02

  Um, opportunistic and this is the kind of stuff we gotta be careful for or about or whatever.

• 2:36:46Speaker 02

  You know how you have a routine? And every once in a while, I'll get reminded of the importance of a routine.

• 2:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:36:51Speaker 02

  I'm not a, I don't hundred percent sign on to the whole routine.

• 2:36:54Jocko Willink?

  Is McDonald's part of your routine?

• 2:36:57Speaker 02

  No, but it's an example. If you don't have a routine, what it does is create little opportunities.

• 2:37:05Speaker 02

  No, bro.

• 2:37:06Jocko Willink?

  Slip it in them chicken neck nuggets.

• 2:37:08Speaker 02

  Okay, this part is nothing new. If you have a routine, it's like, okay, you don't, you don't have opportunities.

• 2:37:13Jocko Willink?

  What'd you get?

• 2:37:13Speaker 02

  Doesn't, doesn't matter.

• 2:37:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:37:15Speaker 02

  I, I bought, I got the, the item that is a soft, soft bun. And inside that bun is a fish flavored concoction.

• 2:37:25Jocko Willink?

  You got the fish filet.

• 2:37:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that's, there's a real fish in there at all, but either way.

• 2:37:31Jocko Willink?

  You think there's like a crayfish or something?

• 2:37:35Speaker 02

  You know, you know what it is? It's like one of those.

• 2:37:37Jocko Willink?

  Or is it just pure sugar?

• 2:37:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like a synthetic. They, they do a, I don't know, but this is what it feels like. Maybe like a synthetic, um, material that's made, maybe in like a 3D printer or something like this with like some, some stuff. And then they put like some fish, like extract flavor in it and then fry it.

• 2:37:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Was that the path? Is that the path? Is this making you better?

• 2:37:59Speaker 02

  Okay. If you're on the, okay, on the, okay, the path is kind of a routine. It essentially is. And this importance of the routine where if you have a routine, there's way, way, way less opportunity to make, to have like, oh, like a decision making conundrum.

• 2:38:12Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:38:12Speaker 02

  Because the routine, the decision you have already made before is part of the routine.

• 2:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're not hangry. And going through emotional departure, depression, because you haven't had a freaking fish Sammy in a few hours.

• 2:38:24Speaker 02

  Either way, if you're hangry even, you already know because dinner's soon or you know when the dinner is. See what I'm saying? If you have a routine or lunch or breakfast, whatever you can, you're about to eat, whatever.

• 2:38:34Jocko Willink?

  Till old Ronald comes in with his big shoes, right? Take you off the path.

• 2:38:38Speaker 02

  Here's, here's what Ronald does. He, he just waits. He waits for the people with no routine. Or, or he'll slide into your routine, but a lot of times for people like me in this case where. The little, the little crack in the routine, he's right there. He's like, hey, you need a decision to make? I'll make it easy for you. What's the one that's gonna give you the payoff the quickest? See what I'm saying? So that's what it was. Instead of going home to dinner, my wife was somewhere else. And she was like, hey, you know, like, you know, I don't know how much food there's gonna be here or whatever. So, you know, grab something. So I was like, cool. I made the turn in like literally on my way home. Changed tra- trajectory, took in, took the exit and boom McDonald's was right there. Made it happen in a bad way.

• 2:39:24Jocko Willink?

  All right. So we don't want to consume things that are horrible.

• 2:39:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:39:28Jocko Willink?

  What do we want to consume?

• 2:39:29Speaker 02

  The point is health is a big thing. With no health, look, if I'm going to McDonald's every single day, my health goes down, down, down. And then eventually I become incapable of pretty much anything. So if you're unhealthy or your health is in decline or whatever by your own. Meanwhile, you have, if you have control over it and you choose to not be healthy, you could have some problems. Okay. So let's choose to be healthy. That's what I think.

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 2:39:53Speaker 02

  So on this path starts with health.

• 2:39:56Speaker 02

  Fitness, capability, uh, mental and physical. Now with that, we can have little helpers on the way. That helper is Jaco Fuel. So I'm actually working on a video.

• 2:40:10Speaker 02

  Jaco Fuel video.

• 2:40:11Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:40:12Speaker 02

  Just a small one about why you Jaco started Jaco Fuel.

• 2:40:17Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 2:40:18Speaker 02

  It actually doesn't go very deep when you think about it. It's like the stuff that you're using anyway.

• 2:40:22Jocko Willink?

  That's one of the worst hype things I've ever heard. Like I'm so not hyped for this video right now.

• 2:40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:28Jocko Willink?

  But here's the, here's the only reason I'm a little bit hyped is I know you wouldn't bring it up unless you are hyped. So you must have some vision about some explosions that are gonna happen.

• 2:40:38Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, you know, potentially. I mean, they're meant to have explosions either way. The point is though, the point is the reason Jaco started Jaco Fuel is stuff that you use anyway.

• 2:40:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:40:49Speaker 02

  So you figure, okay, let me just refine and, and, and maximize the quality on these things that I use anyway. Produce them. Boom, and then we'll have that product.

• 2:40:59Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:40:59Speaker 02

  One of the many little helpers in life, helpers on the path.

• 2:41:03Jocko Willink?

  Cause let's face it, you're, it's late, your dinner change, dinner plans change, you're hungry. You, you could easily go to McDonald's like Echo Charles did, which is taking him in the wrong direction, off the path, unhealthy, feeling sick later, not doing a good workout the next day, just everything is turning bad. Or you could power and be like, oh cool, I got milk at home.

• 2:41:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:41:25Jocko Willink?

  I got milk at home.

• 2:41:27Speaker 02

  Very true.

• 2:41:29Jocko Willink?

  It's a savior.

• 2:41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is true. And, and I'll even explain how much of a savior it is. So look, okay, so energy drinks, right? You all know that, we're like, dang, I didn't get the enough sleep, or dang, I have a huge workload today and tomorrow. Maybe I'm need a little boost, or maybe I'm just used to a little boost at some point in the day, right? But usually we gotta pay a price. Either we crash, or either we're drinking something that's unhealthy. Boom, these energy drinks, go. Jaco Discipline, go. May or may not be called Discipline anymore.

• 2:41:57Jocko Willink?

  It's called Discipline.

• 2:41:58Speaker 02

  Alright, there you go. Boom, Jaco Discipline, go. Is an energy drink with front side and backside benefits.

• 2:42:06Jocko Willink?

  And no downside.

• 2:42:08Speaker 02

  No downside.

• 2:42:08Jocko Willink?

  We kinda went off on that recently. We're talking, just, this is the no downside piece.

• 2:42:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42:12Jocko Willink?

  Most things that are as gratifying and have so much upside, usually go, yeah, there's always a little downside, right? No downside.

• 2:42:20Speaker 02

  Not this time. Boom, little helper on that path. And me, you're on the path, still on the path, literally. In fact, you're even more down the path.

• 2:42:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:28Speaker 02

  In a good way.

• 2:42:29Jocko Willink?

  Totally positive, across the board.

• 2:42:30Speaker 02

  So boom, or you get home, let's face it, every once in a while, you eat dinner, you had a good day, you had a good week. Great week, spent time with the family, got your work done, you know, you're, you're, you're, you moved ahead. You just want a little celebratory dessert, something like this.

• 2:42:46Jocko Willink?

  Even, the weird thing is, even after you have a 26 ounce ribeye steak.

• 2:42:53Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:42:54Jocko Willink?

  And it's, and it's perfectly cooked.

• 2:42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42:58Jocko Willink?

  Even after you get done with that, you're you're you're totally good to go. But there's another little part of your brain that wants something called dessert.

• 2:43:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:43:09Jocko Willink?

  And you could just be like, oh, well, where's the cheesecake or whatever?

• 2:43:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, and kind of negate a lot of the the stuff that you've been doing all week, working hard with.

• 2:43:17Jocko Willink?

  We made you dessert.

• 2:43:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:43:18Jocko Willink?

  Called milk.

• 2:43:18Speaker 02

  So we got some milk, boom. And here, look, you wanna, milk is good. Let's say you're tired, it's a hard week. Just add the milk to the milk or the whatever your your pref- preferred mixer.

• 2:43:29Jocko Willink?

  This is not a challenging recipe directive.

• 2:43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but not limited to that simplicity. Add some stuff in there. I had half a banana. That's me, that's my jam. But either way, do what you will. It's the same deal. This will not have you slip off the path. You're still in the path.

• 2:43:47Jocko Willink?

  And all of this is a really long way of saying, go to jockofuel.com, get yourself some stuff, get yourself some joint warfare, krill oil, super krill, um, vitamin D three. Cold war.

• 2:43:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, these are all helpers with all.

• 2:44:02Jocko Willink?

  Stay away from McDonald's.

• 2:44:04Speaker 02

  No downside.

• 2:44:04Jocko Willink?

  There's people that are just A B testing things to make it taste good. They don't care. They don't care what you feel like and they don't care about your health.

• 2:44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:12Jocko Willink?

  Don't care. There's not one single person advocating for your health.

• 2:44:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:44:16Jocko Willink?

  They're advocating for your wallet.

• 2:44:18Speaker 02

  I know, bro.

• 2:44:19Jocko Willink?

  Don't do it.

• 2:44:19Speaker 02

  Isn't that, because you know how you just said that, like, almost with like a, like a, I don't see, like a joking tone, right?

• 2:44:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, but but it's not a joke.

• 2:44:28Speaker 02

  Is that is 100% true, where it's, there is not one single person.

• 2:44:32Jocko Willink?

  One single person.

• 2:44:32Speaker 02

  Interested in the success of that business, which is not necessarily a wrong thing to be interested in the success of your business.

• 2:44:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's wrong if you're gonna sacrifice people's health because of it.

• 2:44:41Speaker 02

  Not one person cares about your health. In fact, your health is kind of like a pawn in their big game.

• 2:44:49Jocko Willink?

  At Jocko Fuel. Your health is paramount. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. We waited like an extra six months and built out the line to pasteurize the Jaco Go so that we didn't have to put chemicals in it to keep it preserved.

• 2:45:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:45:06Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, that shows you, your health is paramount.

• 2:45:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:45:10Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, we, hey, you know, it's not that big of a, everybody else uses these chemicals? No, no.

• 2:45:15Speaker 02

  Don't matter. Yeah, isn't that kinda scary when you put it into perspective?

• 2:45:21Jocko Willink?

  Not one single person.

• 2:45:22Speaker 02

  It's like, you know what? The most important thing about you.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Is your wallet.

• 2:45:24Speaker 02

  You know what? I'm gonna use that as a pawn in my business.

• 2:45:29Jocko Willink?

  Savages.

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying? Ooh, that's scary. Nonetheless, JacoFuel.com, boom.

• 2:45:35Jocko Willink?

  Energy drink, you get it at Wawa. You can get Go at Wawa. You can get everything at Vitamin Shoppe too. Go and hook that up.

• 2:45:40Speaker 02

  That's true. Also, OriginUSA, American-made stuff. This is good stuff, by the way. So you get your American-made denim, some leather on there, jujitsu stuff, Giza rash guards, um, some fitness attire, their, their hoodies. So I got a new one and I had the old ones from before. It was fine, but when you wear them every other day, they kinda, you know, they get worn out and you get used to them and you're like, cool. I went to the camp, I got a new one. I was like, ooh, that's a nice one. Um, they have a new, uh, heavy hoodie too, by the way.

• 2:46:13Jocko Willink?

  It's legit.

• 2:46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Called the heavy.

• 2:46:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:17Speaker 02

  We all know what that's from. Nonetheless, all the materials that are, that make these.

• 2:46:22Jocko Willink?

  It was the heavies. What a freaking epic, epic freaking moment in life.

• 2:46:28Speaker 02

  Yep. He does a good job with those names, those creative names and stuff.

• 2:46:32Jocko Willink?

  The heavy.

• 2:46:32Speaker 02

  Yep. But yeah, so even the materials that they make these things with are made and grown in America. So keep that in mind. OriginUSA.com. Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store. It's where you can get your Discipline Equals Freedom t-shirts, hoodies, hats, whichever way you wanna represent on this path. It's not an easy path, but it's worth it. As a wise man once said, if you want to represent, boom, jocko store.com. Also, we have a thing called the shirt locker. This is where you can get a new shirt with cool designs.

• 2:47:03Jocko Willink?

  Is that sure you're wearing a shirt locker shirt?

• 2:47:06Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:47:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay, now someone have to say it's cool.

• 2:47:10Speaker 02

  I even got Jaco signed on to that one. But yeah, there's some cool, I would say it's a pretty much of a pretty much successful as far as accepted designs. People like them.

• 2:47:19Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to agree.

• 2:47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So yeah, again, jocko store.com. That's where you can get all the stuff you like. If you like something.

• 2:47:24Jocko Willink?

  Was the Sea Wolf shirt, shirt locker shirt. So these are approved, like highly approved.

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  Highly approved.

• 2:47:31Jocko Willink?

  Desired even.

• 2:47:32Speaker 02

  Desired, yeah, for sure. Um, we, uh, we are opening a thing for member, like some of the members are like, hey, what about that one? I signed up two months ago, but I kind of want that shirt from six months ago or four months ago, whatever. So we're opening up the, the store for the members as well. So they can, they can add a, add a past shirt if they want. Yeah. So be on the lookout for that one.

• 2:47:54Jocko Willink?

  Dang, that's awful. Nice of you.

• 2:47:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, I'm trying to be accommodating to the people.

• 2:47:59Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, subscribe to this podcast wherever you subscribe to podcasts. We also have Jaco Unraveling with Daryl Cooper. And Daryl Cooper's been on a mission lately, so we haven't released one in a bit, but we got a ton of topics to talk about. So check out Jaco Unraveling with myself and Daryl Cooper. We got the grounded podcast. We got the Warrior Kid podcast. We also have the Jaco Underground podcast and that's, um, well, it's sort of a little bastion of freedom that we have that we're kind of setting aside. It's our, it's our contingency AO area of operations. Look, if people get crazy with this whole platform, the platforms, and there's a bunch of them. You figure, hey, well, you know, you got this platform and that platform. What are the chances that they all decide to either

• 2:48:46Jocko Willink?

  start inserting ads or start making people pay or whatever they're going to do? I don't know. But if it happens, we have our own little, our own little world carved out. We appreciate you coming into our world. It's called Jaco Underground. Go to JacoUnderground.com if you want to join, if you want to support it. It costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month, and that's how we're paying to build this alternative platform. And that way, we don't have to read ads from some freaking whatever, Apple company, or banana outfit. I don't know. Whatever, dude. We don't want to do it. We don't want to talk about any

• 2:49:28Jocko Willink?

  of that stuff. If you can't afford it, that's cool. We still want you in the game. Email [email protected]. We appreciate the support. And we also have a YouTube channel. Speaking of platforms.

• 2:49:40Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 2:49:41Jocko Willink?

  Where we put up videos.

• 2:49:42Speaker 02

  Yep. So far YouTube put pretty straightforward as far as the platform, you know, videos.

• 2:49:47Jocko Willink?

  We've gotten demonetized a couple times.

• 2:49:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:49Jocko Willink?

  We've had warnings only a couple times, like what is the, the, the warning of info.

• 2:49:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And keep in mind, when you say demonetized, because this is different, there's different levels of demonetization. You can get a video demonetized, you can get the, or the whole channel, straight up demonetized. Or there's somewhere in between where it's like, okay, you can proclaim that, hey, this video contains some heavy stuff.

• 2:50:12Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I had, um, one Halloween, I did like a quick video of working out or whatever or something, and I put in the background, Halloween, the song by The Misfits.

• 2:50:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:50:23Jocko Willink?

  And we, almost instantly, it was whatever, blocked, banned, and whatever else, because it was copyrighted material. I was like, bro, you know, spreading the word on The Misfits, like, you know what I mean?

• 2:50:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true, but.

• 2:50:36Jocko Willink?

  They were on that.

• 2:50:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, they, they, they kind of consider both sides, I think, anyway, because it's like, hey, what if, um, They assume that you're making money off of your, your

• 2:50:47Jocko Willink?

  Bro, it's a post.

• 2:50:48Speaker 02

  Video.

• 2:50:49Jocko Willink?

  It was a post.

• 2:50:50Speaker 02

  Oh, not on YouTube. It was on something else.

• 2:50:51Jocko Willink?

  It was on the gram.

• 2:50:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that's different. It's weird.

• 2:50:54Jocko Willink?

  They came at me.

• 2:50:55Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? What it is? It's my hypothesis.

• 2:50:59Jocko Willink?

  I think Danzig and the Misfits highly protect their IP.

• 2:51:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz you're, you're essentially acting as a distributor.

• 2:51:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Essentially, I, all I meant to do is actually spread the word. Hey, man, this is a great band.

• 2:51:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:15Jocko Willink?

  It's the Misfits, bro. This is iconic band.

• 2:51:17Speaker 02

  Yes, true.

• 2:51:18Jocko Willink?

  Iconic.

• 2:51:18Speaker 02

  It's true, but the rules gotta kinda apply to everybody, you know, so without some kind of approval, uh, distributor, um, process.

• 2:51:25Jocko Willink?

  I saw the Misfits recently with the Chrome Mags, like before COVID, in LA, in a big giant stadium. And you know what? It was freaking outstanding. I mean, the Chrome Mags were awesome. Yes, absolutely. Harley was rocking. And then the Misfits came out and I was like, this is, I salute these guys.

• 2:51:44Speaker 02

  That's why you're spreading the word and then.

• 2:51:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was trying to spread the word a little bit and like they thought I was trying to jack their stuff.

• 2:51:51Speaker 02

  Well, in their defense, they didn't see your post and, and was like, hey, Jaco, take that down. I don't want you, you know, distributing myself. It's not how it went down.

• 2:51:59Jocko Willink?

  But wouldn't some people be like, hey, can you put a clip out of our music so more people buy our music, right?

• 2:52:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:05Jocko Willink?

  That could happen.

• 2:52:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, wouldn't they think of it that way instead of the other way?

• 2:52:09Speaker 02

  Technically, the Misfits didn't do it directly. Technically, Instagram did it. Misfits probably signed up, signed that song up to be monitored or whatever automatically. So without them checking back with you specifically.

• 2:52:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, Glenn Danzig and the Misfits, I was not doing it nefariously. I was actually doing it in a promotional way. If you ever wanna license your songs to me.

• 2:52:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:33Jocko Willink?

  I'll throw them out there into the world.

• 2:52:34Speaker 02

  You can, uh.

• 2:52:36Jocko Willink?

  You probably never even heard a Misfit song, which is kinda sad.

• 2:52:39Speaker 02

  No, I've never, I don't think I've heard a Misfit song, but I heard you talk about the Misfits. So kinda the same thing.

• 2:52:46Jocko Willink?

  But that's, if you heard a Misfit song, you'd probably be like, hmm.

• 2:52:49Speaker 02

  Pretty good.

• 2:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 2:52:51Speaker 02

  Solid.

• 2:52:51Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's iconic music, to be honest with you. It's iconic music.

• 2:52:57Speaker 02

  Is iconic an opinion or a factual standard?

• 2:53:00Jocko Willink?

  Factual.

• 2:53:01Speaker 02

  Um, so you can have the Misfits, what's called the whitelist. They can whitelist your channel. Actually, this is on YouTube. I know you can do this on YouTube, because this is

• 2:53:11Jocko Willink?

  Where they say, hey, it's cool, Jaco's down.

• 2:53:13Speaker 02

  They can, whatever he posts, all good as far as our account goes.

• 2:53:17Jocko Willink?

  If they do that with us, I won't abuse it. I'm not gonna make like, you know what I mean?

• 2:53:22Speaker 02

  This is only on YouTube, by the way.

• 2:53:24Jocko Willink?

  On YouTube, but maybe we'll do it on Instagram.

• 2:53:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, just apply the YouTube rule to Instagram. Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:53:30Jocko Willink?

  I should time it next time, see how long it takes them to shut me down. I did some other old, older hardcore bands. And that, that just were around for a short period of time. No one ever said anything. So, I think it depends on the band.

• 2:53:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they have to, you have to register your, your songs and stuff, like even on YouTube. Like, if, if, if I use a, I don't know, your other favorite band, like if I use like Taylor Swift, or something like this. You know that all Taylor Swift songs have been registered with YouTube through some process, that's like, hey, if this little thing, this little print imprint, or whatever the, however they monitor it, turns up, automatic, either, and they choose whether it's shut down, blocked, or just silenced, something, some videos will just be silent. Because like, hey, that audio is not, not cool, or they'll just take the monetization.

• 2:54:23Jocko Willink?

  Did they demonetize my guitar, uh, playing? When I played that song by the White Buffalo?

• 2:54:29Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 2:54:30Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 2:54:30Speaker 02

  Not yours, but when he was on, right off, oh yeah.

• 2:54:34Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 2:54:35Speaker 02

  Um, so you know, makes sense, it's a process.

• 2:54:37Jocko Willink?

  I got a new jam coming. Got a new song I'm prepping for the world to hear.

• 2:54:46Jocko Willink?

  Right on. So subscribe to that YouTube channel, Jocko Podcast. Also, we got Origin USA, if you want to find out what's going on in America.

• 2:54:53Speaker 02

  Oh, their YouTube channel, yes.

• 2:54:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, their, their Origin USA. It's cool to track what's going on up there. See, see it, feel it, be a part of it.

• 2:55:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:55:02Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:55:04Speaker 02

  Also, what do we got?

• 2:55:06Jocko Willink?

  Also Psychological Warfare, that's a, an album with tracks that we have not put whatever thing to restrict it because people have jacked it and used it all kinds of things. So, but if you want to like be a good human and you want to listen to the Psychological Warfare album that has tracks of me telling you not to freaking go to McDonald's, not to order a fish filet m- sandwich.

• 2:55:36Jocko Willink?

  Then you can do that. Go to, go to whatever MP3 thing and you can, you can buy Psychological Warfare and I'll be on your phone waiting to tell you, stop.

• 2:55:47Jocko Willink?

  Also Flipside Canvas, flipsidecanvas.com, Dakota Meyer, he's got a company here in America, American made, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. And of course, it's Dakota Meyer. Even if you just had something, Dakota, Dakota Meyer could take a white piece of paper.

• 2:56:04Jocko Willink?

  And be like, hey, I made this. I'd be like, cool. What's hanging on my wall? Because that's Dakota Meyer.

• 2:56:08Speaker 02

  Like a little hangman game?

• 2:56:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that would be cool. Let's put it on the wall.

• 2:56:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:56:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm down.

• 2:56:13Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 2:56:15Jocko Willink?

  Got some books. The book that I covered today was Iron Sharpened Leadership by John Gronski. It will be on our website. You can click through there.

• 2:56:25Jocko Willink?

  And then you, then you, then you'll be supporting the podcast while you buy a book. You can buy whatever you want. Once you click through there, through Amazon or whatever.

• 2:56:32Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 2:56:34Jocko Willink?

  Final Spin, book coming out.

• 2:56:37Jocko Willink?

  I wrote this book, not, it's not a book about leadership. It's a book about brotherhood. It's a book about sacrifice. And it's a book about

• 2:56:45Jocko Willink?

  corn dogs.

• 2:56:48Jocko Willink?

  Gallon jugs of mayonnaise.

• 2:56:53Jocko Willink?

  Salmon pie. And Buick Century wagons. That's what the book's about. No one can explain this book. No one. I can't even explain it. As you can see, I just tried. Hey, if you want to check out this new book I got, it's called Final Spin. It's a book, it's a poem, it's a transcript. We don't even know what it is, but so far, we have an audience of one, Deb, the audio engineer. Who listened to me read the audio book and she quote, loved it. She laughed, she cheered, she cried. That's what we're talking about. Also, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocol, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual,

• 2:57:38Jocko Willink?

  Way of the Warrior Kid, One, Two, Three, and Four, Mikey and the Dragons, About Face, and Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership, bunch of books I've written, or co-written. We have a company called Ashlam Front where we solve problems through leadership. Go to ashlamfront.com if you want help inside your organization. This is also where you can find details for our live events, including the muster, including field training exercises, and EF Battlefield. We talked a little bit about Gettysburg today, the Battle of Gettysburg. You can come to Gettysburg with us and we will talk through the leadership challenges that they faced and decisions that they got made, good and bad. Next muster is in Las Vegas, October 28th

• 2:58:18Jocko Willink?

  and 29th. Next FTX is September 20th and 21st. I think we're already past that, so sorry. Keep your eyes open. We also have an online training program, Extreme Ownership Academy. It is online leadership training that you can go to.

• 2:58:37Jocko Willink?

  You don't get good at leadership by listening to one podcast or by reading one book. You've got to work out in the Leadership Gym. The Leadership Gym is extremeownership.com. Go check it out. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved in that, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want more of me regurgitating reading, or you need more of Echo's uncanny quips, you can find us on the Inwebs, on Twitter, on the Gram, and on Facebook. Echo's at Echo Charles,

• 2:59:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm at Jocko Willink, General Gronski, General John Gronski, JohnGronski.com, LeaderGrove.com, Twitter, JL Gronski, YouTube, John Gronski, LinkedIn, John Gronski, Facebook, and the Gram.

• 2:59:36Jocko Willink?

  @JohnGronskyLeads and thanks again to General Gronski for joining us. Special thanks to all the men and women from the 228 that served in Ramadi, Iraq in 2005, 2006. We only overlapped with y'all for about a month, but we appreciate what you did there and the turnover that you got, that you gave to us. As I mentioned to General Gronski, you all 100% kept my guys alive from the lessons that you passed on to us and we appreciate it in the time we were working after you left with the 11 AD. So, thanks to all of you and to the rest of the military out there serving right now. Thank you for taking the watch now

• 3:00:17Jocko Willink?

  that we are done. And the police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders. Thanks to all of you for standing the watch here at home. And to everyone else out there, here's a little, here's a little action you can take. You need a plan.

• 3:00:38Jocko Willink?

  A plan to live by a code, a set of principles, values, a protocol for behavior. If you don't have that, if you're just, don't have that, you're just wandering around.

• 3:00:50Jocko Willink?

  I wrote about it with Dave Burke and Sarah Armstrong in the book, The Code, The Protocol, The Evaluation. I wrote about it first in the Warrior Kid books.

• 3:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Come up with a code. The Marine Corps follows a code. The Rangers follow code. The SEALs and the Army and the Samurai and the Knights and the Vikings all followed a code. Don't wander around. Get on the path. Follow the code and keep getting after it.

• 3:01:19Jocko Willink?

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